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Take your time. That's the most important thing I reckon. Remember my skulltaker? That took me TWO WEEKS, using every second of my spare time-I don't even remember sleeping...

Another thing is to remember that washes darken the whole model, while highlights brighten it. So if you're doing an orc(k), or other dark model, washes are the way to go, but equally, if you're doing something like an eldar, try and leave the washes alone.

One last tip to finish off-if you get white dwarf, read all the masterclasses til you know them back to front and upside down. They come in really handy. Sorry to go on about it, but the aforementioned skulltaker has techniques and colours from about four different masterclasses.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Good luck!

Thank you everyone! (this is not a fake) Sorry about the ultra-terrible ork pics. I have some better ones. Enjoy:

Now that looks 1,000,000,000 times better than your other models, the simple use of washes helps improve painting very quickly.

once you have washes a model then its allways good to finish it by highlighting the model.

for example on the banner:

skulls - highlight the most raised areas with bleached bone, that will help add to the overall look of it.

the sun glyph - a quick highlight of blood red around the raised sections (eyebrows, lip etc etc) will help loads more, could allways pick out the teeth in the same was as the skulls have been done.



but this is a vast improvement.

See practice makes perfect. Washes really are a great way
to improve a bleak model. good job on the Black Ork.

^.^

I've got a rider of rohan, a dark angel aaaaaaaand a high elf on the way!

That indeed looks better.

OMFG eyes are so tired!

first day of contacts. 3 hours of painting does not help.

The orc you did looks muuch better than your earlier stuff. Just keep trying different things till you find an approach that works for you. The tutorials in WD are pretty good, but the Dakka tutorials are generally much better. I don't know how long it takes you to paint a figure, but try takeing your time and not rushing. When I first started (many years ago), I would paint 60 or more figures in an evening; of course they looked like sh*t when I was done. I try not to do more than five in one sitting now, or sometimes just one,if it's a character model. I'm nowhere near as good as a lot of the painters on this site, and I have years of experience on you. So try not to expect too much from yourself too fast. If you pressure yourself, you aren't going to enjoy painting and you will wind up frustrated and quitting. Remember, this is something you do for fun, try and make each figure look better than the last one and above all, have fun doing it.

deadly chicken wrote:Thank you for all the advice and the websites.
Got some washes today. thought delvan badab and thraka were my best bet.
tried them out on a WHFB orc. here he is:

This is an improvement over your previous paintjobs.

I teach people to paint usually by sitting down with them in the game store and walking them through a mini- the techniques get a little more advanced as the mini progresses. Now, I can't really walk you through a whole mini and give you criticism as you go, but I can give you a good idea as to what I teach.

Step 0- Choosing paints- My pupils can often just use my paints for their first mini, but you're going to have to use your own. Each color you want to use on your mini should be represented by two paint bottles, and possibly an ink pot. The two paints should be a darker paint and a lighter version of the same color, or some other color to mix with your first paint. Also, whenever you are using a color, you should mix just a little water into it. This watering down of your paints helps keep them from covering up the details on the mini.

Step 1- Undercoat. I always have my pupils undercoat in black, it is far more forgiving to a new painter, and overall I prefer the black to anything else. Undercoating is simply spraying the mini down with black primer- I suggest Duplicolor's Sandable Black Primer- you can get it at automotive shops like Checkers (note, get the Duplicolor sandable primer, the other stuff doesn't work as well).

Step 2- Coloring within the lines. At this stage, you can lay down your base coats. Paint the whole mini in colors darker than what you want the mini to end up looking like. The objective here is to have each of the areas show distinctly from one another, and not to get the paints to bleed into one another. One of the best ways to do this is to leave a little of your black undercoat between the different areas (this is a type of "Blacklining" and it helps keep colors distinct, and helps the mini "pop").

Step 3- Inking or washing for shading. You don't have to use an ink on every color that you use, but it is often very helpful. Ink washing is necessary with most metallic colors, but other colors can also benefit. Remember to water down your inks. The purpose of ink washing here is to shade areas that should be darker, so you can pay special attention to darker areas.

