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Mostly finished painting my hemlock wraithfighter, and was hoping people could give feedback Im still pretty new to this so anything will help!

https://imgur.com/a/1CwoC3F

I have cleaned it up a small bit since i took those, such as the accidental silver paint on the black on the top of the aircraft.

Lighting in those pics is also not amazing, sorry about that!


One huge question i have, Is what is the best way to pain the gemstones? I've tried following tutorials on youtube but doesn't seem to work, even if i try to follow it step by step, Is it just a case of personal practice?

Hey, they look nice, but bit hard to see because as you say pictures lighting isn't the best. I think if its a blue gem stone for e.g i would, dark blue base, then bit lighter blue on top covering most of the base blue except for the edges, then smaller brighter blue on that, then alot smaller lighter blue on to that lol if that makes sense. Then Gloss varnish it.

Just try get the brightest blue to be angled to where you want the "light" to hit, like if you want the lighting to be coming straight down, then the brightest blue area would be right on top of the gem in the middle.

Edit - Mabey you can put a tiny bit of white on it for the very brightest spot of the gem.

will try that next time for the gem stones! thanks

Actually your gems look nice already after a better look, just add some gloss varnish and there perfect IMO. And yeah every things nice and tidy looks nice.

thanks! ill add that

for a nice gemstone with depth, you actually want the darkest area at the top, with a stark white dot reflection. so start with black, then gradient your chosen gem colour downwards to the bottom of the gem, then use a tiny dot of white in the black at the top. it seems counter intuitive to the normal highlight at the top, but gems reflect light differently due to being curved and transparent.

ill do that next time thank you

An alternative you can try for gemstones that I like to use sometimes:

Use the Citadel gem paints with the recommended metallic undercoats. It ends up looking pretty good and you don't need as steady of a hand

You can also try things such as painting the base of the gem in a bright metallic and a darker metallic toward the top to add depth. For example, on a green gem use stormhost silver around the bottom, and then leadbelcher on the higher half.

Check this to see what I mean:

https://youtu.be/FZLuiIHSV5g

I haven't painted anything Eldar, though, so when I use these gem paints it's always on really small stuff, so YMMV.

Aside from the gemstone:

1. I see that you've smothered the bleached bone to get the color to come out. I'd try a thin coats of brown tone before the bleached bone. It's neutral enough to not bleed through the bleached bone in a contrasting manner while being opaque enough to help you tone down the black for your bleached bone.

2. Don't rely too much on black paint to make your figure look black. Miniature painting (or any painting or drawings for that matter) is all about contrast - dry brush 50:50 mix of black and grey on the black areas. While this will make your figure a bit grey-er than pure black, but the contrast of the light color (bleached bone) and the dark color (black) will make the grey appear black. This step will help the model look more refined since currently you have the black as your midtone (areas that needs to be darkened cannot go any darker). You want to brighten up your black areas to make room for those crevices that you really need to darken.