dave wip, new painter, trying to improve

[Paintforfun]

The time has come.. for my wip. It's been a while since I got into the hobby of miniatures and I recently decided to actually learn how to paint.
Not paint as in dozens of bugs in the same color scheme.. But to learn how to blend colours together, know which colours that match, painting faces, fur, armor.. and the list goes on.

Yeah I like my nids but it gets repetetive and boring painting the same old colours and not learning anything new, not experimenting anything, puts me off.

After seeing some of the work on this site, and watching other painters get feedback and pointers I figured this is the place for me to go!
None of my RL friends paint, or is into the hobby.. So there isn't really anywhere to go if I need advice.

My project to begin with will be a Khador army from Warmachine and my goal is to go from a tabletop painter to infinity!

My first question is, is there any medium considered a "must have" except for washes, glazes, paints and brushes? I thin my paint with only water, is this a bad thing?

 

[Paintforfun]

View attachment 15712

So here's one of my table top minis for some reason the red appears darker than it truly is..

 

[10 ball]

Well the photo is not to good but as far as I can tell
the blue has some great contrast and shading. Good work

 

[KruleBear]

That blue looks great. I will be looking forward to your take on the Khador army --mumbles to self " must finish that warjack that is at 95% complete"---

Good luck and welcome to the wips. I have found them very helpful.

 

[PegaZus]

Well, as for mediums, about the only other thing I could throw in that I'd consider a must have would be some Future (names vary depending on location), but since you've listed washes already I'd wager you're covered in that area.

So I'm going to say "drink of choice" is the only thing left off the list.

 

[Wyrmypops]

Using water as a medium is only really a problem if you live in a hard water area, as that add a chalky element that can wind up on the mini. One commonly used solution is Distilled Water, cheaply acquired from E-Bay.

 

[AndyG]

Bit of slow dry in the mix tends to help but nowt wrong with water. To paint with not drink beers your man there.

 

[Paintforfun]

Thanks guys! Yeah after seeing your progress Krule, that's when I decided to give it a shot!

Some great painters already commented.. I really admire your work Andyg, some of the best blending I've ever seen in that Space Marine Commander..

anyway, after some wine yesterday, I decided to give an old model a shot before I receive my ordered Khador box set...


here's the spontaneus result at painting some gold.. I got pretty pleased with the result but I am still not sure whether I should be highlighting with silver or stick completely to gold for this particular model.

 

[AndyG]

Contrast always so if your doing metal paints I'd do from tin bits up through brass into shining and burnished gold and into silver. Also washes of Thaka green and leviathan purple in the shadows also give the whole thing a good wash of Devlan mud when it's painted with the brass and shining gold to pick out the detail. Always lots of layers always high contrast. Though I've got to say you've got talent and looks like your doing this anyway

 

[KruleBear]

Something else to think about for shading--- for some reason i have a boat load of mithril silver, so i tend to tint with regular colors or inks to get different shades for my darker metals. I did as Andy suggests on golds, but you may be able to lighten a bit of your gold with a light yellow or white to get a highligt color that is not as harsh as silver. Or make a 50/50 mix of you gold and the silver. And washes can help do the same thing for achieving the darker shadows.

But looking at the picture it looks like you already have some contrast going on the gold.

 

[Paintforfun]

Next to do.. paint my first human face on a miniature
This will be very challenging, Does anyone have advice on the matter? Been looking on several guides and it's either to wash or to use ink.

 

[AndyG]

Layer with slight washses.

 

[Paintforfun]

here's my attempt at a face.. didn't get very satisfied with the outcome though. I might redo it and try to get that "daemonic look".
View attachment 15782

 

[10 ball]

Good start, you have got some deep shadows but seem to have jumped to the highlights to early .
Work the midtones up, just leaving select shadows in place.

 

[arkhanist]

My first question is, is there any medium considered a "must have" except for washes, glazes, paints and brushes? I thin my paint with only water, is this a bad thing?

I'm coming back to painting after a decade away. One thing I've found handy that I didn't use before is acrylic flow improver mix instead of water, especially when blending or mixing two shades together. Allows you to thin paint down - or make thinner glazes from washes/inks - without diluting colour strength. Absolutely lovely with lighter colours. Also very handy for resurrecting dead paint pots!

