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Andykp wrote:
I must admit I was being a bit arsey last night and came over more militant than I am really, I am ardent about using a pallet because it is, easier, produces better results, allows more control over consistency of paint, volume of colour, effect of the paint in the model.

Yeah I was probably overly snarky with my reply, sorry.

By using straight from the pot or bottle, you lose any control over the properties of the paint bed you are basically colouring in, but you are also making life harder for your self as the paint flows less well and and is harder to control and produces less pleasing results. If you just want to colour your models in, you are still better off thinning your paints.

Painting straight from the pot the idea (at least when I do it) is to keep the brush wet, so if the paint is starting to flow poorly you give the brush a swirl in the water before going back to the pot.

As the paints are designed to be thinned, what is a reason not to thin them? Saying it suits your style is fine but very few painters who don’t thin their paints have a style they have given any thought to, or have much understand of how they are manipulating the properties of their paints bumpy using them neat. They are just being lazy, but actually making life harder for them selves.

Speed is the primary reason, and convenience in needing one less thing on your desk when painting.

The way I see painting miniatures for wargaming, it's just a balance between time and quality. When many years ago I timed myself painting to see where I was spending my time I was really surprised because little of my time was actually spent applying paint to model, it was doing all the other stuff. Stuff like opening and closing pots, removing the paint from the pot, playing around on my palette to get the consistency just right, getting the brush and model at the right angle to apply the paint smoothly, a few seconds later when the paint on my palette starts drying and I have to revive it with more water and play around getting it back to the right consistency.

Learning that if I'm just trying to block in a colour, compromising my usual perfectionism to let me lay down paint faster in order to spend more time on other things that had a bigger impact on quality could, in some circumstances, be the better way to go.

I had a friend who would not use a pallet but struggled to paint, as soon as I got him thinning his paints he was so much happier, he admitted that the paint went on easier and everything he found frustrating about painting was eased.

Teaching someone how to initially paint I think it's a good idea to teach them to play with consistency, but once they know what they're doing and make the logical choice to either keep thinning or to go back to painting from the pot I don't really see anything wrong with that.

Perhaps my personal experience is a bit warped, because I started painting wargaming models when I was 10 or 11-ish but I had been painting scale aircraft models with enamels since I was 6-ish so by the time I got my first miniatures, a box of 5th edition Bretonnian Archers, I didn't have a problem laying down a smooth coat of paint even though those models were painted half with enamels and half with acrylics. Try painting the wing of a 1/32 aircraft with a small round brush and you'll learn the meaning of bumpiness Rather my struggle was learning how to highlight, shade, use washes (inks back in the day) and something I still don't know how to do, pick colours that work together

Hell, if someone knows how to paint the right colours at the right value in the right areas but does it splotchy with unthinned paint and a worn out brush, IMO that will look infinitely better than someone who lays down perfectly smooth coats of colours that don't work in the wrong areas. It's why some art courses teach value first, colour second, application methods third (especially when painting life-like). Us miniature painters often get too bogged down in techniques and tricks.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Andykp wrote:
I must admit I was being a bit arsey last night and came over more militant than I am really, I am ardent about using a pallet because it is, easier, produces better results, allows more control over consistency of paint, volume of colour, effect of the paint in the model.

Yeah I was probably overly snarky with my reply, sorry.

By using straight from the pot or bottle, you lose any control over the properties of the paint bed you are basically colouring in, but you are also making life harder for your self as the paint flows less well and and is harder to control and produces less pleasing results. If you just want to colour your models in, you are still better off thinning your paints.

Painting straight from the pot the idea (at least when I do it) is to keep the brush wet, so if the paint is starting to flow poorly you give the brush a swirl in the water before going back to the pot.

As the paints are designed to be thinned, what is a reason not to thin them? Saying it suits your style is fine but very few painters who don’t thin their paints have a style they have given any thought to, or have much understand of how they are manipulating the properties of their paints bumpy using them neat. They are just being lazy, but actually making life harder for them selves.

Speed is the primary reason, and convenience in needing one less thing on your desk when painting.

The way I see painting miniatures for wargaming, it's just a balance between time and quality. When many years ago I timed myself painting to see where I was spending my time I was really surprised because little of my time was actually spent applying paint to model, it was doing all the other stuff. Stuff like opening and closing pots, removing the paint from the pot, playing around on my palette to get the consistency just right, getting the brush and model at the right angle to apply the paint smoothly, a few seconds later when the paint on my palette starts drying and I have to revive it with more water and play around getting it back to the right consistency.

Learning that if I'm just trying to block in a colour, compromising my usual perfectionism to let me lay down paint faster in order to spend more time on other things that had a bigger impact on quality could, in some circumstances, be the better way to go.

I had a friend who would not use a pallet but struggled to paint, as soon as I got him thinning his paints he was so much happier, he admitted that the paint went on easier and everything he found frustrating about painting was eased.

