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Hello Dakka

So i've finished (apart from base) my exarch and whilst I think my overall painting ability has improvd since I started learning to paint i'm still not happy

I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about my paint jobs always leave the mini looking not so well defined/clean and is instead kinda blurry/fuzzy.

Can you give me some pointers as to where I might be going wrong?

Here's mine...


but here's a really cool looking exarch that I think looks awesome and highlights hopefully what I mean my defined and clean looking, yet still has nice blended highlighting.

I really wouldn't beat yourself up too much - your's is pretty damn good IMO.

Having said that, I think you may want to look into using a wet palette and/or wet blending to achieve the effect you are looking for. But then again, I am by no means a painting guru!

I think it is a question of shading.
Notice how the shades on the second model are very deep, almost black?

Having said that, your work is fine.

Honestly dude I wish I could paint like you. I need to post up a picture of one of my orks and you can take a look at how bad i paint.

I agree with the above. Improving your skills is a good thing, but comparing your work with the quality of an obvious professional, is just not a good way to look at it. Just keep practicing man, youll get there eventually. Painting is definitely a walk instead of run thing

This one took me nearly 2 weeks, I wanted to take my time and paint each bit as best as i could but I always end up getting frustrated, especially when I see a really good paint job.

@Filbert - I've been meaning to make a wet palette - perhaps now is the time.

@SteelImage - I see what you're saying although I did do 2 black ink washes, but also look at the transition from helmet to hair where the 2 colours are different, the green one is really well defined, mine mmmmmm not so much, and it's not just because its slightly out of focus.

@Synister_Intent - post em up don't be shy!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@KingCracker - aye you're probably right, I just have a standard set in my head, which I want to achieve. btw that Ork trike is banging.

Hi Hangfire,

I think it's great that you want to improve your (indeed already above average) skill. Don't listen to people who tell you that you don't need to improve. (Comparing your work to better work is the only way to improve)

I see two things you might want to give extra attention.
- As already mentioned, the shading. You say you already used two black washes. I'm of the opinion that washes are very useful for quick painting and give very good results for army painting. However, for models which I want to paint to a higher standard, I avoid the use of washes all together. I find that they give a bit of a messy effect (exactly why the shading doesn't seem very defined). I prefer to shade using normal paint and use real black (or very close to black) at the deepest part at every shading line. In your example picture this can be seen clearly at the 'hair', foot armour and even at the armour plates on the legs. This is called blacklining and the extreme colour difference is very useful to give that clean look.

- Second is the colour composition. Many well painted models include only one or two primary colours and only a handful of detail colours. All of these colours need to complement each other. I almost always settle down to one 'army colour', one neutral colour (white, black, khaki, bone) which is also used on many/large areas and some minor detail (neutral) colours. This prevents the model looking like a rainbow which almost always looks weird (exceptions like Harlequins do exist ).

I hope this helped a bit, please feel free to ask any questions if anything isn't clear.

Painting is all how much time you can put into it.

With all due respect, no it isn't.

I've seen many people paint lot and lots of models and complain that their models suck. If (like Hangfire) you sometimes take a moment to hang back and to truly look at your models and then try to find out where you go wrong, THEN you can make progress. Practice is needed, but it's not at all just repetition that makes some painters better than others.

Your exarch turned out nicely. Not that im a huge fan of the color choices, but the overall technique looks great. I think I have this problem as well, never being satisfied with my results. I found that sometimes, if you stop painting or looking at the specific character in question, hide it from your vision for a week or so, then return and look at it again, you will be surprised how much the character will impress you. I think if you want a more defined look between colors and textures, it all starts with washes imo. I dont mean lathering up the entire model in a heavy wash, but rather taking a fine brush, maybe mixing in a small amount of the same color paint you are shading with the wash, and defining the recessed areas and cracks. This can help improve the look of the model dramatically. Other than that, you on the right path to success in terms of painting, you simply need to practice and continue building/improving on your range of techniques

I agree with all the above. Your skill is solid and I think comparing yourself to a naturally skilled / highly trained professional painter is akin to comparing your running skills to an Olympic athlete.

But I understand the desire to be the best you can be. There are tutorials online (YouTube, etc) and on Dakka. Plus your FLGS may have painting clinics or someone there that can show you the tricks in person.

In all, well done (even if it is ... Eldar *spits on ground*)

Enginseer (great name btw!) is right. There's always room for improvement, but don't beat yourself up on your own acheivements just because you want to improve further.

