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My skillz have gotten a little bit rusty over the past decade and a bit, and years of work related caffeine abuse have done anything to help my once steady hands! Anyway, painted up a test piece for my forthcoming Imperial Fist SM's. I like the rough and ready look compared to pristine cartoonish paintings, and I know I have a long ways to go before I have some talent back. Critiques more than welcome along with tips. Apologies for the camera phone quality photo

The basic principles are all there, and pretty good. Like you said, it's all about getting back into the groove, and remembering what does and doesn't work for you... I'm painting my first gaming mini right now after almost a year hiatus to do large scale and historical models, and some of the stuff is the same, but some isn't, so I know how you're feeling. The one thing I'd say is to paint the grip on the bolter metal or something else so it doesn't blend in with the guy's hand.

Looks good! Yellow is hard to paint (although less so now with the Foundation Paints).

You can tell that you're old school because of the way you did the base.

Iorek beat me to the comment about the base.

It seems you paint is rather thick, giving the model a slight texture. I think a few more coats of thinned paint might help, though it's a pain to do.

Still, looks good!

Thanks guys,

Yeh, the base! Another 15 minutes and it would have been coated in green sand with yellow highlights! I actually just painted it green for the benefit of the photo, I'll be sorting them out when I get some stuff to detail the bases.

I realised after I started this one that I'd forgotten to hin out the paint, doing another 3 just now and will post pictures when done.

Paint is thick... but although expensive airbrushing is very nice for thin paint I find.

Ok so I took some comments on board (thanks! ) and did a few more, almost a 5 man squad now.
I thinned the paints down some but I think I'll need to experiment with further thinning. All in all I'm reasonably pleased with the results. I know they are still real rough but I reckon I'll get better with practice.




Apologies for the photo's, camera phone under a bulb is about the best I can manage at the moment.

Oh, and I sorted out the bases :p

I really dig your shading on the shoulder pads, how do you do that?

Have you thought about drybrushing your boltguns?

the first one is a bit thick the others are alright though

Faux Pas wrote:I really dig your shading on the shoulder pads, how do you do that?

Have you thought about drybrushing your boltguns?

I just painted over the base coat leaving a little gap between the base coat and shoulder trim, and filled it in with a little watered down brown

Yeh the bolters aren't yet finished, glued them on because they were getting tricky to paint holding them.

My friend.. i think you might be collecting Doom Warriors/ Skull Bearers and not knowing it!



p.s. what is your paint scheme because its looks like both and i really like them!

Its a black undercoat with a foundation paint (Iyanden Darksun or Vomit Brown) base coat, watered down Snakebite Leather in the recesses, sunburst yellow on top of that with some pale highlights on the edges.

I didnt like the super bright clean image of the Imperial Fists on the GW website, I wanted my marines to look like they had been fighting for ages, the fluff has them fighting for years at a time, and I don't like the Idea of a Drive Thru armour wash after a bit of fighting!

I think they're rather good - I am a fan of that look. And the trick is not to make them look *too* weathered, otherwise all you have is knackered models. Sure, they're out in the field for ages but they're Man's finest, they'll look after their armour. Conditions permitting.

Modelling, re: the last guy in line. I know the both hands on the bolter look gets tired, but that arm isn't right. The other thing that comes back with time (I had a 12 year break) is modelling skill. Clippers, green stuff and lots of spare bits and your poses will get better - that hand could be reposed, hailing, waving, holding some equipment. Right now it looks dislocated.

Lol yeh, I wondered when someone would notice that. I made a boo boo! After I had painted it, I went to glue the bolter on and the magazine wouldn't fit between his hands......! I broke the arm off but no matter what position I tried I couldnt get the gun to fit!

Very nice fist's Johnynoi. They def. have the "I am in the middle of a battle" look to them. If this is how you paint after a 13 year break I would really love to see what you can do again in 6 months.

One question and one thing that might help.

