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I just wanted to ask for any help with painting. I just started to paint my miniatures starting with a few space marines and I'm really struggling to get the little raised parts of the shoulder pads and little areas. I'm using a small brush but I just can't get it to look straight or not go onto the whole shoulder pad and look sloppy. I would really appreciate any advice on how to paint small areas. Thanks in advance!

Well, the first rule of thumb is practice. Followed by practice and more practice. Once you start to get used to how the paint works, how to thin it to get it to work how you want, and develop your own techniques, it'll get easier.

That said, I'd head over to the tutorials part of the forum and check out lots of the marine and basic painting tutorials there. There is a lot of really good stuff. But a word of warning, a lot of it is really well done, but don't let that put you off. They've had a lot of practice!

With regard to your questions about raised areas, there are a couple of basic tips that will help right away:
1) always start painting on the 'inside' of the model - for space marines, that is usually the ribbing on the joints, eyes, mouth grille, hips, etc.
2) if you start on the inside and overpaint, those mistakes will be covered up by the paint that goes on adjoining parts (assuming here you're not using red or yellow, or other hard to paint colors. There you might need to touch up with your primer color to make it work
3) for the edges of shoulder pads or chest eagles, don't worry about paint getting on the chest armor or shoulder pad itself. Any of those slips can be easily corrected by using your base color on the shoulder pad or chest armor, and you can use the raised portion of the pad or eagle to guide your brush. Follow that with a thin line of wash along the edge to blend it together and give it some shading.

If you can, post pics of your work, it often makes it easier to give specific advice on how to tackle a particular problem.

Hope that helps

Following on from the above advice, if you're trying to paint a raised area like the pad rims then you should lower the angle of the brush so you are painting with the side of the bristle tips, and 'swipe' the brush sideways almost perpendicular to the rim, instead of drawing it as normal.

This makes it impossible for bristles to plop off the edge of the rim and onto the pad itself. Assuming your brush is in good condition and has no splaying/hooks etc.

For things like rivets the technique is the same - get your brush as low as possible and dot them with the side of the bristles.

To eliminate any shakes when doing teeny stuff like pupils or whatever, you need to make sure both the mini and brush are stable. The best way to do this is to rest your elbows, wrists, and back/sides of your hands on a desk which is at a good height for your frame size. I rest my elbows on my adj chair arms, and my wrist and hands are relaxed on the desk, and with NO conflicting tensors/extensors (your tendons) you can literally 'go limp' for perfect brush control.

The ergonomics of painting is by far the single most important factor to neatening up, other than simply putting the hours in and practicing as many different techniques on as many textures and model types as often as possible.

The only thing that you can do past that is to slow your breathing (which happens naturally anyway when you find your zone and are into your painting) and relax.

For the ultra-detail masochists among us, the only thing left thereafter is your heartbeat/pulse, which will twitch the brush a miniscule amount. Most painters (like 99.9%) will never even notice this of course, let alone have it affect their painting, but I have had to paint between beats on a few things here and there.


Edit: Oh, and did we mention practice? Probably not nearly enough actually. So just for extra good measure - Practice, practice, practice!

Thanks for the help, id love to post a picture but I'm not sure how. The tip on using it sideways was helpful, the problem is that I usually end up putting on too much paint and it spread to the side or a press to hard and part of the brush edge goes to the side, I assumed practice would be the answer just wondering if there was anything else so thanks again

Use less paint, and don't press so hard?

Oh, and of course! I nearly forgot the other mantra - Thin yer paints, and slow down.

Unlike Orki, when I paint pad rims, I do paint by brushing along the length of the pad rims, not across them. You have to work in small brush strokes depending on the color used.

The other thing that is common, as you mentioned, is using too much paint, or paint that is not 'thin enough'. For example, most GW paints, out of the bottle, are too 'thick' to paint straight, and should be mixed with a little water. This thinning helps the paint flow off the brush easier. Again, some colors this works well with (black, blue), others less so for coverage (yellow, etc). You just have to work with it until you find a mix that works.

I usually do this by taking the tip of my brush and dipping it into water, then put the drop of water (or water smear) on my palette, then dipping the tip of my brush into the paint, then mixing the paint with a tiny bit of the water on the palette. The paint is then just a little more 'runny' than straight from the bottle, but not enough that it loses opacity.

By doing this, and keeping a good tip on the brush (not letting paint get down into the ferrules) you can better control where the paint goes on the model.

Mebbe we got wires crossed there, Cruentus? I do paint 'along' the rims, just with my brush more sideways as I draw (but not past 90deg as that's when flicking occurs).

