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Hi All

I'm going to begin by saying that I am quite a terrible painter, and that to be completely honest I don't particularly enjoy painting much either. I play 40K more for the tactical side of things, but i do however understand that if I ever take my models out into the public (i play with a group of friends away from a FLGS) they have to look good. As I am looking to widen my horizons and begin gaming at my FLGS I have tried to the best of my abilities to paint my models up to a tabletop standard at least and have poked around in the P&M forum looking for help, but its just to complicated for me. I've never had any help or anything so what I have is basically trial and error, and a lot of the techniques that are spoken about here i can't find decent tuorials for on the net.

Anyway, I'll stop making excuses and show you my work. What do you guys think I could do to improve? (also, sorry for the dodgy pics, i took them on my iPad. The models look a bit better in real life)

First of all, stop getting yourself down about your painting, for someone new to painting, it is pretty good. Your brush control is fine, everything looks like it is in the right place. So that is good.

Rather than giving you any specific advise, have a look through this thread that has been recently started up, http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/537123.page

The biggest thing I think you could take from here is the part I posted about using a wet palette, your paint looks a little thick on some of the models, and this will happy with that. The other thing I'd have to ask is are you making use of washes? The paint looks a little flat, and I think a wash to help shade the model will go along way.

thanks for the link and with the washes, it doesnt show but the base is actually a white base with sepharim sepia washed on top. That way i get a nice easy to apply colour, because the screaming skull is really flat. My photography doesnt show that.

I use some nuln oil on the silver and green but thats about it. What else would you do?

Also, care to explain a wet palette?

You're actually not bad for a beginner. I'd echo what's already been said about washes, use a black wash over the white, then paint over it again leaving out the recessed areas.
Also, try thinning your paints a little more, it'll help keep your coats smooth.

I would recommend going to miniwargaming and watching the quick tip series with Kris. They seem to help me with my work.

Just keep at it, eventually you will learn small tips and tricks to make it faster and better.

As stated above WASHES! My work looks so so when I paint, then I "dip" my model in wash (I paint orks so covering the entire model in Delvien Mud or Badab Black really makes them stand out) It goes from ok to looking well done.

Cheers

Biggest advice is throw a black wash over the whole model trust me just do one and see it works magic!!!

Which black wash are you talking about? nuln oil? O something else?

And what do you guys mean by dip?, like literally dip it in or just paint it on?

Also how watered down should the washes be? Because dipping it in what I have now doesn't sound like a good idea....

Anyway, thanks for answering all of my questions. It's been a great help

I honestly wouldn't recommend a black wash for Deathwing armour, you're on the right track with sepia, perhaps go for Agrax Earthshade if you wanted a bit higher contrast, but black is going too far IMHO.

I will echo thinning, the biggest issue I have with what I'm seeing is that the paints look too thick. Just to double check, are you priming white? As for DW, if you're priming black you are making life very hard for yourself.

Edit: Dip is essentially a gloss varnish with a tint, the idea being you literally submerge a flat basecoated model in it, shake off the excess and let gravity fill in the recesses to shade. Then you spray a coat of matt and you're done. It would probably give reasonable results, but is generally used for when massive numbers of infantry (typically Nids or Orks) need to be done. For the relatively few models in a DA force, its probably adding needless learning of a new technique and muddying of the waters, you're probably better putting your effort into mastering washes.

And I'll copy and paste this here, as it is the single greatest piece of advise I have been given as a painter, especially when I was first starting up, helped me a bunch.

"#1 Thing to ask about: Do you use a palette?
If yes, is it a wet palette?

If no to either of these, make a wet palette! What you'll need (and I'm typing this up for more my benefit to copy/paste later on so if you have a wet palette already, feel free to skip down):
1. A piece of tupperware, with a lid, that you don't want to use for food anymore. Clear with parents/Significant Other before commandeering one, of course.
2. Paper towels.
3. Parchment paper (wax paper will not do).