1. Do you plan to paint company markings or the chest aquilla's? I think those would really set them off. Especially if you could do some sort of cool "chipped" effect to them to show they have been fighting hard...(while mine have been sitting back polishing their.....armor.)

2. With the hand you might try laying the model flat and get a very sharp exacto blade and slice it off right at the wrist. Turn 90 degrees and plop a frag grenade into it and problem solved.

Really like them though. Your going for a totally different look than I am but your works. Well.

Thanks for the input, I appreciate it. The chest plates are painted as a bone type colour, it just doesn't show up well at all in those photo's. I tried doing them red like they are suppossed to be but I just couldn't get the weathered look I was going for with the armour.

Thats a good idea about the hand, I may just do that! This is the only squad that has those arms, the rest are the new ones from AOBR with the funky hands attached to the bolters so hopefully I won't come across this issue again untilnI feel confident enough to do some conversion work

Hi again, work got a bit hectic after I posted those tactical marines, but I've been cracking back into it over the past few weeks. The models below are mostly unfinished, just painted so they wouldn't look to boring on the tabletop









Librarian I'm working on for a painting competition at my local GW





And finally a rhino I have been working on today with an attempt at freehand painting





All comments and critiques totally welcome!

WOW,nice improvement.They look cool(I like the rhino) good painting,getting better I haven't painted in over a year so I to am a bit rusty.

That's a nice yellow.

An attempt he says! Thats some bloody good freehand, I wish I could even get close!

I'm likin the NMM on the librarians back leg, and yes that freehand is very well done. You have quickly found your groove

Apparently, your hands got steady really quickly.

Thanks for the comments guys, I still have a long way to go to get to a standard I'm happy with, some of the bits are really rough looking (the photo's are favorable!) and of course I'm only using a pretty limited palette what with painting SM's, I need to try and paint some other things to learn new techniques.

As for shaky hands, I've found using a 000 brush really helps for the smaller stuff as it limits the damage I can do, but I still have to do touch ups quite regularly.

@ Karmaiko - at the risk of sounding stupid, what does NMM mean? I just painted where the light from my lamp fell on the armour.

Are you sure you took a break?
Those are some sharp looking vanilla marines
Keep at it

funny how fast it all comes back to you. You can really see the difference from your "first" to those shots of everything youve done since then. Nice job man

Your first was loads better than mine.... I hadn't painted since grade school and my first attempt was not nearly so good! Already yours far outstrip mine! I applaud your free-hand skills. Those are some of the best IF I have seen.

Johnynoi wrote:
@ Karmaiko - at the risk of sounding stupid, what does NMM mean? I just painted where the light from my lamp fell on the armour.

Non-Metallic Metallic. Painting a surface to have a metallic sheen using paints that are not metallic.

Thanks Valhallan42nd! I ended up looking it up! Some of the NMM stuff done properly looks great, I'll need to try it out some time.

I have done about ten hours work on my Vanguard Vets over the past couple of days, anyone else have a unit that everything seems to go wrong with? Here's how they look so far



Not completely happy with how they are turning out but I'll persevere, I want them and a predator finished by Monday so I can start learning how to play!

And an Intruder on the painting table! I'm thinking of turning it into a Stegadon.........

I can relate, I started a grey knights army recently and managed to paint and strip 10 grey knights, or rather one grey knight 10 times, till the effects I was going for looked right.

I like the look of your vanguard vets, despite whatever problems you may have with them, it looks like you got a crisp white on their helmets. Can't wait to see them finished.

I think your stegadon conversion would be difficult; imagine trying to paint something that was moving.

Wow!

I guess that one could almost compare riding a bike to painting?

Don't ride one for a while, but once you get used to it again, it's just like old times.

Absolutely fantastic job on the Librarian, and not just the Librarian, but all of the models.

To be honest, when I saw the Landspeeder, I told myself that you had been really good at painting before you had stopped. I suppose I was right!

Awesome freehand by the way.