My first tip would be use a blacker black. Looking at your a lot of the black areas appear to be dark grey rather than black (although slightly off-black but almost will look more natural.

contrast - make sure the 'highs and lows' contrast to give definition. When painting red I will usually work in 4 layers, schorched brown/black mix, then red gore or similar, red gore/dwarf flesh mix, then add more flesh for final highlights. I find this gives a good range of contrast while keeping more natural shades. If you want the reds to be brighter then use blood red instead of the flesh, and finish with blood on it's own or even add in some orange.

edges - apologies if i'm wrong, hard to tell, some of the edges seem like they could be improved personally. In particular - the sword looks like you've highlighted the black with a fine grey line, for me it's a little too light which can counteract the 'blackness' of it. Also again hard to tell, it lokos like the design on the helmet is raised but the edges aren't coloured to match the top, they look to me like they are the green colour. Trying to get these small and fiddly little details can make a huge difference, even if left black or another dark base colour and just paint the top detail in the final colour. As for the blendingi wouldn't worry. From what I see it's as easily as good as I can do!

That's fantastic feedback guys, that's given me something to work with, I was feeling a bit directionless until now.

@Enginseer - your explantion was spot on, I think the guy who did "The Eldar Project" blog came to the same conclusion.

On this dude I did black lining adn used no washes, but found it took ages and ages, but perhaps in the end is a better example, what do you think?
I stupidly asked my wife for her thoughts and she said the black lines made it too cartoony - why'd I ask her anyway?

Wet pallets are nice but all they do is save your paint, they don't really help the model at all.

And I also think shooting to be like this particular photo is a bit hard on yourself. I don't think you should shoot for that quality unless you were doing a painting competition. You’ll more than likely burn out doing any army like that.

Plus your guy looks fine, especially if you had an entire army like that. I know it took you awhile now but do a couple more like him and it will get faster and faster.

But here are some pointers that have really helped ratchet my painting up.

Thin paint, thin paint, thin paint! It almost can't be too thin. Building up many thin (I mean extremely thin) layers takes longer but that’s how people get models like that picture.

Try and do simple techniques better first. This guy has some advanced blending on the model. If you are a relatively newer painter I would suggest working on your simple highlighting and shading skills for awhile, but just doing them exceptionally well. By simple I mean inks for shades and line highlights, most of the GW tutorials are like this. I wouldn't suggest messing around with the advanced stuff until you have the fundamentals down.

Practice, practice, practice! A lot of painting is taste, a lot is know how, a lot is physical ability. Like a sport you need to practice until you can get your hands, eyes, and mind to work correctly on such a tiny scale.

the red on that last model.......wow!

i feel however to get the brightness you want, is to blend from a lighter green, something more bright.

When you're looking at very well painted models a lot of them have taken many hours to complete, golden demon winners talk in terms of hundreds of hours to get the effects they are after. A lot of these people are extremely good artists, they understand colour theory and have painted hundreds of minis. The only way to get like them is to practice and read/watch items on the internet which teach you new techniques that you think would look good. Another good idea might be to look at minis on CMON and if you can, get in touch with the artists ask them questions on how they did it. Or drop people here a line when you see an effect you like.

All that said, your skills are at a good level already. Your second model looks very good to my eyes and I would be more than happy if I could paint to your level.

I think that one point to make is that you can paint an army to Heavy Metal standards or you can paint an army relatively quickly but not both.

In the past I would spend days on each model, and realized that I would take me a year or more to get a 2000pt army painted. I ended up making compromises on the level of detail I put in per model and now I am able to do a squad in a couple of day, an army in a Month.

Your second model is much better.

It's a lot harder to give you tips working from this model. The blending is nice and smooth and the model does look really clean.

I'm still not sold on the colours, but that's just one single opinion. I think the main beef I have with it, is that the helmet's green is a much more 'serious/grim' colour compared to the more cartoony red. (both are fine colours, just the combination that quircks me )

All in all; Great stuff!

I think I had the answer my own question, but just didn't realise it.
What's that saying about can't see the wood for the trees, I think that's applicable here!

So is the guy who painted the green SS exarch a pro? I just found it when I googled biting blade exarch

@Necronlord - I like your nightbringer, sweet.

Thank you all, I feel like i've learned something today and am a lot happier about proceeding with my 1st GU squad.

Matrim wrote:the red on that last model.......wow!

+1 gorgeous!

Sooo I was just cleaning up my GU squad a priming them and thinking through/re-reading some of the posts on the thread and now have a question, mostly in relation to this comment

Thin paint, thin paint, thin paint! It almost can't be too thin. Building up many thin (I mean extremely thin) layers takes longer but that’s how people get models like that picture.

by ArtfcllyFlvrd

I do thin my paint, even bought a bottle of klear (Future) and a dropper bottle for the task (25% Klear 75% water), but I find if I thin the paint beyond 50:50 it just starts to act like an ink and lets say I was trying to paint something small the the eyes or a gem, will end up flooding the area and scurrying off to the recesses like a good ink should.

Thoughts?

