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Everyone has tried to help you because you have to srtip them, there are no two ways about it. If the paint is too thick then stripping is the only option, there is nothing else you can do apart from strip them if you want them to look better.

The choice is simple

Strip them and get a well painted model

Don't strip them and see no improvement at all

There's some improvement on these, and the detail is cleaner, the main issue isn't that you need to strip again, but...

The paint still looks thick. The citadel paints are thinner and providing coverage, but your first stripping didn't remove the paint, meaning you're essentially just painting over what you had before. The issue with stripping is that you've got to do it, there's no halfway with it, you strip until clean or just buy new ones. You may have to just settle for the thick look on these if the first paint you used isn't coming off, and in the future start thinner. Stripping is similar to painting, it takes time to get good at it.

The second thing I'll say is: take your time. I think part of it is finding a good way to stabilize your hands and not rushing, to stay within the lines, if you go outside, come back with the other color to touch up where you went over. This isn't something unique to you, we all do it. I go over on to different colors when I paint, but then I go back and cover it up with the correct color.

Lastly, the one I think needs the most improvement here is the vehicle, which is partly two things:

1) Large open areas are hard to apply smooth paint to that don't include a million brush strokes. You need a lot of thin coats built up to do it.

2) White is a PITA to get good coverage/not streaky with, but you need to, because it's not a forgiving color. It usually takes a good # of thin coats.

Doing a white vehicle is just asking for trouble.

You're improving on painting, take heart in that, but you also have to take criticism better. A lot of folks have given helpful advice and aren't attacking, so don't be quick to get defensive, people aren't so bad!

Most (if not all) of us started out where you are, I've been doing this for nearly 15 years now, and am at the point where I'm starting to compete for best painted army/etc. But let me tell you, it most assuredly hasn't been that way the entire time. Each army has been better then the last, and if you saw my first iyanden army...ooph. Yellow's as big of a PITA as white, and I baubled between streaky bad coverage and thick paint that did cover on any given model.

Listen to DarkStarSabre...painting is all about patience, trial and error, and learning from your mistakes. Even painting right takes a lot of time and effort. As for stripping taking too long, I have had a squad of guardsmen I bought used stripping in LATA's for going on 3 or 4 weeks now.

Ok finally home so I can focus on painting more plus I have my full bits box so I can start cooking up my scratchbuilt landspeeders shooting for something like hutts on hoversleds. Quick question are landsppeders hull shape the bottom about same size as a gift card and if anyone has one of each could you post a pic for a size and shape comparison from a top down view. I've only seen a land speeder once or twice and that was almost a year ago. I'll try looking up on the gw site but if i could get a pic with a direct size comparison itll make it so much easier to do.

Project cancelled went to lgs for first time in 7 months and everyone said they wouldnt play vs my army as it was too heavily converted. thats what I get for trying out something fun... they also said half of the weps where not wysiwig enough for tournys so literly no point for me continuing except to waste paint practicing.

What conversions were objectionable? I don't recall anything that stood out.

Do Not Cancel This Project!!!!

If you have people who wont play you because of the wysiwug i suggest telling them to get lost.. nothing in what ive seen or read in the last 5 pages has shown me that you should stop creating.
The what you see i what you get rule has been around for years and is in fact ignored in proxy games where models are used to fill in for other models i.g using a imperial guard army as a tyrind army to test out some tactics

So ingore the snops who tell you they wont play against you because you have a few unique bits and poses... hell would they say the same against a player who had a army made from true scale marines.... no i dont think so .

Anyway i hope to see a base of a scratch built land speeder.. soon!!!!


The gift card idea is good as is its ready avaliable source of cheap card but the size honestly depends.. i got a A2 size christmas card this year. so im gunna have to guess at what size you mean by gift card size.

So you know the orginal oop metal mk 1 land speeder was 2 guys in seats strapped to rockets.. honestly search a picture of it . to start id convert two guys to sit down and have some fun with some card board..



As for painting in not going to say strip them, dont even buy new paints. everyone here should remember to some degree or another what it was like to start this hobby... and everyone of they should have at least one model from when they started.. and i know i treasure mine it shows me where ive come from . all ill say is everyone here is only giving you thier own advice to try and improve on your work, but at the end of the day its your work so do what you want.


I have a done a blog on dakka on how to do warhammer on the cheap it gives a few bits of my own knowledge.... look it up.


