In the same vein.
My wife and I are complete miniature-painting neophytes, but when our friend who runs our 5e campaign showed up to a dinner visit with a few Heroforge miniatures for us, we figured we had no choice but to give it a try.
I think they turned out pretty alright, given our lack of practice. Now, though, we have to finish them with something so they stand up to play. I’ve heard Testors Dullcote thrown around. Anyone have other advice?
Those look great, especially for your very first miniatures! So you have achieved a very clean, even, crisp painted look. There are several routes you can go to ‘finish’ the model (yours are perfectly acceptable to play with if you think they are done)
- Dullcote - dip them and let them dry to preserve your already clean lines with a matte finish
- Washes and or Glazes - Special paints that gather in the recesses of your model, to shade or provide a change in tone (you can see this effect strongly in the models I posted above
- Edge highlights and or dryburshing - thin, bright lines applied to the raised edges to make those areas “pop” and stand out. Drybrushing is applying very minimal amount of paint with a, wait for it, dry brush, to dust on a brighter highlight color
4… And More! You can put an infinite amount of work into a model, knowing when you like them how they are is half the battle :)
I’m rediscovering this here lately. Dove back into painting my Song of Ice and Fire miniatures and I’ve spent probably 7-8 hours on just the bannerman shown below. Kind of disheartening when I see guys on the main FB page talk about banging out individual units in an hour or two. But a lot of my time was spent choosing colors, then reversing them (initially too much red, went with a dark blue since it’s a cooler color), shading, highlighting, attempts at glazing on the outer furls of the banner, etc.
Amazing! I’m sure you are quite pleased with them, and if you aren’t you should be! I especially like your Mountain that Rides, oh and the Hound too! Great stuff.
Thanks, guys. I’m ‘mostly’ happy with them, I’m new at this and learning, getting better as I go, but my aged eyesight and unsteady hands make it a challenge. Especially the faces. The girl in the center (next to last pic) with the mace slung over her shoulder is Maege Mormont, she was still a WiP when the picture was taken, but I couldn’t do her eyes. For Hodor (last pic, 2nd from the left, has Bran on his back) I used a black 1mm micron pen to add pupils after using a dead white paint to separate the eye ‘space’ from the flesh color of the rest of the face. But even a 1mm nib is too big for most of the smaller minis.
I’ve got Catelyn done earlier today, she turned out pretty well, even her face. I used terracotta as a base color, and then painted on the flesh via a sort of wet brush approach, shaping her eyes and shadowing around the nose and mouth a bit. Painted the lips red, got the eyebrows, and called it done. The Greatjon is next, he’s actually pretty far along already, and then more Starks. I’ve still got Sansa, Ned, Robb, Ser Rodrik, Brienne, Howland Reed, etc. to do.
Since this is thread is bumpin again, might as well drop in my newest KillTeam for 40k, Binary Thought.
Featuring Sicarian Princeps T34-RS-4-F34RS
And his motley gang of gruesomely augmented post humans.
Niiiiice.
I’m struggling with glazing, it’s just kickin’ my butt. I’ve watched a dozen Youtube videos on it and still can’t get results I’m happy with. Ready to buy some pre-made glazes or translucent paints from Citadel/Vallejo to see if those help.
The week’s effort. On the left is generic Stark bowman, who is so confident of his abilities he brought only one arrow to the battle. In the middle is the Greatjon, whose byrnie was highlighted with a lighter steel color that the late-day sun makes impossible to see. And on the right is Catelyn, looking kind of pissed off and still somewhat unfinished (I need to layer lighter colors on the outer folds of her cloak).
The last few week’s worth of painting and basing efforts, with the Skyrim CE dragon as the backdrop. Thanks to Youtube my dry brushing and layering skills have improved quite a bit.
From left to right is a Crannog warden, Robb, Ser Rodrik, Sansa, Brienne, and generic Stark sworn sword. Robb’s direwolf, Grey Wind, is in the front, and was the very first miniature I painted last fall. Included here for the rock/snow basing combo I did this afternoon.
Nice job - like your bases too. I’ve been wanting to get back into this for some reason, even though I don’t do any miniature gaming so I feel like my time could be better spent doing something else as nobody will ever see or use these. But fuck it, maybe it’s enough that I enjoy it.
I paint stuff all the time that no one will see. I almost feel like the guy in Ronin working on his models. It’s a great form of relaxing creativity.
It is very relaxing. As an IT guy it’s very easy for me to come home and veg in front of the computer or TV and let the hours whittle away, but this hobby gives me something to show for the time spent.
So, not necessarily the neatest paint job, but building a 1:700 kit of HMS Hood has bee a good way of distracting myself from recent, erm, Events in the UK. (And has laid to sleep some buried childhood traumas about messing up completely a similar kit as a 10-year old)
Latest painting efforts, at least a portion of it for the generic soldiers. The two guys on the outside are Tully shieldmen, I’ve done 12 of them now for a full unit (still need to base both them and their movement tray), alternating blue and red on their shields. Next is a Stark bowman, I’ve got 4 of them done. In the middle is Varys, apparently somewhat dusty on the shoulders, something I didn’t notice until the pictures were taken. Next is Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish, which was done with a Molotow liquid chrome 1mm nub pen (think magic marker) rubbed over his armor rather than applied via the standard brush approach. I then used a glossy black wash with a small detail brush to highlight the various sections of his armor. Melissa’s phone is close to 4 years old and the pictures it takes aren’t the best, so the effect is somewhat lost (though the glare off his left shoulder blurred out his face).
My latest painting effort, the Umber champion. This guy went through a few changes, such as his pants being originally khaki and then shaded brown via heavy applications of smoke and sepia washes. But it blended in too much with the belt, gloves and boots, so I went with a thin layer of yellow olive. I honestly think this is my best effort yet (I should’ve taken a pic of his cloak, I base coated it with a chocolate brown and then layered lighter colors on its outer folds).
Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish, my first cavalryman, and this one was a bitch and the pictures don’t capture a lot of the detail and work that went into painting it. I base coated the horse a dark grey and feathered lighter tones across its natural highlight areas in an effort to make it look like hair compared to layering color changes onto clothing. The pinkish banner is for the Boltons.