Teaching someone how to initially paint I think it's a good idea to teach them to play with consistency, but once they know what they're doing and make the logical choice to either keep thinning or to go back to painting from the pot I don't really see anything wrong with that.

Perhaps my personal experience is a bit warped, because I started painting wargaming models when I was 10 or 11-ish but I had been painting scale aircraft models with enamels since I was 6-ish so by the time I got my first miniatures, a box of 5th edition Bretonnian Archers, I didn't have a problem laying down a smooth coat of paint even though those models were painted half with enamels and half with acrylics. Try painting the wing of a 1/32 aircraft with a small round brush and you'll learn the meaning of bumpiness Rather my struggle was learning how to highlight, shade, use washes (inks back in the day) and something I still don't know how to do, pick colours that work together

Hell, if someone knows how to paint the right colours at the right value in the right areas but does it splotchy with unthinned paint and a worn out brush, IMO that will look infinitely better than someone who lays down perfectly smooth coats of colours that don't work in the wrong areas. It's why some art courses teach value first, colour second, application methods third (especially when painting life-like). Us miniature painters often get too bogged down in techniques and tricks.

Speed, painting with properly thinned paints is actually quicker because it takes only a second to thin the paint, especially if you just want to apply it and get an even coat, but thinned paint goes on better, flows around detail better. So speeds up the actual application it’s a false economy.

As for your point around not spending enough time actually painting, for me prepping your paints is part of the process but that’s preference I suppose. And what you want as the end result. For me the process is the point, I enjoy all aspects of painting and it is the vast majority of my hobby time, much more than playing sadly.

I think a lot of people who don’t enjoy painting or see it as a means to an end would enjoy it a lot more if they were shown how to make it easier to do and easier to get better results. Soon many would stop looking at is as throwing some paint on gaming pieces and an essential and enjoyable part of the hobby.

I personally have progressed from the GW base/shade/highlight method to playing with airbrushes, oils, pigments and inks, thinking about light and volume and contras, getting into colour theory and using the properties of the paints to get the results I want, and I am not artistic at all but a huge aspect of the hobby has opened up to me and it literally all started with thinning my paints, that’s was the first step in that journey.

PS, my entry in to painting was the same as yours, model planes and enamels then miniatures and acrylics. Just a few years earlier possibly, 1989/90 was when I Started on minis.

Andykp wrote:


Speed, painting with properly thinned paints is actually quicker because it takes only a second to thin the paint, especially if you just want to apply it and get an even coat, but thinned paint goes on better, flows around detail better. So speeds up the actual application it’s a false economy.

Depends how far you go - if you thin enough you need two coats instead of one (which, if you want smooth, you probably should be) then it's going to take much longer even if the paint does go on easier.

Andykp wrote:
Speed, painting with properly thinned paints is actually quicker because it takes only a second to thin the paint, especially if you just want to apply it and get an even coat, but thinned paint goes on better, flows around detail better. So speeds up the actual application it’s a false economy.

I'd say if you find it significantly slower to apply unthinned paint than thinned paint, you're probably doing it wrong But I dunno, maybe it's just me, if I were entering a speed painting competition I'd certainly throw thinning out the window.

As for your point around not spending enough time actually painting, for me prepping your paints is part of the process but that’s preference I suppose. And what you want as the end result. For me the process is the point, I enjoy all aspects of painting and it is the vast majority of my hobby time, much more than playing sadly.

I think a lot of people who don’t enjoy painting or see it as a means to an end would enjoy it a lot more if they were shown how to make it easier to do and easier to get better results. Soon many would stop looking at is as throwing some paint on gaming pieces and an essential and enjoyable part of the hobby.

I personally have progressed from the GW base/shade/highlight method to playing with airbrushes, oils, pigments and inks, thinking about light and volume and contras, getting into colour theory and using the properties of the paints to get the results I want, and I am not artistic at all but a huge aspect of the hobby has opened up to me and it literally all started with thinning my paints, that’s was the first step in that journey.

PS, my entry in to painting was the same as yours, model planes and enamels then miniatures and acrylics. Just a few years earlier possibly, 1989/90 was when I Started on minis.

I'd say that's a case of "each to their own". I like painting a good model here and there, that sorceress I posted on the previous page is probably the first display miniature I've painted in about 6 years, haha. But if I'm going to spend a lot of time on a model, it'll generally be a scale model plane (particularly WW2), where it's not uncommon for me to spend 100 or 200 hours on a single model.

