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So I've come to the point in my army building that I've decided that my Black Templars look too non-templar without their templar crosses on their poorly painted white shoulderpads (will probably redo those, but that's another story...). My problem is, I'm pretty gak at freehand stuff, the only semi-good freehand I've done was a High Elf banner bearer from WHFB, and I don't really feel like painting who knows how many layers of white on my shoulder pads only to mess up the heraldic crosses and have to start over (note: the GW transfers aren't really an option, I just don't get them to work properly). Is there any good tutorials for beginners or training excercices for freehanding stuff (preferrably Black Templar crosses ) out there? Most of what I find assume you're a decent painter, but I really can't do a straight line for my life...

As far as painting exercises, just practice your freehand on some primed cardboard. (Just spray it with a thin layer of chaos black or skull white, and you're good to go. )

I'm pretty experienced with freehand so I would follow these tips:

1: Thin your paint down quite a bit, you want it to be about 2:1 ratio of paint to water. This will provide enough fluidity, yet the surface tension of the water won't mess it up. If you place your brush on the surface and it simply creates a drop of murky paint, then you have too much water in the mix. If you're doing text, then do it in as many straight lines as possible, as curves can be difficult for a beginner.

2: Take your time. I'd worked on this Reaver carapace for about three weeks, yet even now I paint over parts and redo them. Don't expect to get it 100% perfect on your first go, practise makes perfect. Also, don't get too overconfident and think you can go out of your reach, as you may end up ruining the whole thing.

3: Plan your idea ahead: Don't just go in there with a brush and hope for your perfect result. It helps to trace it out by pencil first, then outline sections in their respective colours.

Hope that advice helps.

I've often wondred if would be easier to draw your desired shape on a piece of card, then cut it out and then just spray in whatever colour you want, dunno if that would be better for you cause you've got to do quite a few (I'm guessing?)

Have you thought about modelling the crosses with green stuff?

It's much easier to paint a raised symbol than freehand it.

there are some nice decal softening products out there, as i assume the reason you don't like the decals is they are a bit nasty to fit on SM shoulder pads.
or try a few drops of white wine vinegar in some warm water the apply the detail it should just mould on to the pad.
then if you don't like the decal effect just paint over it as it works well as a guide.

Hi there, I'm working on improving my free hand skills as well. One tip that has helped me a little in addition to what has already been mentioned is to make dots to determine the corners. Then it is mostly a matter of connecting the dots one thin line at a time and filling in.

Use Transfers and apply varnish to the pads to keep 'em on...

Popsicle wrote:As far as painting exercises, just practice your freehand on some primed cardboard. (Just spray it with a thin layer of chaos black or skull white, and you're good to go. )

Definitely this. If I'm going to free hand a design, generally I'll cut some paper to the exact same size and shape of what I'm going to paint it on. Then practice until I'm happy enough to put it on the actual model itself.

Reading what others have wrote, knocked this out for you as a bit of guesswork... rushed it out on Paint whilst Windows Easy Transfer was moving my files and I was thus unoccupied

Hardly perfect but mnyah:

While it won't help your freehand painting, if all you need is to put clean crosses on BT pads, you could always just draw them on with a Micron Pen, then fill with the same pen or with black paint (which, having already established a clean outline, will be much easier).

I would personally invest in the ready moulded shoulderpads it just made my black templars look that much more characterful also a tip for painting them which I liked was not to actually paint them black, they look too glossy and shiny I used a grey mixed with black until they were a super dark grey rather than black and they looked so much better for it as for the white just undercoat the pads grey and use ceramite white, it goes on really well and really even in one coat I highly recommend it good luck but seriously I wouldn't try to freehand the crosses more effort than it's worth ultramarine symbol would be easy but black templars nooo

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