Steps:
1. Put the paper towels in the bottom of your tupperware container. Cut to size if need be. You'll want a decent thickness.
2. Add water do the paper towels until they're soaked through. You've just made a sponge of sorts. Make sure there's enough water to where the paper towels are saturated.
3. Cut some parchment paper to fit on top of the paper towels. Get four paint pots and put one at each corner to keep the paper from curling up. After a while the paper will be soaked through with water and will no longer curl. Return your paint pots to their home.
4. Ta-da! You now have one of the best tools in hobbying! Why? Let me count the ways...

Why this is awesome:
1. The biggie is that you can get more working time out of your paints. Scoop some out of a pot with your brush, transfer to the palette, and voila, that paint will be good for days. You just have to close the lid nice and tight when you're done painting (or get up to have dinner or whatever). Be sure to keep those paper towels soaked.
2. Mixing paints is more reliable. By not having to remix your paints more often (which happens a lot when highlighting and you don't want to spend tons of money on new paint pots just to use as a highlight), you have more consistent colors. Yes good.
3. I can't emphasize how awesome it is to keep paints good for days at a time. "


Credit to Consadine from Astronomican.

The number one thing I would tell you is to be happy with where you're at currently but continue improving. You're 100x further along than the guy who plays with unpainted grey models and having completed something you should take pride in that.

I do second the miniwargaming vault membership. Even if you only try it out for a week the downloads are awesome for a budding painter.

You'll find that you enjoy painting more when you're not so wrapped up with needing it to be as nice as "on the box". Those guys are paid professionals, that's what they do for a living, very few of us can expect those kinds of results.

Ok, thanks for the replies again.

At the moment what I am doing is assembling the models whole and then painting them completely white using ever so slightly watered down ceramite white paint. After that I wash it with out of the pot Sepharim sepia. This is what gives me the base Deathwing color I have now. After that I basically just use out of the pot colors and color in the lines really.

It sounds like thinning is one of my huge problems. With the wet palette, how do you make sure the paint stays the right thickness?

Also how can I highlight things effectively. You can't see but I have put lines of evil suns scarlet on all of the edges of the Mechrite red I use to make it less flat, but I don't think I'm doing it right.

Also I had a look at the agrax earth shade and can anyone tell me how I would apply it? Do you do the dipping technique mentioned earlier or something else and I'm a bit worried as my models are already washes that it will completely change their colour rather than go into the recesses.

It's just a wash, apply it the same way as you do the sepia, its just a darker, more earthy brown than the sepia.

As for palettes, you just mix on the fly. If the paints getting too thick, you just mix in a little more water until its back the way you want it.



Ok, from scratch what I would do:
Assemble model, paying close attention to removing mould lines and smoothing off areas where the sprue was attached (it doesn't look like this is a huge issue for you anyway)

Spray undercoat all models white. There's lots of options for what to use, but for convenience use Citadel Skull White spray, its expensive but reasonable quality, you can get choosy when you're more confident.

Base coat with a thinned (the consistency of milk is often quoted as a good guide) bone colour. It used to be bleached bone, I believe the new name is Screaming Skull, but don't quote me.

Wash the whole model with Seraphim Sepia. Feel free to dilute it slightly if you find the results too strong, but neat should be fine, that's what they're for!

Go over the model with another thinned base coat of your bone colour, but stay away from the recesses and keep to the more prominent and raised areas. Congratulations, you're highlighting! At its basic level, all highlighting is is picking out the edges in a lighter colour, it sounds like you get that, so if you're not getting the contrast you'd like, try a bigger gap between the colours.

If you want, you can pick out the hard edges with straight white, or a 50:50 bone/white mix would be better, but this you could skip.

This should give you a smooth (ish) bone colour for your armour.

Now pick out your details, in what ever colours you like, metals will benefit from a black wash (Nuln oil) and reapplication to raised areas, as with the armour. This is where some of the art of painting comes in, choosing what to emphasise and what to skip over. Personally, one detail that I would choose to pick out are the studs on the 'cheeks' of the helmets, simply dot them black and then pick them out again with silver.

Faces are the focal point, so spend a little extra time on the helmets, making sure that the eyes etc are neat. A simple way is to paint the eye black, then pick out the centre in white, leaving black around the recess, then paint the white area your chosen colour ( the white coat is needed to make the colour nice and bright)

Do all that and you'll be kicking out solid tabletop quality figs in no time!