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These are a few of my first ever Space marines and my Skaven models That I put together and painted. Suggestions and comments will be much appreciated.

skavens are looking awesome great job on the scouts too

Thanks they took a long while to paint.

The colors are too bright. O.o

I like bright colors lol.

Your painting lacks any shading, even a simple wash. The colors are bright and non complementary and joined with the lack of shading, makes them look silly. Buy or make washes. Even better, learn about layering. For purple, throw down a dark purple then a medium purple leaving the dark in all the recesses, then highlight all lines with a brighter purple.
To paint skaven to a great standard very quickly, apply your brown fur color. Dry brush with a lighter brown and paint the face with the lighter brown. Paint teeth white. Paint armor a metal color if you wish and cloth whatever ever then wash with a brown. Devlin Mud is your best bet. Also, weapons arent one color. At least add metal to your bolters or highlight the black. For your rusted parts, highlight the edges with the original metal color as they are the edges and the rust will get scraped off from use.

I have to agree, the space marines are FAR too bright. When applying paint, don't put it on as heavy as you have been. Just put enough on the brush to spread it. Having black here and there is a really good idea, it gives your models three dimensions.

Washes, and less paint.

The Skaven look good however.

Thanks for your imput these are my first painted space marines ever so they are rough these are my favorite colors i havent finished them yet.

You shouldn't use so many colors on your Marines. Right now they look like a Day-Glo nightmare. Limit yourself to one basic armor color, one accent color, and a third color for weapons and whatnot. If you want to do purple and green Marines with black guns that's fine, but don't throw in blue and brown and lord knows what else. Everything just looks very garish and you could stand to pare your color selection down.

Are you priming your models? From what I can tell you're painting straight on the plastic. Get some primer; black primer is very forgiving of new painters as areas you miss will just look like shadows. Paint will stick to primer better than it will to plastic also. You can get a can of spray primer from any hardware or auto parts store in the country.

Finally, some general painting advice - first of all, thin your paints. Multiple thinner layers will look a hell of a lot better than big ugly globs of paint. You have some really streaky areas on that rhino that would be done far better with multiple thin coats of paint. Next, look into shading. Get the wash set from GW and use them liberally. They're more or less talent in a bottle and will make your models look far better with a negligible amount of work. Finally, try edge highlighting. Space Marines are MADE for edge highlighting. Get a lighter shade of whatever color you're painting and paint the very edges with a fine brush in that lighter tone. It will make your models pop and really bring out the detail.

I know I'm basically telling you to start from scratch here, but there's a lot to be done!

A wash with Devlan Mud will add worlds of depth to what you have.

The key to improving on where you are is to take your time with each part of the painting. Don't rush to get any step done. Take care to "stay in the lines" and such.

An easy method of painting(particularly for the skaven) is to use Citadel Foundation paints to do flat colors on each part of the model, then wash them with Citadel Devlan Mud wash. This will give you good results in a relatively small amount of time and effort.

Thanks I do have them primed black and I have used devlan mud on my Skaven and bare skin on my models. I will try to do with what I have they are my favorite colors I plan to dull them and such. Im not the best at this yet so I will take suggestions and try them.

looking good

Thanks

The Skaven are Great and they look Awesome but the marines are not the same... I have to agree with everybody, but they will improve with in a year or so I mean I started last year and look at some of my minis they look decent... and the first ones... I'll post one or too some time. PS I love the biker

Thanks. My marines are colorful because I wanted to do what noone does with them. I will work on my painting as I am new still at painting SM.

This hurts my eyes.

Think More:


Less

WolfGirl wrote:Thanks. My marines are colorful because I wanted to do what noone does with them. I will work on my painting as I am new still at painting SM.

Marines can be colorful, but their color schemes usually work well with each other - Ultramarines are colorful with whites, reds, and yellows, but they're used tastefully as accent and highlight colors to the blue. It's just a case of things looking like coherent color schemes as opposed to five seemingly random colors painted on to one model.

Ok thanks

OP, you probably ought to check out the pretty marines by GMM studios with your tastes.

http://www.gmmstudios.com/gallery/alpha/40k/Spacemarines/index.php

Those are nice Im still thinking of what to do so far to use my fav colors purple blue and green to make them look good.

Pick the major color (purple) and then do mostly that, and use the other colors as minor accents, like eyeballs, lights and insignia.

Ok I will try that thanks.

Ok one thing I don't understand is you painted those skavens before you had the space marines.

I read your intro post and you said you collected skaven before marines so i assume you painted skaven before marines.

Your skavens are very good.

But your marines........... I expected more. I really would like to know what you were thinking when you painted them. where has your artistic mind gone?

I am sure most people understand anything more than 2 base collour just looks tacky. I personally love tacky stuff but not that many colours put together.

What you can do is if your amazing at painting, blend all your colours together that way its too cool to look bad.

another is to put black wash and make them very dark.

Also if you took out the green it might be for the best.


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Ok one thing I don't understand is you painted those skavens before you had the space marines.

I read your intro post and you said you collected skaven before marines so i assume you painted skaven before marines.

Your skavens are very good.

But your marines........... I expected more. I really would like to know what you were thinking when you painted them. where has your artistic mind gone?

I am sure most people understand anything more than 2 base collour just looks tacky. I personally love tacky stuff but not that many colours put together.

What you can do is if your amazing at painting, blend all your colours together that way its too cool to look bad.

another is to put black wash and make them very dark.

Also if you took out the green it might be for the best.

I am inclined to agree with the above posters, your marine scheme is quite distracting. This isn't all bad since it means your strength is in organic objects and natural colors, as seen on the skaven.
I think much of your problem is just in your color composition. You have too many bright colors crammed in there with too little regard for how they are used and it costs them their visual impact. Take a look at this quick example I made in ms paint:



The top example is representative of your current scheme, while the bottom keeps your main three colors and uses them in a more appealing way. The concept is primarily purple with blue trim and mostly bronze metal. the green comes from weathering and oxidation of the bronze and brings the brightness back in a bit. To match the weathered metal, some scratched and chipped paint on the purple and blue bring it all together.

Dais, that's an excellent way of putting it and fantastic images to illustrate it, said much better than I did.

I exalt your post.

Thanks I have started to put more purple over their arms knees and codpiece area they look a lot better and my colors are darker then the pics show on my SM. My camera has a bright flash to it. Thanks for your tips. To answer Marthike I do a lot better painting animals then I do people aka space marines I will continue to try new things to color them in a way that looks more appeling.

Also take your pictures near a window or outside when the sun is covered by clouds. Smooth natural lighting and macro will give you the best picture results.

ok i have a new pic of a terminator with some of the changes pics look a little better they are in my gallory since its base isnt done yet I cant post it here


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New pictures of a Terminator with changes that I made is located in my gallory titled Space marines.

I'm sorry to say that, but your colour scheme makes no sense at all. It does not look good the way it is.
Those are your favourite colours?
Great... Use them. But not all on one miniature.

Other than that. Keep on painting and progress will take place.

The Rat Ogres look really good.