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Hello there!

Pretty much a thread where i will post my painted models to get a few opinions and hints. Im totally new to the hobby, so do not expect any masterworks (I would expect the opposite, to be honest. ). Please be honest nonetheless, I want to improve and critique is an important part of the process. Altough, if you think that i deserve a bit of praise, I will not stop you either.

Just gathered enough courage totorture you with my very first steps into the world of miniature painting. A few things beforehand:

- The Models are from two Small Ork-Boy packs, the ones you can pin together. They are not glued yet and thus arms and heads are still interchangeable/Adjustable.
- I didnt use any fancy techniques for this, pretty much just tried a few things here and there. I applied Base colors and highlighted the Skin once (Caliban Green, then Warpstone Green)
- I struggled most with the metallics, as you will see, i tried correcting it multiple times. It affected the meele weapons rather badly and shows some nasty spots. The Pistols seem to be mostly okay, apart from the fact that i have no idea how to paint metal areas, apart from jsut slapping a metal color on it and maybe paint the Decals. (Help appreciated)
- One of the "Horned" Orks has a bit of his helmet chipped away, right where the horn starts (You can see the white extending a bit too far as a result). This is unintentional, i slipped with my armyknife when removing the mold lines (Thats awfully hard btw, iI might need to get a Toolbox with a file and a decent knife). Since its Orks, I dont think its that bad, just a bit annoying.
- Im not a 100% happy with the pants. I used mournfang brown for the most part, and then a mix of mournfang with a drop of black to color the leather stripes and bags. However, probably to my inexperience, the mixing failed a bit and thus some of the stripes are a bit difficult to distinguish from the leather below. I will probably need to get a darker shade of brown to compensate.
- I overused Washes. After i coated the miniatures the first time, the Wash hadnt settled yet. And in a typical rush of "More is better" I slapped on some extra. AS you can see from the closeups, the Boyz look a bit..."oily" and there are some black spots where too much of the stuff had gathered. I might correct this by painting over the most obvious parts, but im afraid that more layers will just make it worse. (Granted, its much less offensive if you look at them as an Unit, and i took the photos in my kitchen from REALLY close. Might actually be less horrible than I make it out to be)

And thats about it. I appreciate any advice you might throw my way, including slaps/pats for /bad/good parts.

First off welcome to Dakka.

I think for a few first models your doing really well. Your paints are just a tad too thick but better than most (much better than what I did when I first started out.

Basic things that will make you better..... paint shouldn't go on and cover all in one coat. If it does its too thick. Silvers go over black just fine but golds should be over browns. Take your time and experiment, don't be afraid to ruin a model, its gonna happen and you throw it in simple green and start again.

Mold lines. Get a decent set of hobby files (amazon, warstore ect) they run about $20 bucks and last forever, I got mine like 6 years ago.

Hobby Knife. I have a GF9 and I like the handle and the blades last a while.

Other than that, keep at it and good luck.

edited for insane amount of typos.

For an alternative way to clean up mold lines, you can use a hobby knife and scrape along with the sharp edge pointed away from you. You don't want to cut into the model, but the edge will still clean up the bits of extra plastic well enough. It's a little easier than filing, but filing will usually give a better result in the end if you have the patience. I combine the two, and only file any highly visible areas that aren't as smooth as I'd like.

Oh, also, basing! Basing is super easy once you do it a few times, and will make a monumental difference in how the model looks. I do a very weird system, so I'll let someone else who does the usual PVA + Sand explain the details, but there are also plenty of tutorials online that should help point you in the right direction.

Few things on basing: You want contrast, so the model 'pops'. A warm/cold contrast is ideal if you want to get fancy, but generally bright/dark contrast is good enough. Take a look at the last page or so of my blog, down near the chariot that I didn't like. The base was nearly the same color, so it looked terrible. When I redid the base as darker, it looked much better.

If you don't want to get fancy, just stick with the generic dark brown with light brown drybrush over the sand or whatever texture you end up with. Really easy and makes a world of difference!

Thanks for the Feedback!

I never thought about basing until now, but I will look up some tutorials to get a general idea.

@darfesky

You are probably right about thickness. I didnt find a decent way to mix water into the paint yet. Im using those Citadel Pots, and its kinda difficult to get color onto a palette in the first place, and since you have to "dip" it out of the Pot its hard to judge the amount of color im taking. I will probably get a few Vallejo paints, and some empty Dropplet Bottles so i can put the Citadel paint in those (Altough, im not sure how well that would work).

