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Welcome to my P&M blog! Here I am posting some of my work for those that may be interested. I have been painting for about 2 years or so and have completed approximately 450-500 models ranging from a low to high table top quality (almost 85% of them with a standard brush! ). With the last few months, I have picked up an airbrush that I intend on putting to some extreme use as I grow as a painter. I will try to post up decent looking models (and possibly not so decent looking ones...) all with the goal of gaining experience. Questions, comments, and tips are always welcome! I have found that I can learn something from almost anyone here on Dakka. This is my first blog ever so please bear with me as I also learn how to manage a blog properly. Thanks and hope you enjoy my progress!

Todd

My first project is an attempt to prevent myself from having to buy a different army each time I want to play a different codex. With that in mind, I finally would like to build an army that almost all chapters could be played from. As I mentioned, I have recently picked up an airbrush and have practiced on some 'Nid models that I had laying around, but have now set my sights on painting Space Marines. As I grow into my airbrush, I like to post up some pics of my progress. As a DIY chapter, the actual army itself is not a super serious attempt at correctness, but I am, however, more interested in becoming a better painter. It has been my understanding through all the reading and searching I have done prior to choosing this orange color that if a painter can correctly shade a lighter color, then shading darker colors will not be so hard. I plan on using a white/yellow mix to highlight from the top which I think will justify the very dark shadowing. I also plan on being bold and doing some OSL on the eyes. Again, this chapter is more for pure educational purposes (as is everything we paint right ). With this, I present my first shading job... As always, comments/advice are welcome and appreciated!

Updated... I finished some of the marines in the army I am building. Most of the marines in the army are AoBR/DV marines, but others are second hand marines that I got a deal on. I will post up more as I go...

I had planned on doing a stark yellow highlight but it looked too bright so I went over the yellow with a lighter orange and then touched up with a hint of yellow. I can't help but think learning how to mix paint would have saved me a lot of time/extra work. But learning is the fun part, right? I know these are not super awesome but any thoughts or comments would be appreciated. Thanks for looking!

Looks good. You might want to get a little more highlight on the very back of the power plant (back pack) and on the back of the heels.

Are you referring to the kneeling one? I see it too where I kind of missed the back of his heels. I will try to highlight one of the back packs but I am unsure how well the yellow or even light orange will go over that dark brown (I may have gone too heavy with the brown shadowing-- Live and learn). I also have plans to add some black weathering pigment to the back of the back pack to make them look dirty. I have about 30 more to do. I will post up some picks with some changes. These few marines here are my first run batch of marines. I feel I have really improved as I have went along. Thanks a lot for the input! I am not really looking to receive too many compliments on this project... But I really do appreciate constructive criticism.

It is my goal to someday be a mid-level commission painter... But that is a long way away, if I am honest with myself. Thanks again!

Todd

I'd like to see these fully painted. This technique intrigues me but I usually fail at it myself because by the time I'm done painting the model, you can't really tell that it started out looking like this

Yeah, that is what I am afraid of also lol but to counter this, I am going to use an oil wash. I have been washing models for a long time with the regular acrylic washes and it drowns out any kind of a gradient (especially all of those hours spent wet blending with a brush!). I recently used the oil washes on a terrain piece and I am anxious to see how it will work on a regular infantry model. Currently, I am waiting for some vallejo black metallic model air paint to do some of the details and the bolters. I have about 30 more that are ready for the final highlight (I just got done with the medium/light orange step). I took into account oni's advice and gave the heels a little more attention and will be sure to highlight them in the last step.

Nice work, mate.

I've subscribed as I am most intrigued as to how they will turn out.

I did something very similar using a dark olive drab green and a tan for the highlighting - after the washes and details, despite the massive difference on the two colours when 'raw', you had to look for the different paints used. In saying that, the overall effect was great (no pics sorry mate they are in a shipping container at the moment). Although that batch was a test, I will be doing the same on a larger scale in the coming months.

Thanks for chronicalling your work - looking forward to seeing the finished product!

Don't be afraid to up the contrast a little... after you finish painting all the little details and and applying the wash, you can loose some of the highlight effect. Use white to spot highlight points of visual interest and then go back over it with your brightest yellow. It also helps to go back with a brush and line highlight armor panels, edges, etc. with a bright yellowish-white to extra contrast too.

