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I collected quite a few models and also bought a can of Chaos Black spray primer. I've held off on trying my hand at painting for a long, long time because I'm prodigiously bad at anything to do with aesthetics, but I finally decided to try my best to not FUBAR everything.

Bought the GW Paint set that came with 5 sacrificial Dark Angels marines, and this was my first try. What do you folks think? I'm pretty hard on myself when it comes to failure and I already know that I used too much primer, and my brush discipline needs a ton of work. Is there any other advice you guys can give me?

Painting space marines is basically a miniature color by numbers, any critque I have is about neatness and would be unfair. I think you did well for a first model, but there is room for improvement as I'm sure you already know.
One thing I see is to think about the order you paint in. Like on the ejection port I see you painted boltgun metal after the red on the gun, reverse that next time.

I'm glad you mentioned the primer, my critique is that you need to thin your paints more, that will prevent some of the detail getting lost. Are you using a palette? The plastic lid of a tupperware or anything non-porous like that helps a lot. Also, you may need a finer brush to get in the points of the detail work, a 0 or 2/0 is minimum for tabletop-level work.

This might sound dumb but how do I thin my paints? I know nothing about all this.

Also, I googled the set and found out that the brush included is synthetic crap that ruins everything it would ever touch. FML. :/

 NEWater wrote:
This might sound dumb but how do I thin my paints? I know nothing about all this.

Paints can be thinned just using water. I water all of mine in the pot by dripping tap water into the pot, mixing, then adding a little more until it is the same kind of thickness as milk. Alternatively you can thin paints when you use them on an atrtists palate or ceramic tile and some water.

The brush will be fine for now, I would suggest put less paint on your brush.

A small advice would be to try and add some shade, and mabey some highlighting to see if that will hopefully help you out.=)

To thin your paints is found on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH3Qg_OvRk4

For the first 8 and a half minutes you have a fat guy raging at you about the theory, but it's a good listen. After 8:30 or so he demonstrates how.

A good rule is to go for semi skinned milk, but eventually you'll learn your own paints and you'll learn how you can use the points.

Remember not to just put brush to paint to model, dab it on some paper towel with just the tip first so you don't flood the model.

EDIT: The "or something" made my point a question, not advice.

NEWater wrote:This might sound dumb but how do I thin my paints? I know nothing about all this.

Also, I googled the set and found out that the brush included is synthetic crap that ruins everything it would ever touch. FML. :/

I use nylon and taklon almost exclusively, including painting and staining furniture. Russian Sable may be great but its not necessarily the penultimate bristle.

You can get a decent synthetic brush set at walmart for about 8 bucks, then get sable for your fine points. Get a palette, too. It makes all the difference in the world.

Also, what Blaggard said about running it on some paper towel first.

Certainly looks better than my first marine.

I think all the usual bases were covered: thin your paints, use less paint, etc.
For a palette, you can get a cheap white ceramic tile from Lowes or Home Depot.
For brushes, I wouldn't recomment splurging on the most expensive sable brushes until you've had a lot of practice painting. But I wouldn't get the cheapest brushes either, as you may end up replacing them too often.
You may find this youtube video helpful regarding supplies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2y8wIJCS-k&feature=plcp

The whole thing is about patience and practice. The more you paint the better you get. I know that sounds trite but I started with a marine Tac Squad. By the time I was doing the sergeant (last model in squad) I thought it looked awesome. Then I spent a year painting orks and finally painted some more marines. Same colours, same techniques, but they simply looked so much better.

The paint thining thing is more important than you might think. I used to just paint from the pot because I was lazy. I now regret all the models I did that way. All I do is on a cheap palette (hobbycraft do one in the uk for about £2 I'm sure you'll have an equivalent across the pond.) I dunk a large ish brush (some flat headed thing) in the pot and spread a good dollop of paint on the pallet. I then stick the brush in a water-pot, get most of the paint off by stirring it in the water and then stirr the paint on the palette with the wet brush. I rinse and stirr once more and that's about it. The exact consistency depends on what you are doing at the time, but you'll just get the hang of that quite quickly with a bit of practice. I probably still have it thicker than most people (somewhere between full fat milk and single cream, rather than semi-skimmed ) but that's the way I like to paint and I get ok-ish results.

Spend time trying to be as neat as possible and going back over mistakes. You will quickly improve while keeping the number of models you are unhappy with to a minimum while you are learning. Once you can pull off a reasonably neat model try out new techniques. Drybrushing, washes, extreme highlights are all super easy to learn and produce different effects. Don't be afraid to try new stuff, you can always try again. Some things sound really complex, like painting lenses and gems ot making things look like they glow, but once someone shows you how you wonder why it took you so long to try it. Each new technique is another feather in your cap and will make you a well rounded painter.

Finally, some people live in flats etc, so this is not an option, but seriously think about buying a can of spray paint primer. Quick, Easy and tends to preserve the detail really well. Don't put the models in a styrofoam box to spray them like I did the first time. It melts the styrofoam. Use a shoe-carton instead.

Anyway, have fun and keep at it!

Attempt #2.

I tried to internalize your advice and tips and tried to practice better brush control. Not gonna be afraid to admit to being bad at this.

When you do the shoulder pads, for the raised up portion, you should wipe off most of the paint on a paper towel. then dry brush the raised area. It may take a few coats (be sure to let it dry well between) but it will look way better. Practice on parts that you are not going to use first to get the hang of it.

Whites (and off whites) are a tough colour to work with on a black primer. Try to thin your paint a bit more and go over them with more layers.
Have you washed the metallics at all?

 Blaggard wrote:
Whites (and off whites) are a tough colour to work with on a black primer. Try to thin your paint a bit more and go over them with more layers.
Have you washed the metallics at all?

How thin should I go? Sometimes when I thin my paints, it gets so watery that the paint refuses to "stick" to the primer, and I get frustrated so I end up thickening it again.

Also, I only washed the metallics on the boltgun and backpack.

what do you mean by refusing to stick?

A good ratio of paint to water is 1:1 to get started. Place a line of paint on your pallet, then place a equal amount of water next to it. Mix them both together. If you go directly to the model right now you're going to flood it with paint, so you need to empty the belly a bit. To do that just place the tip of the brush on a paper towel and paint a line with it until you are happy with how it flows off the brush.

I think you're getting there. Try some "ceramite white" which is citadel white basecoat paint. You still need to thin it, but the same consistency of paint will cover loads better than the white layer paint on a dark surface. White and yellow on black primer are the worst things to paint ever because the pigments in those colours are quite translucent.(I know after painting a bad moonz army the hard way. Yellow is worse. So much worse...), so don't worry if it takes a while to get right.

The picture looks like the tip of the tactical arrow isn't painted properly. Looked the same on the last picture, so I'm wondering whether that's just the angle or whether that bit needs tidying up.

Or apply a intermediate colour, such as the brown you get with the starter set.

I'll be posting a pic of my first attempt before too long as well (an "awaiting emergency extraction" diorama of a couple surviving marines out of tac, dev and command squads with an apothecary removing the progenoid from a casualty, and 1 surviving razor), but my experience has all been with 1:35 military stuff, and that was a long time ago...

Anyhow, to second the tips you've gotten regarding brushes and thinning, the second best money I've spent has been on a basic testors "wide area" airbrush to do the priming and basecoat. Part of it was that it allowed me to do the first coats very thin, and the second, it forced me to make sure my paints (I have all testors model master acryllics) were thinned to the proper consistency. Airbrush consistency also happens to be great brushing consistency for both the detail work and for layering coats. The best money I've spent was throwing away the testors "starter set" brushes and getting golden fox #2, #0, 2/0 and 5/0 brushes.

I've also experimented extensively with how to remove paint from select areas on models (such as chest aquila, puity seals, etc)...the more experienced members here can almost certainly improve on my method of acetone on a q-tip.

I've discovered it takes a lot of patience and there's a heck of a learning curve...my biggest problem is faces, to the point I've decided for now my Warbringers have an "everyone wears helmets in the Warbringers" policy and my scouts will not be making their presence known yet.

jwr wrote:
I'll be posting a pic of my first attempt before too long as well (an "awaiting emergency extraction" diorama of a couple surviving marines out of tac, dev and command squads with an apothecary removing the progenoid from a casualty, and 1 surviving razor), but my experience has all been with 1:35 military stuff, and that was a long time ago...

Does that count as a first attempt? That sounds pretty awesome. I know it's quite the assumption but my guess is you're a little past the "I'll just drybrush this and that'll do" stage.

_Lightbringer_ wrote:

jwr wrote:
I'll be posting a pic of my first attempt before too long as well (an "awaiting emergency extraction" diorama of a couple surviving marines out of tac, dev and command squads with an apothecary removing the progenoid from a casualty, and 1 surviving razor), but my experience has all been with 1:35 military stuff, and that was a long time ago...

