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My painting skills are mediocre at best, and I've neglected painting the bulk of my minis for years. I don't play as much as I used to and part of the reason has been the embarrassment of pulling out solid black minis at the game store.

I spend a good deal of time on my hero characters and monstrous creatures, but could never bring myself to do the same to my grunts. It's taken me weeks to do some and the results have always been mediocre at best.

I decided to try speed painting assembly line style and trying to get through the bulk of my armies, and started with some termagaunts. Total time spent on 30 gaunts was about three hours spread out over a couple of days.



I've been told I'm overly critical of my artistic abilities and maybe these guys aren't as bad as I think, but I'm almost more embarrassed to play with these than when they were solid black.

Is the general consensus that it's better to have primer coated minis or poorly painted minis?

TBH it is hard to give any sort of crit based on that photo

However it is representative of what your army will look like on the table.
On that basis imho you have nought nowt and nothing to fret about.

I would definitely prefer to see the models like this than just primed black.


I sort of know how you feel but am finding that it is better to not have such high expectations and inevitable disappointments in not achieving a Golden Daemon standard on each model which takes a month to complete.

Well done

Not at all. I've got scores of gaunts that arnt painted at all. Honestly I've seen people assemble stuff to the day they use it. It takes alot of time to paint this stuff and if you dont have it than theres no shame in not having a fully painted army. Your gaunts up there look better than the few I have taken time to paint.

No, never be embarassed about having a painted army. Painted minis are infinitely better than unpainted minis.

They look fine from the photo, though a better shot of some close ups would be nice. Besides, grunts are grunts, they just end up dying anyways.

More pics:

Here's a closer shot of the gaunts. I appologize for the ammount of blur. My camera has a short field of focus when getting this close to something this small.



And here is a comparison of what I do with my monstrous creatures. As you can see it's actually not a lot better, it just takes me a lot longer...



In close ups like these you can see where my shaky hands slip and spill color where it was obviously not intended. I could go back and try to fix it, but I find it hard to match the shade and highlight well enough when doing touch ups.

That's one of the reason's I do the purple first, then the red. That way I can say any errant red is just blood from the recently slain enemies... :( justifying my lack of skill...

Where you see shaky hand slips I am seeing no such thing.

You remind me of myself in this respect, if you don't mind me saying. You probably want to do a good job, and if there is something you are not happy about, it stays in the front of your mind.
All you can see are the faults and none of the good stuff.
Yet I bet you a pound to a penny, if someone showed you an equivalent standard of work you would praise it!

IMHO they look grand and are definitely a worthy table top standard. You really need not worry. Any little blemish magnified by the camera will not be noticed on the battlefield.
Thing you also need bear in mind, with these chaps under your belt and the experience gained, you will only get even better.
again, well done!

Yeah, I sincerely wish my stuff looked this good. (And I think my paint job is well above tabletop standard.)

I really don't like the color scheme. I couldn't care less if you were vincent van goph; the red and that bland purple just doesn't go together. I'm sorry to say that but that's what I think.

Your painting is above tabletop quality, but it doesn't mean it looks nice.

You should have said sooner then. No use telling the guy now they are finished

Who says Nids need to look colour coordinated?
They need a stereotypical gay gaunt to help choose the right carapace.
That color chitin is just soo you sweetie!

Apart from which that is merely a personal taste issue.

No your stuff is fine. You will be one of the lucky few that deploy a fully painted army. It is good work imho

So i broke out my first army again yesterday. I just finished painting my first k sons unit, the latest addition in a long time for that army. Been gaming and painting for two years and had moved on to painting other armies.

I was embarrassed by the horrific quality of painting i started with. I saw one unit of gleaming beautiful models in a sea of horrific mess that looks like they came from planet fishtank because of the first horrible job i did of basing.

Then i looked at my latest creation of k sons and said wow, what a long way i have come from when i started.

Your first stuff is way better than mine when i started. You should be very happy to paint your first models that well, the shading is actually quite good and the color tones and shading on the purple areas is quite good as well.

Yes, i did notice some paint slips, however that is pretty much the norm, i have pics posted on my gallery and my k sons sorcerer has some sloppy paint on him as well, but the camera makes it look ten times worse because it is a very close up photo on a very small mini which takes a small unnoticeable error and jams it in your face!

You will only get better, and you are starting better than i did, believe me. If I had to choose between people to play with and you had the only painted army i would pick you over them, period.

Its not always about the quality, its about the effort and the respect to your opponent to at least put some color on the damn things!

