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G'day everyone,

I came to the wargaming hobby rather recently. At first I joined a group of painters at my FLGS to slap some color on my Descent boardgame minis. The more I got the basics down, the more I wanted to paint - and the more I wanted to play, too! Right now I'm setting foot in various systems, enjoy the painting, and see where the rules make me want to stay.

From my painting crew I learned a lot, but after getting 100+ minis painted I'd also like to get an outsider's perspective on things. Attached, you can see a pic of my latest mini, 'Fangtooth' from the super fun Guild Ball system. I've spend about six hours on it and think it shows really well were I'm at right now.

So what do you guys think? What looks good, what needs to be improved, and what techniques could I work on to make these improvements? Ultimately, I want to paint for the table and not for the showcase, but I still think that with some sage advise from you, dear Dakka's, it can be improved quite a bit.

Looking forward to your feedback

Cheers,
Kultan

He looks pretty good! have you already thrown a wash over him?

Something you can try to get an extra pop off him is by glazing over the areas you want to be brighter, or wet blending. It a technique that requires lots of practice and patience to do but looks amazing once you get it.

Hey there

Thanks for your feedback!

The model is finished and matte coated already. What I did was:

- Priming
-Basecoating
- Washing (all agrax earthshade, to give him a rather dirty look)
- Redoing the base colors, leaving the wash in the recesses
- Setting highlights 1
- Setting highlights 2

Glazing I did already a few times, but on other models. So far, I know it as a technique to coat an entire model over, to ease the transition between colors (e.g.: a black lizard creature with bright grey higlight areas that, after glazing, looks not so 'spotty' anymore). Wetblending I know, too but mostly from 'flat' surfaces like long capes.

How could I use these techniques to good effect here? Isn't his skin way too messed up? (Structure-wise?)

So wet blending can be used anywhere on a model, and in fact its acutally harder to do on larger surfaces with sharp edges, this guy would be a very good model to try some wet blending. If you wet blend you basically remove the need to wash, since you are creating the same effect.

A good spot to try it for example, again you can try it on a new model, would actually be his breast.

You want to get 3 colors, your brightest color, acting as where the light would hit it, your middle color, and your darker shade color. Put all thee out on your pallet from dark to light, and inbetween them mix the colors so that the range from dark to light smoothly transitions.
When you do mix, only pull your lights to mix into darks, dont mix darks into lights, you will saturate and ruin the colors.

Once you have that range, grab paint from it as you need. I urually paint the highest point first, like a small circle, then the darkets, then a strip of the middle color between the two , and used my mixed paints to paint up from the middle to light, and paint up from the dark to middle.

You want to use a back and forth motion on the model to mix the paints as you put it on to create the wet blending effect.

Its something that takes a lot of time, and you need very thinned out paints.

The chain seem to be lacking, I would say paint a bit more silver onto it in future and then thin down a abbbadon black and wash it with that first before putting a sollid silver high light. Not the best painter to give advice.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry, new phone, if the wounds are supposed to be fresh add another brighter colour , if they older a darker to show dried blood, but a great job thus far, keep us posted.

Hello again,

apologies for the late reply, I have been on the road quite a bit for the last couple of days. Thank you all for your great hints and tips!

@ Backspacehacker: Thank you very much for the elaborate explanation! That sounds like a really good technique for large, but uneven spaces on a model. I actually have a couple of Malifaux Guild Riflemen on the table because the models really intrigued me, and I can definitely see good use for wetblending on their coats. I'll keep you posted!

@Kingpin54: Thank you, too! I wasn't sure how to improve the blisters and wounds but will most likely revamp them with your tips. The chain, yeah, that gave me a little headache. I wanted to go for a shabby, rusty look and guess neglected proper highlighting in favor of it I'll work on that! Thanks!

He is decent. Good work.

Perhaps this is more of a planning tip for the next model. He would look better of there was more variation in shade across the skin. So the upper surfaces of his shoulders would be lighter than elsewhere.

This sort of thing is most easily achieved with an airbrush, but is certainly possible with bristles. It's also more easily achieved before painting the chains, so perhaps plan for this kind of thing when you start your next mini.

I like the mask. I think the blending on the whites there is good.

 ColonelFazackerley wrote:
He is decent. Good work.

Perhaps this is more of a planning tip for the next model. He would look better of there was more variation in shade across the skin. So the upper surfaces of his shoulders would be lighter than elsewhere.

This sort of thing is most easily achieved with an airbrush, but is certainly possible with bristles. It's also more easily achieved before painting the chains, so perhaps plan for this kind of thing when you start your next mini.

I like the mask. I think the blending on the whites there is good.

Thank you! Yeah, I'll definitely have to make more of great surfaces in future models. Thankfully I have a similar model in stock from another guild, who is also rather bare on the shoulders. I can immediately plan ahead for that one

I would say using a clear varnish to finish and protect it rather than matte if you want to preserve your bright areas and glazes, it darkens the whole effect which is what some people want, but not me personally. Also, a drybrush of something like necron compound over the chains would be nice and perhaps not such a heavy shadow under the tiddies, the highlight doesn't balance to how dark it is. Remembering, you are recreating the way light would hit the model.