I just do not find painting rank and file models interesting or fun or relaxing. My Space Wolves army died a painful death due to me picking a scheme that too long to paint and my painting of it drew to a crawl because by the 2nd squad I wanted to gouge my eyes out whenever I saw the "Shadow Grey" colour. My first Lizardmen army (not the models in my gallery) I painted over the course of 2 weekends and if you picked up any one model it looked mediocre, but as an army of 80 or so models it looked good, at least to me. My Tyranids... you can basically follow the quality where the first models were okay, they got a big better, then they got significantly worse as I just got sick of painting them, haha. My Tyranids are what really pushed me to start investing time in learning how to paint things faster not just better.

For me, I care about how my armies look, but I've learned to care less about what an individual model looks like. I recently spent 4 or so hours painting a Night's Watch regiment and as a regiment it looks cool, an individual model in that regiment looks no better than models I was painting when I was 12 And I'm totally happy with that. That sorceress model took me longer to paint all by herself, but it's a rare miniature that inspires me to spend that sort of time on a single model.

But yeah, each to their own...

My TL;DR.... don't assume someone is doing something in a way perceived as "wrong" simply because they're ignorant, maybe "wrong" is simply "different".

deano2099 wrote:

 Dolnikan wrote:
I might not be the greatest painter, but in a way, I always paint directly from the pot. Or rather, I store all my paints in droppers and keep a working supply in microcentrifuge tubes (usually 1.5 ml). I never have things like contamination, don't have issues with paint drying out, and can paint just the way I like it. Sure, it might not be up to some higher standards, but I'm not interested in achieving such things. I just want minis that look good enough from a distance.

Everything with palettes and the like sounds like something that only really helps those aiming for higher levels. For those of us who don't, why should we worry about it at all?

It's not just about standards though, it's about ease/speed. Sometimes it's quicker and easier to use a palette too.

Like, one of the worst pieces of advice I got when I started painting was "don't buy nice brushes, they're expensive and you'll ruin them". I mean, that's true for 5 minutes until you've learned not to get paint in the ferrule and to clean them afterwards, but for the first year I ended up using Army Painter and GW brushes untill I finally went, "let's see how expensive these expensive Windsor and Newton brushes are". Oh, seven quid. Less than the cost of most stuff I'm painting. And they made painting *so* much easier. I'm not sure they made the end result better but they made it so much easier and more enjoyable. And given the cost of everything else in the hobby, were hardly expensive.

If you've tried a bunch of different things and found the one that works for you that's great but equally if you've never tried a palette it might also be worth trying. But then I find experimenting with new techniques and stuff fun in and of itself. That's part of the fun for me. If it's not I get sticking with what you know.

I did try it out a little, but back when I started they certainly weren't a thing I was aware of. And I think that my speed is just fine. I also tend to combine painting with other things, like playing RPGs so the ease of my little tubes really helps. And I do thin my paints. In fact, I can often get them to the right consistency in the tubes so I don't have to bother doing that again and again. But then again, I also keep some demiwater and pipets around to add more water if necessary.

For brushes, I find that I don't really notice the difference between them. The one thing that matters is the size. Bigger ones easily become harder to use for fine details, which probably isn't the biggest surprise.

I've been painting straight out of the pot for over 30 years, and it's working fine for me.

I have a wet palette that I use when I need to mix paints or do some fancy blending, but this is maybe only 5% of what I do.

I always thin my paints though - a brand new GW paint is almost always too thick so I always thin them down by adding a few drops of water/medium into the pot and giving it a good shake. Sometimes I need to repeat this once or twice before the pot is empty.

deano2099 wrote:

Andykp wrote:


Speed, painting with properly thinned paints is actually quicker because it takes only a second to thin the paint, especially if you just want to apply it and get an even coat, but thinned paint goes on better, flows around detail better. So speeds up the actual application it’s a false economy.

Depends how far you go - if you thin enough you need two coats instead of one (which, if you want smooth, you probably should be) then it's going to take much longer even if the paint does go on easier.

It probably comes down to technique too, when I'm blocking in colour I use a soft bristled filbert brush to get most of the paint down then touch up with a round brush. Using a filbert appropriately sized for the area you're painting with thick-ish paint and applying strokes on big areas but using a stabbing motion to get it a consistent thickness around the detail is probably the quickest way to get a layer of paint on a model (without air tools) that still looks decent.

You said you did that mage with oils, that’s my new thing I’m learning with, used to use them just for weathering and a wash here and there. Just learning now to use them for highlights and and general painting, they are fantastic. So much fun, such good results and so forgiving. My new advice to beginner painters is, try oils! They’ve blown my mind and opened up so many opportunities. Scale modelling is great but not sure I have the attention to detail that you need. Love the process and admire the skills.

Now we have reached a consensus on droppers vs pots (there is no consensus) how do we all feel about the idea of tubes? I am all for it, not used thee but intrigued.

Andykp wrote:
Now we have reached a consensus on droppers vs pots (there is no consensus) how do we all feel about the idea of tubes? I am all for it, not used thee but intrigued.

I already posted about this and I would be all for it.
Good tubes will keep paint safe for a loooong time, easy to store too.