Your work is great! Personally I prefer playing with painted stuff, but I don't mind so much if I have something that's still bare or primed.

It looks a helluva a lot better than my nids, and most nid armies I've seen. lots of people don't want to tackle the endless swarm, you've done a better than average job at painting them!

For that, I say Kudos to you!

Dave-c wrote:So i broke out my first army again yesterday. I just finished painting my first k sons unit, the latest addition in a long time for that army. Been gaming and painting for two years and had moved on to painting other armies.

I was embarrassed by the horrific quality of painting i started with. I saw one unit of gleaming beautiful models in a sea of horrific mess that looks like they came from planet fishtank because of the first horrible job i did of basing.

Then i looked at my latest creation of k sons and said wow, what a long way i have come from when i started.

Your first stuff is way better than mine when i started. You should be very happy to paint your first models that well, the shading is actually quite good and the color tones and shading on the purple areas is quite good as well.

Yes, i did notice some paint slips, however that is pretty much the norm, i have pics posted on my gallery and my k sons sorcerer has some sloppy paint on him as well, but the camera makes it look ten times worse because it is a very close up photo on a very small mini which takes a small unnoticeable error and jams it in your face!

You will only get better, and you are starting better than i did, believe me. If I had to choose between people to play with and you had the only painted army i would pick you over them, period.

Its not always about the quality, its about the effort and the respect to your opponent to at least put some color on the damn things!

The problem I have is that I'm not just starting, I've been doing this for 15+ years and still at this level... :( My first army was some very poorly painted dark angels. Testors paint on old school beakies.

But I do appreciate the kind words. You've given me the courage to pull out my army in public again. Now I've got to finish painting another 50 or so gaunts...

The painting doesn't look bad and it's certainly better than an unpainted army BUT the basing is a little sloppy. It looks as if you put a bit too much on.


Edit: Actually looking at the other pics the painting is much better than average. I'd just clean up around the bases a bit and you'd have an army others would be envious of.

martian_jo wrote:

Dave-c wrote:So i broke out my first army again yesterday. I just finished painting my first k sons unit, the latest addition in a long time for that army. Been gaming and painting for two years and had moved on to painting other armies.

I was embarrassed by the horrific quality of painting i started with. I saw one unit of gleaming beautiful models in a sea of horrific mess that looks like they came from planet fishtank because of the first horrible job i did of basing.

Then i looked at my latest creation of k sons and said wow, what a long way i have come from when i started.

Your first stuff is way better than mine when i started. You should be very happy to paint your first models that well, the shading is actually quite good and the color tones and shading on the purple areas is quite good as well.

Yes, i did notice some paint slips, however that is pretty much the norm, i have pics posted on my gallery and my k sons sorcerer has some sloppy paint on him as well, but the camera makes it look ten times worse because it is a very close up photo on a very small mini which takes a small unnoticeable error and jams it in your face!

You will only get better, and you are starting better than i did, believe me. If I had to choose between people to play with and you had the only painted army i would pick you over them, period.

Its not always about the quality, its about the effort and the respect to your opponent to at least put some color on the damn things!

The problem I have is that I'm not just starting, I've been doing this for 15+ years and still at this level... :( My first army was some very poorly painted dark angels. Testors paint on old school beakies.

But I do appreciate the kind words. You've given me the courage to pull out my army in public again. Now I've got to finish painting another 50 or so gaunts...

You should see my orks. Green skin with no highlights, silver weapons, brown leather clothes, different color handles on their weapons, and a home made black wash that i dipped them in. Simple, decent enough, super fast, and easy. Orks are where i obtained my painting skills. You can make a model look good with little work, and 120 boys with basic paint is better than 120 primer or bare gray boys.

EDIT:

My boys actually made it onto GW's website with this paint scheme. Look under the throne of skulls page and 40k pictures, i have the kan wall with lego rokkit buggy conversions made from AoBR deff koptas.

These could very easily be table top standard if you just picked out a few minor details or feathered on some paint to the carapace.

moarmoarmoar wrote:I really don't like the color scheme. I couldn't care less if you were vincent van goph; the red and that bland purple just doesn't go together. I'm sorry to say that but that's what I think.

Your painting is above tabletop quality, but it doesn't mean it looks nice.

I intended the purple to be more bold, but after I finished my first tyrant the purple didn't turn out like I'd hoped.

I guess it boils down to laziness, since I knew how to replicate those results and keep it uniform and didn't know how to get it the shade and tones I was originally hoping for. My aim was originally for an inverse hive fleet behemoth scheme.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=&categoryId=300002§ion=community&pIndex=5&aId=17400032a&start=6&multiPageMode=true

Here is the actual link to the ToS event photos page.