Yeah, that is how I highlighted the shoulders/tops of the back packs. I hit the areas I wanted highlighted with white, then yellow and then dulled the yellow back down with a lighter orange than I started with (which gave me this tangerine looking color) and then went in again with the yellow for the final highlight. I feel the white/yellow step, even though it was laborous, was really necessary to achieve a gradient. I tried to do just yellow or just the lighter orange over the base orange and it just did not look right. I guess it would have been better to post step by step pics.... I may build a marine and paint him to show the steps I used better. Sorry guys this is one of my first documentary type threads.

Taking some of the advice from people in this thread, I highlighted the backpacks. Below is a comparison picture.

Awesome! I had one of the Mods move my thread into the P&M blogs section... and here is an update...

I am waiting on paint in the mail to finish my "Orange Legion" lol so I ordered this mini from Scibor miniatures and decided to use him as a stand in for Marneus Calgar... Talus Calcaneus, I think I will call him...

Today I started painting my Marneus Calgar stand in model... I am continuing to work on perfecting my fading and light sourcing with my air brush. Robes seem to be hard to get the right shading on, but I must admit it seemed better than doing a tone of wet blending with the brush. I am debating on whether or not to mask and airbrush on the orange on the leg or to just brush the paint on... IAlso took the opportunity to work on the Sergeants' robes... Next I will work on painting the armor orange to match the rest of the army.

Some progress pics that I have been meaning to post. I am waiting on another Scibor miniatures mini to be my Vulcan stand in so I can paint him and my Calgar stand in model at the same time. Currently I am debating on what color to paint the squad marking arrows... I am thinking black but have played around with the idea of blue or red, but red may look a little too Imperial Fist-y... I am already planning on using red for the purity seals.

Well a lesson was learned today as I assembled the fruits of my labor. Spraying the bolters/flamers, etc separately works great on regular boxed marine sets. With the DV/AoBR set marines that have the hands attached to the bolter... not so much... I have run into a problem with the hands not matching the rest of the marine's body! I tried to combat this by doing some blending on the hands while they were still tacky taped to the sprue I used, but it seems they are still not quite fitting in. Perhaps some dry brush/weathering will make up the difference... I also plan on adding some black weathering pigment to the models in certain areas and maybe that will help to cover up this oversight... Any suggestions would be welcome....

It's been a little while since I have posted (been busy at work and 2 off duty college classes!). But I have managed to set some time aside to work on this Swiss Army... Army... Most of the basic TAC squad guys are ready for gloss varnish, decals, and oil wash. I am wanting to do the oil washing all in one sitting so I am working on my Vulkan "counts as" model and my Marneus Calgar "counts as". To join them I am painting up the chapter master and librarian from the DV set along with plasma guns/cannons to be able to play DA. Also, I have attempted some OSL on a plasma gun... practice is needed I think...

Thanks too for everyone checking out my work. If anyone has any helpful hints/tips, I am all ears! (or eyes... rather... lol)

I guess I am loading these up to better track my paint as far as the airbrushing side of things. I know I really jumped some steps with my previous pics...

Today I made some progress on my Vulkan stand in model. He may also be proxied as a Master of the Forge as well. The main goal of this batch is to better show the process I am using to paint my orange marines and to complete the models required to play a fluffy DA army (lots of plasma and an Azreal stand in model, DV chapter master). I did some brown pre shading before the orange. I am using model air paint with this brown as before I was using GW paint. The model air paint is so much nicer to work with!

It has been a while since my last update... I have been busy with school and work. I finally got a chance to make a bit of progress on my HQ choices. In the line up I have a stand-in Azreal, Marneus Calgar, librarian and Vulkan. I took a little bit of time and really tried to work the capes on the libby and Azreal.

I finally got around to finishing up my plasma guys. I definitely feel better about this round of OSL than my first attempt. I have some sergeants and other guys I need to take some pics of and post.

So I finally moved on to washing the army. I chose to try my hand at oil washing having had some success with it in the past. I glossed all models with Vallejo gloss varnish. I did discover that trying to clean up the model while the wash was still "wet" proved very difficult as the cotton bud (Q-tip) kept soaking up all the wash out of the recesses. Waiting for the models to dry and then doing clean up was much easier and produced the results I was looking for (and have seen with other people's oil washing). I think I may have went a little too heavy on some of the models' varnish coat as the wash had difficulty staying in some of the recesses.

I know it has been a while since I have updated my postings... Well here is what I have been up to...

