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I was hoping to get a few tips and suggestions for improving my CSM's. One of the things that drew me to Dakka was the good vibe that came from the painting and modeling section of the forum, so I hope it is demonstrated here

Anyway, here is a snapshot of a squad of my CSM for you to take a look at (I have several other images of other CSM models from the same army in my Dakka Gallery if you want to see more):

Welcome to Dakka BTW.

I think they look pretty good, the red stripes on the thighs look cool. The eyes are the only thing I would touch up, all you need is a bit of hand control and a teeny-tiny brush, even a pin or tack can work if you are patient. Using a pin will give you the best results for those super-annoying highlights.

Actually... micron pens are supposed to work very well for super fine work. They come in sizes that boggle the mind. There is actually an article on DakkaDakka about it. I will try to find it.

Here we go http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Sakura_Pigma_Micron_Pen . These pens will make short work of cleaning the eyes up.

Looks really good. highlighting the eyes would make it even better

Wrexasaur wrote:Welcome to Dakka BTW.

I think they look pretty good, the red stripes on the thighs look cool. The eyes are the only thing I would touch up, all you need is a bit of hand control and a teeny-tiny brush, even a pin or tack can work if you are patient. Using a pin will give you the best results for those super-annoying highlights.

Actually... micron pens are supposed to work very well for super fine work. They come in sizes that boggle the mind. There is actually an article on DakkaDakka about it. I will try to find it.

Here we go http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Sakura_Pigma_Micron_Pen . These pens will make short work of cleaning the eyes up.

Thanks for the welcome

The bands are actually more orange than red in reality (I only have a fairly yellowish spot light to take pictures under, hence the colour shift). I use something simmilar to the pen to draw on the unit numbers and army symbol. I've been looking out for some coloured ones (rather than the plain black one I have) for a while now but they never have any of the ultra fine nibs :(

I am never entirely sure how one goes about creating good looking eyes... mine always taken on a flooded single colour kind of look no matter what I try, so I often don't bother all that much... although I want to cange that, hence taking up the brush and painting some models for a change.

Highlighting is the key to making eyes look good, but it varies on the model itself. For now, you could just make the eyes more lens-like by cleaning the edges up with a micron pen (which I believe are made in color, although I do not personally own any.) followed by a watered down glaze or wash. Glaze could be used after the wash (theoretically) so you could get the pooling (Depth for dummies, devlan mud is a life-saver.) effect from the wash, followed by a reflective layer of glaze. Wash seems to be a pretty fail-safe way to give anything depth, whereas glaze is probably more unreliable at its job overall.

Wrexasaur wrote:Highlighting is the key to making eyes look good, but it varies on the model itself. For now, you could just make the eyes more lens-like by cleaning the edges up with a micron pen (which I believe are made in color, although I do not personally own any.) followed by a watered down glaze or wash. Glaze could be used after the wash (theoretically) so you could get the pooling (Depth for dummies, devlan mud is a life-saver.) effect from the wash, followed by a reflective layer of glaze. Wash seems to be a pretty fail-safe way to give anything depth, whereas glaze is probably more unreliable at its job overall.

Hmmm, I could certainly give the edging and wash a go. Although I think I would want to go for almost an inverse lense... simmilar to the eyes on this image:


Where you have a pure inner eye, with a clear, dark ring, fading to the colour of he surround. I will experiment a bit and see what I can come up with.

PON AND ZI ! Yeah thats a pretty cool idea for eyes, definatly with chaos. Id need alot of practice before bieng able to do that

The scheme is pretty good, again those reddish orangy strips do look good. Do you have any CSM vehicles or a Lord in this scheme?

MrToxichazard wrote:PON AND ZI ! Yeah thats a pretty cool idea for eyes, definatly with chaos. Id need alot of practice before bieng able to do that

The scheme is pretty good, again those reddish orangy strips do look good. Do you have any CSM vehicles or a Lord in this scheme?

I don't have any vehicles painted up yet but I am currently painting a Rhino (kind of struggling a bit as I am trying to do some freehand fresco painting on it and failing badly). I have a DP painted except for his back pack and a few details, but he does not actually have all that much armour, so he is mostly very unhealthy looking flesh

Everything is ALMOST there to just looking awesome. I think honestly what most of these are missing, is some drybrushed highlights. The would help bring alot of details out and make them pop. As for the eyes, they do seem a bit, MEH. Water down your paints for starters. That will help with gloppy paint. What I do is with the paint in a cap, I use a dropper and put a couple drops or so in the cap, and mix the water and paint up. That helps alot.
Then, get your detail brush, and with paint on it, swirl it around slowly in a small circle, to get the tip into a super fine tip. And after every dip into the paint, take just a little bit off, to help with the "swimming in paint" look. After that, just let it dry and then go back around the eyes with your armor color, to clean up any runs. Eyes are just a real pain to paint perfect. You almost ALWAYS have to clean them up after words.

Good work tho, these have real promise.

KingCracker wrote:Everything is ALMOST there to just looking awesome. I think honestly what most of these are missing, is some drybrushed highlights. The would help bring alot of details out and make them pop. As for the eyes, they do seem a bit, MEH. Water down your paints for starters. That will help with gloppy paint. What I do is with the paint in a cap, I use a dropper and put a couple drops or so in the cap, and mix the water and paint up. That helps alot.
Then, get your detail brush, and with paint on it, swirl it around slowly in a small circle, to get the tip into a super fine tip. And after every dip into the paint, take just a little bit off, to help with the "swimming in paint" look. After that, just let it dry and then go back around the eyes with your armor color, to clean up any runs. Eyes are just a real pain to paint perfect. You almost ALWAYS have to clean them up after words.

Good work tho, these have real promise.

Thanks for the advice

I am always hesitant to dry brush. My original CSM colour scheme was almost 100% drybrushed (to give a kind of mottled rotting flesh over graveyard earth effect) and I destroyed a few brushes doing it. As far as highlights go, I never know when to stop of where to apply them to. I do a few, think "that is not right, I need some more" and then next time I look the model needs repainting

In terms of watering down my paints, all my paint is watered down in the pot (the GW paint is way too thick), and then I water it down a bit more as needs be while I actually paint.

I will certainly give your eye method a go. Though it is difficult sometimes to know when to stop drawing the eye and to know where the armour starts. Though I think this will partially be solved with the eye scheme I think I will try out a couple of posts above this one, as there will be a bit of a fade into the eye, and the pupil/lens itself will be relatively small, so your method will come into effect.