Im attending a Workshop next week, where our local Club shows some basics about modeling, painting, basing etc. Im sure i will get some decent pointers over there. I planned to paint some Trollbloods and a few Ork Nobz, which I will post here afterwards for those who care.

Looking good.
Sprue cutters and a file is what I use now, for 20+ years, no more cutting myself with a knife, lol...
'.
A new way; many people are finishing the bases separately from the models; "Fun-Tac" 10 bases on a free Lowes paint stirrer, add basing material, paint, glue painted figure on...
.
keep it up!

Stuebi wrote:
Thanks for the Feedback!

I never thought about basing until now, but I will look up some tutorials to get a general idea.

@darfesky

You are probably right about thickness. I didnt find a decent way to mix water into the paint yet. Im using those Citadel Pots, and its kinda difficult to get color onto a palette in the first place, and since you have to "dip" it out of the Pot its hard to judge the amount of color im taking. I will probably get a few Vallejo paints, and some empty Dropplet Bottles so i can put the Citadel paint in those (Altough, im not sure how well that would work).

Im attending a Workshop next week, where our local Club shows some basics about modeling, painting, basing etc. Im sure i will get some decent pointers over there. I planned to paint some Trollbloods and a few Ork Nobz, which I will post here afterwards for those who care.

Definitely give Vallejo a try. I prefer Reaper as they're a little thinner out of the bottle, but Vallejo is the generally accepted 'best' paint for value and quality alike. Not sure how well transferring Citadel paints into a dropper will work either, but expect it to be messy.

Most people find that certain paints from certain brands for certain colors work best for them, and it's not always the same brand. I have mostly Reaper, but I have a few Vallejo paints for certain colors because they just work much better for me. I hate Reaper's pure black, for example. It's terrible. But Vallejo's pure black is liquid amazing, so I've got a bottle of that for when I need to touch up base edges. Random note for painting, never use pure black or pure white on a model! Always use a super dark brown and a cream white or similar. Pure white/black cause instant sadness.

Anyway, moral of the story, experiment with different brands and see what works best for you. Vallejo, Reaper, P3, and Army Painter are ones to look for in particular, though Reaper might be hard to get a hold of out in Europe. Citadel paints aren't bad by any means, but they're definitely more expensive than what you can get elsewhere. That being said, I'm a sucker for their Shades...

For basing, there are a few easy ways to get creative. Check out my blog and see the bases I've done there, and if any look like something you'd like to do I'd be happy to explain the steps. Nothing wrong with PVA + Sand, though!

Took me a while (Christmas-Chaos be damned!) but i've got some new Pics to show off. 3 Trollblood Warbeasts out of the Battlebox, keep in mind that the skin and the head details are not done yet. The first because im not quite sure how to proceed after the basecoat, and the second because I lack a brush thats small enough to paint the eyes and mouth adequatly.

Again, Feedback and hints appreciated!

And another range of Photos after i've made some further progress. As usual, Feedback and the like appreciated.

Dire Troll Mauler - Heavy:







Madrak ironhide - Warlock:





2x Impaler - Light:



[

Axer - Light:



[

They look pretty good to me, but maybe we are just at the same skill level!

All i'd say is maybe give the lighter skin tone another round on some of the places it didn't pop up, like in the last picture on the dudes back and arms. It looks good on the Heavy, though. Better than my feeble attempts at skin.

edit; I can't words properly.

A couple of things I can add:

For the Orks:

Try to get a darker metal paint. You use some sort of silver tone, probably the second-lightest in the palette. Get a darker one. Even without much detailwork, darker metals (I use gunmetal grey from Valejo) look much orkier than gleaming polished silver.

Drybrushing. Things like the helmets and shoulder pads and whatnot can, and in the case of orks should look a little bit weathered. Drybrushing them with some metal tone (here silver works quite good to represent fresh chips in the paint while darker tones and maybe even some rust shows older damage).

For Both:

Washes are the way to go. Washes make the models look well-rounded and coherent, reduce the visibility of mistakes, add depth and improve the allaround appearence. For orks you'll find that Agrax earthshade = liquid skill.
For your blue-skinned warriors over yonder, a dark-blue or maybe even violet wash could add depth to the skin while a brown wash (agrax) helps with leather, wood, cloth and sometimes even metal, giving it a tarnished (gold) oily or dirty ("silvers") look.

These last group of trolls are already a step on from the orks you posted first , you are doing really well and progression of skill is quite obvious.

Keep it up , it can seem daunting at first and there are many terms and phrases in this hobby that can seem bewildering when your starting out , just take your time , dont rush and it will all come together.

Nice work on the trolls btw