Completely New To Painting. Any Help Is Appreciated. First Submission

[Banemorth]

Well howdy everyone. I'm going to apologize in advance because I can tend to be rather long-winded at times. I appreciate you taking your time to read this and thank you in advance for any advice you might share with me.

So I'm Justin, or Banemorth as I'm known in the far reaches of the web, and I decided to pick up miniature painting. I have always had a desire to do something creative but I've never been any good at it, well, besides writing. I tried drawing, singing, even painting on canvas once but I just had no knack for it. It has always frustrated me but it is what it is. Well three weeks ago now a buddy of mine suggested we meet up and start playing HeroQuest again. For those that don't know it's an old school board game we used to play when we were in High School, and it was old school then too.

Well we had a blast playing. He shot me a link to some HeroQuest forums and as I was browsing I saw how many people had painted their figures. I absolutely loved it. So I do as I always do when I get my mind set on something... I jump right in. I researched to the high heavens, watched dozens of tutorial videos, and was somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the amount of information that is out there. In the end I wound up buying a new work bench just for the venture. I bought my hobby drill, exacto kit, P3 Paints and Primer, sanding sticks, cups, brushes, flock, glue, etc. etc. etc.

After spending an entire weekend cleaning mold lines off of 17 figures I took them to work and primed them. (We have a ventilated paint booth we use for refurbishing old networking gear.) Then I sat down and tried my hand at my first mini. A little goblin. Please don't laugh too hard.

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I uploaded it too:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/324205

Took me about three hours to paint that little thing. Sad... I know. I liked him but I knew it was far from ideal. The tunic lacked highlights and his right eye was all wonky. His boots also lacked any highlights. So I tried again. Five hours on this one. My second creation:

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http://www.coolminiornot.com/324206

I really liked this one (Although I don't think the voters do!) I loved the rusted look on the sword, the highlights, and the boots. I thought it was improved in all areas over the first. I know it's still incredibly lacking.

Tonight I'm going to work on my third. Hopefully I can do better. I just found this website today and I find some of the entries here depressing. I can't ever imagine painting that well. I'd love to though. Any tips, any tricks, any advice that you're willing to give me would be fantastic. I understand that you've all put a ton of time, energy, and hours into this hobby. You've worked hard for it and I'm just some chump trying to get involved. I have absolutely no artistic knowledge besides what I've picked up watching YouTube tutorials.

Thank you all for your time. I hope I can make some new friends here.

 

[Milosh]

You are off on the right path by showing improvement on each one and the colors are all neat and in the right spot. Are you looking to paint figures just to play the game or paint display peices you wouldn't dare play with? It wouldn't hurt to browse the web and look at fantasy art paintings and observe how the artists are using color, just google "fantasy art paintings" and click on images. You will notice for example that greens will have blues and reds in the shadows. This sort of observing will give you a little better idea of how to use colors. You are also jumping in with a lot of passion, that is key. One universal tip is to thin your paints and use multiple layers (it looks a little bit like you are doing this). Acrylic paints are nothing more than permanent watercolors which makes them ideal for layering. This is how you get smooth blends between your highlites and shadows. I'll try and think of some more stuff but you will get tons of help here from all the members.

 

[Bailey03]

Hey Banemorth, welcome to coolmini. I think you're off to a good start. Reading and watching tutorials is great but you can only improve by actually painting. The first step is getting the colors in the right place, learning to control the brush and paint, and figuring out how you like to work. Shading and highlighting come later, so don't stress about that too much.

As for the votes on the gallery, try to ignore those for now. Everything you put in the gallery is begin judged against world class painters who do this for a living. So those rankings can be rather harsh for beginners. People in the forums, on the other hand, tend to take into account where you are in terms of skill level (beginner or pro) and offer more constructive criticism.

Also, since you're in the same general area as I am (though a little farther north), I thought I'd give you a heads up about a couple shows that happen every year. The closest to you is probably the Long Island Miniature Show held each year in November: http://www.longislandmodelsoldiers.com/LIHMCS_Model_S.html
The next closest is the MFCA show near Philly held each May: http://www.mfcashow.com/current.html
And finally there's the NCMSS show in DC every September: http://ncmss.org/
There are of course many many more... these are just the ones nearby that I'm familiar with. If you like the painting side of the hobby I really recommend going to one of these shows and seeing others work in person. It's also a great chance to talk to the artists and pick their brains.