It's quite hard to paint straight from the tube. Suggesting thinning is needed, which is where it all started in the first place.

I thin, simply by plastering some paint onto a plastic takeaway tub lid, and mixing in some water. When it dries, add water. When it gets thin, add paint.

These paints are very thick, like oil paint consistency, much thinner and tubes would be self defeating, it would just pour out. I am planning on giving these a try soon as.

I really wouldn't like that kind of packaging because it just feels so wasteful for the small amounts I usually use for miniatures. But then again, I'm no fancy painter.

Tubes work for oil paint because it's thick and you often thin it on the palette with turpentine/oil anyway.

Depending on your technique you don't always even use a palette - some artist squeeze the paint out directly on the canvas and use a spatula to paint.

Wouldn't try this on a miniature though.

Andykp wrote:
Now we have reached a consensus on droppers vs pots (there is no consensus) how do we all feel about the idea of tubes? I am all for it, not used thee but intrigued.

If you want to eat your paint tubes are the best solution.

Andykp wrote:
Now we have reached a consensus on droppers vs pots (there is no consensus) how do we all feel about the idea of tubes? I am all for it, not used thee but intrigued.

I like the idea but aren't good ones horribly expensive since they need a very high pigment density to stay opaque-ish when thinned?

One of the pros I think is some techniques favour a thick paint, like wet blending, or intentionally adding texture to a model (e.g. cross hatching or dotting paint on to create a textured fabric or leather).

 Oguhmek wrote:
Tubes work for oil paint because it's thick and you often thin it on the palette with turpentine/oil anyway.

Depending on your technique you don't always even use a palette - some artist squeeze the paint out directly on the canvas and use a spatula to paint.

Wouldn't try this on a miniature though.

Oils can be applied to models in a very thick unthinned coat if you want. You just clag it on, then when you come back with your blending brush you "stab" at the paint to blend it, which also smooths it out and makes it conform to the surface.

I've never attempted doing the same with super thick (like heavy body type thick) acrylics, the fast drying time I imagine would make it difficult to do, but I have had luck applying moderately thick acrylics and using a similar stabbing motion as I use with oils.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Andykp wrote:
You said you did that mage with oils, that’s my new thing I’m learning with, used to use them just for weathering and a wash here and there. Just learning now to use them for highlights and and general painting, they are fantastic. So much fun, such good results and so forgiving. My new advice to beginner painters is, try oils! They’ve blown my mind and opened up so many opportunities. Scale modelling is great but not sure I have the attention to detail that you need. Love the process and admire the skills.

Using oils definitely boosted the quality of my display models because it's much easier to start with a value sketch without worrying about blending, then blend it as desired afterwards.

I remember one YouTuber saying "blending is one of the best things you can do to improve painting quality" (paraphrased) and another YouTuber saying "blending is secondary to a good value sketch", I tend to agree with the latter.

Painting with acrylics I always find what I picture it my head isn't what appears on the model, I always overdo the shades, or overdo the highlights, or not have enough of my midtone. Using oils kind of solved that struggle for me.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Andykp wrote:
Now we have reached a consensus on droppers vs pots (there is no consensus) how do we all feel about the idea of tubes? I am all for it, not used thee but intrigued.

I like the idea but aren't good ones horribly expensive since they need a very high pigment density to stay opaque-ish when thinned?

One of the pros I think is some techniques favour a thick paint, like wet blending, or intentionally adding texture to a model (e.g. cross hatching or dotting paint on to create a textured fabric or leather).

 Oguhmek wrote:
Tubes work for oil paint because it's thick and you often thin it on the palette with turpentine/oil anyway.

Depending on your technique you don't always even use a palette - some artist squeeze the paint out directly on the canvas and use a spatula to paint.

Wouldn't try this on a miniature though.

Oils can be applied to models in a very thick unthinned coat if you want. You just clag it on, then when you come back with your blending brush you "stab" at the paint to blend it, which also smooths it out and makes it conform to the surface.

I've never attempted doing the same with super thick (like heavy body type thick) acrylics, the fast drying time I imagine would make it difficult to do, but I have had luck applying moderately thick acrylics and using a similar stabbing motion as I use with oils.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Andykp wrote:
You said you did that mage with oils, that’s my new thing I’m learning with, used to use them just for weathering and a wash here and there. Just learning now to use them for highlights and and general painting, they are fantastic. So much fun, such good results and so forgiving. My new advice to beginner painters is, try oils! They’ve blown my mind and opened up so many opportunities. Scale modelling is great but not sure I have the attention to detail that you need. Love the process and admire the skills.

Using oils definitely boosted the quality of my display models because it's much easier to start with a value sketch without worrying about blending, then blend it as desired afterwards.

I remember one YouTuber saying "blending is one of the best things you can do to improve painting quality" (paraphrased) and another YouTuber saying "blending is secondary to a good value sketch", I tend to agree with the latter.

