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So I'll admit, I'm a pretty bad painter. I want to improve my painting skills but I really don't know what to do to improve.
Here's an example of what my painting skills look like:


Anyone know what I could do to improve my painting skills? Sorry if this is a weird question.

One thing the model needs is depth, learn about washes, a brown/red wash could make this model pop a lot more, also learning basic highlighting such as drybrushing would be useful. The internet has a lot of videos and tutorials of those techniques.

The very first thing I'd advise is taking a couple, more detailed shots of the above model. I usually photograph mine from front, rear and both sides. If you can do that, and get them posted on here, then it'll give us all a bit more to go by to help you with. Until that point, any advice will be sketchy at best. That said, I agree with olim in saying that the main problem is a lack of definition. You have the main colours down to a (from what I can tell by the pic) reasonably neat form, however, due to the lack of depth that is usually provided by shading, washes and highlighting it's difficult to pick out details. I'd suggest some new pictures, and work on depth. Don't be disheartened though - it's not weird at all to ask how you can improve, and I think I speak for the majority of people on Dakka in saying that we are more than happy to help. Good luck!

[insert obligatory thin your paints comment]


Definitely needs a wash to add some depth. Some highlights would also go a huge way to improving the look.

For the red parts, get a black wash, thin it down with water about 50/50 and then paint it all over. Once that's dry get some red paint and carefully paint along the raised edges to highlight.
Now red is also a notoriously hard colour to get looking nice so a few layers of thinned down paint will look much nicer then one thick coat.

At the moment there is a lot of stray red on the horns so repainting the horns black to clean up that stray red would do wonders for the model.

Doesn't look bad actually. I know the feeling of trying to know how to paint when I started. I wasn't very good at painting and my painting has gotten way better.

First off buy 2 good quality brushes doesn't have to be super expensive but I would get a number 0 brush for base layers and then get a 10/0 brush for fine details.

Secondly spray the model according to what colours you want to paint. For example if you are painting lighter colours (yellow, bright red, light green etc etc) use a white spray coat. Then black for darker colours.
When you are painting I tend to water the paints down so it's almost a wash so use that on the base so no little white spots are going to be there.

Then water down the paints to a milky consistency and do multiple base layers so it's got good coverage and make sure the paint dries between layers.

Then get a wash in a darker colour that your using. You can make your own washes by taking paint and excessively watering it down and put your wash in the recesses and then use the base layer to cover up any spots that you don't want the wash on.

Then using your 10/0 brush use it to do some highlights on the pieces that are edges etc.

Once you got that down try out some wet blending on the horns which is pretty easy just need about 3 varying shades of the colour 1 dark, 1 medium, and 1 light and it gives a nice effect.

Honestly decent brushes, watered down multiple base layers, washes and then highlights and you'll be golden!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You can also use wet blending on the swords. I find gold metallic colours are pretty tough for some reason so I normally I paint in a darker silver metallic and use a darker wash (agrax earthshade or nuln oil) and then use a lighter silver as the highlight always turns out good

Thanks for the advice! I'll keep all of that in mind!

I'll second the others in saying that it's actually not a bad paint job.

I would make sure to paint the smaller horns on the head black as well so that head has a little more contrast. The eyes could use some thing to make them really pop like green, orange or yellow. Right now they just look like dark pits in the head. Even if that's the look you want I'd try to add a tiny pinprick of color to the very center of the eyes so they've got more depth and visual interest.

Highlighting the red some more with orange will really help the model pop especially after you've used a wash on it. Even if you just add some orange to the bumps on the flesh areas with a light dry brush it will really help the overall appearance of the model.

I would also recommend that you base the model. This is because even a basic rubble job will really help the model look like a finished product.