Cheap enough from artist stores, and just mix 1 part to 20 water - I keep it in a separate flow tray, aka re-used blister pack plastic. Use a clean brush to drip onto your palette with paint mix, and it makes it lovely and and smooth. Also slows down drying time slightly, giving you more time to blend shades together on the model as you mix them up on the palette. Which is good, cos my hands aren't nearly as steady as they used to be...

You can cheat by putting a tiny, tiny amount of washing up liquid in your normal water jar too (i.e. just the tip of a paintbrushes worth) which works kinda the same way; so you can try it out to see if its for you before going shopping.

You can combine it with a ghetto wet palette too - plastic box, bit of sponge, baking paper on top. Put some water in the sponge, a couple of drops of flow improver, and the baking paper gets slightly damp from the sponge - mix your paint on the baking paper, and it gets slightly damp and flow improved at the same time, keeping it liquid longer on the palette so you don't waste paint. When you fill up the space on the palette with leftover colours, fresh bit of baking paper! You can even close the lid and keep mixes wet between sessions, so your custom shade is still ready for you next time.

Been damn handy while I've been experimenting with 'fresh' zombie skin shades.

 

[KruleBear]

Good start, you have got some deep shadows but seem to have jumped to the highlights to early .
Work the midtones up, just leaving select shadows in place.

I'd be pretty happy with the results you've achieved. To touch on 10balls comment; from the pict it appears the lovely highlight on the left cheak get too dark as it approaches the nose. It also looks like you are shooting fora light source from his left in above, i would suggest taking you top highlight to the upper left side of the nose as you did on the cheek.

Just my too cents, as my unsteady hand would have highlight splatterd all over.

 

[MightyChad]

Your stuff is looking really good. Try thinning with a mix of water and matte medium, you get transparency with control. For your metals shade, as AndyG said, with washes of greens, purples, flesh washes for the gold. Try to use inks, as the Citadel washes can really take the shine off the metallics, which is ok if that is what you want. For the skin it might be good to paint a lighter basecoat, then shade the recesses using thinned paints like P3 Coal black or Reaper Masters Ashen Brown, then highlight up. That way the overall effect is lighter. You may look for Milosh's tutorial on painting Napoleon's face, it is amazing.

 

[Paintforfun]

Allright, I think I will be ordering a medium to prevent my colours from drying too fast and I will also pick up a few brushes while I'm on it.
As Abaddon is this half demonic human I thought the paintjob didn't really catch it, he looks kind of like an angry pig in that redish colour.

I'm going to go for an attempt to paint him pale, almost white. My worry is just that everytime I paint white, it looks chalky.
Also, is it a normal problem that when making a wash over white, that the paint sticks together at some parts creating this spiderweb kind of thing.
Should I wait for an hour or two before applying the wash?

thanks for your input guys.

 

[RuneBrush]

Allright, I think I will be ordering a medium to prevent my colours from drying too fast and I will also pick up a few brushes while I'm on it.
As Abaddon is this half demonic human I thought the paintjob didn't really catch it, he looks kind of like an angry pig in that redish colour.

If you want something demonic go for adding blue into the shadows (a touch). You'll get an ethereal quality to the skin tone then.

I'm going to go for an attempt to paint him pale, almost white. My worry is just that everytime I paint white, it looks chalky.
Also, is it a normal problem that when making a wash over white, that the paint sticks together at some parts creating this spiderweb kind of thing.
Should I wait for an hour or two before applying the wash?

thanks for your input guys.

White is a notoriously awkward colour to paint as white pigment is chalky. I noticed a huge improvement when I started to use pure water for thinning. I can't comment on the white, but the new Citadel grey's don't appear to suffer from this problem so it might be worth looking at those. What are you trying to achieve by using a white wash/glaze?

 

[Paintforfun]

Trying to instead go for this sick pale look but I still want it to look good. My attempts at making him pale either makes him too pale or I end up darkening it.

10 ball is right, I got to get better at mixing paints for tones..
don't really remember how the hell I painted that face or if I even thought about tones :cute: