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Hey guys,

I'm not going to regurgitate what I wrote in my introduction thread
I've just "finished" my 2nd Tactical Squad of DA's (basically my 2nd batch of models painted EVER for me) and I'm... somehwhat happy with how they turned out. I still feel like I fethed up some components, and that's what I'm here for, to ask for your tips and hints on how to improve.
Currently I own the DA army from the Dark Vengeance Set, where this guys come from (excluding the Seargant, didn't start on that one yet until I get the basic techniques down) and the old Paint Box with.. 8 colors and 5 Tactical DA's.
The 5 were done first, and.. well, they weren't bad, but I fethed up with the washes. Gonna strip em for practice.

Anyway, here's my current work... Bear with my, it was taken with flashl on, so every little fuckup is visible After taking a look at the pic I got around and cleared some of the paint splutter by recovering it with green.



What I know what I need to to:
Improve my highlighting on the base model. This is where I need the most help with... The base is, ofc, Caliban Green. I then tried to highlight it with a very diluted Warpstone Glow, wash that with Biel-Tan to darken it a little and then highlight again with Warpstone. Didn't work out too well... I just don't know how to get a proper change of colors. I guess my paint was way too thin in the first place?

I also fethed up the highlights on the chest eagles by using too much wash/fething up the high highlights. Need to use less shade and more precision.

Rework the blue on the plasma coils. Need a darker one, so I can properly highlight it (if I can get that to work )

In general I need to improve my precision with the brush.

Thairne wrote:
Improve my highlighting on the base model. This is where I need the most help with... The base is, ofc, Caliban Green. I then tried to highlight it with a very diluted Warpstone Glow, wash that with Biel-Tan to darken it a little and then highlight again with Warpstone. Didn't work out too well... I just don't know how to get a proper change of colors. I guess my paint was way too thin in the first place?

There is no such thing as "thin too much". Ever. Remember this as a mantra. You don't see a layer "too thin"? Apply a second layer. (Any good miniature painter I met repeats this ad nauseam).

Now for the colour itself, I'd do something like this (I'm assuming a cleaned-assembled-primed mini).
As a side note, I tend to prime in grey (I'm quite fond of tamiya spray and vallejo urethanic surface primer)

Basecoat with pure Caliban Green (diluted of course) (I'd risk saying 1:1 water:paint, but it really depends on the consistency of the paint from the start.) One layer if it covers well, Two if you see too much of the primer in transparency.

Highlight 50% Caliban Green+Warpstone Glow. Paint consistency is that of watercolours (again, very rougly, 1:3 paint:water), and the brush should be loaded with paint, but not drenched in it (it leaves an even layer of semitransparent colour, but no colour pools nor blots) Highlights goes, of course, to the upper half of the parts to be highlighted or the edges and so on. Try painting upwards (actually, paint towards where the light source is intended)

Biel-tan Green wash, on all the model, without letting it pool into puddles (if so, absorb the excess away with the brush, a cotton swab, a bit of tissue paper...)

Shadows now are glazed in recesses/lower half with Caliban Green+a minuscule amount of Black, a mere touch of it. Again, watercolour consistency, don't load the brush too much. Paint in the direction opposite from the intended light source.

If you want a deeper shadow (your call) add another smidge of Black and re-do the shadow passage, covering less surface and/or only the recesses.

Glaze again the highlight with the 50% mix, covering less than the previous one

Final highlight with watercolour-thin pure Warpstone Glow.

The very same (long to explain, easier to do) method can be used almost for anything: metals, NMM, skin, cloth...
The shortest steps (basecoat, glaze highlight, wash, glaze shadow, glaze highlight) may give you a nice tabletop piece in a decent amount of time (5-10 minutes, when you are used to it).
Just remember to add water if the layering colours start getting too thick (although they dry slower with a wet palette)

In general I need to improve my precision with the brush.

Practice makes perfect. Take your time and your pace to paint.
Try many techniques (layering washing, blending, wet-blending, glazing, drybrushing, weathering, powders, pigments and so on...) and decide how do you like them and how to mix them to your desired result.

Rather than over thinning, I think the problem was probably brush control. Which comes with practise.
Looks like you had too much of this very thin warpstone glow on the brush, and that it ran away from you into places you didnt want. Try removing like 90% of that paint from the brush onto a paper towel. and then applyin multiple really thin layers of paint waiting for each to dry before going upto the next.
You can achieve a gradient by leaving bits of the last layer visible each time as you go.

Another thing I'm thinking, is that the brush you're using, citadel starter brush?
Probably not helping you much, its pretty chunky, and has no point to speak of. Unfortunatly Citadel brushes in general dont seem to be that useful to me. They have poor points, split and frey quickly and cost as much as brushes that dont do that.
Do you have a local art store? Try them for Kollinksy Sable brushes in sizes 000 upto or 2 (to compare to GW sizes)
Theyre used by watercolour artists, and will probably be the top end price range; but we only want the tiny sizes so its not too bad tbh.

Thanks for the thorough help, guys!
Guess I will strip my first batch of (horrible, oh so horrible!) marines and apply your tips n hints.
Bad thing I glued em together, but oh well.. Guess they wont see the light of play anytime soon
If it works out, I will strip my "regular marines", which fitted better and didnt need any glue.

Seeing your comments raised some questions tho.
I've seen several vids where the base coat wasnt diluted in anyway.. I tried with my 1st batch and the coat was more uneven than i did with undiluted Caliban Green. So diluting the very base coat didnt strike me as such a good idea?
I'm for now solely using Citadel Paints... Doesn't seem to be too thick for that task to me. Might as well get me the spray coat since I will likely redo 15 Tacticals...

For Shadows, would Nuln Oil not work as well? I used it to shadow my 'rines, and besides the usual "overdoing" I still tend to do (need to remove more wash, made that mistake here to), it seemed to work fine.

I got myself a desk magnifying glas that may help me with the fiddly edges (like the "plasma blue") on the model. Can't paint what I can't see... Also I have to watch out for the point of the brush not to fray while painting. Common mistake that happens together with overloading my brush. Thanks for clearing me up on that!

I already got me a kolinsky sabel brush in sizes 000, 0 and 1. The Citadel brush, which i didn't hear many a good thing about, was just used for the Caliban Green basecoat.
I didn't get the SUPER expensive ones, but comparable to Citadel prices, at the least. It's no Windsor & Norton, but those are prolly the next one I will get (since im having fun )

I will show the result after I'm done, hopefully with great success! And this time I will experiment on one marine and not do an entire squad.

Practice, practice, practice. That is all I can say. The more models you paint the more you become accustomed to what works for you...for example some people may thin paints less or use a different mixture of colours for base coats. Like previously mentioned I don't think your colours are an issue, it's the brush control. Getting a smaller brush will help with highlighting and smaller details whereas a bigger brush is used for base-coating and painting larger areas of the model. As for what brush it is, is your choice. Personally I have a couple of citadel brushes I use for the smaller details and I find them fine. But like I said, up to you what you like painting with.

Nuln oil I find is excellent for "creating" shadow, it will also darken anything up if you feel it is too bright, but be careful as too much will dry blotchy and leave a not so nice paint job. A way to overcome this is after a model is washed, repaint over the areas where the nuln oil has dried but staying clear of any nuln oil that has dried into gaps or where you think a darker area would be present. I use nuln oil regularly with my techniques.

The way I like to paint dark angels is to prime them with a black spray (I use citadel chaos black, the imperial primer that comes with the paint set isn't that good in my opinion, but great none the less if you can't spray for some reason). After priming I then base coat them all over in a 1:1 mix of caliban green and water (gives a nice coverage on the model). I will then use nuln oil to wash the model allowing recesses to be darkened up. I then refer you back to what I previously mentioned about painting over the wash but leaving the nuln oil in the recesses. Then I'll add the other details on such as the gun with reds and silvers and then finally the highlighting (I go a bit extreme with my highlights though).

For the reds on the guns I base coat it in mephiston red then wash with agrax earthshade to dull the colour down a bit, but it also gives it quite a nice warm colour. I then highlight the edges with evil sunz scarlet. Metal colours are really quick and easy to paint as nuln oil makes short work of them. Just paint them with leadbelcher then wash them in nuln oil to bring the detail out and then finally highlight with either ironbreaker or runefang steel.

If you find the brush fraying whilst painting then keep rinsing it frequently to avoid paint getting clogged up in the bristles.

With regards to gluing I'd steer clear of GW glue its not that highly rated. I personally use revell contacta professional. I like it as it has a really nice applicator that you can be precise with.

But like everyone has said, practice! You'll soon notice an improvement hope I helped a bit and enjoy painting some Dark Angels!

Another excellent post, tyvm

I'm keen on getting home and stripping one of them to start over...

Do you guys paint your models assembled (especially with the bolter)?
Has its advantages, but having a black bolter on the "inside" seems.. cheap to me, plus it makes it more difficult to paint the chest eagle/skull/sword-wing-thing...

Thairne wrote:
Another excellent post, tyvm

I'm keen on getting home and stripping one of them to start over...

Do you guys paint your models assembled (especially with the bolter)?
Has its advantages, but having a black bolter on the "inside" seems.. cheap to me, plus it makes it more difficult to paint the chest eagle/skull/sword-wing-thing...