Painting with acrylics I always find what I picture it my head isn't what appears on the model, I always overdo the shades, or overdo the highlights, or not have enough of my midtone. Using oils kind of solved that struggle for me.

Those scale 75 paints are heavy in pigment but not that expensive, compared to gw or Vallejo.

https://elementgames.co.uk/paints-hobby-and-scenery/paints-washes-etc/scale-75/scale-75-artist-scale-color-range

Value Sketches is the other thing that has moved my painting in in recent months, changed entirely how I think about light interacting with the model. I love the idea of placing the model in an environment and seeing how the light would impact the colour choices and saturations etc. it’s lead me into deeper colour theory (not my strong suit at all) and then using the best medium to get the volumes you want. Marco frissoni started it for me, just happened across a couple of his videos and now I’m fully down the rabbit hole.

I do think wargaming could do with some good introductory "how to paint" tutorials, like, not "how to thin" or "how to do a brush stroke" or "how to edge highlight" or "how to use a wash" but more along the lines of "this is what makes a good model look good and a bad model look bad". Maybe it's just me, but I think wargamers tend to focus too much on technique and not enough on how to make good artistic choices.

It's taken me decades of getting snippets of knowledge here and there to get to the point I'm at and still have a lot to learn, but in reality it's not THAT complicated and I actually learned a lot when I started watching some canvas painting tutorials.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Andykp wrote:
Those scale 75 paints are heavy in pigment but not that expensive, compared to gw or Vallejo.

https://elementgames.co.uk/paints-hobby-and-scenery/paints-washes-etc/scale-75/scale-75-artist-scale-color-range

Hmm, that's still a step up over GW paints which I'd already describe as expensive, and from what I understand the scale 75 paints aren't as dense in pigment as true heavy body artist acrylics.

Granted you get a lot of paint for your money, it's more a question of how much you need to spend to get the number of individual tubes you need.

But yeah, it's on my "things I'd like to try" list, just haven't gotten around to it.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I do think wargaming could do with some good introductory "how to paint" tutorials, like, not "how to thin" or "how to do a brush stroke" or "how to edge highlight" or "how to use a wash" but more along the lines of "this is what makes a good model look good and a bad model look bad". Maybe it's just me, but I think wargamers tend to focus too much on technique and not enough on how to make good artistic choices.

It's taken me decades of getting snippets of knowledge here and there to get to the point I'm at and still have a lot to learn, but in reality it's not THAT complicated and I actually learned a lot when I started watching some canvas painting tutorials.

I agree. There is a ton of stuff out there for “how” to paint, but I see a lot less on “why”. Techniques over theory. Just some basic color wheel stuff can help tremendously with model composition and help inform questions like “how should I base my models” or “what color should I paint the gems”. Tons of how-to’s, but a lot less on if a grass base or martian dust would better suit your Imperial Fists, or if rubies or amethysts set off the green cloak?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I do think wargaming could do with some good introductory "how to paint" tutorials, like, not "how to thin" or "how to do a brush stroke" or "how to edge highlight" or "how to use a wash" but more along the lines of "this is what makes a good model look good and a bad model look bad". Maybe it's just me, but I think wargamers tend to focus too much on technique and not enough on how to make good artistic choices.

It's taken me decades of getting snippets of knowledge here and there to get to the point I'm at and still have a lot to learn, but in reality it's not THAT complicated and I actually learned a lot when I started watching some canvas painting tutorials.

That would actually be pretty helpful. I'm not the greatest when it comes to colours (I once gave a guy a green torch without realising it until my friends asked my about the cool green torch, I thought it was standard red and orange) and have to clearly mark the bottles. For my medievals it's relatively simple because I can just follow the rules of tincture, but for many other things, I'm constantly thinking that my colour choices look awful to everyone else.

Keep in mind that most acrylic colours pots ranges in the miniature world are organised in 3 tonal variants of the same colour. Meaning it makes it easier to highlight and darken the same medium tone but it conflicts with, the so much important tutorials about colour mixing. Once you are comfortable colour mixing then probably 2/3 of the tonal pots are easy discarded.

All tutorials are really important since they all in some way speed up your knowledge I cannot say this enough times but do check the huge online catalogue of free tutorials. 1 hour of tutorials can save you weeks of pain in trial and error.

 Nevelon wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I do think wargaming could do with some good introductory "how to paint" tutorials, like, not "how to thin" or "how to do a brush stroke" or "how to edge highlight" or "how to use a wash" but more along the lines of "this is what makes a good model look good and a bad model look bad". Maybe it's just me, but I think wargamers tend to focus too much on technique and not enough on how to make good artistic choices.

It's taken me decades of getting snippets of knowledge here and there to get to the point I'm at and still have a lot to learn, but in reality it's not THAT complicated and I actually learned a lot when I started watching some canvas painting tutorials.

