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First painting anything white with an attempt at weathering. I am far from getting it down. Thoughts and advice would be nice.







Thanks.

For a first time, great attempt=) You may want to thin your paints to have a more even coat. Your colours looks a bit thick and uneven.

I remember my first time painting white - probably the second hardest colour to do after yellow.

The top tip that I can give is that the key to painting white is to not actually paint white; instead you use Ulthuan Grey (or equivalent) to build up the colour using thin coats.

This tutorial on painting White Scar armour from Warhammer TV may be of use to you. I've found them to be very useful in the past. I wouldn't say the White Scar highlight is necessary though, but certainly try to shade your Valhallans so that detail pops out.



Hope this helps you out

G.A

As a new painter its easier to start from a black basecoat. Other than that, the base isn't really finished (or just doesn't look finished).

My best advice would be for you to block in your colors, use thin multiple coats until you have his pants a smooth solid coat, his skin his gun etc etc etc, then wash the entire model in a mid tone shade like agrax earth shade. This will provide all the shading and highlights in one go and give you a great standard that you can always go back to and add details.

If you go this route, don't get frustrated when your painting each part it's solid color, it will look like a bad paint by numbers until you use the shade.

For your first mini it looks good.

Not too bad for a start, certainly better than my first guy!

You've already got a lot of good advice from others here, so I'll just say keep it going.

A good start fellow Valhallan. Nothing says love like 120 screaming spreading the Emperor's justice to the filthy xenos.

You might consider starting with a dark base/primer black or brown (I see the trousers are brown). That might give it a better look. Also you might test inking your guy. A light inking only due to the white.

What is inking?

Ah you've just opened the door to a larger painting universe!

Here is a start:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Dakka_Modeling_FAQ:_Highlighting#Inking

 Frazzled wrote:
Ah you've just opened the door to a larger painting universe!

Here is a start:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Dakka_Modeling_FAQ:_Highlighting#Inking

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe inking is another word for Shading/Washing miniatures. Either way, give it a try as it brings your models to a whole new level.

I will add, however, that since you are painting white I'd recommend painting the shade paint into the recesses of your model with a detail brush rather than going over all the white areas with it and waiting for it to settle; it's far less meticulous to paint it into every little detail on the miniature than to wash the whole model, wait for that to dry, then have to go back and layer up the white again so it doesn't look all muted and streaky.

Happy painting!

G.A

Just want to add my own encouragement. I run an IG army so love to see more of my brothers dying for the Emperor! White is a really hard color to work with, so all I will add is the ideas on using grey to build up then white for the highlights is a good one. I did an alternate snow/ash waste style camo scheme on my Vanastian Assault guard (I made the company up). They aren't white straight like valhalans but something to look at. If you care check them out here:
http://edwardmystcreations.weebly.com/imperial-guard.html
Keep sharing my friend, and keep working at it. There really is no way to explain how cool it feels to see your painted army on a table, whether winning or losing!

To add with the others, good job and yes painting with white, yellow, and orange can be a royal pain. I find that most models need roughly half a gallon of the stuff before it finally starts to stick to the model itself.

As others have noted one secret to painting white is to not paint white but to start with other colors first. I recall someone saying that there were two different kinds of white, cool and warm, that start of with different base colors. As someone mentioned with starting off brown that wil get you to a warm white and starting with a gray will end up with a cool white. I saw a video on it before and tried it out, relatively nerve racking with using thin layers of varying ratios of your starting and ending colors. Like Brown-> 9 parts Brown, 1 part White-> 8 parts Brown, 2 parts White, and so on and on and on.

I tried it out and to give some comparison this was my try with it because I feel you on the Valhallans and personally love winter themed units. The guy on the left had his coat done with the cool white way and the guy on the right was done with the warm white way. Your experience may vary of course and there are probably a hundred or more people on here far better suited to guiding you.