Other than that, the best advice I can give you is just keep painting! You can start experimenting with dry brushing for highlights or shading using washes. But don't worry about trying to master every technique on your first couple tries. Just paint and have fun.

 

[Banemorth]

Thank you Milosh! My goal is to paint pieces WORTHY of display. Some of the things I've seen are just absolute works of art. Things of beauty. This is just a place for me to start. I was actually out with my wife a week ago and found a store that sells mini's. I picked up two to work on when I feel like I'm ready and I know I bit off more than I can chew already! The one is called Lich Lord Terminus and I am going to need to assemble him. He's all metal so I'll need to pin him and what-have-you. I don't plan on touching him for awhile.

I did try to layer (and mix paints) on the goblin and especially the Orc. I used three different shades of green on his skin, and three different shades with the tunic. I didn't really have enough surface area on the belt. Here's the way I painted the Orc if it helps anyone help me out.

I started by cleaning the mold lines, washing him, and priming him with black P3 Primer. I started by doing the eyes white, then adding the black pupils. I then tried to outline them with black. I thinned down my darkest green 1-1 with water and applied three coats of paint to the skin as the base coat. I then did the tunic in the same fashion with a hide color followed by the boots, belt, and skull. Then I applied a single coat of each of the other two greens to the Orc and washed him with Thrakka Green. I used a bone color to highlight the tunic and then thinned it out and tried to blend it all together.

I did the sword in silver and then thinned a dark Bootstrap Leather and applied it to the blade as rust. I also used silver on the rivets in the belt and bracer as well as his chainmail shirt. The boots I did in brown and then washed them with a black to make them look dirty. Then I used glue on the base and put down some flock.

 

[Banemorth]

Bailey those shows look really cool and I'd absolutely love to attend the Long Island one! (Only about an hour and a half drive.) I am painting and I'm having a TON of fun but I want to get better. I can be somewhat of a perfectionist and if I do something I really like to do it all the way. Your feedback is very much appreciated and I understood before I posted them that the gallery would probably tear them apart. Honestly I'm sort of happy about that as I hope I can see a marked improvement in my scores over time. Gives me an extra bit of motivation so to speak.

Being in Baltimore you must be rather excited about this Sunday.

Thank you!

 

[Milosh]

Bailey is my bud so I don't want to step on his toes but I would avoid ever using drybrush on anything. Don't get to impatient with your painting, it is going to take a bit for you to get to the level you are satisfied with. Just keep painting and enjoy every minute of it.

 

[Banemorth]

Bailey is my bud so I don't want to step on his toes but I would avoid ever using drybrush on anything. Don't get to impatient with your painting, it is going to take a bit for you to get to the level you are satisfied with. Just keep painting and enjoy every minute of it.

Would you be so kind as to explain why you dislike dry brushing? I've never done it myself.

 

[domino]

I just wanted to say welcome. I too am new to the hobby as well and there is a wealth of information here as well as very helpful members.

It looks like you are off to a nice start and there is real improvement already on your second figure.

 

[10 ball]

Welcome, cool heroquest minis that I'm a big fan of
Glad to see your taking your time with the preparation and priming. Nice bright colours & a great cartoon look that really suits these minis. As for drybrushing, I know my friend Milosh is not a fan of it. Drybrushing has a love / hate relationship with many painters. It can be messy and hard to control. I find it very useful on bases.
Keep posting

 

[Flow]

Welcome Banemorth! I understand your passion about this; it's a strangely addicting hobby that can become a little consuming. I started back in October (a whole four months now) and love it to death. These forums can be a great place for information. I dived right in without reading forums at all, and my first mini in October didn't come out nearly as well as your first orc. Just "thin your paints!" was a breakthrough. Practicing is a great way to learn, and then reading tutorials on things you are trying to do can greatly help.