I agree. There is a ton of stuff out there for “how” to paint, but I see a lot less on “why”. Techniques over theory. Just some basic color wheel stuff can help tremendously with model composition and help inform questions like “how should I base my models” or “what color should I paint the gems”. Tons of how-to’s, but a lot less on if a grass base or martian dust would better suit your Imperial Fists, or if rubies or amethysts set off the green cloak?

Color theory isn't a subject that can really be covered in a short video or two. The color theory Wikipedia article can give you an idea of how it works. GW has done articles covering color theory in regards to miniatures before in White Dwarf (August 2017).

As for the choosing the colors of your base...

The blue looks different from the colours they used for UMs the last Years.

 Ghaz wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I do think wargaming could do with some good introductory "how to paint" tutorials, like, not "how to thin" or "how to do a brush stroke" or "how to edge highlight" or "how to use a wash" but more along the lines of "this is what makes a good model look good and a bad model look bad". Maybe it's just me, but I think wargamers tend to focus too much on technique and not enough on how to make good artistic choices.

It's taken me decades of getting snippets of knowledge here and there to get to the point I'm at and still have a lot to learn, but in reality it's not THAT complicated and I actually learned a lot when I started watching some canvas painting tutorials.

I agree. There is a ton of stuff out there for “how” to paint, but I see a lot less on “why”. Techniques over theory. Just some basic color wheel stuff can help tremendously with model composition and help inform questions like “how should I base my models” or “what color should I paint the gems”. Tons of how-to’s, but a lot less on if a grass base or martian dust would better suit your Imperial Fists, or if rubies or amethysts set off the green cloak?

Color theory isn't a subject that can really be covered in a short video or two. The color theory Wikipedia article can give you an idea of how it works. GW has done articles covering color theory in regards to miniatures before in White Dwarf (August 2017).

As for the choosing the colors of your base...

Were the guides in WD any good? I've barely read any WD in the past couple of decades, haha.

I'm certainly not the person to write such a tutorial... but my observation is wargamers need more like a practical guide to making stuff look good.

Attempts at explaining colour theory are often way too oversimplified to be useful to wargamers (it's often the same advice given to sign writers to make their signs more readable, lol, like using complementary colours to boost readability, try to have a red spot colour, increase contrast, etc). Also theory based on scientific knowledge of how the eye works often gets bundled together with subjective interpretations. My observation has been the colour wheel can be manipulated to fit damned near any colour scheme you want OR is used to massively limit combinations, all depending on who you ask

Topics that I think would be useful...
- Specular vs diffuse reflections and mimicking surface texturing... even painters who have very good technical skill with smooth creamy blends can produce NMM that looks like stone instead of metal because the balance of reflections is wrong. This feeds into what makes a fabric look like a fabric and painted armour look like painted armour and metal look like metal. There is also an affect here of the lighting type, weather it a sunny day or a cloudy day affects how reflections and contrasts appear on different surfaces.

- Light directions, painting volumes and value sketching... this is starting to become better understood in the community, but personally a lot of what I've learned is snippets picked up from a guide there, a youtube video here, a forum post there. I've not seen it explained well from the ground up in the wargaming context and when it is explained people tend to focus on getting the creamy blends rather than what is actually important, which is placing different colours in the right area. My knowledge has been boosted a bit with some of Trovarian's videos where he critiques amateur painters, and also I watched some oil canvas painting videos from the YT channel "Draw Mix Paint". Draw Mix Paint is what taught me the right colours in the right places can produce superb results with minimal or amateurish blending, whereas a perfectly blended painting can still look like arse.

- Value vs colour... this is something I only learned really recently... value is more important than colour! Getting the correct lightness and darkness in the right places can produce good looking results even if the colours are wrong. Logically this makes sense, because a model that looks good and believable with full colour saturation will also look and believable when desaturated to black and white, but a bad one will look weird when desaturated. There are paintings where the colour has been interpreted but the value was bang on so it still looked amazing.

- Lighting type impacts on the model... we are effectively painting lighting onto our models, okay so you know where the light is coming from, but how does your light impact different colours? Say you have a red area, you highlighted it by mixing orange into it, on the same model you have a green area, what should you mix into the green for the highlight? Same with shades, what colours can be used for shading what colours, and what implication does that have on other parts of the model that are different colours. Materials also come back in here also. So often you see a model and one colour will look good by itself, and another colour will look good by itself, but they look like they were photographed under different lighting conditions and photoshopped together instead of being unified.

- Desaturating colours using greys and browns, why and how to do it, and doing it across multiple colours in a way that ties them together.

- How to use different types of contrast... value contrast, colour contrast, warmth contrast.

- Use of different surface finishes and how that plays into the lighting, materials, and texture discussion. We can just throw a matte varnish over everything, but is there smarter ways of making different levels of sheen work for you?

