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Greetings all - I'm new to 40K, and wargaming in general. I present to you, my first ever completed painted model - the sergeant from the Assault on Black Reach set.

I'm not just looking for "good job" comments - I'm looking for ways to improve. Criticisms to help me make my models look better.

I know the photos aren't great. I just have a camera phone with me at the moment. If they're bad enough to make you ask for a better one, I'll see what I can do.

You did a good job keeping the colors neat; there's no spillover from what I can see. The shading on the loincloth is pretty good, but otherwise the model seems flat, color-wise. A shade and highlight on the rest of him would do wonders. The basing is the right idea, but you should paint it too. Paint it grey and drybrush it with a lighter grey; or do the same with browns or whatever other color you want. It's a very good first try.

You are using good amounts of paint and a proper color scheme. However I think you'd benefit from using some washes or getting into some high-lights to give that model some three dimensional aspects.

Very nice brush control on that one! My next step would be getting some depth on those legs. Very fine application of a dark wash into the crevasses in his leg armor will pick out the details, as will a careful highlight with a slightly lighter shade of blue around the details.

I know some highlights would be the next step, but I'm as of yet unsure on how to do them. I just know that I don't like the GW style of bordering everything. Doesn't look right to me.

I guess I'd be going for a more realistic, single light source highlight / shade, but I'm unsure as to the best way to go about this. He's painted in Mordian Blue, so I'm guessing a Ultramarines Blue / Mordian blue mix watered down on the parts that are supposed to catch the light?

highlights (although I personally am too lazy) are simple to do, pick a take whatever colour you used for the base coat, add a wee bit of white to it, and apply this too the edge of the armour. that should be enough for your early models, as you progress I have no doubt you'll be able to improve your painting, cause for a first attempt that is brilliant, better than some of the 'vets' at my store, and leagues better than my personal first attempt. what i'd suggest is some ogryn flesh/gryphonne sepia wash for the gold, and a wash of perhaps devlan mud (may be too dark fro the skin tone you have chosen there, but works wonders over tallarn flesh) on the face.

Also may I ask how old you are, just curious =p? (you don't have to answer if you'd rather not.

P.S are those your scouts in the background, cause from what I can see those look good too =)

protomane0 wrote:highlights (although I personally am too lazy) are simple to do, pick a take whatever colour you used for the base coat, add a wee bit of white to it, and apply this too the edge of the armour. that should be enough for your early models, as you progress I have no doubt you'll be able to improve your painting, cause for a first attempt that is brilliant, better than some of the 'vets' at my store, and leagues better than my personal first attempt. what i'd suggest is some ogryn flesh/gryphonne sepia wash for the gold, and a wash of perhaps devlan mud (may be too dark fro the skin tone you have chosen there, but works wonders over tallarn flesh) on the face.

Also may I ask how old you are, just curious =p? (you don't have to answer if you'd rather not.

P.S are those your scouts in the background, cause from what I can see those look good too =)

Thanks for the tips. I actually have already put a light wash on the face. You can see it a bit better in person, rather than these not-very-good quality photos. I'll have to pick up one of those washes and give it a try for the gold.

I'm 22. I think the fact I have a lot of patience helped here. I picked up the AoBR set back in April, but have been reading / watching youtube videos and picking up other supplies since then, and taking my time on the models. The Sergeant here isn't the first model I started painting, but the first one I completely finished and the one I've used the most techniques / colours on.

And yes, those are my close combat scouts in the background. I've primed them white, then washed them black to accentuate the 3D parts of the model (a tip I got from a girlpainting video), and gave them a first basecoat of Mordian blue. I'll probably try layering and blending a bit more on the scouts, as they have a lot more cloth / clothes rather than armour .

Glad to see so many newbies painting their minis. I played quite a few games with a primer army when I first started.

Here's how I do my highlights on ultramarines.

to make the color I simply add one part spacewolves grey to whatever the basecoat was... For me, it's 1-1-1 ultramarine blue, mordian blue, space wolf grey.

OK- got that... Now I just high light all borders that are hit by sunlight... face, top of helmet, top of pack, tops of arms, tops of knee pads, tops of shoes... I do not highlight every crack and crevasse like you see on the boxes, and I think it looks better if you don't. I paint minis to look good on a game table, not to be published in White Dwarf.