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Hi,

I 've decided to start a painting and modeling blog. I have been working on my space wolf army for the last year and after much indecision have decided to start painting them all over again.

I'm hoping that doing a blog might help me keep track and stop vering off the path all the time. I also could do with a bit help in the start up for my paint scheme. I just can't get it right.

Basicaly my aim for my army is to have it painted to the highest standard I can but still in realistic time scales. As in I don't mind spending allot of time on one mini but I want to find a balance as I would like to have my army finished within the next couple of years, (by finished I mean 2000 points completed).

So yeah thats the aim.

I will show you the most recent I have painted as this should give an idea of what Im trying to achieve. However the shade is not quite right and I also have difficulty acheiving consistant results. As I am blending with very dilute paints. I find to mid tone layer goes on in a way that looks ok from a distance but up close is very powdery and inconsistant. so I think I may be trying to put something too light onto somthing too dark. But yeah I will explain this problem in more detail later.




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There is a bit of a story behind my whole quandry with the colour but i'm running out of time going into it as at work. But basicaly I don't like the officail SW colour. it looks too light. I do like the bleu grey thing over just grey though. I am just trying to find something darker.

I have loads of photos of past works that i will but up over the weekend and I intend to have a run a few more test figures to get the paint sceme completly sussed. Then once this sorted (hopefully with your good peeps help) I will stick to it and get this done.

Any way hope this waffle makes a bit of sence. I just wanted to put pen to paper as were but over the course of the weeken I will get this bog thingy making more sence and with more photos.

Anyway cheers for reading thus far

back soon.

Heres a picture of my rune preist, he is done for most part I just need to think about basing for him. I also plan to do any furture rune priests in this same sceme as I quite like it and I want someting different for some unit types.

The rune priest looks really nice. Although the skin tone makes it seem very albino. Which i honestly found to be a n interesting thought and now i think i am going to have to paint up one of my rune priests as an albino. Great job and can't wait to see more.

cheers, yeah I was going for a pale skin tone. Thinking of people who come from a world in constant winter. Don't usually have allot of sunlight the way I imagine it. Constant blizzard etc. The blue tint is a stylistic thing.

I want to improve on this skin tone though. At the minute it is done by layering. I would like try blending it to make the blue tint more subtle. But not sure how to go about that yet.

Hi,

Ok so as I mentioned in the first post of this blog I'm struggling to get the colour on my power armor right. So I could really do with some help. I want to get look of my army as perfect as I can.

So i'll give a run down on what I have so far and explain my thought process and problems I am having and from there hopefully some people will have some ideas on how to move forward.

I will say at this time. I open to any and all criticism on my painting and my approach to things I might miss understanding some fundamental principles. Through the painting of this army and writing this blog I want to try to learn and improve as much as I can.


Ok So here is a photo of my first paint scheme:


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when I first got back into this this hobby the only way I knew how to paint was by painting your base colour, then adding a wash for shading and then dry brushing a lighter colour for the highlights.

So the power armor on this is done with a codex grey base, an asmuren blue wash and dry brush of space wolf grey.

Now as far as the colour goes I really like it. In fact it is the colour I want for my army. Or at least the right feel for blue/grey.

I do have a couple of fundamental problems with this approach though. The first is that it really hard to get a consistent look to all the models. The blue wash is hard to keep a consistant shade accross all the models and the dry brush as similar problems. It also just ends up making the models look dusty.

My second problem is that it is a basic approach and after painting 20 models in this way I found myself getting board. After doing much reading and looking at other models I came to learn that there better more difficult techniques to use. So I decided that if I am to spend all this time painting it would be better to use these more advance techniques. In the hope that A my army will be the best it can be and B that in learning these techniques I will be a better painter in the long run. I felt I would not learn anything just washing and dry brushing.

OK,

So after making this decision I did some research, brought the citadel painting guide and hunted down as many painting tutorials as I could to try and and a better technique.

After some thinking I came up with this approach.

Do a base colour in something dark - in my case I used necron abyss
Then add a black wash to further shade to model - Badab Black
Then paint all surfaces of the armor plate in your mid tone, being care full not to paint in any of the cracks etc - I used Shadow Grey
Then add a Highlight to the edges of the armor plate - Space Wolf Grey

And so my Long fangs were born:



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So after trying this out although quite happy with the result I had a couple of problems. The colour was moving away from the nice dark blue grey I liked and instead looking more like the official GW SW scheme. I tried to combat this with a glaze of asmuren blue which did help a bit. but it still do not look quite right.

