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I would like to hear your experiences about doing custom paint jobs. Were you glad you did it? regret it?

A little background on me possibly doing one:
1. I am very well versed in computer design so I would make some mock ups of the paint scheme before getting to the brush
2. I am not new to painting but it has been a few years so I have an extra 10 intercessors for practicing

I am personally on the fence about it:

1. My army is assembled, with clean mould lines and ready to primed this weekend if I chose to go with their regular paint scheme, which I do like since blue and gold are favorite colors of mine.
2. While I enjoy putting together minis and painting, it is not something I would want to spend a lot of time doing regularly. I would be ok with adding the extra unit every few weeks.

I was confused at first but I guess by custom paint jobs you mean choosing your own colour scheme.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with copying a colour scheme that someone else has come up with. There is always room for personal touch. For many hobbyists the painter's block is not related to painting itself but coming up with colours and that is when painting guides and other references come in handy.

As for what I have learned, if you want to have a have a complete army one day, try to paint it in relatively short time frame such as within a year. If multiple years go by, your skills evolve and temptation to repaint everything with newly acquired skills grow.

Also, careful planning is crucial and it's good idea to paint couple of test models before deciding the overall colour scheme. If your colour scheme is frustrating to paint, you are not going to have fun while painting.

If you come up with your own colour scheme, you can always paint a test model and ask for feedback on forums, Facebook, Instagram etc. More experienced painters can often spot problems with the colour scheme or give useful advice before you start batch painting.

jullevi wrote:
I was confused at first but I guess by custom paint jobs you mean choosing your own colour scheme.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with copying a colour scheme that someone else has come up with. There is always room for personal touch. For many hobbyists the painter's block is not related to painting itself but coming up with colours and that is when painting guides and other references come in handy.

As for what I have learned, if you want to have a have a complete army one day, try to paint it in relatively short time frame such as within a year. If multiple years go by, your skills evolve and temptation to repaint everything with newly acquired skills grow.

Also, careful planning is crucial and it's good idea to paint couple of test models before deciding the overall colour scheme. If your colour scheme is frustrating to paint, you are not going to have fun while painting.

If you come up with your own colour scheme, you can always paint a test model and ask for feedback on forums, Facebook, Instagram etc. More experienced painters can often spot problems with the colour scheme or give useful advice before you start batch painting.

yeah I am still on the fence about doing my own color scheme. I like the "default" ultramarine color scheme so I might just stick with that but change a few accents around like the breastplate or shoulder pads for example.

I bought their dedicated citadel color primers which were pricey but give me a headstart into achieving their look.

My plan is to:

1. prime one squad every few days
2. prime terrain pieces every few days
3. Paint a single marine every few days as practice and to test the scheme

I think once I see all of my figures in blue primer and one of them being painted at a time, it will feel I am making progress.

For reference, I only like the space marines so I have most of the best units, essentially the equivalent of 2 xenos armies lol

Something else to consider, is whether or not you may put your models on the second hand market at some point in the future.

I never thought I would... but here I am. Painting a familiar colour scheme, like Ultramarines or Salamanders or something similar will tend to net you a better resale / trade value than a unique scheme. Personally, I like taking a familiar scheme and tweaking it a little bit. I'm making some Sa'Cea Tau (Typically Blue, Grey, and spot Orange) but also adding some white details, and using the Orange more overtly.

It's still quite recognizable as being Sa'Cea, and if someone were to purchase them in the future, adding them to their collection would be easy to "untweak" my changes to standard. That said, my blue is too dark... but the point is that if you go with a recognizable scheme, you'll keep greater second hand value.

Other than that... go nuts. My preference for tweaking a "standard" colour scheme is that while I want my dudes to look like my own... I want to be sure they'll look good when they're done so I don't waste my effort. This way I'm confident the overall look will be ok, but still "mine".

 greatbigtree wrote:
My preference for tweaking a "standard" colour scheme is that while I want my dudes to look like my own... I want to be sure they'll look good when they're done so I don't waste my effort. This way I'm confident the overall look will be ok, but still "mine".

yeah that is my preference, stick with the main color scheme but change some accents around.

If I am going to spend all that time painting, I would also feel like they are "mine" in a small way.

I got all of the "best-considered" units now and even if they get nerfed into the ground in the future, I would likely keep them since they look legit. For reference, I am talking about invictor warsuits, repulsor executioners, aggressors, centurions, etc

Cool beans.

I've dropped off the Marine wagon for a bit. Tau have my interest these days. Welcome back to the hobby, hope you have fun!

 greatbigtree wrote:
Cool beans.

I've dropped off the Marine wagon for a bit. Tau have my interest these days. Welcome back to the hobby, hope you have fun!

Oh im not coming back, im completely new to it lol

Tau was a close second choice for me

Ah! Well in that case welcome to the hobby!

