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Hello all, I'm new to these forums and mini painting / modeling. Not really a war-gamer, but more a nerd-artist who thinks miniatures are cool ;p

I got re-interested in the idea of painting minis when I found a 10 year old 40k boxed set from when I was I was younger. I never got into the game but I thought I would try my hand at painting a couple again since I had a ton of acrylic paint sitting around from college. I found dakka dakka and I wanted to say how much I appreciate all of the great articles. The different techniques are documented very well and helped a lot on the first couple of minis I used as test pieces. I have a whole box full of orcs and space marines still, but I was too anxious to paint something newer and cool looking so I ran out and grabbed the coolest looking marines I could find at my local game shop (Black Templar Sword Brothers). This is my first real attempt to paint and base:



Sorry if they're a little blurry. I read the photography article but no matter what I try, I can't get my camera to focus well.

I painted it according to the color / photo on the box with a few of my own touches, accept I don't use GW paints so I kind of just do whatever is close and looks right. Took a hell of a long time, and I have to say, I give it up to people who can paint eyes. They are impossible to get right. I'd appreciate any feedback / suggestions on ways to improve technique / speed (painting these seems to take me a very long time to get right).

I also have a question about paint. I don't use "mini" paint (GW / Vallejo, etc) and through trial and error it seems that what I should be using as a substitute is "Soft Body" paint. Is this right? I have a hell of a time not getting brush lines in my paint and I don't know how you guys manage to paint such clean flat coats. Any help would be appreciated.

Hey there, I have to say, I'm very, very impressed by this, is it really your first mini? Mine was essentialy a blue blob with some appendages! It's a great start, and you'll only get better through practise, so keep at it.

Some tips for you, regarding questions you asked:

For eyes, try painting a horizontal black line on the eyes, then painting tiny white vertical lines at the edges. This takes a lot of practise to get right, so don't worry if a few minis come out looking a little demented! Alternatively, try this method: http://www.coolminiornot.com/article/aid/74

The best way to get smooth layers and highlights is a technique called juicing or sometimes selective glazing (juicing is the literal translation of the french word for it, and seeing as they invented it, and it fits the technique nicely, it's what I call it). It basically involves painting tons and tons of very, very thin paint in succession, with very little paint on the brush. These layers should be translucent, and will therefore gradually build up the colour. Here's a great tutorial by Sebastian Archer, who's amazing at this, (search cool mini or not for automaton to see his work) http://www.mainlymedieval.com/ozpainters/viewtopic.php?t=49&highlight=juicing
This is a very hard techique to master though, but wth the raw talent I see in your work, with time you'll get it.

Basically, water down your paints! Even if you're not juicing as such, you should be watering your paints down significantly, I tend to use a 50/50 ratio at least, this gives really nice, smooth highlights.

I have no experience with soft body paints, but I do recomend vallejo highly, if you want to make an investment, it'll be worth it. At least buying some inks or washes would be very worthwhile.

Anyway, keep it up, and I hope some of that made sense/helped.

Thank you for the complements and advice. I will try that for the eyes. I think part of my problem is that I must not water down my paint enough...I need more patients ;p

...and yes this is roughly the first mini I painted fully based and to completion. Before it, I used about 5-6 space marines to test techniques (dry brushing, glazing, washing, etc). I've done a bit of painting though in my life though. I've just never worked on scale miniatures before...and they are very tough to paint well, in my opinion. Anyone who says this isn't an art hasn't done it before

Any suggestions on good camera's / techniques on photographing minis? I get the lighting, but I can't seem to get good focus. Maybe my camera is just garbage.

i personelly think that this mini is awsome and you have made a wise choice on your first mini, keep it coming

Hey! Thats your first model and it's better than most of mine! No fair!

Nicely painted.

Thanks all, your comments have inspired me to stop being lazy and finish painting the rest of the set. Going to do some WIP shots of them here and there.

Below is the next one. I know this is going to sound dumb, but thanks on the tip to water down my paint that much. It really does help to make a smooth final coat, and it cuts down the painting time. I think the real reason I wasn't watering down enough was the fear of multiple coats and messing up the fine edging etc. It's actually easier to paint with it watered down.