Does that count as a first attempt? That sounds pretty awesome. I know it's quite the assumption but my guess is you're a little past the "I'll just drybrush this and that'll do" stage.

First attempt at 40K, sure is...just been taking a while because everything has come from ebay a few bucks at a time. I also picked an off-beat chapter because none of the paints are GW, and while I'm picky enough to say "Dark Angels need to be Dark Angel Green", there is no "Warbringer Green", so I'm free to mix half and half olive green and german feldgrau. Anyhow, it should be done in a couple, three weeks or so and posted for critiques.

GW colours are all rather randomly named, you know. Particularly after the recent change, but also before. I'll give you darkangels green, but ultramarines blue used to make me very angry whenever I used it, as it's the highlight colour and not the actual colour of the armour. Admittedly I get angry very easily since I gave up smoking.

Washes and highlights would do wonders

Shoot man, thats a pretty good improvement on the 2nd mini. As far as thinning your paints, Id suggest thin the paint AFTER you take it out of the bottle. If you add to much water while in the pot, youve ruined the entire pot of paint, and youve basically made yourself a wash . And yea, use a CD case or an ice cube tray (thats what I use) to mix/thin your paints down on. Works a charm when doing that on plastic, as the paint moves nicely on it, and its easy as all get out to clean off. Keep it up


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Squidmanlolz wrote:
Washes and highlights would do wonders

Washes yes, highlights for a total beginner? No way. Work on the bare basics first

At this point, just start painting. A LOT. They may not look the best, but the more you paint, the better things like brush control will get. Don't try highlighting yet, avoid details. You will eventually get better, and with that kind of improvement on your first model to second, it won't take long.

NEWater wrote:

 Blaggard wrote:
Whites (and off whites) are a tough colour to work with on a black primer. Try to thin your paint a bit more and go over them with more layers.
Have you washed the metallics at all?

How thin should I go? Sometimes when I thin my paints, it gets so watery that the paint refuses to "stick" to the primer, and I get frustrated so I end up thickening it again.

Also, I only washed the metallics on the boltgun and backpack.

You hear "thin your paints" like its the ultimate secret to the universe. Stop. Look at your paints.
There is a preferred consistency to paints that works best that's nearly impossible to describe. Some paints are good right out of the bottle, some need a drop or two of a thinning solution, some need 10.
I gave up on GW paints a long time ago but if whatever white they have now is anything like skull white, don't bother thinning it. You might as well paint with milk. Thats the happy medium champ, you have to find where the paint is thin enough not to leave a texture but thick enough to leave a color.
I heartily suggest you use a color over the black before you get to white. a shadow grey or parchment color would do nicely. I like the P3 parchment to white line.

Otherwise you are making progress and that's all that matters.

1- practice alot
2- experiment
3- clean your water and brushes often

We all started somewhere; I started out painting on plastic marines with Testors oil paints and no primer....Man I thought painting was the most frustrating thing in the world; 15 years later, sometimes it still is...

 AustonT wrote:

NEWater wrote:

 Blaggard wrote:
Whites (and off whites) are a tough colour to work with on a black primer. Try to thin your paint a bit more and go over them with more layers.
Have you washed the metallics at all?

How thin should I go? Sometimes when I thin my paints, it gets so watery that the paint refuses to "stick" to the primer, and I get frustrated so I end up thickening it again.

Also, I only washed the metallics on the boltgun and backpack.

You hear "thin your paints" like its the ultimate secret to the universe. Stop. Look at your paints.
There is a preferred consistency to paints that works best that's nearly impossible to describe. Some paints are good right out of the bottle, some need a drop or two of a thinning solution, some need 10.
I gave up on GW paints a long time ago but if whatever white they have now is anything like skull white, don't bother thinning it. You might as well paint with milk. Thats the happy medium champ, you have to find where the paint is thin enough not to leave a texture but thick enough to leave a color.
I heartily suggest you use a color over the black before you get to white. a shadow grey or parchment color would do nicely. I like the P3 parchment to white line.

Otherwise you are making progress and that's all that matters.

Agreed, this goes back to what I was saying, thin your paints outside of the bottles. Thats the reason why. Some of my reds/greens/blacks need to be thinned like crazy. While my yellows and whites are the opposite, they barely need thinning

I find I have to thin my yellows quite a lot so they don't turn green.