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This is my first painted miniature, I watched the Games Workshop DVD that came with the book and tried a few techniques such as edge highlighting. I think this model turned out terribly and I am hoping that you guys can give me good advice that I can apply to my next test model. Thank you for looking and as always thank you for your advice.



I know the model looks terrible, I'm sorry.

I think saying it turned out terribly is a bit of a harsh critique. There's always room for improvement, but you did some basic things pretty good. Firstly, you did a good job of applying a thin basecoat. Lots of beginners blob on the paint straight from the pot, leading to loss of detail. Secondly, you've got a pretty steady hand, and with a bit more practice, your edge highlighting will sharpen up nicely. Where I think you can improve is in applying your primer coat. Looking at the bolter, you've got some surface wrinkling caused by the primer solvent eating into the plastic. Try holding the can a couple inches further away and start with a couple light passes, rather than one heavy spray. Also, when picking a highlight color, you want something just a couple values lighter than your base color. Going from a medium green to a bright, almost-neon green is too stark of a contrast.

For your first model this is showing promise, the lines on the edge highlighting are good if a bit thick, how many brushes did you use on this model? Possibly a thinner one would help.

Also take into consideration the little details a but, the grill on the helmet, the eyes and the body of the bolter could use some colour to make them stand out more.

Everything's clean and consistent. For me, those two qualities will make or break a mini, and yours made it. Maybe try a smaller brush to refine the highlights as they are a little thick. And also, try some of the details, pouches, eyes, mouth grill, etc. You'll be more in touch with what you want to improve as you try new things. It's sort of tough to critique at this point other than you've made a good start.

Also, experimenting and confidence are important. Try new things, you'll find out your personal strengths and weaknesses as a painter, and don't get discouraged. It's your first mini, everyone's first was terrible.

And bases. If you don't start now, you'll eventually have loads of unbased minis. Having tread that path myself, I can tell you it's not fun. Everyone base your minis!!

Again the highlights are a bit thick, make sure you use a light touch ^.^....also, painting is in the details, remember that, try painting the fingers on the gloves, the material in between the armor plates and really any other places that would not be considered actual armor. Try experimenting with different colors for the little details but its a great start for a model :3 and for god sake, remember to use a wash XD

Thank you for all the advice, keep it coming, I am working on painting up a Word Bearer right now, will probably post up a couple pictures either tonight or tomorrow. But keep the advice coming.

Showcase is only for completed models, including basing which is not done here. If you are seeking feedback and advice, painting and modelling is a much better place to go, I will move the thread for you.

To the model itself looks much like anyones first model does lol, so don't be too hard on yourself.

The learning curve is a combination of actual practice and learning how to apply the paint, how it pushes and pulls, how to use the brush tip, edge and sides etc.

Edge highlighting is most effective on extremely dark colors, like black, dark gray and a few others. The trick with it is two fold -

1. You can't go too extreme with the highlight everywhere, if the highlight color is too harsh, it ruins the form of the model and you lose it's shape, too little and it isn't as effective as a shortcut to looking 'complete'. In other words you have to choose a less contrasty color, a much closer green.

2. You have to keep that edge really, really sharp and thin. Right now it looks like you were using the tip a bit, and probably a little bit of handshake resulted in a bit of a blobby edge. Try wiping a lot of the paint of the brush, not all, just a lot on a paper towel. Then gently drag the SIDE of the brush along the edges, angling it so that you are just barely touching the edge you are trying to hit. This should result, with a bit of practice, in a very thin and steady line.

Overall, I would suggest you add 2 steps to the mix -

First you should layer on a slightly lighter green onto the whole model, dragging the paint towards the upper side of any given plate or surface. Paint kind of acts like snow, and your brush is a shovel. The paint will be pushed by the brush towards the direction you are brushing in. So, if you start your brush in the middle of a circle, and move the brush outwards, the pain will be thickest on the edge and lightest in the middle. (One critical thing though is that you must thin your paints a bit with water, you should never paint straight out of the pot. This is very important in order to get a smooth, even coat. You may have to do it twice, but all in all it is worth the effort).

So, once that layering pass is done with a slightly lighter color, you will have a subtle highlight effect. With experience, you will learn to place your paintwork properly to create convincing effects.

