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Well that sucked. I was half done starting my thread and I accidentally closed the window. Son of a

Anyways, I thought I'd join everyone and show some of my work. I have tons to do and would like to have an interested party to show my work to when I finish to hopefully keep me from getting bored. Also, I'd like honest tips and advice 'cause I'd like to improve and we all know you ain't gonna get no criticism from ones mother or best friends. "That's lovely. Looks fantastic" isn't really all that helpful when you yourself know it's not the best. Alas, I want ya'll to be honest. Totally honest. So I thought I'd start by showing you some of my favorite models that I've acquired over the years since starting modeling in 2000. I'll update as I finish things, but warning: it can take me a while to finish things as I have an attention span as large as a gnat and sometimes real life gets in the way, a.k.a. 6 month old son. But without further delay I present my thread!

This is one of the very first models that I painted way back in 2000. I was 12. Just showing this to see how I've progressed, but we all know I can only get better from here.



These I painted before I learned of the joys of washes.











Painted most recently after I learned of washes and learned how to use them.

























Thanks for looking and happy painting!

have not come across that pony/dwarf cart before, that gw? i like your beserkers, nice deep red

That's quite a striking improvement! I know you're looking for ways to improve, but honestly, they're pretty good. All I can think of is to work on lightening your models with highlights, not just shading them with washes. Washes are good, but they do leave things looking a little muddy for my taste sometimes.

But anyway, as I said, what you have at the moment is pretty good. Nice work!

Calibanite Lion - Yup. That's GW. It came in the Battle for Skull Pass box set. It's part of the Dwarves. I wasn't painting the dwarves (my hubby was) but I liked the pony so much I said "I'm painting that!"

The Dreadnote - I totally agree with the highlights. That's one of the things I need to work on. I tried doing some highlighting with my berzerkers, but I guess it was too dark. I did a 2:1 mix of Red Gore and Blood Red.

Thanks so much for the comments btw! Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. ^_^

Nice Khorne Bezerker!
Really good dark red and gold/bronze.

I really like the herald (or Skulltaker? not sure) and the lizardman salamander (the spiny creature not sure what they are called). Have you got armies for all the represented beasties (and bezerker)?

Yes I do (except for dwarves which is where the grudge pony fits in) but none of them are complete past about 500 pts. I have alot of different armies on the go. With my attention span I can't focus on just one or two different armies. I get bored and it all started off with me painting what I liked the look of, not to build a certain sized army. The army that I focused the most time on in one time frame was Orks, but I sinced ADDed and moved onto CSM and Skaven though I haven't finished many (only 2) Skaven.


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P.S. That's Skulltaker and Razordon respectively you were liking. Thanks!


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Oop...I just noticed I forgot to paint the 'teeth' on two of the Berzerkers helmets. Whoops.

Hey, that's a nice collection of minis...

My favourite are the Berzerkers, but I see some mould lines on one of the legs (last pic), that's what bothers me...

Apart from that, the washes are nicely used, maybe you could try to highlight the armour edges a bit more...

Great stuff! you can really see the progression in your paint work, keep it up!

Yggdrasil - Aye, yes. Mould lines are a big issue for me. Sometimes I win the fight, but I never seem to win the war. I tried a highlight of pure blood red, but it didn't show up. Should I add something like white, orange or yellow to it?

Santobell - Thank ya muchly! I only aim to improve. I'd like to improve my highlighting and learn how to do gems/orbs and source lighting.

When making red lighter, use either orange or yellow as white turns it pink.
If you wanted to you could even use bleached bone or equivalent (Bonewhite, Pale Sand, Wildcat Gray, Yellowed Bone, Jack Bone, Bone)


M.K

Yeah...don't want pink. Awkward. Well, I'm gonna give blood red and blazing orange a try. Thanks for the tip!

No worries!
I had to learn that when I was painting MY Khorne bezerker


M.K

Don't be afraid of doing multiple highlights, either. Okay, if you're doing an entire squad it would probably take forever, but for single models, highlighting multiple times, each coat covering a smaller area with lighter paint, can look great.

A good highlighting technique is "Edging" or edge brush you apply paint the the length of the brush then run it along the edge of the detail you want to highlight for example where the side and top of a bolter meet this is the edge you would highlight, it's more precise than dry-brushing but can take longer and requires a steady hand or in my case lots of practice.

The bonus I guess is if it's messy it's easy to trim back to a fine highlight and you can layer it depending on how bright you want the lighting to be.
The only real trick is to not use too much paint but that's the same with all highlighting techniques..

Hope that helps you

Nice CSM. The troll Looks great too. Looking foward to more.

My favourite has to be the Zerker, nice work.

Agree with Tortured-Robot, that zerker looks really good. Gotta love those washes

Hey,

Its funny how the first models people paint always have plenty of paint (the plastic beastman model is a truly awful sculpt though )

The Berserker looks cool (though the mould lines kinda spoils it) and a final edge highlight would help... for my Berserkers I found a final thin wash of Baal Red helped blend it all together...not that yours needs that from the picture.

The Mek (such a great model) imo needs a bit more shading on the flesh.