Here's a random tip to help in highlights and shading, since you are diving right into that. Get a bright light overhead (such as a desk "clamp lamp") and shine it over your mini and note where the shadows fall, and where it lights up; these are ideal places to shade and highlight. Often in shading/highlighting the assumption is that the highlights are from a lightsource directly overhead. A desklamp can work as a template to help you see where the shades need to go. The stronger the reflection, the stronger the highlight; the darker the shadow, the darker the shading.

While the first challenge I think is just to "paint within the lines", the second is to do away with the "one area, one color" philosophy and really get into shading/highlighting. It is mainly what I'm currently struggling with myself.

 

[Banemorth]

Wow thanks so much guys! I just finished my third mini and I'm hitting the hay.

Dormino I appreciate the welcome!

10 ball I really love the Heroquest Mini's. They're unique but they have the WORST mold lines. Took me forever to clean them up!

I appreciate the tips Flow! I've been trying to highlight the high points and shade the recesses. I'll have to try the light trick!

Here's number three:

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http://www.coolminiornot.com/324234

 

[Insane Courage]

Looks like its going good so far and the most important thing is that your painting its more then I can say for myself currently.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Been painting for many many moons now and what is very important when you start is to keep a good balance between learning/pushing yourself and just relaxing and enjoying painting.

 

[Banemorth]

Thanks guys! I just finished my fourth mini today. Lord Mullet had recommended outlining so I tried that. Thoughts?

View attachment 18523

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http://www.coolminiornot.com/324317

 

[Banemorth]

So thus far I've only painted HeroQuest mini's. They are really small and are one solid piece. I picked up a few Warmachine Mini's (Although I've never played the game.) because, frankly, I didn't know you could get mini's that weren't specifically for a game.

I have a few questions for you guys that I'm hoping you can give me your own personal insight towards.

1. Do you paint and prime the pieces before they're assembled? (Obviously not in that order! )

2. Do you guys subscribe to any miniature painting magazines? If so... what? I can't seem to find any that aren't geared towards a specific tabletop game. I'd like one geared towards painting.

3. How do you highlight and shade something that doesn't really have "high points?" That's the main reason that I've struggled with the Orc's skin. There really isn't any muscle definition that I can highlight. It's all pretty smooth. How do you tackle this?

 

[Bailey03]

Hey, Banemorth, looks like your stuff is definitely improving.

1 - Yes and no. I do paint stuff before I assemble it... but I try to put together as much of the figure as I can first and then paint. I'll leave off parts if they are going to block me from painting another area. Shields are a good example of parts I'll leave off until later. Without knowing which figure you're working on it's hard to say what I would do. But, if you take a look around the work in progress threads you can see how different people approach this same problem.

Also, for some of the larger warmachine figures you may want to consider pinning the pieces. This involves drilling a small hole (with a hand drill/pin vise, not a power drill) in two parts that you're going to attach. Then you stick a pin (could be as simple as a straight piece of paper clip snipped to the right size) into them to add extra strength to the joint. There are tutorials on this out there so do a little searching. I imagine it's been discussed quite a bit here at CMON.

2 - Not really, but I'd be interested to hear others answers to this. You might want to take a look at Portal (http://www.wampforum.com/portal/WhatsNew.html). It's free to download.

3 - So my earlier statement about washes and dry brushing (which Milosh rightfully called me out on) was more geared towards beginning table top minis. If you're looking to do higher quality work you'll want to work with thin semi-transparent layers of paint (as he said). When it comes to placing your highlights and shadows a good rule to follow is the "stop sign rule." This is described in Shep Paine's Building and Painting Scale Figures book. The book is hard to get, so here's the basic lesson...

When you're trying to place your highlights and shadows, imagine a stop sign with a light directly above it. The top of the sign is getting hit with direct light, so it should be the brightest color. The bottom is getting almost no light, so it is the darkest. Depending on the angles of the inbetween surfaces, they will be getting different amounts of light and will be at different brightnesses, though somewhere between those two extremes. We often break colors down into shadow, mid tone or base, and highlight... but you'll still want to use variations of these (mixes of base with highlight and base with shadow) for different parts of the surface in relation to how the light is hitting it.

