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Hi guys. New here hope this is okay but I've recently returned to the hobby and being a bit of a perfectionist I can't help but be overly critical of my own work
I was hoping you Guys might be able to give me down to earth feedback and how to improve my technique.
Thanks in advance.

Not much to say, mate. Your work looks good. Of the 4 images you posted, the only one that looks rough is the Raptor and I think that that's because it's still a WIP. The other 3 are all really solid paintjobs.

The lighting in the pics isn't great, so it makes it a little hard to see. but from what I can see, the only thing it looks like you need is maybe some highlights.
The other thing would be the lack of basing. Once that's done you're looking set.

The raptor looks too flat. Needs a little more shading in the recesses. Also the black is too black If you know what I mean.

All of your gold needs a little edge highlight with silver.

The Ork doesnt have eyes? The Smoke could use a little more glow.

Try to use stripes of the darker colour going up the horns to blend in the colour change a little neater. The toeclaws of the Rider should not be flat White.

But Overall? Not too shabby

I would say its less that you need to neaten them up and more that they could use some dirtying. Lines are all good but its all so bright. Apply more washes and get some deeper darker shadows.

Maybe its just my preference but i like my models dark and grungy.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I guess I need to set my sights a little More realistic. I find myself watching Duncan on warhammer tv and throwing my models on the floor. Haha

I have tried to highlight my gold with one of the gw layer metallics. Something steel. I'm having a lot of issues with their layer Metallics. They're so thin you can barely see them. Perhaps they just need more agitating before painting.

Are you priming? The raptor looks like you're painting on bare plastic.

The power cosmic, The raptor was primed in corax white spray, i just missed the rubble and hadn't done the jetpack yet. That raptor has been bothering me. i like the color scheme but some of the detail is just impossible to fully paint without smudging the orange. PS orange sucks.

I haven't done too much with orange, but I think a dark brown wash on it would help clean up the line where the orange and black meet. Then highlight the black (lightly) with a dark or medium grey.

Exaggerate the highlights. If you're going for a good "photoshopped" looking photos your figures should look somewhat "bad" (as in when looked at in real life, it looks too exaggerated). This is because photographs always flatten the values.

Also, play of contrasting colors do wonders for making a photoshoot miniatures.

Or you could set your white balance properly.

Just an update to show some different colour schemes I have come up with today. Definately digging the alpha legion style raptor. Feel that it's been a lot nicer to paint.

Contrast. Orange is fine. The shadows for orange are dark red or reddish brown. The highlights for orange are yellow.

If anything on 28mm models needs to be hyper done its highlights and shadows.

Unless you are painting for Golden Demon or Display, then close in perfection is not what you want. In fact its the opposite. Close in perfection often leads to a "blending" effect where a model is too complex and when viewed at a distance it all muddies together.

This is why line highlighting (sometimes called the Tron Effect) was the FIRST of the major techniques used by main line painters. It looks awful up close but great on the table top.

In terms of other stuff, often a car can be called "painted for the 3 yard look" means it has imperfection but looks great from 3 yards away. In 28mm you want it to look good from 1 yard, or three feet which is the average distance you will view it from. Most people don't know that the photos are touched up for Eavy Metal and often if you look really close at un-retouched or even at the eavy metal how-tos you see their line highlighting is no different than most people's.

One of hte issue with Chaos Raptor's is a common Chaos model issue in 40k.

Baroque Armor. Aka, too detailed. Too many fiddly spikes and sundry on the armor edges. Makes the models muddy from a distance by default so you have to start to throw more contrast in. Very dark and very sharp limited highlights on the metal parts, the primary armor color should be dark with a light highlight about 1mm from the edge of the flat area you are highlighting.

Also keep it simple. While there may be lots of details, you don't have to pick them out.

For your Green one on the bottom. Shade the green down and line highlight the details you want to pop with "over bright" white-green mix. Use a flat shade to wash out the brightness of the metallics and then pick out the details you want to pop with a silver-color mix. Up close it will look somewhat umm clownish. But on the table top it will look great. Esp along side a themed army.

I would find a darker orange and then highlight places with the that current color.

Or alternatively if you want to keep it bright like that, highlight with very bright yellow. Shade recesses with either Reikland Fleshshade, Fuegan Orange or Seraphim Sepia.
Either keep black as black and edge highlight with grey, or paint them metallic and shade dark.


The lightning claws I would paint with Runefang Steel and shade down darker with Drakenhof Nightshade and then edge highlight with the Runefang Steel again.

Your color scheme for Raptor looks very similar to CSM Warband the Pyre:
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/The_Pyre