Lol love the rokkit buggies. I didn't notice the lego wheels at first. I assume you painted the red around the bases of some of your boys to distinguish the squads?

RandomSauce19, Do you mean like painting the tongues and eyes? Now that I think about it I'm kind of kicking myself for not having done that already...

martian_jo wrote:Lol love the rokkit buggies. I didn't notice the lego wheels at first. I assume you painted the red around the bases of some of your boys to distinguish the squads?

RandomSauce19, Do you mean like painting the tongues and eyes? Now that I think about it I'm kind of kicking myself for not having done that already...

That is exactly what the red is. There are actually green ones in the photo as well. I spray painted the bases before applying basing materials to make it easier.

Quantity has a quality of its own.

Don't worry about it. Anybody who's going to be genuinely mean-spirited about the painting quality of a bunch of model soldiers is probably the kind of person you don't want to associate with anyway.

moarmoarmoar wrote:I really don't like the color scheme. I couldn't care less if you were vincent van goph; the red and that bland purple just doesn't go together. I'm sorry to say that but that's what I think.

Your painting is above tabletop quality, but it doesn't mean it looks nice.

Personally, I would be annoyed to have Vincent Van Gogh quality painting on my minis. Have you actually seen any of his pics? Sloppy and garish imho.

Now, good painting skills like John Constable or John Howe would go a long way.

Back on topic, I think the colours do actually work, especially for mean bugs from outer space. Also, painted always is better than primed, primed better than grey plastic.
So no need to be embarrassed from me.

Also, The fact you are thinking about being embarrassed, means you want to do better. Only one way to get better at painting really - the more you paint (and experiment) the better your results in the long run.

They look very good. Better than my boys anyway, and i'm fielding THEM.

Although one tip, they look a tiny bit cold. I'm guessing you highlighted or drybrushed with white. A glaze might make them look a lot better. It does not take a genius what to use. GW (if you use GW paints) only make one wash for each primary colour, plus a few other like purple and brown.

Tabletop quality is good enough. Your minis have some depth and are properly based, congratulations; you're in the majority of tabletop gamers. Even thickly slathered paintblobs from a 6yo are better than primer/grey hordes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kr'aag wrote:

moarmoarmoar wrote:I really don't like the color scheme. I couldn't care less if you were vincent van goph; the red and that bland purple just doesn't go together. I'm sorry to say that but that's what I think.

Your painting is above tabletop quality, but it doesn't mean it looks nice.

Personally, I would be annoyed to have Vincent Van Gogh quality painting on my minis. Have you actually seen any of his pics? Sloppy and garish imho.

Now, good painting skills like John Constable or John Howe would go a long way.

Back on topic, I think the colours do actually work, especially for mean bugs from outer space. Also, painted always is better than primed, primed better than grey plastic.
So no need to be embarrassed from me.

Also, The fact you are thinking about being embarrassed, means you want to do better. Only one way to get better at painting really - the more you paint (and experiment) the better your results in the long run.

Van Gogh had a fantastic sense of colour and tone, I don't think I've ever seen (in person) models painted anywhere near his level. People put way to much stock in technical proficiency, this is why 90% of miniatures you will ever see are the same pseudo-realist aping of the 'Eavy Metal team while never coming close to approaching their level of skill. Creativity is dying in the hobby.

I think they look ok. Normally purple/red isnt a really good combination but due to the white drybrush it looks quite nice imo.
There's lots of room for improvement though, but nothing to be ashamed of.

Looks good to me

Infinitely more fun to be across the table from than a horde of angry grey plastic.

Don't be embarrassed! they are imho very nice! My painting isn't as good as that, but i filled painted miniatures because 1. they look better than primed and 2. it is a good feeling seeing your army all painted up fighting as a force on the table. My armies aren't painted to a standard where you can see the sergeant's blood-shot eyes after a night of heavy drinking, or the cavity forming on an elderly tyranid. Mine are simple painted space marines, and trust me i'm proud! so don't feel embarrassed!

I think you hav no reason to be embarrased. Its all the people (myself included) who field hordes of grey plastic that should be embarrased.

Yes your painting has room for improvement, but thats natural and most of us are far from perfect.

I think you have i nice solid colour scheme there and sure on the table it looks good having that many painted to a perfectly good table top standard

keep up the good work

Keep painting as much as you clearly are and you will improve faster than you would realise as you pick up tips and tricks along the way