....__..........Brightest Highlight
./.........\...... - Shade inbetween highlight and mid tone
|............|.... Mid Tone
.\..__../..... - Shade inbetween mid tone and shadow
....................Darkest Shadow

While there may not be a great deal of detail in the orc's body, you can still work with the basic shapes to emphasize what's there. I look at the right arm and I see the bicep. I also see the rounded lower part of the forearm. I'd go darker there as it's the bottom portion of the stop sign and then get lighter as the elbow presents a flat face (side of the stop sign) before curving back under. If fact, looking at the arms and legs, you've got a lot of nice curved rounded surfaces which I think are ideal for practicing the stop sign rule.

By the way, when you come across a figure that actually has a large flat area, people will often paint it with a subtle gradient. Even though the stop sign rule says that flat face should be a single shade... if you did that the end result would be pretty boring. So that's why a subtle gradient is added for visual interest.

 

[Banemorth]

Bailey that post is INCREDIBLY helpful! Thank you so much. I'm going to try and do exactly as you say. It's funny because I was already trying to highlight and shade using three different paints but I never mixed the three to create the steps between them. That is an excellent suggestion and should help eliminate some of the "hard breaks" I was seeing in some spots.

I've already watched a few videos on pinning and purchased some green stuff and a hobby drill to give it a whirl. I have two larger metal models which I'm nowhere near ready to tackle. I plan to paint at least a few dozen of these smaller plastic pieces before I engage those projects.

 

[Bailey03]

No problem. And don't let the example make you think you only need to use one mix between highlight and base or base and shadow. You can use as many as you want. I find with darker colors (like the dark green on the orc) I can get away with fewer intermediate mixes and still have a smooth finish. For lighter colors, like whites, I use a lot more intermediate steps in order to get smooth transitions. A simple way to start is to try 50% base and 50% shadow. If the transition is too extreme (which most likely it still will be), do a 25% base and 75% shadow and then a 75% base and 25% shadow. When I actually paint it's not quite to mathematical... it's oh, this mix should be a little lighter... whoops, too light, mix back in some of the darker shade. There are some cases where I'll do one intermediate step and others where I might do 10 or more. Just depends on the figure, the colors, and the result I'm looking for.

I know what you mean about holding off on the larger ones. I've got figures in my closet that have been sitting there for years now just waiting until I feel like I'm able to do them justice. Just don't wait too long... if all you paint are practice figures and never try the ones you're really really excited about you can burn yourself out. Every once in a while it's okay to skip dinner and go right to dessert.

By the way, which warmachine figures did you get?

 

[Banemorth]

Haha which Warmachine figures did I get... well these are the first two I purchased on impulse because I thought they "looked awesome." I quickly realized just how over my head I was Lich Lord Terminus

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And Nightmare:

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So because I had already purchased those I decided to get the Cryx battle box and two-player battlebox so that maybe I could find someone to play with since I already bought these things.

I just started cleaning up the models in the Cryx Battlebox which is why I asked about assembly:

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I also just managed to snipe a copy of Hot Lead on Ebay for $20.50 shipped. Seems like a lot of people on these forums have high praise for it so I want to give it a look too.

 

[Bailey03]

Very neat! Yeah, I think Cryx has some of the most awesome looking figures in the Warmachine line.

I don't know if it will make you feel better or worse, but I also picked up a copy of Lich Lord Terminus and even I feel over my head with that one! I did find this old article that gives a really nice overview to his assembly and painting. The color scheme is a little different but overall I think it's a very helpful guide. If nothing else it will be a life saver when it comes time to put him together.
http://archive.brushthralls.com/model-walkthroughs/assembling-and-painting-lich-lord-terminus.html
I'm not sure when I'll get around to starting him (plenty of other projects to do), but when I finally do I will definitely be referring back to that article for ideas and to make sure I don't screw up his assembly. Yikes!

As for the Cryx faction box, take a look at this other article: http://archive.brushthralls.com/model-walkthroughs/faction-box-in-10-days-cryx.html
It goes into a good deal of how they were pinned and assembled, plus all of the painting.

Lots of fun stuff there. Best of luck with all of them!