Torbert's Painting Blog(Update 4/15/08)

[Torbert]

Hey all, this is my first model ever! It's no Golden Demon winner, but I feel very proud of it . One of these days I will figure out highlighting and all, but just getting the basics down is my goal for my first squad.This took me roughly 3-4 hours to get done completely and there is a lot I can do better . I had trouble with the eye's and I noticed some grey paint on the fingers holding bolter. Oh well I'll touch it up tomorrow I think.

Hopefully the pictures come out pretty clearly my camera is kind of old.






Comments are always welcome!

[Tinweasel]

Not bad for a first effort - looks like you "stayed in the lines" fairly well, and the scheme looks good overall.

So far as critique, I think you definitely need to work with slightly thinned paints - 1:1 paint/thinner at least for the basecoats. You see all the inset bubbles on the yellow '][' symbol - slightly thinner paint would prevent stuff like that and you'd end up with a smoother finish, besides. As an aside, in green and yellow you happened to pick two colors with fairly poor coverage. I'd suggest if you're going the black primer route you work up your yellows from a yellowy-brown like Snakebite Leather/Tausept Ochre/Iyanden Darksun/Desert Yellow, and the greens from a blackish green like 1:1 Dark Angels/Chaos Black. Looks like you used Dark Angels already, though, and seemed to have gotten decent coverage.


So far as highlights go, basically you can get a nice effect on edges from simply layering up slightly lighter colors from your basecoat - it's just a matter of using a narrowed brush/sides of the brush, and working with your hands braced for steadiness. Comes with practice, though, but this figure looks clean enough for a first mini, so...


Good job! Looking forwards to more...

[Torbert]

Thanks for the advice . So when thinning the paint is it like 1 drop of paint and 1 drop of water?

[Tinweasel]

So when thinning the paint is it like 1 drop of paint and 1 drop of water?

That's how I generally do it for basecoats, yes. Not enough thinning to seriously affect coverage but just enough to smooth things out for a nicer overall finish. The smoothness of your paints and finish is very important, especially if you want to move on to layering of stuff like highlights or more advanced techniques like glazes and washes where any roughness in the finish is more likely to cause problems.

[Svartmetall]

posting from work

The way SilverTabby showed me how to thin my paints was to use the lid of the GW paint pot itself as a kind of mixing pot - shake the pot well, open it a little and drain off as much paint from the underside of the lid as you can then use the brush to add water to the paint that collects in there when the pot's open till it's the right consistency and use that.

Judging when it's the right consistency is the thing that takes time...there are a million more experienced painters than me that post here, though, so listen to them not me. Oh, and welcome to RelicNews

[Torbert]

Thank you for the welcome . Hopefully my second figure will be much better . I am not sure what I think of the yellow on the shoulders, I am thinking there might be a better color. Any suggestions?

[Helios Melios]

Hi there,
I would like to ask what paints you are using. I'm not sure they are Citadel/GW paints. I think they might be the inexpensive acrylics you can get down at Walmart. If that's the case you definately need to thin them down. You may have to thin them a bit more than what Tinweasel is suggesting. Perhaps a good way to feel it out, is shoot for the same consistency of paint as if it were a thick soup. You don't want runny soup, thick soup! You don't want sludge because that would be too thick.

I suggest that you take one of your mini's and just use it for an experiment in thinning paints. Don't worry so much about the colors or on making the "best mini ever". Just consentrate on not overloading the model with paint. The reason why is that when you glob on the paint the details are lost because they get filled up with paint. It's perfectly fine to have to repaint on a coat to get a solid color. In fact I end up having to do this with certain colors.

For your icon color, the yellow, well I don't like it much. I would suggest a brass color, but I don't know if you have it. You could do Tin Bits for a base coat and then dry brush on Brazen Brass. That would be a great way to start on that. If you're stuck with more primary colors, hmm. I don't know!

If you really mess up and are really un-happy with a miniature, you can give it a bath in Simple Green to strip the paint off. You may have to scrub it a little bit, but Simple Green is non-toxic and smells nice.

Keep it up!

HM

Oopps shame on me! I forgot to welcome you to the hobby!!!!! Welcome and all that!!!!

[Torbert]

They are all Citadel paints . I agree with you on the Icon, although as it is I only had the money for 10 pots of paints so next month (when i get my paycheck) I can see about getting some more paints.

Thinning the paints is definitely a challenge, but It is something I am working on and experimenting with. Thank you for the advice.

[Helios Melios]

Oh ok Torbet.

Well, before you go and buy any more paints, do you happen to have Boltgun Metal yet? That's a really important early color to have. If you have Chaos Black and Boltgun metal you can do a really nice effect on the symbols and the boltgun.

I recommend this:
1. Start with a base coat of Chaos black.
2. Paint over it with boltgun metal.
3. Super thin down a drop of chaos black. Go for about a 12 part water to 1 part chaos black. Essentially what you're doing here is making your own Black Ink!
4. Using your super thin black, paint this onto your boltgun metal areas. The real watery black will naturally flow into the deeper recesses of the mini and what will happen is you will get some nice shading.
5. As a final checking step, touch up any spots that may need a little bit of Boltgun metal.

This is a little recipe you can use for doing a nice silvery/metal area and having some shading to it as well. Try this out a couple of times. Don't get frustrated by the watered down black running all over the place. Play with it and allow yourself to get used to how it works. After a while this will be second nature to you. A VERY important point here is that the chaos black must be thinned down alot for this to work. Ink is very runny. What you're doing is pretty much making your own ink which is a nice trick if you're on a budget.

I also recommend that you use Dixie Paper plates for a palate. This is what I use. Just make sure the plate has that slim waxy film on it. I never paint straight from the bottle. I have a brush that I use just to take paint from the pots and put it on the palate. Then I'll do whatever mixing and painting from the palate. This is important because it keeps your paints in better shape in the pots (they don't dry out and you don't accidentely mix in other colors).

Here's my palate and a little bit of my workspace:


Anyways, I hope you try some of this out and see what you think.

Have fun!
HM

[Schweet]

another good "non-water absorbing palette" that I use... ziplock bag

[Torbert]

I do not have Boltgun metal . Since there is no place nearby where I can get paint I ordered some online and they sent me Codex Grey instead of Boltgun(hopefully they reply to my email soon). Can I use Codex gray in sort of the same way?
Thank you for the guide Helios I will give this a shot. I have been using a pie tin as a pallet .

[Torbert]

So here is my second Sister, sorry if the lighting is not to good. I can retake the pictures if it is. I also just noticed that on her cape there is a strand of my dogs hair. So ignore that please .







And the two sisters i have done standing next to each other


Again comments and suggestions always welcome