Painting Glass Bottles

Ever want to paint a glass bottle with fluid in it on your 28mm scale lead miniature? Now you too, can be a star... Read on!

I have two examples of glass bottles here. The first is a green glass bottle with fluid in, and the second is a clear glass bottle with a colored fluid in.

I think the thing to remember here, is that you are essentially painting the object in two parts. The contents come first. Think about how the light reacts with fluid. I tend to make the fluid level darkest, and then paint lighter towards the bottom. You can add some light spots for bubbles or whatever you like. The top part is obviously empty, so it is either going to be the color of the surrounding objects, or air etc... as shown in the second image.

The second part is to paint light reflections on the surface of the "glass". This is pretty easy if you have a good grasp of NMM and light sourcing. In the first picture, I let the surface of the fluid (a bit of a light line) help in the trick. The edges and bottom of the bottle are lighter, and the light glints off of the top edges. The second picture is similar. Some careful glinting and the odd spot reflection.

Further enhancements can really help. Take the label on the first picture. Very fine detail but it doesn't actually say anything :( However, if you go look at a bottle of Glennfiddich, you will see a Glennfiddich label there. You know that bottle is transparent so it helps with the trick. The other bottle uses a similar theory to SE NMM except you have to be very careful to maintain the transparent illusion no matter which way you view it.

Sparr is in my Hasslefree gallery (with more views) and the Firestorms (2 of them with glass bottles) are in my "Other" gallery. There are numerous pictures of them as well...

Hope this is helpful :D