My first, second, and third miniatures...

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karpouzian

New member
Note: I did not remove mold lines, and probably won't at this stage, but I do have Simple Green standing by if I need to. How can I improve? The skeleton garnered some good advice on the painting advice thread, but I thought I'd show them here for some harsher critiquing. I used craft paints and cheapo brushes. I'm buying some Da Vinci Kolinsky sable brushes, and some reaper paints, so hopefully that will help.

1. The Skeleton. This is my first miniature, basically just a white basecoat with a spray-primer, base coat in ivory, a home-made wash, and red eyes. The base was done at the nudging of people on these forums. Topped him off with a matte spray. How can I improve him?

View attachment 16198View attachment 16199

2. The Mummy.

Same basic process, except the face and hands are a (poorly) blended off-white, and I tried a few small highlights (which just make his hands look bad) :(

View attachment 16200

3.

The Ghost. Basecoted white, painted apple red, used highlights of a pinkish version of it (using orange and too much white), and I tried doing shadows with a darker red (can't remember the name). Washed black, and based.

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Be brutal, but not too brutal ;)
 
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KruleBear

KruleBear

New member
I like the way the bases turned out. A big improvement from where they were.

Take this with a grain of salt, but i woud use some brown ink diluted or very dilute brown paint to glaze/lightly wash the mummy. Load the brush with dilute paint and wipe the bulk of it off on a paper towel before hitting the mini. The idea is to control were the dilute color goes rather than flood it as would be done in a traditional wash. Then go back and hit the high points and edges with the white you used on them to this point...but he looks pretty good andi would not be afraid to use him as is in a table top army.

Do not know if you caught it, but there is a touch of red on the ghosts skull that needs Covered. Over all the blend looks good for a start. Is does appear there is one spot in the red on the back left shoulder blade that has a harsh transition...possibly just the photo.

You will probably constantly hear from everyone to push the contrasts more, if you are like me this will take time. With each mni you gain confidence and can push it further.

I used craft type paints for years, just thin them a lot until you get your hobby paints and you can make good progress. Just know that a lot of times they have a different pigment consistency and make take more coats to get coverage when thinned.

You have good placement of paint and are well on your way to enjoying a neat hobby. And most of all welcome to the wips and have fun.
 
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10 ball

10 ball

New member
Make sure you have a tidy base coat before moving on. (the splat of red on the ghosts head) it will make all the difference :)
 
KruleBear

KruleBear

New member
karpouzian said:
I actually didn't notice till the camera exposed it... Am going to fix it next painting opportunity I have.
Click to expand...

Yeah, i have found that the camera turns evil in macro mode lol :D. But i have found it makes us neater painters ( or teaches us how to hide our accidents better).
 
K

karpouzian

New member
KruleBear said:
i woud use some brown ink diluted or very dilute brown paint to glaze/lightly wash the mummy.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, I'll try it!

As far as pushing the contrasts more, you're right, I should, but right now I'm kind of resting the waters. That and I need to buy more colors, really... I think I'm just going to go into wal-mart or hobby lobby and buy one of everything I don't have. At .97-$2 ea, it shouldn't be too expensive...

And now, looking at the mini, it is just a sloppy transition. What I may do is just use a very thinned layer (transparent) of the base color over it to try to even it out.

As far as thinning my paints, also, I think I'm getting that whole milk/heavy cream consistancy that everyone is talking about, and that does help!
 
KruleBear

KruleBear

New member
If you get the liquitex paints at hobby lobby, get some of their medium as well. It really seems to help thin their paint better than water. I have been cutting the liquitex to a very heavy cream consistency with medium (this gets them to a similar consistency as bottled mini paints). Then i put it in dropper bottles. When i pull from the dropper bottles i dilute with water (or "daves" magic water that i copied from one of the tutorials) to milk consistency (or thinner for glazes).

I would recommend throwing out bad paint, but iwoul not be following my own advice---i have a 15year old tube of liquitex burnt umber i keep using even though it has lumps i can not seem to get rid off! :)
 
P

Paintforfun

New member
I think you're doing good, painting white is tough,
The cloak on the ghost could use light red instead of pink highlights..
try work up your paints til they are a little bit thicker than a glaze, then smudge it out. (keep a towel or some paper to whipe the brush off)
I can see that you have also worked with only one layer for highlights, the more layers you put, the more contrast you will get, the better it will look.


Download and buy the cheap e-book from cmon
Try get a wet palette, they're awesome.

/dave
 
P

Paintforfun

New member
uhm, just a tip, if you are to use glaze I suggest one that is close to the colours you are to blend, that looks more like a wash than a glaze imo
so ex for white either a very light bluegrey glaze or a greywhite one.

/dave
 
KruleBear

KruleBear

New member
I like it as it gives the bsndages an aged dirty look. You can make pop again by adding the highlights back as you had originally done.
 
KruleBear

KruleBear

New member
I hear you, i just had my first bout with simple green last night. Stripped a classic GW ogre to fix some mold issues. I was surprised how well it worked with an overnight soak...(i better make sure the wife doesn't use that toothbrush now) ;)
 
K

karpouzian

New member
Ok, I've bought some vallejo game paints (and a red ink by accident) and I've touched up some of my minis. I've also been given an AWESOME gift by Bloowdhowl (a TON of static grass, and some snow flock! - you should all rep him) so here are some more shots...

The Skeleton got some harvest static grass in the back, and some highlights with the new vallejo off-white I got. The highlights don't look AS good in super giant size, but I think they look a lot better in actual 25mm size. I followed that up with some brown wash to smooth out the highlights, and that works as well for me. The skull really pops now in real life, and the sword looks better too.

View attachment 16273

The ghost just got a wash of the red ink - I promise I meant to get paint :( to smooth the "pink" highlights...

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TrystanGST

TrystanGST

New member
My recommendation at this point? Take what you've learned on these three and start some new ones. It doesn't really help (after a point) to keep going back and tweaking minis you've already done. Someone once said minis are never done, just abandoned. It's true. If you keep focusing on a mini, you'll spend the rest of your days tweaking it. Onward and upward!
 
Willdorling

Willdorling

New member
Excellent advice from Trystangst. Each new mini you start you can employ all the lessons learnt on previous ones. That way you can really see your progression as a painter and that is one of the most motivational aspects of the hobby. Onwards and upwards indeed!
 
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