Thanks for the tips. I feel like my brush control could improve greatly, but I am actually starting to feel like I want a smaller brush than I have so I ordered a Series 7 size 0.

Wet blending seems like the most difficult of everything so far and I am intimidated to start it out. Maybe I can find a mini that could be painted mostly one color to practice on...

The main thing to take away from the Olliekickflip tutorial is how thin the paint and layers should be, and how when shading you want to move your brush TOWARD the place where the colors should be darkest, but when highlighting you move your brush TOWARD the place where the colors should be lightest.

And ... it's just paint. If you make a mistake, then paint over it!

Ill jump in here with a few thoughts.

You have the basics down. Your elf is extremely crisp. I think it could use some wash and highlights though. Same with your minotaur. I remember that model. he's got a lot of great textures that a wash and light drybrush would really accent. Personally for the Minotaur I'd recommend mixing a drop of black ink and a drop of brown ink with some water to make a nice earthy wash. I use this stuff all the time for flesh tones and dirty armor. Its called armor wash but has soo many more applications. For the elf, I'd try a blue glaze. This is a VERY thin wash that just tints the base color. Put a little blue glaze on the armor and a wash on the cloth and BAMM! instant gratification.

Don't know if any of this is helpful. There have been many very good techniques offered up on this thread to help you out, but I find simple techniques go a long way and are far more easier to follow.

Sunraven, do you have anything that illustrates that? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it.

Alright, as promised, pics from the Reaper painting booth. Sorry, my camera on my phone is pretty awful.

My wife's plague rats. She did several layers of color letting things rest organically. Not sure what technique you would call that!


My tunnel worm. Base coat, drybrush all over. Brown wash on belly. Flesh wash then brown wash in mouth. Black wash on rocky base.


My cave troll. Base coat, drybrush, brown wash all over, second drybrush to bring some detail back out as they brown wash was overly thick.

Thanks for the tips. I will try and see what I can do about attempting them.

Kane, thanks for sharing! Also, I just ordered the Worm (and the Ogre Chieftain) for practicing with Bones minis. Hopefully they will arrive soon.

http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.p ... ekickflip/

Kane, this is actually shown in some of the photos in the tutorial I linked. Basically the thing to realize is that brush pressure affects how much paint is laid down on the mini, especially when you're working with well-thinned paints. When you put a stroke of paint down, your pressure is heaviest at the beginning of the stroke, so you need to move your brush TOWARD the area that you want the most paint. When shading, you want the paint to be darkest in the crevices, so start your stroke away from the crevice and move toward it.

When highlighting, you want the opposite, so start your stroke near the crevice and move toward the lightest area.

Well thinned paint (1 part paint to 5 parts water):


Thinned paint on the top, straight out of the bottle on the bottom:


The photos for blend direction and paint control are in the tutorial.

Are the pink/blue colors just for reference during the tutorial or do they serve a purpose that I should be doing something similar while painting?

I think he was just using them as examples.

Chaos symbol: Reminder to occasionally sacrifice an unpainted mini or two to Cthulhu.

I understand that, but during the tutorial he was using the green paint and not the other two. I was/am confused.

I'm more than willing to explain, but I'm not sure what's confusing. Here's what he says in the paragraph directly above the photo:



I'm not trying to be flippant, but I'm sincerely not sure what's confusing you. Help me help you!

You should order some DCM Naturals to practice on.

I understand that it was to show consistancy. I was confused at whether is was just for demo or not. As in, should I be doing a similar thing.

As for naturals, that is not a bad idea. Give me until next paycheck. I still want those tentacles too.

http://www.paintrix-miniatures.com/arti ... t=8&page=1

Brush tips for beginners. I ordered a Windsor Newton #1.

Yes, you should thin your paints.

I have put more time into this dwarf than any of the previous half dozen or so that I have worked on. He isn't done, but I thought that I would share.

Ah, warhammer quest - I think you're doing a fabulous job on the paints.

I thought I'd quickly jump in and post up a quick how-to on the technique that I use for painting miniatures currently (lots of steps, but here's hoping you get some use out of it):

edit: Just remembered, and I'm putting this at the beginning because it really is this important: always, always, always do something to base your miniatures. Even something as simple as painting the base a flat green/gray/brown/whatever will really make the miniature itself stand out, and it's well worth the effort to apply some extra effort on the base itself.

Step 1: Basic prep - Clean off any mold lines etc before priming the miniature.

Step 2: Prime the miniature completely Black. This will give the recesses and darkest parts of the miniature a darker look than the rest.

Step 3: From the sides (or straight on if brightest part will be the top), apply a layer of Grey primer, giving a mid-color shadow around the brightest part of the lighting.

Step 4: From a single direction (I prefer top front, but others prefer straight down), apply a light coat of White primer.

Step 5: Apply a black Wash over all of the miniatures to help blend between the white and the black and to give the crevices some darkness to them.