- Use of filters, either directly by applying a filter or using a painting style that appears like a filter.

- What artistic simplifications can be made... we're not always trying to paint to 100%, or even if we are maybe it's an artistic interpretation rather than an attempt to simulate a reality.

- What shortcuts can be taken to speed up processes with what impact on the final result....

- Different artistic interpretations. We all know about trying to get creamy blends, but what about intentionally using rough scratchy blends or patchy blends? There's lots of styles that just don't get explored by wargamers, or if they do it's by accident rather than intent (which often means it doesn't work well).

I think all the stuff mentioned above strikes at what makes a good model look good, above and beyond just mechanically getting the techniques right, like having good brushwork, smooth coats, etc. Like, you can have a good looking model with technically poor brushwork and rough paint and mediocre blends.

In general one thing I've really struggled with for many years was having a vision and realising it on a model. Usually I have a vision but can't realise it, so if I get a good result it's mostly due to luck than design, or at most because I know how to paint something in a certain way so that affects my vision rather than my vision affecting my methods.

The other one is, yeah, we're not all trying to paint a golden daemon winning model, so what artistic choices can we make to still produce good looking models faster.

Marco Frisoni often baffles me with his use colour, value, surface finish, etc... once he's done I can kind of see why it works but I'd never have the knowledge or creativity to come up with such a scheme and the process behind implementing it by myself.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Were the guides in WD any good? I've barely read any WD in the past couple of decades, haha.

It was a decent article, covering complementary, analogous, triadic and monochromatic schemes. They also covered a few examples, such as the following when the Imperial Knights were first released and showing that the 'Eavy Metal painters don't always get it right the first time:

When the Imperial Knights came out, the Army Painters and ’Eavy Metal painted a load of colour variants to establish the colour schemes for the main houses. We gave House Terryn a triadic colour scheme of blue, red and yellow, but it didn’t work, the yellow was too bright and dominating. Instead, we took the yellow panels and re-painted them an off-white. The effect of this is twofold. First, the off-white is now a neutral colour – it sits alongside the black and is unobtrusive in the colour scheme. You can still see it, but it never dominates. Secondly, it meant that the gold armour trim would not clash with the yellow panels. The gold now acts as the third colour in the triadic colour scheme, but it’s clearly more subdued than the blue and red.

Spoiler:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Were the guides in WD any good? I've barely read any WD in the past couple of decades, haha.

I'm certainly not the person to write such a tutorial... but my observation is wargamers need more like a practical guide to making stuff look good.

Attempts at explaining colour theory are often way too oversimplified to be useful to wargamers (it's often the same advice given to sign writers to make their signs more readable, lol, like using complementary colours to boost readability, try to have a red spot colour, increase contrast, etc). Also theory based on scientific knowledge of how the eye works often gets bundled together with subjective interpretations. My observation has been the colour wheel can be manipulated to fit damned near any colour scheme you want OR is used to massively limit combinations, all depending on who you ask

Spoiler:

Topics that I think would be useful...
- Specular vs diffuse reflections and mimicking surface texturing... even painters who have very good technical skill with smooth creamy blends can produce NMM that looks like stone instead of metal because the balance of reflections is wrong. This feeds into what makes a fabric look like a fabric and painted armour look like painted armour and metal look like metal. There is also an affect here of the lighting type, weather it a sunny day or a cloudy day affects how reflections and contrasts appear on different surfaces.

- Light directions, painting volumes and value sketching... this is starting to become better understood in the community, but personally a lot of what I've learned is snippets picked up from a guide there, a youtube video here, a forum post there. I've not seen it explained well from the ground up in the wargaming context and when it is explained people tend to focus on getting the creamy blends rather than what is actually important, which is placing different colours in the right area. My knowledge has been boosted a bit with some of Trovarian's videos where he critiques amateur painters, and also I watched some oil canvas painting videos from the YT channel "Draw Mix Paint". Draw Mix Paint is what taught me the right colours in the right places can produce superb results with minimal or amateurish blending, whereas a perfectly blended painting can still look like arse.

- Value vs colour... this is something I only learned really recently... value is more important than colour! Getting the correct lightness and darkness in the right places can produce good looking results even if the colours are wrong. Logically this makes sense, because a model that looks good and believable with full colour saturation will also look and believable when desaturated to black and white, but a bad one will look weird when desaturated. There are paintings where the colour has been interpreted but the value was bang on so it still looked amazing.

- Lighting type impacts on the model... we are effectively painting lighting onto our models, okay so you know where the light is coming from, but how does your light impact different colours? Say you have a red area, you highlighted it by mixing orange into it, on the same model you have a green area, what should you mix into the green for the highlight? Same with shades, what colours can be used for shading what colours, and what implication does that have on other parts of the model that are different colours. Materials also come back in here also. So often you see a model and one colour will look good by itself, and another colour will look good by itself, but they look like they were photographed under different lighting conditions and photoshopped together instead of being unified.