And well done for having the confidence to start a blog on a a unique army with scratch bult units.... well done indeed

speak soon

Ciac89






Automatically Appended Next Post:
if you want a tip from a painting view to add to up the level of painting.. get a blue or black and really heavi;y water it down to a glaze and apply it all over the model this will pick up any detail left in the recesses. and add depth to the less detailed areas. if you then use a thin brush to extreme highlight the edges of armour or the eyes again you'll get two shades of the same colour over one area and end up with a better looking model

I'd love to see you continue w/ this project. As you will easily realize over time the internet is full of folks w/ what I'd like to call ePeens. (Think about it.) Don't cancel this project. I just read this whole thread and I'd like to offer some advice if I may.

1.) Regarding your camera: If you take pictures from far away we will see far better quality even if the figures are then small. The camera/camcorder you are using is trying to focus on a lot of areas at once due to it lacking features. (The foreground - the mini, and the background - what's behind it.) Try using a cellphone camera as 99% of them now have a large megapixel count and more than often have a decent macro feature. Now you have to find a way to transfer them to your computer. (I suggest hooking it up to your computer just like you were charging it or attaching your camera.)

2.) I find that a lot of times a new painter, while learning to paint, can't equate in the least, to 'Heavy Metal status. Hell, none of us really can if you think about it. I can't believe people did not suggest this, but have you ever looked into the "Dipping" method? Take a look at this:

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27857

or

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/230249.page

I will note that it can be expensive, BUT that one can will last you forever. The summary is you paint solid colors and then the "dip" does the rest for you. This is the only true way to keep the paint job on those models and NOT strip them down. My only suggestion is that white doesn't exactly come out very well. Not only this, but your models are also sealed, so there is no need to seal them.

I wish you the best of luck my man and keep up the great work.

-J.

Yeah, you wont improve if you give up. You were taking on the advice and starting to get alot better.

..."too heavily converted"? What kinda cock-knockers hang out at that LGS?

no responses in over a week and everyone being negative, when I say I want to quit and i get 6 or 7 in a day most positive. An update I'm putting it on hold at least for the week as I'm behind on homework I took pics of entire army for the forums for my lgs so ill through a few here. as for the converstions the guy running tour ( who also owns the store i play at) said 6 of my missle luanchers looked more like guns then missle luanchers so i can't use them and all of my speeders where slightly to small like if I glued a popsicle stick to the side it would be good... I found another store that I will try soon as its easier to get to as theres no tolls to get there plus its a better day for me. I'll try posting some of the pics in a few.

Hey! i swear theres a message been deleted from here! How does that happen???

ok I'll post these up in groups of 5 or so as in takes forever to do all 18 or so at once.

First 5 are the ones that include anything painted:

SIdeous priest robes all gs arm from heroscape

scouts meltagun swap rest normal

flamer squad turret canibalized from land raider

long fangs all basic mls

wolf guard varrying degrees of converstion here bolters and the future powerfist are stock the stormbolter is from a termy i believe. The combi meltas where left over from my chaos army with some dark angel bits. the painted termys is the aobr sergent with a powersword from da vet sprue and a havoc luancher the other is literly 14 or so peices raided from my bitz box.

the next 5 are my razors scouts and other priest most need to be restripped just dont have any simple green at the moment.

First up darth vader hes been here before dueal weilding power weapons gsed helm fits well with the assulty feal as hes my front line guy.

second scout squad a few arm swaps and the meltagun swap again

this is my robed plasma squad goes with the robed wolf guard above a bit of gs work on some for the hoods i kind of like the turret out of the hatch like that but it has a hatch somewhere just have to find it.

then the 2 melta squad razors a bit blurry but one is from a land raider the other is from a hammer head burst cannon flipped upside down with a plasma gun and las cannon glued to it bit small but kind of cool.

5th pic is the rhino from before noting special at all.

Now we get into the guys my lgs wont let me use my 3 tie all works in progress going to bulk up the wings and add some details to the cockpits if i dont give up on them. and my 2 long fang squads with converted mls.

First 3 are the ties they are at the moment two gift cards glued to the sides of wooden spheres with a rhino hatch glued to the front and a tau drone glued to bottom with the mm and heavy flamer. if i continue with this idea i will bulk out the wings with plasticard green stuff or popsicle sticks and add a few bits to the cockpit will have to look at my tank accesory spruces.

4th pic is a little blurry but it includes the 3 converted mls i was allowed to use the bottom one i didnt show them but that was my last one as i was running out of bits. my favorite one is the one armed blaster like one.

5th pic are the 5 I cant use i understand the bottom 3 they where a quick job that i was going to bulk up with some gs and drill out if i could find a drill
the top two i might try and fix with gs and cutting off the ammo clip.