So after the oil wash, I applied a matte varnish coat and then went in with some pigments and hit up the power plants (backpacks) and the hands to make them look dirty but to also help cover up the paint mismatch from painting them disassembled. Then, I proceeded with basing the models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Finally they are finished! I am working on getting my next project together so stay tuned!

Here are some finished pics:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/569508.page#6365053

So, out with the old and in with the new! For a change of pace, I have started a small Hordes Trollblood army. I started this army because I think the game is cool and the models in the Hordes range would provide me a chance to paint something besides 40K models. With that said, these are my first non GW models I have ever painted! It feels like a big step to me. I plan on trying out some alcohol based paints to hopefully enhance the "steampunk" style models by making the metal pop.


First thing I have noticed from the beginning is how little practice I have had painting skin... Oh well, progress not perfection... yet...

Today, I worked on trying my hand at the tartan pattern that the trollbloods are known for having. Luckily for me the Privateer Press Trollbloods army book has a 'how to' guide on painting the pattern. I will continue to perfect this through the rest of the army (hopefully! ). I also got to try out Vallejo's liquid metal paint range. And I must say that I am in love with them! They were very easy to use and went on like a dream! There was some splattering since they are very thin out of the bottle. I can't wait to see how well they look with an oil wash.

Following this blog. Good work.

Thanks! I am trying to get as much done as possible before college classes start back up...

Continuing with these Trollkin Sluggers, I used some weathering pigments to make their feet a little muddy looking (clean models on earth bases look suspect lol how did they get there?) and I added some soot to the gun barrels. Overall, nothing too serious as I am still working on becoming more comfortable with pigments. I was poking around some of the other threads on here and stumbled upon a tutorial by a fellow member that used pigments on cork bases to add a muddy look to them... So I gave it a shot. It definitely made a subtle difference that really helped to break up the standard-looking cork base. I will post up the finished models in the showcase area again. I think that it is best to do it that way since this is more of a WIP thread and it is nice to show them off in a different area. Any input on the proper protocol for this would be helpful.

Things learned on these 5 models to help with the rest of the faction:
1. Tartan- It is difficult but worth it... Improvement needed
2. Skin- Painting tons of power armored models does not lend itself to mastering this skill
3. Pigments- Are awesome but hard to control...
4. Mixing Colors- I did some mixing of colors to create my own highlight colors but I don't think they show through very well. Possibly a more stark highlight will be needed. Overall the models are darker than I wanted despite my efforts to brighten them up with custom mixed color combos.

I will get the finished pics posted in the next couple of days... Next, I am starting a Storm Troll. He is by far one of my favorite Trollbloods models and has proven himself on the battlefield and is worthy of the first troll paint job! I started with a standard reverse prime. More to come....

I finally pressed on with painting him. In the hopes of making him look 'electric' I used a similar technique as the plasma cannons in the SM previous SM army which lightened him up quite a bit, and I decided to try out some pigment effects that I had seen on youtube... needless to say, I think I may have went a little overboard. But, then again, I have never SEEN a storm troll so his skin may be a little crazy... I think with the specialty trolls I will try to capture their animus while I paint them (storm troll looks stormy, pyre troll fiery, etc). I experimented with a wash in his mouth but I will be going back over it.

Here is link to the finished Slugger unit: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/570950.page#6390776

The Storm Troll is done and can be viewed here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/571704.page#6403945

Next up is a Dire Troll Bomber that I have magnetized to also use as a Mauler. I am using the closed fists as I messed up on the open hands and put too small of magnets into the hands so they do not stay on the model very well. Plus this will give me a little variation on the tabletop as I also have a Mauler with the open hands. Through this model I am continuing to try to get the hang of the oil washing on organic/living models as well as the pigments used to create color variations. The video that is my inspiration can be viewed here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HjkO44H-AU

I love how he uses the pigments to create awesome/interesting colorblends and is something I am trying out to see if I can incorporate it into my own personal style.

I finished up the bomber and posted some finished pics up here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/572943.page#6428947

More to come...

Time to try my hand again at painting small units. The sluggers turned out a little darker than I had anticipated... I think I will forgo the oil wash on these two models. Perhaps the oil wash, however handy, is not well suited for organic models. I hope this blog is being of help to others as much as it is to get my thoughts on painting out in the open for improvement.

I started out pretty standard with a reverse prime.