What IainC said. “Staying in the lines” is… fucking hard. It’s something you just kind of learn to do with time. Like I said I was a pretty decent painter (sadly, I cannot find any old pictures) but even that was occasionally a challenge. Fortunately, you can always paint over any mistakes. :)
Wow, Iain, those Blood Angels are looking awesome. Now I feel like painting. I haven’t done so in so long that all my paint is probably dried up.
I’m kind of in the same boat. I own 0 paints and 0 models at this point, but I’m feeling faintly interested in getting back into the game. Not from a playing POV, just for painting.
OK, taking this guy as your example, here is what I’d do:
- Looks like some metals (Helmet, sword) need to get finished. Do that. Probably a silver (GW Mithril Silver) will do here.
- Now we need to add some shading and highlighting. For the green skin, get a dark green wash. Probably black and green ink in something like a 2:1 or 1:1 ratio, heavily thinned. Get that all into the skin to provide some nice shading in the low area.
- Likewise the armor. Use my armor wash recipe in a previous post, get it on there. Free shading, and it will give it that “dingy” look armor and weapons want to have.
- For the red parts: Same thing: get a black/red ink combo, wash it. Likewise the blue.
Just remember, keep your ink washes thin. Thinner than you think you need.
Practice a bit, and this will give you a halfway decent looking model with basic shading. Shading with washes is easy, but it’s also very limited in terms of how good it will look. The next step is to build up highlights.
Nothing to be ashamed of there. Just toss em in miracle dip (it is surprising how it can make anything look good) and move on to the next batch.
Oh, protip for mini photography (which I think you have figured out): direct light is your enemy. There is not a single miniature in the world that can survive direct light; even Jenniver Haley’s paintjobs will look like total crap. The best environment for miniature photography is outdoors on a cloudy day.
I have a home made light tent for taking these. I have the room light in the ceiling directly above, and two lamps on either side of the model as well. Then in a cardboard box I have the top and sides cut out, with just a little supporting card left. And then I have an old white shirt cut up and stapled to each side. I’m happy enough that the light is even and diffused. It’s just the lamps simply aren’t strong enough to provide proper illumination.
And I know what you mean about direct/harsh light. The first models I posted were taken with an on camera flash. Which is literally the worst type of flash possible, sometimes even worse than no flash.
Yeah your last pics had much better lighting, fwiw. You’ve got the right idea. :)
Srsly though you are making me want to paint a model. It’s been like… At least two years since I hung up the brushes!
Buy wonder wash, dilute it with water at about a 1:4 ratio. Liberally paint the entire model with. Let dry for a day. Do it once more. Minimal effort shading and depth.
You’ll want to highlight the darkest colors on the model (helmet, weapon, etc) with brighter highlights first. Mix a little silver with the color you’re using for the dark metal and paint or drybrush the raised areas of that color, being careful not to get it in the recesses or on other colors.
Any of you dudes make terrain or know of guides for how to do it?
I’ve not done much of it myself, but you could always try buying a book like this:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1130254
…and if total scratch building gets a bit too arduous there are lots of online modelling shops that sell terrain kits or bits that can be bashed together into terrain pieces.
Watch all of the videos in “Building A Terrain Table” series here. I just watched all of them and learned a lot.
I’ve been painting for a while and have the most success with using MinWax Polyshades Tudor Black stain as the only wash pass. I’ve tried washing the traditional way, using washes of various colors all over a mini and still refer the stain results.
I’m almost going to give up on my washes and only use this stain. Can anyone recommend anything else besides this minwax stain? The stuff gets nappy (like molasses) after about a year and becomes to goopy to use. Someone on BGG suggested using … now I can’t remember. I think they suggested some floor wax product? Grr, I can’t find the thread.
I watched a good amount of that, up to the eleventh episode or so. Unfortunately, it turns out the insulation foam he uses for the board and terrain isn’t available here. It seems the insulation businesses here have gone for a differing insulation method, so it’s almost impossible to pick up.
