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Question for anyone that's been on one of these painting days:

I'm gak at painting, being a complete noob to the whole thing. Im thinking of going on the painting day in January, though when I spoke to the customer service guys they said it may be a bit of a challenge for someone with limited skills. I don't want to spend £105 only to get there and find myself unable to keep up with the rest of the group or having to take time away from other people by asking noob questions and needing more time than others to help me with basic techniques, so my question is from your experience what techniques should I have already built up to a decent level, and would I potentially be wasting my time? Check out my gallery (link in signature) to see what I'm already churning out and feel free to offer criticism based on what you see.

Thanks,

Kitch102

You would be better off putting that money twords a bunch of models paints and brushes.

Then scour the youtubes for paint guides and practice!

Been there, done that, even bought the how to paint books. Thing is that i learn better by being told what I'm doing wrong, and whilst I could get that from my flgs i think is rather learn from the masters. Plus its my birthday soon, so I can ask our lass to foot the bill!

Kitch I thumbed through your gallery, your not a bad painter. Your models are very clean and crisp. The issue you have is in LAYERS. every color seems to be just one layer of one color of paint. The illusion of depth isn't given. 100 quid is a steep bill of you find you aren't up to the class, if your heart is set on it I guess soak up as much as you can. If you really want to improve your skills buy a HQ or SC type model from every army and paint it according to a guide or masterclass either online, from GW, or YouTube. Another good way to go is to buy a marine box and paint each model to a different chapter, Eldar to each craftworld, Choas to each warband. Just painting will make you better. Trying new things will make you better, even if you never use them again. A class may have great benefits or none at all. It's a gamble.

kitch I can tell you can paint decently.

But sometimes its not the skill, but the materials and tools used.

Give Vallejo paint a try, ( you dont even have to replace everything ) Say... give their white, red, yellow, gray, flesh a try.
just 5 colors, they are cheaper too.

Im sure you'll be plenty surprised.

Thanks Luna, much appreciated. I have trouble with colour selection and the areas to apply the eventually chosen colours though, and then there's the whole getting it on thing... Lol.

Here's the relic contemptor dread that I was working on til 1am this morning, not finished yet, and not the best picture, but you get the idea. I just find that the colours I'm getting back are really flat and just... lifeless. Thanks for the vallejo recommendation, a few people have said the same, think I'l add that to the birthday present wish list

Don't sell yourself short, the models I've seen so far are far from bad. If you think the class will help you then go for it - the important thing is that you have fun at your hobby, everything else doesn't matter.

Cheers,


IK-Painter

Chap, just had a flick through your gallery - you paint really nicely! Clean, crisp and neat. Like the other have said; you just need to apply a little depth to your colours.

@IK Painter - cheers man, much appreciated. Kinda stuck at the paintjob thing atm, which is holding me back from the rest of the hobby.

@Eiríkr - thanks to you too, that means a lot. I'm making use of 'extreme edge highlighting' which is actually a lot slower process than I thoguht it would be, any suggested reading / viewing material (preferably web based) that I you think i should check out to help get better depth out of these??

Difficult to say really, I haven't read up on much material - most of what I do is by learning myself.

But!

I can wholly, wholly recommend Doctor Faust's Painting Clinic for excellent guides on pretty much everything. "The Clinic" serves as the basic primary guides whilst "Operations" run through specific model guides - however the lessons contained within are invaluable.

Good luck!

Edit: As a passing note, I'll say that you should save your money. Purchase some units to paint, some paints and brushes - or treat ye're wife to something lovely!

Hi,
I have been to some of the FW masterclass days and thankfully I got a lot out of them. I have also seen people struggle as they have limited knowledge or relevant skills.
I would suggest finding a mentor - at a club or LGS or similar.
Looking at your models it seems you need to thin your paints a bit more.
I am by no means good but I have quite an appreciation for what I can't do.
Cheers
Kit

Cheers Zinge, agreed on needing to thin my paints down, one of the traps I fell in to was going too thin with yellows and golds, then slapping a whole load on only to find that I'd got uneven coverage. Nice! Any thoughts on a decent and cheap paint stripper? The contemptor above really needs it, particularly on the inside leg.

Thanks for stopping by

Brown dettol

As others have said if you think you'd get a lot out of it, then why not, might be a good experience but equally you could plow that money into paints/models + combine with you tube tutorials? ... girlpainting is really really good at doing tutorials

Also loving the pose on your contemptor! mines tad boring lol! , seems a shame to strip it from looking at the picture, if you wanted you could always add battle damage / weathering (hides loads of sins so i used that on mine) but Fairypower spray is really good (in green spray bottle) and has none of the gak smell of dettoll, but both work well

T-M

I've always used brown dettol for stripping - numerous times have I almost passed out due to fumes (and masking with incense does not work!)

It also makes a very quick mess of dark colours such as blacks and red if you're not careful. Try the FairyPower spray method instead, I've read that it's almost instant in stripping, unlike Dettol which can take 24 hours plus...

Awesome, cheers guys! I'm gonna try and rob my FLGS staff of their precious time and get some tips from them, maybe after that I'll go for the painting day... I dunno, we'll see.

TM, thanks for the compliment! Seemed a shame to have such a dynamic model in a static pose, I'm hoping to get some of the armorcast cinematic effects, specifically a few rounds being loosed out of the heavy bolter, though I've magnetised the arms so I can swap 'em round, and subsitiute the weapons if needs / wants dictate to! So there may also be some FIIIIRRRREEEEE coming out of that bad boy, potentially plumes of smoke from the exhausts too...