I also though the models looked a bit too tidy. I wanted more contrasts between light and dark and on the whole I thought the models were still too light.

So I decided to go back to drawing board again.

I first tried mixing paint to see if I could get the shade I was looking for but never got any where close.

I then did more research and found out about the Blending Technique. Now this may be where I am completely wrong but in reading up on it I thought that it might be the answer to not only my shade of colour problem but also the final finish of my models.

Now as for the final finish I am think it will be the best technique to use. After watching all the miniature mentor videos and seeing what you can achieve with technique I decided that this is the technique I want to learn and practice.

The second thought I had was that it could also help with the colour problem. my reasoning being that it the paint is translucent and applied to a dark surface I can use this to get the balance I like.

So as I like the colour of shadow grey just not how light it is I decided that it I use shadow grey as a base colour, with a heavy badab black wash. I can then use the watered down shadow grey and the blending technique to build up the mid tone but in a controlled way. By never allowing it to be fully opaque except in the lightest areas I will get the end result I'm after, I.E. shadow grey but a bit darker.

And so the grey hunter in first post is what I came up with.

And here is another I started using the same recipe:

Hope this isn't too boring (or ramblings of mad man).

Any way with this recipe I feel I am getting close to what I'm after, but i am still having problems.

From a distance the model looks quite good (or at least I like to think so), but when you look at it close up the finish is a bit bad. The paint is so dilute in some places that when it dries it looks more like a dusting of powder then a layer of translucent paint. In the more highlighted areas its ok as there is good coverage but when you look at the shadows it look a bit bad. powdery and inconsistent.

At this stage it may be that I just need practice but I don't know. (Hopefully someone can let me know). But anyway I have been trying to find a way to get a better finish. So I have thad a go with out adding as much water to the paint. but in doing this the it I loose the overall shade of the model gets too light and begins to look like shadow grey again.

So I have a problem, the only way I have managed to get the models overall brighnes right is by using the dilute paint and thus not a very good finish up close.

After some thought I came to the conclusion that I need a more intermediate shadow between the badab black and the shadow grey so I decided to try another approach:

I started in the same way, but introduced a bit of fenris grey to try and tidy up the blending.

It is working to certain extent but again there is still a powdery fiinsh in places and it takes a long time mixing between fenris grey and shadow grey to get smooth blending.

So not very practical for the painting of a whole army.

(Nearly up to date now)

I am trying a couple more approaches to see if I can get better results:

My next experiment is started in the same way, shadow grey base, heavy badab black wash but then I go for fenris grey from the get go.

I use a 50/50 mix or paint plus water then blend, moving the brush out of the shadow. It goes on a little powdery still but not as bad as shadow grey. In a few passes I can then start to use shadow grey avoiding the shadowy areas and then a final highlight of space wolves grey.

and I get something like this:


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now its only really the head and the legs I have done here. but I think it looks like it can be better quality then the method. It was easier to do as well.

I am going to try another experiment this weekend were I start with a fenris grey base. then badab black wash (but not as heavy) then build up from fenris grey to shadow grey then space wolf grey.

to see if the overall finish is better. I then might try starting with a necron abyss base and to see if that achieves a better result.

But yeah at this point I think I am getting close but there are still some niggling problems. Using babab black as the shadow removes a curtain amount of control.

after watching all the miniture mentor videos I have come to learn that the most used technique is to use your midtone as the base coat, then use progressively darker colours for your shadows and lighter ones for your highlights. This seems to give good control over contrast. My method currently starts with a dark colour and using translucent layers builds up to the light.

So I can't help but think my techniques floored. in that I am relying on translucent paint to much and in doing this I am never going to get the results Im after. Is this the case?

I also have lettle to no intermediary colour to use between the darkest shadow (black) and the midtones).


I have given this some thought and realized that if I were not relying on the translucent paint so much I would need to find different shades of paint to achieve my colour scheme and I have no idea what to use if thats the case.

So at this point I could do with some help. Am going about this all wrong? Are there some better colours I could try using? Is it just a matter of practise? I.E. of I keep doing ehat i'm doing it will get better in time?

So yeah any thoughts wisdom at this point will be a big help.

I plan to finish off the experiments anyway and will post them all for comparison. but if anyone knows of a better approach I can take into account then please let me know and I will try that as well.

Or any comments on what I have done so far?

Once I have my approach and colour sussed I can then stick to it hopefully move forward. but right now i'm a bit stuck.

Anyway cheers for reading and for any help.

