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Hey guys, I just wanted to show you the latest I've been working on, I switched up how I painted my terminator armor. I'm putting on a basecoat of ceremite white, then I'm doing a really heavy wash of seraphim sepia (I think I'm finally getting how to properly apply washes, and not destroy them when going back). Then I am painting on the ushabti bone, followed by edge highlights of screaming skull, and finally very thin lines of ceremite white.

Anyway, if you guys can tell me how you think these look compared to my other ones I'd appreciate an objective opinion, as it is hard to be objective when you've spent 3 days painting the base armor on 4 miniatures .

I've been on these forums for awhile when I'm not busy at work but never got round to creating an account, until now.

Saw your thread when you first posted and since then you have improved a considerable amount. Feel proud of how well you've done, painting takes a long time - I've been doing it for nearly 20 years and am still learning.

On to your latest pic. The wash is really helping with a very difficult colour to do. Maybe look at doing several thinner layers of wash to help build up some more depth. Avoid using pure white or black, always have some colour in it except in extreme highlights, that way when you do use it it will pop out more.

Have you done a base coat over the whole model prior to painting or as you paint an area doing them or just skipping it altogether? There is no need to go on about other techniques will help while your still learning the basics. Get that right and then you can learn more advanced methods.

Get a pic up of them completed and we can go from there! But once again so far much improved!

Hey guys, well the command squad is nearing completion, the thing that has me most scared is doing the banner, I've heard they're easy to paint but I'm not sure about it, anyway here are pictures of them in their almost done stage, C+C welcome please!


the front


the back


and the side

Excuse my dirty painting room =p

Damn, good job on the quick improvements, considerably better results already!

You could also base in a brown, then apply a layer of white, then wash. That way your white is a bit warmer from the base coat and you won't have to wash so heavily. Just make sure to use a couple thin layers of white and you can see how it lays, then use the wash less overall.

I like the improvement a lot. For personal preference, some of the darkest areas (around the waist and major armor joints) seem a tad lighter then I would make them. This could just be camera flash though. Also, I noticed the cape edges are a bit abrupt: if you are up for it, try wet blending from the dark colour up to the highlights for a more gradual colour transition.
When in doubt, wash it again ?

Here is the finished product. Thanks for the kind words guys, as far as the cape I know it doesn't look as good as it should I might touch it up, but at this point I've spent 2 weeks painting this squad so I'm ready to paint something else =p.

I too would like to express how impressed I am with your improvements, they have really come along. The washes seem to have worked perfectly, giving the recesses a nice and dark feel.

The iconography of the shield, along with all of the metal details on the model are perfect and should not be changed. I think you should practice color blending.

Here is my latest project, the ravenwing attack bike, I'm not particularly happy with the edging on it, but I did the best I could. I always appreciate the compliments, but if anyone has any good resources to fix your critiques like the one for the gems, and lenses (I think I have gotten those down pretty good) I would really appreciate it. As always C&C are most welcome

Looking good dude. You mentioned the edge highlighting, it will come with time but if you want to tidy it up try a nuln oil wash on the edges then try cleaning the edges up with a fine brush and repaint the black as close as possible. Also I would wash the flexi in the marines joints with some nuln oil. It will tone down the bright silver and tie it all in nicely. Hope that's of somehelp dude. Keep up the good work fella

I think it really comes down to neatening up. It's not necessarily the techniques you use that makes a model look good. Try focusing on making your highlight lines thinner and a brighter colour, this will draw the eye to certain parts of the model.

Looking good so far. Just remember that practice makes perfect

they are pretty good, for the table gaming, they are perfect, but if you wanto t improve your skills, i have three thing to say
1-Learn: look for diferent tehcniques on the internet, wacth the tutorials, wacht lots of pictures, try to discern how they make it and then...
2- Experimenting: lots of experimenting, always try new thing, if something doesnt work or you feel that it doesnt belong to your style, then try something new, but always make it without fear, you arent going to paint the gioconda at the firts try, and that take us to the next step...
3- Practice: same, lots and lots of practice, if you want to paint a lense, then practice a lot how to give that effect, as before, experiment on different techniques or was to paint it, then practice that way or technique till you get the desirable result.
I am not a expert painting, you can see it on my gallery, but that the advice i get when i studied art when i was a kid
so good look and hope to see more of you work

Read the following site as much as possible:

http://taleofpainters.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/dont-miss-our-dark-angels-tutorials.html

Here is a few of my recent models, I've been painting up some ravenwing.

Mate, I just came arose your thread today and I wanted to say well done on everything. On asking for help, on taking peoples help on board and most of all for such dramatic skill improvement!

I started only a couple of years ago myself and it's pretty daunting at first. Especially at CMON P) my first minis looked much worse than yours and they are up on the interwebs forever!

If you are up for a couple more tips, I've got a couple of things I've learnt along the way that might help. There is every chance that someone else has already suggested these if so, my apologies.

1) From looking at your pics green is a colour you paint really well. One thing that can help smooth out transitions after you highlight is to, once you have painted all the highlights in, run a thinned wash (glaze) of the mid-tone over the cape (or whatever). Make sure it's very dilute (say 7 or 10 : 1). Don't put it on too heavy. While this will bring the lightest colours back towards the mid tone a bit what it mostly does is smooth the gradient out. They can re-apply a light highlight of your brightest colours to the extremities and you get a nice smooth effect that still pops.

2) with washing armour, especially marines, gloss coat your figure first. It took me ages to start doing this (most cause I'm impatient and didn't want to wait for them to dry) but it is TOTALLY worth it. If you gloss coat the marine when you apply the wash, especially if you thin the wash a bit, it will run off the flat planes and into the crevices a lot easier. A LOT easier. You will get less of those tidal mark patches on the armour.

3) buy some glaze medium. This stuff is awesome for thinning your paints. They won't break up anywhere near as much and it also slows drying time a bit, which makes blending easier but more importantly, gives you a couple of seconds to grab a clean brush and wipe away a mistake!

Anyways, hope these are helpful. Congrats again on your progress and I look forward to seeing the next models.