Are you planning to go the Contrast route, or more traditional base, wash, highlight?

 greatbigtree wrote:
Ah! Well in that case welcome to the hobby!

Are you planning to go the Contrast route, or more traditional base, wash, highlight?

Probably the latter. GW has some really good painting tutorials so I am just going to follow those. I already bought most of the paints needed for them.

I just didn't want to bother buying alternative paints and trying to match the color.

Contrast seems interesting but it personally can look a bit "dirty", like a less polished finish and "cheap-looking".

I am paying premium for this plastic so I want it to look aesthetically gucci to my taste lol

I liked the way GW paints them, it makes them pop more. They also have some follow up tutorials on details and getting that war-torn look

You can get pretty smoothand clean results with contrast, especially if working over a zenithal primer process. Just ignore the 'one thick coat' mindset and treat it like the heavy bodied glaze that it is. (Wide flat brushes for bigger areas work better than a round, for example).

Contrast paints can be used to paint marines but they require more skill, not less. They are very useful for painting bases though. Light undercoat followed by Contrast catches the texture of texture paints or sand much better and neater than drybrushing. My default basing method currently is Grey Seer followed by Gryph-charger Grey for lovely blueish grey.

A little late but I'll echo the recommendation to plan ahead. Folks who decide they're going to play Imperial Fists or Blood Angels and then prime their minis black are setting themselves up for frustration.

Pick your primer color based on the general tone of the mini. Dark colors over light primer is far easier than light colors over dark primer.

Figure out your sequencing. Doing a main color with all its wash and highlight steps before moving on to details might be the most efficient, or it might be incredibly frustrating as you struggle to keep paint off the areas you've finished already.

Experiment with techniques. Find a recipe you like. Not everything has to follow the GW standard of base -> wash -> base -> highlight -> highlight. It works for most anything, but it's also very time consuming, so there are alternatives.

If you find one part of the painting process to be tricky, tedious, or frustrating, there's probably a way to fix it. Experimentation and research to eliminate those frustrations is much, much better in the long run than struggling through it and resenting the process.

Honestly, find a color scheme you like and go for it. It takes time to develop a look. I've been painting for 10 years and I'm still learning and finding new things to try.

You sound like you want to get it perfect the first go round and I completely understand. I made an entirely female space wolf army and did custom paint on all of them. I definitely messed up some models along the way too. I'm sure that in another 10 years I'll look back at the models im doing now and see where I could have done better. That's just art in general.

TLDR, just do it and if you don't like it, simple green the little dudes and try again.

winterdyne wrote:
You can get pretty smoothand clean results with contrast, especially if working over a zenithal primer process. Just ignore the 'one thick coat' mindset and treat it like the heavy bodied glaze that it is. (Wide flat brushes for bigger areas work better than a round, for example).

k thanks, I will keep that in mind


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jullevi wrote:
Contrast paints can be used to paint marines but they require more skill, not less. They are very useful for painting bases though. Light undercoat followed by Contrast catches the texture of texture paints or sand much better and neater than drybrushing. My default basing method currently is Grey Seer followed by Gryph-charger Grey for lovely blueish grey.

my plan is to follow their new tutorials, and practice with the cheap intercessors. I figure by the 20th troop figure, I would fill confident to paint my higher end SM figures


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:
A little late but I'll echo the recommendation to plan ahead. Folks who decide they're going to play Imperial Fists or Blood Angels and then prime their minis black are setting themselves up for frustration.

Pick your primer color based on the general tone of the mini. Dark colors over light primer is far easier than light colors over dark primer.

Figure out your sequencing. Doing a main color with all its wash and highlight steps before moving on to details might be the most efficient, or it might be incredibly frustrating as you struggle to keep paint off the areas you've finished already.

Experiment with techniques. Find a recipe you like. Not everything has to follow the GW standard of base -> wash -> base -> highlight -> highlight. It works for most anything, but it's also very time consuming, so there are alternatives.

If you find one part of the painting process to be tricky, tedious, or frustrating, there's probably a way to fix it. Experimentation and research to eliminate those frustrations is much, much better in the long run than struggling through it and resenting the process.

yeah I am going to follow the GW tutorials but change the color scheme a bit to reflect a gundam exia paint job. I will practice it on a few troops to see if I like it


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Freya wrote:
Honestly, find a color scheme you like and go for it. It takes time to develop a look. I've been painting for 10 years and I'm still learning and finding new things to try.

You sound like you want to get it perfect the first go round and I completely understand. I made an entirely female space wolf army and did custom paint on all of them. I definitely messed up some models along the way too. I'm sure that in another 10 years I'll look back at the models im doing now and see where I could have done better. That's just art in general.

TLDR, just do it and if you don't like it, simple green the little dudes and try again.

yeah I know it wont be perfect at first, I just want them to be good enough that I don't hate to look at them. I would be happy with that