Hopfully after this quandry I can start to put paint a really sweet lucking army. But first I need a the paint scheme then a plan of attack.


So yeah thats me up to date for the time being. Any help will be much appreciated.

Very quick update.

Made some progress this weekend. Sussed out how how to get the colour about right. Starting with a fenris grey base. Then a badab wash and then painting all plates fenris grey then blending with mixes of fenris and shadow grey to a final shadow grey + sw grey highlight.

So happy now I have a way to continue. No photos since i'm afraid though. Only got one helmit done and that took an afernoon. Will hopfuly have him looking a little more done tonight.

Trying out detol as a stripping agent at the mo. Hope it works.

in a bit.

So I have got a couple more grey hunters finished.

Heres the first one:

Looking good, I'm liking the colour scheme, mine are quite dark as well although you have got the contrast with the skin so it's not over powering. Keep up the good work

heres the 2nd one, i'm quite proud of this one, really beginning to feel that i'm getting the hang of blending. Still a way to go but i at least understand it.

and heres a group shot and the one after is the next two targets


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Young_Logan wrote:Looking good, I'm liking the colour scheme, mine are quite dark as well although you have got the contrast with the skin so it's not over powering. Keep up the good work

cheers man! glad you like the scheme. yeah i thought normal skin would be too distracting so wanted something to match a bit more. I will try to do so.


cheers

Hi,

Been a while since updating this. Not had allot of painting time so its taken a while to make much progress, but any way, I have just finished the standard bearer for my grey hunter squad.

Here's some pics, hope you like:







So yeah taken a while but progress.

(Any comments or criticism will be appreciated.)

In addition to the grey hunter above I have also base coated 4 rhinos with fenris grey. I've not taken any photos though. I invested in a revell spray gun and I have to say that I am well impressed. Got the rhinos base coated in about an hour, compared to the eight hours it took me to do one by hand I'm well happy.

Any how one more grey hunter to do from this squad then I will be painting one up. I will be doing some research into weathering first though as I want to make my vehicles look as real as I can.

Any how cheers for looking, i will be back soon with another update hopefully. Im about 75% through the last grey hunter as I have been doing bits at the same time as the above one.

Inabit

Well, I have decided to try and start updating this blog weekly rather then as models are done. I don't know why but I feel its easier to follow things as they happen.

I am going to try and do a weekly update on a Sunday. A snap shot of what's been happening on my painting table, as it were.

For this week, not that much has really. I have been working and the last grey hunter for this squad of 5. My main goal for the week was to get it finished but that didn't happen. I was focusing on blending the highlights into the amour and for some reason have been really struggling. I must have gone over the same leg about five times and I just couldn't get the blends smooth enough.

Its not helping with the fact that my main colour of use, Fenris Grey, has got to be one of the most awkward colours to use. It separate as soon as you add water to it and if I mix shadow grey in to lighten it it starts turning purple, so you have to keep mixing it. An absolute nightmare. If I didn't love the colour so much I would have changed by now.

So yeah i've found it hard to get into painting most the week because of this. Painting time is supposed to be chill out time not get angry time. lol.

This weekend I decided I need a change of approach. I decided to leave the armor until I am in the right frame of mind for it and start working on details in stead. I feel you have to keep making progress and to that you need to focus on something that your in the frame of mind to do.

So thats where I am. I have started to block out the wolf pelts in codex grey. All the brass bits to be have been picked out in scorched brown. I like to start with a brown base for my bronze bits. Seems to work better imo And I have had a go at the eyes. I'm trying to get the hand of the black gem technique. And I have also tidied up allot of the black bits like the vents and arm and leg joints etc.



So yeah, next job will be to layer the metallics. Finish the pelts and other details, then man up an finish blending the armor, I'm contemplating using a wet pallete again for the blending. At least my paint won't keep drying all the time.

Any how cheers for reading hopefully next sunday this squad will be done , the its onto learning how to paint tanks and researching into weathering techniques etc.

Inabit.

Kool


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Kool

cheers.

A quick Update:

I have got some of the detailing finished. Mainly the blue lining on the wolf pelt and also finished the wolf pelt off.

Have started the first layer of the metalics - tin bits over the scorched brown base.

Have all got back into blending highlights on the armor. Still a fair bit of that left to do.



On top of that I have started work on some wolf guard pack leaders. Photo's didn't come out well so nothing to upload.

Plans for next week finish of the grey hunter. Then decide between more work on the wolf guard or starting the a rhino.