Also nevermind eyes, the edging of the left shoulder pad on this guy can kiss my ass. Very WIP at the moment. Hope to have final shots by the end of the week.

Here's the next sword brother done and the next one based and ready to be primed. This was my first attempt with transfers. Transfers were easier to use than I thought overall, but of course on this guy I had to do all sorts of funky cuts and splits of the damn thing which was a nightmare. I experienced my first major f-up as well with this mini. After the base coats dried, I spent 2+ hours doing everything on this guy. Dry brushing, washing, highlights, etc and was ready to call it a night, then got too ambitious and decided to paint on the black templar icon. It started very well but quickly became a disaster and ended with me chipping off all of the paint on his upper chest tabbard, which had come out REALLY well :(

I was bummed, but re painted it and tried the transfer the next night. That attempt failed, but I tried once again last night and had great results. I think this one came out a lot better. I'm a little pissed that the matte varnish I have is so shiny when dry. Any advice there, or anywhere with my technique? Let me know what you think, I really appreciate any tips you can give.

If you don't want it to be so shiny, try watering it down before putting applying it? The more water the less varnish you have, therefor the less it can shine. If you don't want it very shiny, you're going to have to REALLY water it down. At least 10:1 but probably more.

Your stuff's looking great already, which means I really hope you're still posting here a year from now because I think we'll all be in for a treat. I'm especially impressed with your whites on their cloaks.

Regarding blurry photography... if you, like me, have access to only an idiot proof "snapshot" digital camera with no manual focus ability (in my case, a Canon SD200), you may find this helps: When you push the shutter button to the first detente, it will do its auto-focus jazz and place a box around the area it thinks it's focused on. I will move the mini around in my camera's frame until I get this box to select the region I want in focus (ie the mini's face, not the tip of his sword). I'll then keep the button half-pressed to maintain this level of focus, centre the mini, and then take the picture. I find this, in conjunction with the macro function, works OK. At 3.2 MPixels though, I'm not expecting much.

Anyway, great stuff, keep it coming.

Man I wish my camera did that. When I do that first push, it kills the LCD screen on my camera so I can't see where it's focusing. I know not to use zoom, no flash, stable camera (tripod etc.), lock it into macro mode...my camera isn't great, but it's a pretty nice full featured 5mp digital...still getting half crappy photos IMO. I figured the photography would be the no-brainer part of this and boy was I wrong LOL.

The cloak whites go like this for me:

- Black undercoat (not regular spray undercoat, I do something different but nets the same good results)
- 2-3 loose coats of 1:1 unbleached titanium (sorry I don't know the GW equivalent, look up liquitex unbleached titanium) and water. The paint looks kind of like tan, but dries nearly white. Very good off-white color.
- when this is all dry, I wash with a 1:1 mix of sepia ink to water
- highlight with unbleached titanium
- highlight with 1:1 unbleached titanium / white gesso
- extreme highlight with pure white gesso

I prefer white gesso to white paint for this because it's already a fluid medium (white is especially more fluid than black in my experience) so I don't need to bother with cutting in water, and it dries semi-translucent unless you're glopping it on so you can fudge it a lot and just do a few coats on the area you're trying to do. The extra fudging even helps to add a nice blend-like transition.

Thanks for the tip on the varnish btw, I will try and do a 50/50 mix next time and see if I like the results.

For being new at this, you're doing a great job.

Looking forward to seeing more.

2 WIP shots of the next dude, including a shot of my absolute favorite painting supplies on the bench with some minis. I know this may sound dumb but I think the solution to my photography problem was not having anything behind the main mini I was shooting to help the camera focus on the foreground. Does that make sense? It certainly helped me take these shots. Paint is sloppy and flat atm on this guy, but it'll all come together when I sit down to paint next time.

I like how this guys tunic / cloak has come out by far and away more than the last 2. I want to do the fancy blended blue lightning claw looking stuff on this guys claws...can anyone point me in the direction of good photo references / tutorials on how to do stuff like them?

Next one is done...I've been very busy / lazy and this guy was far less fun to paint than I thought he'd be. I found some of the recesses very frustrating. Also some technique experimentation didn't end up the way I liked it. Still needs an emblem transfer and varnish, but on to the last 2 brothers!

I'm getting a little better at the photography I think: