Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi, all.

First, all gather and point at the newbie

I’m brand new to this a’wargamming thing. I’ve been a fan of Black Library and the computer games for years, and year, then about 6-10 months ago my circle of friends and I decided we’d give the table top games a try. I’ve got a 1000-odd Imperial Guard Army and the other month I took the plunge and started to paint.

Now, before I get the rightly-deserved laughter, bones, and gretchins thrown at me, this is my first attempt ever at painting. I painted up one squad, but I wasn’t happy with them, they looked too plain and splotchy. So what I did was take them down to the local GW and ask for some tips and help.

After an hour of one-on-one time, and the suggestion of what colours and washes to use I was off home to try out the advice I was given.

Here’s the result.

A question for the painting magos, I wanted the fatigues of my guys to be camouflaged, but I’m not that happy with the result. I think it looks like exactly what it is; blobs of paint.

Is there a trick to camo, or can anyone recommend a good way of painting camo?

Thanks in advance, and I hope you like the pics.

Regards,

G'day mate, can't see the images but I do my orks in camaflauge and the best advice I can say is don't try to replicate real cams because they work too well at hiding stuff. For minis go for more broad blobs and lines instead. It will look much better!



Automatically Appended Next Post:
G'day mate, can't see the images but I do my orks in camaflauge and the best advice I can say is don't try to replicate real cams because they work too well at hiding stuff. For minis go for more broad blobs and lines instead. It will look much better!

Odd, the pics are showing for me. Ah, well. Lets try that again. The machine spirits are clearly not happy.

The pictures are forbidden for me apparently. Are you trying to link to a private Flickr account? Maybe try loading them up on the Dakka gallery?

The trick for camouflage is to make sure the pattern continues over edges and corners and things. If you have big areas with a couple of blobs in the middle it looks funny, because its not actually disrupting the outline of the wearer. Jihadnik is correct that the scale of real world camo schemes doesn't work well, its still worth doing an image search for modern camo patterns as this will inform you on how to layer the colours, and indeed what colours go together well to form a good pattern.

Here are my Guard patterns, infantry (based on UK woodland camo) and vehicle (A US Marine pattern I think):

Wow, those look great, Flinty. Where'd you get their helmets from? Are those Eylsian bull-pup lasguns?

Ok, my images are in the Gallery, how do I upload them here?

Sorry, Apparently I can't operate DakkaDakka... I claim newbie rights.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I *think* I've figured it out...

Newbie rights noted

They look pretty good, nice work. I think the wash on the fatigues is a little heavy, but its certainly not horrible. You could also maybe painting in some of the details like the imperial eagles on weapons and helmets and suchlike. Your basing is spot on.

The helmets I use are Pig Iron Heavy Infantry heads and the rifles are Hasslefree CAD guns #1 and #2.

Thanks, Flinty.

I thought about painting in the Aquilas, etc. But I wanted them to look fairly "sensible", if that's the right word, I didn't want them to have any gleaming brass or silver badges; nothing that could reflect and give their position away. Doesn't help them on the table top, but you know what I mean.

I agree that washes are too dark, but in an odd way I kinda like it, I think it suits them.

The helmets I use are Pig Iron Heavy Infantry heads and the rifles are Hasslefree CAD guns #1 and #2.

What's Pig Iron, and CAD? Sorry, I'm new to the whole war-gaming, I'll need to learn all the initialisms.

Your minis look great. Nice job on the bases too.

Hasslefree and Pig Iron are two other mini companies Flinty's used bits from that are the same scale.

Visored helmets from Pig Iron

CAD gun variant 1 from Hasslefree

CAD gun variant 2 from Hasslefree

 Tower75 wrote:
Thanks, Flinty.

I thought about painting in the Aquilas, etc. But I wanted them to look fairly "sensible", if that's the right word, I didn't want them to have any gleaming brass or silver badges; nothing that could reflect and give their position away. Doesn't help them on the table top, but you know what I mean.

Thats fair enough I just think it makes it look a little unfinished. If you don't want metallics, you could easily do a different grey or green colour just to give them a bit of a lift, alternatively just scrape them off the models.

I agree that washes are too dark, but in an odd way I kinda like it, I think it suits them.

Excellent... always remember that these are your models, don't let anyone dictate how best to paint them (especially peoples from the interweb)

The helmets I use are Pig Iron Heavy Infantry heads and the rifles are Hasslefree CAD guns #1 and #2.

What's Pig Iron, and CAD? Sorry, I'm new to the whole war-gaming, I'll need to learn all the initialisms.

As Skarwael indicated they are products from 3rd party manufacturers. You'll probably find lots of references to such things if you frequent these boards!

 Skarwael wrote:
Your minis look great. Nice job on the bases too.

Hasslefree and Pig Iron are two other mini companies Flinty's used bits from that are the same scale.

Visored helmets from Pig Iron

CAD gun variant 1 from Hasslefree

CAD gun variant 2 from Hasslefree

Thank you kindly, Skarwael. Oddly, I'm not actually sure if I like the bases. I think they're a tad too dark. I quite like the look of the bases people have that look like flint, or stone. Not sure how to paint those yet, though. Thanks for the links, too.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jihadnik wrote:
G'day mate, can't see the images but I do my orks in camaflauge and the best advice I can say is don't try to replicate real cams because they work too well at hiding stuff. For minis go for more broad blobs and lines instead. It will look much better!

Thanks for the advice, Jihadnik. I agree. When I first started I wanted to paint an exact copy of the new British Army DPM, ambitious as that idea is. Later on though I saw a Guardsman painted in realistic camo, and you're right, you couldn't see the model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Flinty wrote:

 Tower75 wrote:
Thanks, Flinty.

I thought about painting in the Aquilas, etc. But I wanted them to look fairly "sensible", if that's the right word, I didn't want them to have any gleaming brass or silver badges; nothing that could reflect and give their position away. Doesn't help them on the table top, but you know what I mean.

Thats fair enough I just think it makes it look a little unfinished. If you don't want metallics, you could easily do a different grey or green colour just to give them a bit of a lift, alternatively just scrape them off the models.

You might be on to something there. I see what you mean. I'll give it a bash. Thanks.