Started painting again after 20 odd years.....

[plasmahal]

Hi there,

just started painting WH40k models again after around 20 years of absence from the hobby. This is mainly due to my 13 yr old son who is into it now. He has chosen to do 2nd company Ultramarines, (yes i know very common). I\'m glad that the quality of the kits and paints etc has improved over the years and the space marines look good too, although i have space marines and terminators from around 1988-89 and they look good too.

My main reason for posting is to gather opinions on how people go through the process of painting their miniatures these days. I always used too undercoat with skull white, base coat my colours then ink wash and then highlight then finish off any details. I have made some new models and undercoated with a chaos black spray can. I see in some articles it suggests dry brushing the base colour over the undercoat then highlighting.

Do people still ink wash their models?

Do you paint all thr armour first then do the details like shoulder pad trims etc...?

I would appreciate peoples feedback on their style of painting.

 

[Ritual]

You\'ll find that people do things quite differently. There\'s no \"right way\" to paint a mini.

I usually do it this way:

1. Spray prime with white.
2. Apply base coat (not by drybrushing) in a couple of layers so that it covers nicely.
3. Wet-blend shadows and general highlights on the larger areas,
4. Apply further highlights with semi-transparent paint in thin layers.
5. Shade and highlight smaller details by layering semi-transparent paint.
6. Fix the tiniest detail and perhaps do freehand patterns or such.

This is a very general description of how I do it and as you see I don\'t use inks much. But that\'s just me... others use inks extensively. Also, avoid drybrushing, except for furs, stone and other heavily textured surfaces, since it gives a sloppy and chalky result. Most people also seem to agree that paint should be thinned down before using, but how much is a matter of style and personal preferences.

 

[plasmahal]

Can you be a little more specific to this method:

3. Wet-blend shadows and general highlights on the larger areas.

I assume you thin your paint at around 1:3 - 1:4 for highlights, but is that just to the high points on the detail or as another layer of paint covering a whole area ?

thanks.

 

[Ritual]

Wet blending is the process of mixing the paint on the mini while still wet. That means, for instance, that I mix a darker colour seamlessly into the basecoat colour in the folds of a cloak with wet paints. It\'s a tricky technique, but once you master it it\'s quite fast and the results are very smooth.

When I apply additional highlights by layering semi-transparent paint I only apply it on the areas that I\'ve already highlighted to a certain degree (either by wet-blending or by layering), but with a lighter tone. The paint is of course quite havily diluted, but it\'s hard for me to say how much since I mostly dilute the paint by using a moist brush. Thus, I don\'t prepare a diluted pool of paint on my pallette, but the paint becomes diluted when I apply it. It takes some routine to instinctively know how moist the brush should be for a specific task, but I find it a quicker and easier method then diluting the paint on the pallette since I can \"jump\" between different opacity just by controlling how much water I store in the brush. I don\'t have to mix new paint if I want to use slightly thicker paint for something.

 

[farseerlum]

the method you have described plasmahal is a fairly quick paintjob without any frills.

rituals 6 steps are a different animal altogether.

here are 3 differnt paint job chosen on roughly their level of quality.

basic tabletop
good tabletop
moving to competition

rituals painting is extremly good. but even if you wanted to paint like that you\'ll want to keep it simple. your army will get done this decade then.

washes and drybrushing are the realm of the army painter. they will still serve you well and make nice minis. in addition a little freehand and some practice at sharp highights will make you painted guys a little more at home around other marine armies.

the middle marine is a good place to aim for. he\'s been undercoated black. see on his shoulderpad where the gold meets the blue? that black line is called blacklining, helps make the colors more defined. if your neat you won\'t need to paint that in by just not painting it blue. and right next to that he has put some sharp light blue highlights. simple and effective.

all this to say \"aim for a level of detail and run with that\"
all the methods to achieve your desired result can be found easily around here. but you won\'t be able to paint what you want till you know what you want.

if you could go through the site and find a good example of how you want your mini to look that seems fairly doable it wold help us a lot.

 

[plasmahal]

Thanks for the advice so far.

I would say my abilities are on a par with good tabletop and is the look i want to aim for. For me it\'s all about debveloping new techniques to improve the look.

Here\'s what i have found that i want to aim for:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/134051

http://www.coolminiornot.com/116740

http://www.coolminiornot.com/108357

 

[plasmahal]

Hi again.

I have put a couple of photo\'s of a mini that is work in progress.

It\'s been primed, basecoated and inked.

Next is to start highlighting, which i usually/used to do by drybrushing.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/134972

 

[mickc22]

could be a bit heavy on the inking but I\'ll wait till you\'ve done some highlighting first

you might find you\'ll get more/better feedback by starting a thread in the WIPs section (haven\'t checked, so apologies if you have) rather than posting unfinished minis in your gallery/for general voting

 

[farseerlum]

here are two articles that deal with blending/layering and some other nuggets of wisdom.

brushtralls
vallejo

your mini looks fine. i think your next step is to master some layering to highlight the large bits of armor.

you\'ll have to work out the right mixs to be able to do thin sharp highlights with a single solid line.

some matte varnish or dullcote will fix up the shine after painting so don\'t worry about it too much yet.

i think your washes may be a bit thick. although that could be the gloss making it look filled in some detail areas.