On a seperate note, I’ve moved on to painting one of my metal Malifaux models. It looks a little tougher than the Dwarfs or Orcs, with a few more bitty pieces than those. And this is really exacerbating a problem I had with the first models I painted. I’ve been thinning my paints at a 1:1 paint to water ratio, roughly. And some people told me that even this may not be thing enough. The problem I’m having seems related to it maybe being too thin. When I paint the paint on, it doesn’t stick to where I’ve placed it. It just pools up, meaning the recesses get most of the pigment and the rounded or edged spots get very little with all the pigment flowing away. First off, is this what’s supposed to happen or is there a brush control technique I haven’t got to grips with yet? Secondly, I’m worried that if I do get the raised areas to a level of opacity where the black primer isn’t showing through, I’ll have lost detail due to the amount of pigment that has pooled up in the recessed area.
Edit: And to those thinking of getting back into painting: I challenge you to a painting duel! (Which I will inevitably lose ;)) As in, to those of you thinking of picking up a brush again (or for the first time) I’d love to send you out an Orc and Dwarf sprue and see what you make of the first models I’ve ever painted. I have three sets of Orcs and Dwarfs left, and if anyone wants a pair I’ll post them to you. First priority goes to the people who’ve been out of comission for a while. Only condition is you have to post a pic when you’re done with them.
That sounds (to me) like there is either too much water or possibly too much paint on your brush. I find that the amount of wetness required for a given paint depends enormously on the particular paint, both its age, colour, brand, sub-brand and so on can all influence the flow that you get and you have to adjust the amount of wetness on the brush to compensate, until you are getting nice smooth flow with a decent coverage. I tend to aim for a two coat coverage of paint before applying inks/washes (whatever those GW washes qualify as) and then do an additional layer of highlighting. I’d say my starting level of wetness is to dip my brush in water completely/rinse it under a tap and then smooth out any excess water with my finger tips so that the bristles are damp but there is no drop of water surrounding the bristles. It also pays to make sure that the ferrule and handle are all dry so that you don’t get any surprise wetness later on.
Once I have my damp brush I dip it in the paint pot until I’ve covered about the bottom quarter to a third of the bristles and then I gently wipe the blob of paint of on the side of the pot once or twice (rotating to get both sides). Ideally I suspect you’ll be able to make out the shape of the bristles through the paint now (no big blobs). Then it’s apply paint to model, large flat areas first generally and moving on to everywhere else next. I’d aim for no pooling nor any stiffness in the brush movement over the model.
It also helps a lot if you’ve mounted your mini onto something that you can manoeuvre it around with easily (I use another paint pot with some blu-tak on the lid) as then you can use both hands to get the paint exactly where it needs to go.
Buceph, it’s not your technique. It sounds as though the paint is way too thin. I only thin a small puddle of my Games Workshop paint with a drop or two of water.
Don’t say that. Sure, you may do that and it’s viable, but there’s no thing as “too thin” paint for brush control. I’ve done 1:2 paint to water or more a couple times, and could paint fine.
technique is part of it. Specifically, try putting less paint on your brush, so there’s not enough to pool.
Alternatively, it can be an issue with surface tension. try putting a couple drops of dish soap into the jar of water you use to mix from. A tiny tiny amount of liquid soap in your water breaks the tendency water has to pool into drops, and it helps your paints flow better.
I read about those water surface tension breakers. I have some hypo-flo (I think it’s called) for photography. It ensures the water left on drying film doesn’t bubble up and dry water stains onto the film. I’ll give that a try presuming I get no advice to the contrary in the meantime.
if you are extremely desperate and serious about wishing to improve, I’m gonna recommend www.miniaturementor.com
Yeah it’s a paid video thing. It’s also long, well explained, well shot, the painter is amazing, and there’s stuff there that anyone can learn from. So it’s your call. I paid for the basic videos, and I consider it money very well spent.
Im getting a loan of a book and a dvd from someone at my old Uni’s gaming society tomorrow night so I’ll give them a go first. Its tempting though as I’ve loved painting so far.