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Hi.

So, this is my first painted Marine after something of 10 years.
What do you guys think? What can I do better?

Bronze was dried in, so the left arm needs some work again.

not a bad effort i think. i can see youre already thinning your paints to a degree. keep doing that. my advise would be to work on techniques like feathering, layering and blending. this will allow your highlights to work outwards smoothly to the edge highlights, rather than the sharp contrasts of the black-grey-white you can see on your armour. its one of the first things i notice having done art stuff all my life, i like nice blends otherwise, id say maybe lighten your brushstrokes a little.. work your lines up with multiple light brushings rather than getting a single line down. i like the writing, but i feel like if the strokes were a little lighter, it would look more like inscribed text on his pauldron. oddly enough, the text on his purity seal is fantastic. i do like your fiery reds aswell.

Thanks for your comment
I just read an article on your mentioned techniques and will definitely try them this week.
Maybe I'm going to repaint the inscriptions on the shoulder pad, I made them bigger to look better at an arm's length distance. I have to try a lighter inscription and see how it looks.

Well, queen_annes_revenge sums it up pretty well, so I'll do it by colour:

Red - Your red is fantastic! From what I can see it appears very smooth, with just the right amount of highlighting and a solid body of colour. IMHO - everyone can always do better, but if I were you I'd be perfectly happy with that red and focus my attentions elsewhere.

Bronze - For me, this is the major detractor to the model (It's by no means a bad model, this is just the bit that limits you the most if you get my meaning). For my tastes, it's lacking definition around the raised areas. It appears you have applied highlights, but perhaps further, more defined highlights and shading could be applied. I'd recommend a quick wash with Agrax Earthshade and highlighting it up towards Runefang Steel (Old Range: Milthril Silver).

Bone - I presume the Eagle and skull on the Chest-plate are bone and if so, again that's an area which you've hit spot on - I can't think of anything to point out on that part.

White - The White on the bolter looks great! Like the red, it's very smooth and you've got good coverage - something that most people, including me, struggle with immensely. I do agree with queen_annes_revenge in saying that the white text on the pauldron could do with being thinner - but I suppose that's personal preference.

Highlights - I didn't mention Black as it falls into this. I think, the best way in which you could improve upon this model is simply to keep practicing your highlights. Again, this is simply my opinion (Feel free to disregard it), but as you practice your highlights, you'll get a feel for thinning the lines down and possibly applying more than two shades of highlight to blend things together. I really feel that if you just make those highlights a tad thinner - then it'l go from a good to a great in no time at all.

To sum it all up - your model looks really good as it is, but work on those highlights will vastly increase the quality of the job. Good work - keep it up! (Oh, and welcome back to the hobby )

definately ^ i found that feathering and such came to me with time and as my confidence increased..when you start to realise you can work on your colours on flat surfaces and it looks good because its a smooth blend. agreed on the white aswell..i didnt mention it originally, but that will do you wonders when it comes to painting shades like yellow, and gold, to keep it smooth.

Thanks Warpig, I can definitely use that input.

The bronze was dried in, so I will have to rework these parts, as they didn't turn out well. Using Mithril Silver for the highlights is a really good idea, I will try that!

For the black highlights, I will try the techniques pointed out by queen_annes_revenge (thanks again to you).


I was thinking about painting the now bronzen parts in bone colour (as the aquila). Opinions?

 Hanskrampf wrote:

I was thinking about painting the now bronzen parts in bone colour (as the aquila). Opinions?

Obviously, you have to appreciate that my answer is subject to my taste - which won't be 100% your taste. Personally though, I like it as it is. The bone aquila works really well as a stark contrast to the black chest plate and the bronze, as mentioned before, when highlighted to create a little more contrast, works well against the red. I'd personally, swap the bronze out for a gold, but if you're dead set on it, then it doesn't look bad at all (Just IMO, I'm not 100% on bronze in any case - I always think that the war-gaming world's concept of 'Bronze' always looks more like tarnished copper, which is different to, say, the polished bronze of a Spartans muscle or bell cuirass)

Thanks Warpig, I will try Gold instead of Bronze, see how it looks.