Second, apply the edge highlight, with a much less neon green than you used. Try mixing a mustardy color with the layer color, or a bone color instead of using neon green. This should look nice already, experiment with the mix to find what works best. I have a feeling a 70% layer color, 30% mustard or bone will be about right. Then, if you really want to push it, you can add in a bit more bone, and apply another edge highlight, but only to the very outmost, sharpest edges, like the corners of the shoulder pads, the top of the knees, under the eyes etc.

Third, you can do a wash when you are all done, this will knock back all the colors and blend things a bit more. This is a good way to control things if you end up over highlighting, and depending on the look you may want to wash the crevises and deep parts of the model to enhance shading.

Good luck!

You know what, for a first mini, thumbs up! Obviously it's not going to pull in a golden daemon, but there are bunch of positive things that can be pointed out to practice.

The paint isn't blobby and thick, and has been thinned.

You've stuck to the edge highlighting, and got the concept, even if the lines are a little thick.

The metal of the bolter looks fairly clean, and there isn't too much sliver on the green, or green on the silver.

Suggestions:
Keep working on the edge highlighting, as previous posters have mentione, use a thinner brush maybe?

WASHES AND DRYBRUSHING ARE THE FRIENDS OF THE BEGGINER PAINTER!! As an example, hit the bolter with thinned down black or blue wash (no idea what these are called in the new GW paint range), and then do a gentle drybrush over the top with whatever metal colour you want to use.

One thing for a beginner painter: Don't get hung up on the eyes too much. Faces are important as they are the first thing people look at, but it's better to make them neat, and not detailed, than try and paint in the actual pupils of the eyes, or worry about getting lens reflections on a space marines helmet...

Best bit of advice I ever got given: If you are having trouble getting your brush in there, then it can't really be seen...

Keep going! you only ever get BETTER with time, never worse!

Oh, and one last thing, for edge highlighting, rather than picking a lighter colour and using that, try mixing a proportion of a lighter colour with the base colour to lighten it. It will help you avoid the dark/neon look you have going on just now.

Echoing the above comments about the thick edge highlight, although by now I'm sure you get it, what I would suggest (I also paint sallies) is to start with a nice Army Painter Primer of Dark Green or, if that's not available to you, go with a nice grey primer and then when that's dry make sure you do a couple coats of watered down Dark Green (I use VGC [Vellejo Games Colors]) from there, apply a slightly lighter green, for me this is a 50/50 mix of Dark Green and Warpstone, again watered down. Apply it over the model everywhere except for the darkest recesses of the model. From there your going to want again a lighter shade, you can either add another drop of Warpstone to your previous mix and highlight up slowly (might be preferable if this is a Character Model) or you can just apply straight Warpstone (this is what I do) pretty much where you have all your edge highlights, this color will be significantly darker than what your model looks like now. After this step you will now do edge highlighting. To do It I would suggest dipping your brush in watered down Scorpion Green and usin the edge rather than the tip of the brush (it also helps to have a small brush) and do the edge highlights quite literally on the edge, yours seem to be thick and hang over the edges by a bit, no worries, you'll get the hang of it. From here your power armoire should be done. If its to bright, apply Thraka Green Wash until your desired shade. After the power armour it's all personal preference. I plan on doing Purple Energy weapons and Red cloth on my Salamanders (this at the moment is going through tests). The main thing to remember is that you won't always have golden daemon paint jos but as long a you notice your improving or your satisfied then that's all that counts! I wish you the best of luck with your further models, I will be watching Dakka for you!

Nick

Looks good aside from the thick highlights but more importantly to me is the highlight color. Its almost like a neon color(don't know if thats just the pic). I agree with the poster above me, scorpion green is definately the best color to use for the highlights. Also try drybrushing the silver on the boltgun. It's easy to do and comes out more realistic looking than actually painting silver over the entire thing.

You can use that color just fine, but use a green wash to tone it down a notch would be my advice .

I think I see you've inked that bolt gun, applying a lighter shade of metal using dry brushing would help bring out that bolt gun a little more.

I think its already been said about the highlighting / edging. It could do with being much much thinner, preferably blended but most people don't actually do that when they edge anyway so thats no real biggy at all. Just try and use a more fine brush something small and make sure to keep it fairly dry and just run the side of the brush across the edge a couple of times till you see a faint line of your desired colour form!

Besides that its a damn sight better then how my first guys were for sure XD