The Troll's skin tone is wicked...very nice. I'm assuming you painted the troll after skull taker as the metal on the troll is better.

Anyway looking forward to seeing more stuff

Peter

Thanks everyone for the tips and love (especially for the Berzerker).

PDH - Yes...that Beastman is really quite awful.

Mould lines suck. I'm afraid I don't have the eye to find them. Not at all...

I painted the troll about a year or more after the skulltaker. I'm quite proud of him myself. I think he was basecoated black, drybrush shadow grey, drybrush dark flesh, drybrush elf flesh, then a wash of ogryn flesh. I'm sure he could use a highlight or two but I'm too afraid of messing him up so I'll wait 'til I get good at it.

I haven't tried the red/orange highlight on my finished Berzerkers yet, but I'll show ya'll how it turns out as soon as I do. So all yapping aside, I am here to offer a few more pictures for your viewing pleasure.

My mother bough my the CSM battlforce for Christmas 2009. Last night I begun work on the final 3 Berzerkers of the box. The rest I finished around Christmas time last month. So over a year later I've finally just about worked my way through the box. Anyways, here WIP on the last 3 Berzerkers.



Now these are a couple models that I tried doing little highlights on a couple years ago. It made the models just take a little bit longer (not much), but it was enough to aggravate my ADD so I said screw it and stopped. I'd like to get some feedback on them. Very minor highlighting though...









And this one's on here just 'cause I like how I did the souls on the bottom. Did this one at least 2-3 years ago.




P.S. I broke the sorceress' arm with the staff off after I took the pic. Crap.

Alrighty, well thanks for looking again and happy painting!

Alrighty, so I gave that 50/50 mix of Blazing Orange and Blood Red a shot as a highlight for my CSM Khorne Berzerkers. Seeing as how I've never really highlighted before I wasn't exactly sure where the highlights were supposed to go, but I gave it a go and I don't think it looks all that bad. I actually like it better than the original I had posted on here.







Also got a couple more WIPs. I can't just stay on one thing. Has just about never happened.

WIP Skaven Queek Heataker.




WIP old Lizardmen Saurus Warriors from a friend. He got out of the hobby just as I got in. 10 years later he finally decides to give me his old models to repaint and show him up. They weren't done very well, but he didn't stick around long enough to really learn any skills or tricks. Oh well. His loss.


Thanks for looking!

Great job with the highlights on your zerker.
For reference if you're not creating light from a source of some kind(plasma weapon glow, for example), it's best to assume that the light source is directly above the mini. Like 12:00 noon when the sun is directly overhead, beaming straight down. You do not have to highlight from above, but it's the easiest to keep consistant. If you want to have the highlights strongest on one side of the mini, then you would start on that side with the strongest/brightest highlights and work your way to the other side, decreasing the amount of highlights as you progress across the mini.
Keep on keepin' on. You're progressing nicely. Good luck on Queek and the Saurus warriors.

That Skaven is pretty sharp looking. Nice work.

Moltar - Thanks. I was afraid I was doing too much, but in person I'm really diggin' it.

Corey - Thanks. I love this model but I'm having a hard time keeping my head in the game with Queek. I was hoping posting him here in such an unfinished state would spur me on to work on him. And I think I just might.

Latest zerker looks sweet. The highlights look really good. Can't wait to see what you do with the saurus warriors.

You should post the other models from the battleforce so we can see the schem you have chosen for your army. Shame you halted the highlighting on the stegadon it is on the verge of looking very impressive indeed.

Everything is decent, but the berserker red is just superb!

bunnygurl wrote:Calibanite Lion - Yup. That's GW. It came in the Battle for Skull Pass box set. It's part of the Dwarves. I wasn't painting the dwarves (my hubby was) but I liked the pony so much I said "I'm painting that!"

The Dreadnote - I totally agree with the highlights. That's one of the things I need to work on. I tried doing some highlighting with my berzerkers, but I guess it was too dark. I did a 2:1 mix of Red Gore and Blood Red.

Thanks so much for the comments btw! Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. ^_^

Highlighting light on the first coat is great, just follow it up afterwards in the same spot with even smaller amounts and lighter / darker colors. I feel one mistake people make ofton is making highlight stand out like a sore thumb, try to keep it natural looking.

Perkustin wrote:You should post the other models from the battleforce so we can see the schem you have chosen for your army. Shame you halted the highlighting on the stegadon it is on the verge of looking very impressive indeed.

I'd like to but it's actually a little embarassing as the force is in 3 states of skill. The CSM marines aren't washed or highlighted. 4 of the possessed are not washed or highlighted, one is washed but not highlighted and one side of the rhino didn't come together well, it's washed but not highlighted. It's just a standard theme though. Nothing really special. But I'm gonna suck it up and post pics just for you. My light's gone (I shoot my pics in natural sunlight) so I'll take pics tomorrow and post.
Thanks about the stegadon. My attention span completely disappeared during it. I felt overwhelmed with all the scales and it wasn't gluing together very well so I was getting frustrated.

I hope I can get the same sort of red on my dread that you've got on your Berzerkers. Great work!