Step 4- Highlighting- Start with your base color, and mix in a little of your highlight color, and start highlighting up. Pick the areas that are closer to the top of the mini, and make those areas lighter. You can do this in many stages, and it works best that way. Highlight up with one color, then add a little more of your highlight color and do another layer.
- a simpler version of this is to get two colors that compliment each other well, and just paint the uppermost tips of each area in a highlight color. Space Marines are often painted this way.

Beyond these steps, you start to get into more advanced techniques (old style washing and effects for example) but these are the core techniques that you can use to make your minis look great. I suggest that you master these techniques before drybrushing also, because drybrushing works quite well when combined with these other techniques, but falls to pieces when used as a crutch.


Note- you can check out some of the beginner tutorials at Coolminiornot.com, though they have so many writers that it is hard to tell which will be good. Another option you have is to check out Brushthralls.com and use their "Battlebox in 10 days" articles to get an idea as to how to use these techniques.

I find if you think positive that the end result is usually one you'll be very proud of. The ork dude looks ace compared to the orks i did i gave them to my brother as he collects them but still think positive and think that its not brilliant as that will put you down and make you ruin the model as your trying harder oh and good luck for future models.

Lanky-feck out

I think that its looking a whole lot better than the other ones, I think the shoulder pads look good. lighting is difficult I think that sunlight helps the most.

The ork looks like its a massive improvement already, well done.

Make sure you take note of what a lot of people, inluding me, have been saying though, take your time and don't try to do too much all at once:

deadly chicken wrote:^.^

I've got a rider of rohan, a dark angel aaaaaaaand a high elf on the way!

It's good to be painting a variety of models and to be doing so regularly to improve your skills, but make sure you don't overdo it. Trying to take too much on at once might leave you feeling frustrated and like you're taking one step forward and two steps back. Focus on carefully applying the techniques people have advised you about one model at a time.

Good luck!

tsd

thesoupdragon wrote:

deadly chicken wrote:^.^

I've got a rider of rohan, a dark angel aaaaaaaand a high elf on the way!

It's good to be painting a variety of models and to be doing so regularly to improve your skills, but make sure you don't overdo it. Trying to take too much on at once might leave you feeling frustrated and like you're taking one step forward and two steps back.

not at all. I find that i was using a paricularly slow technique on the DA and needed something to fill the time waiting for ink to dry and plus it stops me ggetting bored off painting 1 modelnon-stop and lets me show off a variety of colours.

here is the cloak from the high elf which i am very proud of:

the cloak looks great
i think we have a whole new chicken when it comes to painting.

^.^

But a complete turkey when it comes to gratitude and etiquette.

Anti-Mag wrote:But a complete turkey when it comes to gratitude and etiquette.

Agreed

Cloak looks great man, your painting skills have improved.

When I read that title I thought this was about Infinite Crisis

Here are some suggestions. I lightened the orc on PS. I think the colors are still true. I want to say the metallics look excellent in the banner.








Now here is that same pic but in scale to get an idea of the effect.

these babies have been lurking in my bitz box since the late 1980s, they are probably some of the very first models I ever painted. As you can see, your recent models are quite a bit better than my meager first attempts. Incidently, I was probably about your age when I painted them. Though I like to think I have improved over the years, I am still not on par with some of the painters lurking around here. Just keep trying out new stuff and try to listen to criticisms constructively and you will improve.

your improveing great job

@ everyone thank you for your kindness and support. 1 completely unrelated question. any ideas how to turn a boletr into a stormbolter.

@gil those are good, if not a bit creepy.

Glue 2 bolters together and trim them down(or trim them down and then glue them together, I can't really remember)

DC's learnt to say thankyou! It's a miracle!

umm im sorry no image.

I know my internet's broken.

1 more try:

omfg!. o well better than mine (the gobbo) and my dads aint the best either (this is his first ever mini ((the assault marine))):

Congrats on your painting improving DC. The Orc with the banner looks good.
To the guy with the blue space marine, try to use tooth picks to paint the lenses. A tooth pick can also be used for the trim on the shoulders.

Good to see you improving and growing in the hobby,hope to see some more stuff soon.

and you will be but now i have to take out my contacts. ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ITS SOOOOO HARD!