Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am having a hard time painting the pauldron's of my space marines. Every time I paint it the surface comes out bumpy and rough. What can I do to get the pauldron's smooth? actually what can I do in general to get their armor to be smooth.

Thin your paint, especially if you use Games Workshop paints. I've just started doing this myself and it really, really helps.

Use a palette or wet brush and mix your paint with water until you've thinned it down. You want the paint to have the viscosity of milk. It may take an additional coat to cover things, but the smoothness you get in return is very, very worth it.

Is it just one pot of paint or is it a few? If its a single pot of paint then you may have gotten a dud paint.

If its more then one pot then you may not be shaking your paints well enough. Or maybe you aren't watering them down enough.


Another problem could be the undercoat you use. Some spray undercoats are textured with fine grains of sand. These are mainly used for undercoating terrain to give in a rougher surface. But if you've picked one up by accident that could be where your problem lies.

Try adding a few drops of liquitex flow additive and small amount of distilled water to your paint pots. It's like magic. It can restore the condition of old paints, I have about 30 pots from GW's 2nd Ed era. I recently mixed up some white paint for a buddy who works at the local game store as he was having a rough time painting up white scars for the store. I used liquitex value series white paint, distilled water to thin and flow additive to make it paint like melted butter. It's a night and day difference.

Could be any number of issues - poor model prep, rough undercoat, overly thick paint, etc. Examine your next model at each step of the process and see where things are going wrong. If you need help identifying the problem further, try and post pictures. Most of us have seen these issues enough that we may even be able to identify the culprit from a single finished model.

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
Try adding a few drops of liquitex flow additive and small amount of distilled water to your paint pots. It's like magic. It can restore the condition of old paints, I have about 30 pots from GW's 2nd Ed era. I recently mixed up some white paint for a buddy who works at the local game store as he was having a rough time painting up white scars for the store. I used liquitex value series white paint, distilled water to thin and flow additive to make it paint like melted butter. It's a night and day difference.

Everything that this fine gentleman said is 100% spot on. Painting "from the pot" is like trying to paint your model with toothpaste. the consistancy that GW paint is is more of a gel than a liquid paint. You need to thin it. Your paint experiance will be ALOT better once you get used to working with thinned paints.

Yeah, it takes more layers, but colors are sharper, consistancy is smoother, lines are cleaner, and when you finally get done with your unit of 6 assault terminators after 60 hours of painting (yes, i did this), the results will look amazing.

Trust me.

-Gunnvulcan