Any suggestions on making the 6 bad mls work or how to fix up the ties a bit would be helpful.

The final 3 pics are my temporary bjorn that All i will do is make a magnetize plasma cannon to make it work for now. and two blurry pics of my lord on bike with dual fists just as cool factor for fun games might try and make the fists look more claw like.

Alright, we got some great stuff to work w/ here. Compared to the first, very nice pics. Keep up the good work. My tips to keep the progression:

1.) When taking pictures use a background that contrasts your models. Your models are white, for the most part. Help them come alive by using a contrast. (Example: Instead of on the pie plate, take the picture just using that wood surface. It'd contrast nicely.

2.) I wanna see more pictures of "Bjorn"! It looks really nice. I could easily see this being washed nicely and being a tabletop quality.

3.) Regarding the WYSIWYG on the "Land Speeders". He's right. Take that as a constructive criticism. If you opened up a lemonade stand trying to sell your product, do you think if your next door neighbor came over, sat down, and started drinking water w/ a piece of lemon in it that it would help your customers? He's a business and the point of such is to make money. The people that come in, possibly stand around, and watch your games are potential newcomers to the game. If they know they can simply use the rules and make their own figures, how does that help him. Regardless, if you're not comfortable there find another LGS!

Hope this helps.

-J.

The bjorn i didnt paint it came painted i bought 800 + dollers worth of mariene stuff from a friend for 150 dollers and yeh i see what your saying it just fit the idea so well and i couldnt think of any other way to pull off the tie idea.

Very cool :-)

Post removed due to excessive and completely unnecessary rudeness. - Lorek

Ok then no idea who the above poster was but it was someone in my area as i posted the worse in hard boys part on another forum...

The pictures are a little blurry but it looks pretty good. Keep up the good work!

40k Ninja wrote:The pictures are a little blurry but it looks pretty good. Keep up the good work!

No don't say "good work" when it needs improvment.

You need to strip the models. Some of the conversions ilegal, that guy with a storm bolter in your devastator squad and the 2 missiled on the terminators are ilegal.

Um, wolf guard with storm bolter and wolf guard termys with cyclone missle luanchers.

Yeah but the guy with two swords is ilegal

its my way to show saga of the beast slayer plus he was stolen from me and when i got him back his pistol was gone and I don't have a replacement that will work yet.

yo moonshine, where did your earlier post disappear to?

Kepora wrote:..."too heavily converted"? What kinda cock-knockers hang out at that LGS?

Being one of those "cock-knockers" from his LGS, I can say that yeah we refused to play with his tie fighters as they are nothing more than a wooden ball and gift cards. One our local forum, he was offered alternative suggestions as to how to model his tie fighter/speeder things. As far as I know thats the only complaint the store had an issue with.

Second, the ONLY reason he has encountered anything that can be confused with anger/hostility/whatever is because everytime he was offered help, suggestions, constructive critizism, he has returned it with a pissed off, defensive attitude. I and others at our store and club have offered him help and he gets pissed. You can even see his general attitude on here. I've offered my help, and with the right attitude from him, Ill continue offering it.


Sincerely,

"Cock-Knockers"

One i know regret linking this to the other forum but unless I cant find anything that would fit my theme better as even the ones wheatly linked on the other forum have the wings verticl when id need them horizantal to fit land speeder profile better. Owner said the ties where to small and needed flight stands I only brought him the basic design i had planned on doing some gs work and adding more bits but as my familys has a custody hearing for my 2 younger brothers next week tand with my collage time for modeling is hard to come by. He also said something about some of my mls but I bought a casting kit to cast up my favorite convereted one when I figure out how. I will be at hardboys in august even if i have to play down points or use my chaos army I brought to nova .

Hovocx, don't worry, I'm sure most of us here believe your side of the story. Jarik's shown himself to be a pretty stubborn, defensive person.

Jarik, there is really no nice way to put it, but you need to grow up a bit. You are an adult, currently enrolled in college, but you do not act like it. You need to learn to slow down, and realize that quality work is worth the time you put into. Even your posts feel like they're rushed, as they are full of run-on sentences, misspellings and grammatical errors. Quality work has a value in of itself.

You also need to accept that other people have opinions that run counter to yours. You should not get mad or frustrated if they criticize you, especially if their intentions are to help and teach you. I honestly think that finding a job should be your top priority after school. Beyond the monetary benefits, you will hopefully learn to work with people - a trait worth far more than money. I think living at home and attending an online college has stifled your social skills.

This is not to flame you or make fun of you. There is no malice here.