The thinning tips is good btw. OP - You don't need to make a wash, you just add enough water that the paint flows smoothly and self levels without leaving stroke marks behind.

As has been said, THIN YOUR PAINTS! It is the number one mistake we all make, and few ever really overcome. Thin 'em and keep 'em thin! Don't expect a single coat to finish the job! 2 coat minimum for good, smooth coverage, preferably 3+.

Not all colors act the same. Reds and yellows have very little pigment and will take many more coats than grey or brown.

Finally, the big secret most new painters don't realize is almost EVERYONE gets paint everywhere. I was reading a tutorial by one of my favorite GW 'Eavy Metal painters recently, and was amazed at how many mistakes appeared in the pictures. New painters get the impression that the model must have looked cleanly painted from beginning to end, but that just isn't the case.

Most everyone gets paint outside the lines. That is why when you are done painting you go back and do a touch up pass. Everyone has to do it. So don't feel bad if some paint gets on your model where you didn't intend it. It is just a part of the hobby. Just remember to do a 'touch up' pass.

One piece of advice that really helped me with detail work when I was first taught it is, if you have any problems with keeping your hands steady while doing small fiddly bits on models, try pressing your wrists together as you paint, with the model in one hand and the brush in the other.

It helps make any slight movements in your hands normalized across the two and prevents your brush from slipping onto part of the model unintentionally.

Just jumping on the bandwagon here for painting help (any advice I have has already been given) - How well does putting water directly in paint pots work? Does it save mixing time? Will it ruin my paints?

I'm quite surprised nobody has mentioned this yet.

Always clean your brushes after use. Get some Masters or Windsor & Newton. It will keep your brushes in good condition, and the paint flowing off the bristles.

Also, if you want a cheap and easy way to practice brush strokes (like what was mentioned earlier). Prime up a few pieces of the sprue. It's the same plastic and you have plenty of it around (I use it all the time to see how a new paint is going to look, or for color combo's ect..)

Oh and practice, practice, practice,

Basically the same as everyone else has said, thin your paint (to the consistency of milk).
I find if i rest my elbows on a towel on a hard surface like a table, and then cup my hands together, with one hand holding the figure lightly then my other hand holding the brush, i get very good control over what i am doing.
And as everyone says, and it cannot be over emphasised enough, and as i also tell my son...
practice makes perfect!

An old addage springs to mind from when i used to teach Judo, and my old sensei drummed this into me:
To learn a throw will take 1000 attempts, to master it will take 100,000.

Although not quite so drastic it emphasises a point, so do not be too disheartened if your first 10 or 20 (or more) miniatures do not come out as golden demon entries, just practice and above all else, have fun!!!

I'll throw in my 2 cents despite not being a fantastic painter and likely just reiterating alot of what has come above:

Paint the hardest to reach places first (joints, neck, inner vents, etc)

If assembling fully will hide parts then painting prior to fully glueing can help (chest insignia on a marine is best case in point here, leave the arms off till the chest is done)

Read online tutorials (or watch youtube), it makes the impossible seem alot more attainable.

And finally practice, when I first started I was certain I'd need a million varieties of brushes and various other things, these days when painting I do almost all the work with a citadel standard brush at various angles.

Zro1312 wrote:I just wanted to ask for any help with painting. I just started to paint my miniatures starting with a few space marines and I'm really struggling to get the little raised parts of the shoulder pads and little areas. I'm using a small brush but I just can't get it to look straight or not go onto the whole shoulder pad and look sloppy. I would really appreciate any advice on how to paint small areas. Thanks in advance!

Use a bigger brush. I use a flat no.0 for the shoulderpads and use the long side of the brush rather than the tip.

NimbleJack3 wrote:Just jumping on the bandwagon here for painting help (any advice I have has already been given) - How well does putting water directly in paint pots work? Does it save mixing time? Will it ruin my paints?

Just to answer this, in my opinion, you don't want to add water to the entire pot since you want to have the most control possible over thinning the paints. You can always thin a little more on the palette, but if you put too much in the pot, you're out of luck.

Another thing to keep in mind, I'm referring to the old GW paints, not the newest line. I've only worked with some of the bases (white, red) and I've thinned those. I have not tried the other paints from the line yet.

@orki, its all good, I think I just misunderstood your description, but we're probably doing exactly the same thing

Finally, there are a lot of different paint options around, and often you find paints that work better for you than others. I use GW, P3, Coat d'Arms (the original GW paints), Vallejo (game and model), Reaper, etc. for different applications, and some colors in some lines work better for me. So keep your eyes open to paint reviews, tutorials, and talking with others about what works, and don't be afraid to try other lines.