Very nice Red!

Hangfire wrote:
I do thin my paint, even bought a bottle of klear (Future) and a dropper bottle for the task (25% Klear 75% water), but I find if I thin the paint beyond 50:50 it just starts to act like an ink and lets say I was trying to paint something small the the eyes or a gem, will end up flooding the area and scurrying off to the recesses like a good ink should.

Thoughts?

for my paints, i use a good matte medium and a flow enhancer. i thin the paint out with flow enhancer and water until it gets slightly inky, then thicken it back up with a drop of the matte med. just until it starts to stick like a normal paint. that way, it's still thin enough to do multiple layers, but it wont run around everywhere.

Your 2nd model looks better than the first, and the first looks good anyways.

Painting is always hard for me because I dont really understand the concepts of shading and blending, but meh ill learn.

Keep it up.

I am loving the black lines. making the features pop more. And btw wife's are hard to ask that question to. you show them soem monstrous being and they no matter what will say it's ugly lol

This may sound off-topic, but one of the things making the "pro" Striking Scorpion look better than yours is the photography itself. That SS was photographed using a light box, I suspect, which removed a ton of the shadows and uneven lighting. In addition, it also looks like it was photoshopped to remove the background. During that process, the image may have been brightened up a bit too.

I'm not denying that the "pro" SS is a better paint job, but I think that equally good lighting might "close the gap" that you perceive between your model and that one a bit.

In addition, a lot of the visual impact of the "pro" SS is from the smoothly blended but bright highlights on the model (the helmet rune, the chest rune, the rune on the sword, the patterns on the shoulder pads, light colored mandiblasters, and the ends of the "dreadlocks"). You chose to go with a dark rune on the helmet, a darker rune on the chest, darker "dreadlocks", a darker rune on the sword, darker colored mandiblasters, and less dramatic highlights on the shoulder pads.

None of your decisions were wrong (everyone has their own color choices for their own models). However, a model without those dramatic, eye-catching highlights is going to be less visually arresting than one with them. Those intense highlights help define the model visually. I think that you might need to work less on your technique (although it never hurts to improve your techniques) and maybe more on color choices and color theory.

I don't mean to sound negative. Your technique is far superior to my own and your model looks very nice. However, especially when painting something as small as toy soldiers, picking out dramatic highlights (and not overdoing them) goes a long way to making a model that stands out.

I am so outpainted!

Exarch looks great, also just to go against your wife - I think the blacklining looks really good.

Cant wait till my undercoated DP of death nomnoms you're exarch!

Really needing to get some better lighting for my painting (and free time!)

Cant wait till our next game

Lolcanoe wrote:

Hangfire wrote:
I do thin my paint, even bought a bottle of klear (Future) and a dropper bottle for the task (25% Klear 75% water), but I find if I thin the paint beyond 50:50 it just starts to act like an ink and lets say I was trying to paint something small the the eyes or a gem, will end up flooding the area and scurrying off to the recesses like a good ink should.

Thoughts?

for my paints, i use a good matte medium and a flow enhancer. i thin the paint out with flow enhancer and water until it gets slightly inky, then thicken it back up with a drop of the matte med. just until it starts to stick like a normal paint. that way, it's still thin enough to do multiple layers, but it wont run around everywhere.

This is a brush control / loading issue. Have less paint on your brush and it won't run. Try pulling the brush back across a paper napkin before touching the model - you'll see the paint run off onto the napkin, leaving less in your brush. When layering, you want that thin, translucent paint. You just don't want so much of it.

@winterdyne, yep i think you are right. I spent 2 hours yesterday basecoating 5 guardians with really thin paint. 3 coats later and the colour is just about there, toying with a 4th coat before highlighting commences.

I did find i kept on flooding, expecially on the breast plate with the spirit stone and antother gem/knobbly bit, so had to do a lot of cleaning up and reapplying, but yes you are quite correct I did find using less paint on the paint prevented the flooding and I was able to paint segments leaving a thin(ish) black line showing.

The responses to this post have been brilliant, I really hope some other painting newbs find this and also benefit from it.

@Da Butcha - You're right, i have always struggled with choosing colour scheme and always have to get a mate to check my web designs. I guess for me I'll have to K.I.S.S. or steal!

@Incurus - don't talk nonsense, my Farseer is going to dance rings around your DP before banishing it with a little poof of her magic wand.

Thank you to everyone who has replied - it's been emotional.

I am aware that 2 hours on 5 basecoats is probably going to lead to me burning out, but I'm just working on my technique at the moment and want to see how good I can get, before I start thinking about how to properly put an army together.

Be aware - the techniques used on display pieces are almost never the same as those used on (large) armies. If I'm going for GD quality I can spend 100 hours on a mini. Doing that for an army is insanity.