Step 6: Apply the base color to one section of the miniature

Step 7: Using a medium drybrushing technique, go over that area with a second coat

Step 8: Using a light drybrushing technique, go over that area again with a third coat

Step 9: Repeat steps 6-8 for all decently sized and textured areas of the miniature (usually 5-6 areas, including: Skin, Shirt, Pants, base, and Cloak, but varies from mini to mini)

Step 10: Fill in metalic areas with an appropriate metallic paint (I prefer Sterling Silver, Titanium Gold, and Brass for most miniatures, but go with what feels right to you)

Step 11: Fill in the remaining areas with the appropriate colors/details

Step 12: Using a mixture of Ink, extender Gel, and Flow Improver (app 1/3 Flow Improver, 2/3 Gel, and 4 drops of black ink), outline the edges of the miniature to give the figure additional definition

Step 13-16: Seal the miniature with 1 coat of Testor's Glosscote, 1 coat of Krylon Crystal Clear gloss sealer, 1 coat of Testor's Dullcote, and 1 coat of Prismacolor Matte Fixative (the theory is alternating Acrylic (Paint, Krylon, and Prismacolor) and Laquer (Testor's) gives the sealer a much greater strength, and the 2x Gloss coats give the seal even greater strength, while the 2x matte seals cut the glare - best to do in low humidity)

Then, you're done. I was hoping to have a good set of pictures of this process, but they unfortunately, did not turn out near as well as I would have liked, so here are some of the results that I have gotten using this technique:











Hope this helps you out with your adventures in painting!
Magius out.

Lighting your shots is incredibly important.

Try natural light in a room with windows on multiple sides.

Check out this thread;
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5782

(And yes... my comments still stand.)

Yeah, I am planning on making a light box at some point, but I have been using all my spare time to either paint or do WWG stuff (being on the beta crew and heading up the kitbashes eats up the bulk of that). I figure some random WIP shots at my work station are better than no shots.

I have one that I put together with $40 and a half hour's work (its the one you can see in the pictures I've taken) - a small canvas clothes hamper, a couple of mini mag lights, and a utility knife are all you need to build it, cut out an opening in the front of the clothes hamper, stick a mini mag light in each of the corners, and you're good to go (you can see the results in the pictures I posted earlier).
Of course, you could get better results with a more expensive light box, but for quick, cheap, and easy, this one really works well.
Magius out.

https://plus.google.com/photos/101708392432723999426/albums/5786191045695294401?authkey=CMi8o9ewo_D3kQE

If my forum-fu is good this is a side by side comparison of Reaper's metal and "Bones" kobolds. The bones are on the round bases and are painted using the dip method. It is my first attempt at dipping, but it is pretty much the same as a brown ink wash, only shinier.

Talae your dwarf looks awesome!

Thanks! I tried hard on this one.

My plans for what to do next include:
paint the axe handle
highlight the axe/helm
highlight the beard
figure something out about the leather color
pick a color for the beads and maybe gloves (blue?)

Seconding the applause for your work on the dwarf, Talae. That's a nice looking paint job already and you've only just started painting - wow!

Thanks! He got some play time this weekend, although someone else played him. It was good to see him on the table, though.

many thanks to all for some tips on the painting. It makes an interesting article.
Nice pictures for all.

i can share my experience for tabletop quality miniatures.
Also i have NO freehand skill at all, for me it's all about using brain, physics (capillarity ftw) and similar tricks!

1) take a miniature and prime it in black
2) time to use your base colors, use a slightly brighter tone than you actually want
3) time to wash! use brown on skin and fur and black on everything else
4) pick again your base colors and using a drybrush tecnique higlight the mini

tadaaaa! nice mini done!


from there it's a neverending road of learning!^^


p.s. i agree on using a wet palette! one of the problems as a newbie is to understand how the paint works depending on how much it is diluited/dry. If you don't use a wet palette the color's density changes too fast and a stroke of paint is COMPLETLY different fram the one u did 2 min earlier!

one lesson i've learned yesterday...
pay attention to what kind of light are you using in your room when painting at night....

i was painting a werewolf and i wanted him to have the skin of a dark brown and the fur pure black

ok...
first i was using a classic fluorescent bulb on my ceiling and since i have a parquet the tone of the light was kinda yellowish that means it made even a pure black looking like a dark brown tone.
then i used a desk lamp wich in turn tends slightly on the blue spectrum... and it was very bright,
this way i was perciving correctly the brown as brown and the black as black but all it was really bright!

this morning i woke up and took a look at the mini... it seemed like painted all in black at a distance and only on a closer look i could tell wich part was brown and wich black, it gets better when the sun really shines....

ok i won't repaint it since i wanted a black werewolf in the end but i'm a bit disappointed for the skin tone since i've worked a lot with many many layers to get the brown i wanted under the desk lamp...


since i'm not a pro i'm asking to the more experienced painters here.... do you think i can solve my problem applying a warm yellow glaze to get a lighter brown?



p.s. for talae: i've noticed an error on your dwarf (wich is good averall) u have higlighted the red mantle using a bit of white.... wrong.
red + white = pink not a brighter red
u have to mix a bright yellow to get a bighter red (or at least a bright orange)

u can usually use black and white to darken and lightena color with a few exceptions
for the reds u have to use dark green / yellow
for the greens u have to use dark red / white