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Hi, im very new to painting in general and i just wanted some constructive criticism on this dreadnought that i have painted, its from the Assault on Black Reach set box set and i tried to give it a blood angels theme. the base still needs some work but its the painting im concerned about

i'm just going to neaten it up a little, but how do you think it is now?

http://img98.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=dscf0164.jpg

sorry its a link.. im not sure how you upload the pictures straight to the messageboards, i dont do this often :p

It looks good.(sorry for how massive it is).

Passable for a first go. As you said, you need to neaten up the paint. You can see some obvious mispaints on the front facing pic. Also, take some additional care with model prep pre-painting. You can see some glaring mould lines, particularly on the front of the multi-melta. You can also drill out the barrel, or at least paint a black dot on the front. As such, the mould like just really sticks out. You might also try out the Badab Black wash, it would help give you some shading and definition.

Ah its my camera i think that has made it so huge. i should have taken it from further away and cropped it

Good god. There is almost no good reason to post a pic larger than 600 x 450. Crop and resize as necessary. Posting huge pics will piss people off. Try this:

is there a guide here that shows you how to properly post pictures, i'm new at this too.


And, wow it looks terrible when its supersized like that first pic, in real life it looks alright

The big picture hurts my eyes..

It doesn't look bad when it's resized. It could be a little bit neater and the base still needs work.

Supersizing a pic makes all of the imperfections blatantly obvious.

Not bad. I don't find an horrid faults. It is decent table top quality. You aren't going to "wow" anyone, but no one should vomit on your stuff and gouge their eyes out. Pointers:

1: Clean the mold lines better. Especially right on the barrels of the multi-melta. Drilling out an actual barrel is also helpful to make something look better.

2. Clean the metal edging of the sarcophagus. Even on the small pic I see where you got red on it, and right on the front of the model like that is really noticable.

3. Red is not easy to paint. Use many thin layers to build it up to a solid color instead of just a couple coats, where the darker undercoat still sort of shows through.

4. Badab Black Wash anything in silver. Hell, you can safely black wash the whole thing and it won't hurt it.

If this was in the gallery, I would give it a 4 out of 10 on painting. Table top quality with no glaring, hideous dfects, but nothing really nifty either. Hope this helps!

Water down your paint - it's very blobby in the picture here. And yes, mold lines should definitely come off before you even touch brush to paint.

I second watering down your paint. Putting 2-3 coats on instead of 1 will really improve the look by getting a smoother finish devoid of brush strokes and blobs.

Also, I might recommend the Devlan Mud instead of Badab black. Black tends to dull a lot of colors, while the brown mud will leave the warmth of the red in place.
Alternately, picking up a bottle of Liquitex Payne's Grey at a craft store and thinning it and adding some soap to make your own wash will also look good on nearly every color.

I use a Devlan Mud equivalent over the red carapaces of my Tyranids and it works very well. I am also a big fan of Liquitex Paynes Grey. I consider it one of the essential tools in my tool kit.

I third the motion to water down your paint a bit. Practice makes perfect. Keep at it!

Also, is there a way that a mod or Deff could get rid of that huge image? It makes this thread very difficult to read and navigate.

All I can say is that I wish my early attempts looked that good.

Everyone here has given you good advice, which is one of the things I like about these forums.

Biggest thing you can use for a quick improvement though, get some files (if you don't have them already) and get rid of the mold lines, vents and flashing properly.

Things like thinning paint can take a little while to master, but prep work is generally pretty easy to do and good prep makes it much easier to ensure the model 'looks good' after painting.

thanks for the great advice, the wonderful thing about the assualt on black reach is plenty of models to improve your painting.

practice makes perfect i suppose