Well personally I assemble the whole model then paint it. Again it's just practice and brush control..you can easily paint the back of the bolter and chest with some brush control and practice. (I usually use a thinner brush compared to what I base with)

Some bits will be inevitable unpainted though as you won't be able to reach them but you can paint the majority of the gun and the chest emblem. (Depending on how the marine is holding his weapon)

Some pics below show this. (was in the middle of it and though I could show you, hope you don't mind me posting it)

Appreciate it

On a sidenote, I tried the techniques suggested on a single 'rine today.. The colours came out nicely, but the areas I highlighted were too small... For my next attempt. I make em big enough so I actually CAN reduce the next layer in size

Its going well though, your tips n hints help quite much!

Sounds like your enjoying the progress, Its all in the practice and experience hehe.

The layering technique you're trying is the staple of many gorgeous paint jobs. Sometimes it needs a wash over the top to tie it all in together, sometimes its great on its own.
Beyond layering we get to wet blending, which can look much better, but oh boy is it tricky :( wet blends are the kind of things that, done well, is gobsmacking, but most people cna achieve better with layering than wet blends due to the difficulty of each method.

Alright guys, I got around to do 1-2 Paint jobs today after basecoating... And I must admit I'm getting a wee bit frustrated right now :(

Edit: Image removed because of clutter


The colors nearly didn't come out AT ALL.
It's hard to be acurate when you hardly can see where the paint went... I feel the paint is just diluted way to much. On the shoulderpads it nearly always ran into the edge, congealing there and leaving none for the rest.
It's so far away from the result I want to achieve...
I will experiment with diff. dilution levels, still 4 marines to go before I have to strip the batch again, but I tried to be pretty close to your "recipts".
What I think right now happens is that with a wet brush I carry way to much water into the paint so it turns into a shade rather than something to PAINT with.

Try drying your brush before painting, IMO you're doing a pretty good job so far. All you need is practice and more practice. Also try not to get too hung up on copying other people's techniques, its easier to experiment and find what works for you. Hopefully the pic below will help illustrate the impact of practice. The guy on the right was painted six months ago. The one on the left I'm still working on.

Which I'd had read your post sooner. Woulda have saved me some anger issues In the meantime, I came up with the same conclusion.. I vastly underestimated the amount of water a brush can hold. Drying it up basically did the trick... Sometimes you overlook the obvious!

Edit: Image removed to remove clutter

I'm not HAPPY with the result now, but I'm damned if I'm not satisified. For now, I'd say I need some practice with the eyes and some general brushwork, but thanks to you guys I finally got to a level I can comfortably paint Tacticals And their Sergeant too.

Feth it. I AM happy right now

Alright, here I am. Took me longer than expected, but I got the first 4 of the Tactical Squad scrubbed and repainted. The 4 next (which I tried with my gf... that was a scrubbin'!) are highlighted and need their bolters and some finework. Should'nt take me more than one evening.
While I, as everyone, like praise... A "looks good" feels great, but it doesn't help me identify my mistakes.
What is painfully obvious to you guys leaves me dumbfounded on what I did wrong (dry the brush!). And as usual, the flashlight is pretty bad for the pic, but at least the highlights are easily identifiable
Looking at the pic i need some more touch ups, but I'll be fethed if I can see those things unzoomed on the model...Oo

Keep in mind this are my third attempt in total.
I will clean the thread up a bit and remove the old pictures (save the first one) so its easier to scroll through.

One thing that stands out is that there is too big of a difference between the base green and the green highlights. Take the base green and mix it 50/50 with the lighter green - you'll have a colour that will blend in much better while giving the model the depth you intend it to have.

You may even want to very lightly dry brush all of the armour with the light green to make the edges pop while leaving the base colour untouched. Other than that I'd apply a wash to the blue on the plasma cannons to make the details of the coil pop (the plain blue looks flat right now). Once based you will have a decent table top quality miniature.

I used the "recipe" Keratyr kindly wrote up for me. That is base coat Caliban Green, mixed 50/50 with Warpstone glow. Wash it with Biel Tan Green, reapply the mixed Green, and highlight it with a diluted pure warpstone glow.
It isn't as bad as that in reality cause I took the pic with flashlight since it was late... Here is one with bright daylight. It's a bit better, though the highlight on his right hand is atricious



In general I need to work at my highlighting, its not as smooth as it needs to be... The colours come out blotchy, which I dont like at all. Guess they're a bit too thin so they pool?

What Shade would you recommend on the coils? If I remember right there is a blue shade, is there not? Or should I wash it with Nuln Oil?
...
Yes, Drakenhof Nightshade is a darkish blue one.

Basing I'm just starting very... basically. I intend to cover it in grass and some small stones... Nothing big, but I think it will somewhat supplement the green with yet another greenish hue.

Thanks for the advice! Tabletop Quality is what I am aiming for for now, DECENT Tabletop Quality is more than I expected

For shading, I've been thinking of using a mix of AP red+dark ink for rank n file, and a mix of green+dark for the leaders [to make them stand out more]