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Will be basing him soon. Any tips are appreciated but in particular im looking for:
A) how to do the 'paper' of the seals. Simple methods please guys as I have just started out.
B) How to paint eyes, like at all.

Use a smaller brush for the eyes. Mix the paint with 30-50% water for more control of the pigment.

After the base-coat red it dries, if you want to highlight, take the same brush, mix some of the same red paint with white, just barely touch it up for an extra highlight (you can try this method on cardboard first to get a feel for how the colors layer)

Not bad, paint was a bit thick I think. But there is effort there!

Dude, I bet if you just throw a Nuln Oil wash on this dude he will look pretty ace.

Yeah man, on second look, that is the biggest missing link

Paper is easy. (assuming citadel paints).

I'll use a purity seal as an example. Paints needed are nuln oil, abbadon black, white scar and adminstratum grey.

1) coat the seal in gray
2) go over the area in white scar
3) take some abbadon black and a very fine detail brush and squiggle little lines to represent writing
4) go over the seals paper area in nuln oil and edge highlight with white scars (optional: mix a tiny bit of gray with the white)

I use 5 steps when painting and get fairly good results (see my gallery)

1:undercoat, I use white as I find it harder to miss bits than with black as a white patch really stands out.

2: Base coat. Paint everything the colour you want it, as others have said add a little water to the paint. Sometimes means 2 coats are needed but looks better in the end.

3: Washes. I adore the citadel washes! Paint 'em on like a basecoat and get instant shading as if by magic

4: Highlighting. I cannot blend but learn to drybrush and it really adds to the depth of the mini.

5: Details. Finish off eyes, chapter symbols, banners etc. Use a tiny brush and just take your time.

5.5 (optional) varnish your minis if they are for gaming to protect all your hard work in steps 1-5

For paper I use bleached bone for the basecoat, the yellow wash for shading and white to drybrush.
For eyes I do the same as everyone else. Find the smallest brush ever, put the smallest tinyest bit of paint on it, hold my breath and pray to every God from every faith to keep my hand steady

HI guys thanks for the tips! will get to work on the seals once i have picked up some gray, as to jasper's suggestion of a nuln oil wash is that on just the gun/metal bits or the whole model? I'm not sure about highlighting the red, was pretty hard for me to just stay in the lines as my hands are apparently very shaky oh yeah and i was guessing that thinner paints would come up.

For this guy, I would (1) wash him with Nuln Oil, (2) get out an Iron Breaker or Runefang pot and drybrush the metal parts (drybrush=get some paint on yer brush then hit it up against something til there's barley nothing left, then brush against the area ( rough description of drybrushing, correct me!), then (3) take your green, mix it with white, and drybrush that against the original green for an extra highlight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Clarification: (1) Wash EVERYTHING with Nuln Oil.

You can stop at any step you like. I bet if you just wash money down with Nuln Oil it will look 3X better cuz of the detail filling

Just went over him with the nulin oil, the result is certainly darker.

Right, I think he looks a little better already.

Now, take lighter shades of your original paint (just take the paint + white), and attempt to highlight areas you think should shine out, In principle this will give you 3 shades: (a) washed shade, (b) orignal shade, (c) bright shade. I hope that makes sense,

If nothing else this will be an exercise on 1 Terminator (lol)


!!!!For lighter shade of metallic to drybrush, dont add white. Use Iron Breaker or Runefang, if you have

You can also cover up mistakes with your drybrush

I'm gonna have to keep an eye to this thread. Now I know its almost a 'live' painting session. Looking forward to the finished drybrushing pics

Just go little by little, its all too easy to get carried away and leave to much paint on the brush (I know, I've done it, its messy) if after brushing it looks like nothings changed. Give it 10 minutes and repeat, you'll slowly build up a nice highlight.

P.S. at this point already, you have a badass, table-ready Terminator

Not sure I would call this live or even particular regular updates but hey ho.

Hard to see in the pic sorry but i basically just took some ironbreaker on my brush wiped of excess with kitchen paper then ran it lightly over the gun and cool-and-sciency-looking-pipe-thingy. hightlight hit the sword icons and raised edges of the tube nicely, looks better irl.
For the lighter green drybrush how much white should i add? the base green is waargh flesh, for my marines i used castellan green (sp?) on their trim would this work I'm nervous about messing up the mixing.
(
(A wip pic i already had up)

I would try to estimate this. You have the base green, and how it looks shaded Right? So you have a 1-Base Coat, 2-Wash Color.

Mix the green with white until you see 0 (brighter than base coat). I hope that makes sense., You can even go one brighter after that.

Drybrush brighter. Only use Green drybush on green. I'd say practice on cardboard or a model you don't care about first to see how it layers. Then give that highlight a shot on the Teminator (I'd base-coat some armor-metal on the Marine before I went futher with him).

Marine is long done and finished (tuesday ) just wanted to show the colour difference. painting on scrap cardboard rather than a model is a sensible idea i think. Thanks for the help dude!

Gotta go, I hope you get the results your looking for!

That metal starting to take shape nice now. Oh use a old or cheap brush. Brushes don't like drybrushing

Well, this 'update' took a while
Anyways here is the current state of the first terminator

You might just be able to make out the slight colour change on the bottom edge of the shoulder piece. is this what was meant by drybrushing the armour?
Also just a quick question, too much silver?

(some weird stuff going on with the skull and my camera, it doesn't look like that in real life )

Drybrushing is usually used as a highlighting techinique for edges and areas you think should shine out.

Here's a decent youtube video on drybrushing that should give you a better idea by way of example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj9XNbwfwHo I'm sure there are a ton of other videos, this is just the first one that cae up on a youtube search. Just be sure not to drybrush any green onto your metal or red, as it will mess up your metallics.

So, 1. Basecoat, 2. Wash the model down, 3. Highlight with a brighter shade than your original, 4. you can continue to highlight with even brighter and brighter shades of your original basecoat (just keep adding more white), if you like.

Too much silver? Not IMO, but I play Necrons!

I'd consider highlighting your shoulderpad insignia with a brighter red drybrush to make it pop a bit more.


P.S. Here's an example of a dude doing a drybrush on a similar green color to what you're using (at about 2:30 he starts the drybrush part): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jaIHwJ6umY