seeking free hand advice,

[Show Case Studio]

having seen lots of realy cool free hand work on a lot of minnis, here on con i have decided its time for me to start doing some of my own, can any one tell me how to start, ie do you guys just paint on your design work or do you drawthe desisn on first and then paint it, if the later is the case what is the best thing to use to do this as a normal pencil would be to thick and sharp for this job, any advice in this area would be most greetful. thanks guys and keep all the cool work coming.

 

[Dragonsreach]

This isn\'t going to be a One Answer to all questions I\'m sorry to say.
I\'ve worked on freehand for a number of years and the only true thing I\'ve found is:- Practise works.

I\'d strongly suggest that if you don\'t already have sketchbooks in which you can doodle. This will help your line ability. Then get some styrene sheet and prime it and use as a practise for starting freehand before you Hit a model.


I\'d also suggest that you get a model that you can practice on without any real worry. I use a GW eldar Farseer figure which has good robe folds and no excess detail to \"get in the way\" as below.

One thing I will recommend is start with Simple lines, then consider more complex shapes.
I was lucky and got to see the miniature below IRL at Salute this year (Veren Danke Wevner) and the Freehand is amazing and so sublte that is barely shows in the photos.

 

[Show Case Studio]

great advice, i will start doodling and practice practice practice, thanks for the tip,

 

[Ritual]

Jen Haley, who painted the mini Mike showed in his post above (the Freebooter one), have a rather useful article about freehand painting on her website, HERE. Some useful tips there, although you need a lot of practice before you can reach her level, needless to say.

 

[Show Case Studio]

thanks ritaul, that site is the bees knee\'s and is now in my fav\' places. lots of good imfo there. :bouncy:

 

[Dragonsreach]

Yep Jen Haley really \"rings the bell\" with Freehand.
Hadn\'t noticed it before but she looks a bit like Inara from \'Firefly\'.

 

[JesterzUSMC]

I use a mechanical pencil.
I file the tip to a sharp point.
Mind you, this is only for line-guides and script, but it helps.

For anything more complex, like images and banners, I sketch it a lot first on paper, this helps get the shapes and such into \"muscle memory\" and then I paint it on.
Really hard stuff, I practice on plastic-card to the same scale.

Practice, practice, practice.

 

[JesterzUSMC]

Originally posted by Dragonsreach
Yep Jen Haley really \"rings the bell\" with Freehand.
Hadn\'t noticed it before but she looks a bit like Inara from \'Firefly\'.

OMG! Yeah she does!

 

[Show Case Studio]

thanks guys, i have now started the practice stage and when i start my firdt minn i will post on cmon, for you to check out andsee how i am doing,

 

[AllTerrainMonkey]

Another thing you can try is sealing your mini with a good layer of Dull Cote and using very, very thin white paint to \"plan\" the area. You can put tiny dots to lay out the design you want and connect-the-dots when you get it to where you like it. If you mess up or don\'t like it you can take a clean brush, load some water in it, and \"erase\" the white marks.