- Desaturating colours using greys and browns, why and how to do it, and doing it across multiple colours in a way that ties them together.

- How to use different types of contrast... value contrast, colour contrast, warmth contrast.

- Use of different surface finishes and how that plays into the lighting, materials, and texture discussion. We can just throw a matte varnish over everything, but is there smarter ways of making different levels of sheen work for you?

- Use of filters, either directly by applying a filter or using a painting style that appears like a filter.

- What artistic simplifications can be made... we're not always trying to paint to 100%, or even if we are maybe it's an artistic interpretation rather than an attempt to simulate a reality.

- What shortcuts can be taken to speed up processes with what impact on the final result....

- Different artistic interpretations. We all know about trying to get creamy blends, but what about intentionally using rough scratchy blends or patchy blends? There's lots of styles that just don't get explored by wargamers, or if they do it's by accident rather than intent (which often means it doesn't work well).

I think all the stuff mentioned above strikes at what makes a good model look good, above and beyond just mechanically getting the techniques right, like having good brushwork, smooth coats, etc. Like, you can have a good looking model with technically poor brushwork and rough paint and mediocre blends.

In general one thing I've really struggled with for many years was having a vision and realising it on a model. Usually I have a vision but can't realise it, so if I get a good result it's mostly due to luck than design, or at most because I know how to paint something in a certain way so that affects my vision rather than my vision affecting my methods.

The other one is, yeah, we're not all trying to paint a golden daemon winning model, so what artistic choices can we make to still produce good looking models faster.

Marco Frisoni often baffles me with his use colour, value, surface finish, etc... once he's done I can kind of see why it works but I'd never have the knowledge or creativity to come up with such a scheme and the process behind implementing it by myself.

To me it feels like colour theory (around miniatures) tries to be too smart and correct instead of addressing actual basics. The colour wheel is a tool you can use to simplify your decision making process, not a law that has to be followed. To me, the most important lesson when it comes to colour theory as a whole that everybody should know is that "everything is relative" and that lighting is an integral part of the whole thing. Trying to address colours in the abstract and without talking about lights (even very simple ones) can feel like an important part is missing to the whole topic, especially if somebody tries to go into details. It's like driving instructions without a steering wheel, probably possible but rather cumbersome.

Contrasts amplify the difference and the higher the contrast the bigger the difference appears to be. If you have a mainly dark miniature, the few bright parts on it with look even brighter (and the other way around), same for saturation (if everything is grey and brown the few colourful spots will stand out more), similar with colours opposite of each other on the colour wheel (they contrast each other the most while those closer to each other look less clashing).

Having these three contrasts (hue, value, and chroma) gives you all the variables to play with (plus they are the name of a site that goes into detail on the technical side of colour theory, for those who are interested: huevaluechroma. there's quite a bit to read but it also has a lot of graphics that explain things really well). Knowing that colours are relative to each other (and depend on the colours around them for their own effect) and not fundamentally immutable things should be freeing. There are a lot of "rules" around colour choices and built on a good foundation they all lead to a "if I want this effect, then doing this should work" interpretation instead of a "you have to use this specific bottle of paint to get that exact effect" constraining effect. It makes even tutorials that focus too much on the specific bottle of paint increase in usefulness.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
It would mean they'd have to come up with new, even dumber names...

Nurgle Red
Khorne Green
Tzeentch Black
Slannesh Blue
Blood Angel White
Dark Angel Gold
Ultramarine Pink
Stormcast Purple
Necron Flesh
Ork Bronze

Just reading that gave me anxiety haha

Caliginous wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
It would mean they'd have to come up with new, even dumber names...

Nurgle Red
Khorne Green
Tzeentch Black
Slannesh Blue
Blood Angel White
Dark Angel Gold
Ultramarine Pink
Stormcast Purple
Necron Flesh
Ork Bronze

Just reading that gave me anxiety haha

Wait till you see the actual new names!

If you thought a paint called The Fang (which is not tooth/bone colored) was meaningless...

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

Caliginous wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
It would mean they'd have to come up with new, even dumber names...

Nurgle Red
Khorne Green
Tzeentch Black
Slannesh Blue
Blood Angel White
Dark Angel Gold
Ultramarine Pink
Stormcast Purple
Necron Flesh
Ork Bronze

Just reading that gave me anxiety haha

Wait till you see the actual new names!

If you thought a paint called The Fang (which is not tooth/bone colored) was meaningless...

Next you'll be telling us you don't know what XV-88 looks like without a swatch....

RazorEdge wrote:
The blue looks different from the colours they used for UMs the last Years.

30k Ultramarines have always been painted a bit darker, even by Eavy Metal... closer to the actual colour ultramarine, even.