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Hello, I just finished painting the first squad of my ongoing DA army, I'm satisfied with how the ended up looking them being my first try at painting, but I know there's a lot of room to improve so I'm posting some pictures of them here so you can look at them and laugh, or feel disgusted at how horribly I butchered them with the higlights; but mostly so YOU (yes, you) can give me some feedback, to give me a few friendly tips on how to do better or to swing a pile of industrial strength gak at my painting skills, not feeling really excited about the latter but I can take some criticism, hell, I'll welcome it as long as it's constructive.

With no further rambling ado, here's the pictures. (WARNING, they're huge, zoom out to at least 50% if you want to see them... Yeah, sorry about that.)

Back and front without camera flash:


The same as before, but this time with the camera flash:



Holy gak are they big.

Please do post any opinions/tips/criticism, and don't be afraid to toss some gak at my general direction

Not bad dude, your paints seem a little thick though. Thin them down a bit and you'll get a much smoother finish.
Other than that, it's just a case of practicing. I look forward to seeing more.

Much better than my first mini's!

As has been said already, you need to thin your paints a little, and practice will help you improve, as it does with all things.

Overall they look good, and would look great on the table with the rest of an army painted up like that. Some good basing would also help.

LazzurusMan

My friend congrats on those Dark Angels.

The good news is that if you embrace a few simple techniques and try them out on the next batch you will be super happy. I'll jot down 5 real quick. Feel free to Msg me for more.

1. Use a painting journal.
2. Use Flo Aid, Acrylic Retarder, and a paint $1 palette.
3. Use these 3 brushes. Wash, Standard, Detail.
4. Learn to master your paint ratios so they are just right and flow super easy.
5. Learn to use the edge of a brush to skim across the surfaces and make tiny line edges.

As others have said, thin your paint a bit. It's pretty obvious that they were too thick.

Something not mentioned so far is finishing off the bases in a simple but effective manner. It's a very minor step, but helps make your figure look a lot better.

Looking great so far! DA are a good army to start with, I think - mostly green and bone, not a lot of other colours to faff around with. Thin your paints a bit, base them, and they'll look really good.

When it comes to basing, don't overcomplicate, try to keep it simple - and paint the border of the base in a darker colour than the basing material. So for example, if you based them with sand, paint the border Scorched Brown (or whatever its called nowadays)

Very nice for your first job. Table top worthy and much better than my first minis.

My feedback:

- coats are too thick, thin your paints and remember: multiple thin coats > one thick coat
- edge highlighting takes time, patience and a good point on your brush, to clean up yours make sure you use the above tip plus take your time with it, and use the side of your brush to get those neat lines, DON'T try with the tip of the brush
- take your time and keep practicing! Improving these will only come with better brush control and experience, this won't happen overnight so don't fret and keep at it, you're already off to a great start so you'll get better pretty quick, methinks

Good luck and have fun!

Well thank you all for replying, I'll have everything in consideration, but the ones that are on the top of the list are to thin my paints and base the models, so I'll go get some sand and base these bad boys, I'm probably going to get more models somewhere around may 15-ish, so, until then!

You have some good advice here and I agree with the priority to start with thinning your paints a bit.

For a first go they look really nice. As you can see yourself you have painted outside the "lines" at some places. This is something we all do. What you can do is go back and repaint with the first color to get a real crisp edge.

And...

...Welcome to the Angels Brother