Fairy Power Spray it is then! I don't want to strip the whole model, just segments, like the inner legs where I've lost some of the detail due to too much paint (and I mean like, GLOBS of the stuff!)

Watch awesomepaintjobs videos on youtube they're really good.

The hot lead dvd's are very good as well, main thing is to just practice practice practice

To put depth into your yellow base with snakebite leather or whatever equivalent you have. Paint the yellow over the top in layers. Leave the brown shining through one or two layers of yellow in shadows and recesses and really bring the yellow out in the Highspots, even up to a lemon or ice yellow in very select places. Edge highlight with your main yellow 4:1 with a pure white.
That color red you could base out with bestial brown or even purple and use the same method as yellow.

HOLY CRAP!!! LOOK AT THE FETHING RAZORWINGS ON AWESOMEPAINTJOBS SITE!!!!! WOOOOOOOOW MAN!!!!!

Ahem. Sorry. Cheers for the references their gilljoy, much appreciated. Thinking that I might start looking at airbrushing techniques after seeing those RW's and the grey knight on the dakka home page.

@Auston, thanks for the tips. I'd base coated with GW white spray, then washed with gryphonne sepia and coloured up from there. The yellow started out with iyanden dark sun, then up to sunburst yellow, but I ended up rushing it by slapping loads on as I wasn't getting an even coverage. The red started out as mechrite, then red gore, then blood red, then washed with baal red, and edge highlighted with blood red. Sure I'm putting too many steps in there...

I pretty much always prime with grey now. I've used black and white and I've found grey isn't just an in between it works for anything. There is a good reason Nuetral Grey is also called "Mixing Grey."
I think you are going to too many steps I'm going to post a few pictures, if you've ever seen me answer a thread it's just what I do. I am by no means an expert painter and my hands shake like a scared puppy in a Korean street market.
Any discussion about red requires me to post this:

This is my selection of reds from ONE company. They can all be mixed together or broken into shades middles and highlights.
I think you are going to too many steps with your red. Mechrite and red gore are redundant. Just to start there. Scab red, red gore, and mechrite red are so similar that if you use one to undercoat the others are redundant. For a finishing color there are differences between scab and gore.
Before I bought an airbrush I primed in grey and based in bestial brown, did an undercoat of red gore or scab red and brushed blood red over the top. This predated GWs washes and I wasn't fond of inks. (i used the chestnut magenta mix) it was a little heavy handed for me. I picked this model because it's a little rough but you can see the beginnings of a lot of different methods of painting in a basic form. I also love his helmet.

You can see the darker red showing through in a lot of places and a nice red wash could pull it all together. If you're going to rush, rush towards this direction where the undercoat shows the darker areas, rather than covering everything.
The yellow helmet is really what I like the most on this model and is really what has saved it from being fixed or stripped.
The brown showing throug the yellow gives it that illusion of shadow.
Theres a lot of rough edges there, someone with a steady hand like you could over come those by being more precise and tying color changes together with washes. I really showed this to point out that this kind of rough Style still works, look at it real close, note the inaccuracies and heavy handed painting. Then sit back a little a see how it ties together and those same faults actually make it work.

That's awesome, thanks for taking the time to write that all up.

I chucked mechrite on initially as I couldn't find red gore, then realised that I wanted a blood red colour so, yeah, bit of an experiment gone wrong due to having the wrong colours in but - HEY! - we live and learn

I see what you mean about the shading on the yellows (I think I see it easier on the chest aquila) - will give this a try when I next get to bring the paints back out

I think your painting is fine Kitch - if you're worried about the contemptor I'd advise shading it first then highlighting it. I've been painting 15 years and I'm so-so. I know a guy who's been doing it 15 months and is much better but paints much slower (I've churned out 3 armies and he's finished about 1!) So it's about finding a time vs output balance that you are happy with.

I'd also echo that the £100 could go towards brushes and paints as well as minatures.

Thanks mate (really enjoying all the positive feedback from everyone here!)

Times a fun one with me at the minute... I bought some DE warriors on 31st december last year, still not completed them, but thats also as I suffer from hoby butterfly syndrome; everything I have is half finished!

I think I may save the cash on the painting day based on folks recommendations and go for some vallejo paints, and maybe an airbrush instead

kitch102 wrote:Thanks mate (really enjoying all the positive feedback from everyone here!)

Times a fun one with me at the minute... I bought some DE warriors on 31st december last year, still not completed them, but thats also as I suffer from hoby butterfly syndrome; everything I have is half finished!

I think I may save the cash on the painting day based on folks recommendations and go for some vallejo paints, and maybe an airbrush instead

Totally feel that, bought the new Eldar army at launch 4 years ago, just now seriously painting it.

Hopefully I won't take quite that long

I've decided that I'm going to start again on the contemptor, it doesn't look so bad in the picture above, but face to face you can see some pretty nasty mistakes far too easily, so next question is, how to strip? I'll be using fairy power spray, is it just a case of spray it on, leave it for a few minutes and rinse off, or is there more to it?

Take the model apart (if possible).

Stick them all in a small plastic tub, spray spray spray spray ( I left my minis in a depth just enough to submerge them - not sure if necessary with Fairy ), leave for a few hours (better safe than sorry!) and then pull out, scrub with a cheap toothbrush under warm running water - it'll come right off.

Sainsburys sell packs of toothbrushes in pairs for 10p - can't go wrong!

Awesome, not sure if I can take this apart though, already broke the shield on my boarding captain so much for superglue being brittle eh! lol

Still, we can but try... wish me luck...

(ps, damn, we we're ripped off by morrisons at 26p...grrrr)