The Warhammer Models Thread III: A Brush With Death

[Janwin]

Janwin, still totally digging the martian forces, they look awesome, your reds have turned out really, really nice, they really pop.

Amusingly enough, I'm just doing what Warhammer TV showed in their YouTube video on painting Skitarii Rangers.

I eliminated the edge highlighting because, in my personal opinion, it looks fake and I prefer natural light landing on the various surfaces, though I do still shade to help it along. Really the only other major difference is coloring the random hoses a variety of colors just to make them stand out a bit more. The main colors are largely the same, though.

[Janwin]

Someone knows where rhe best "Bearded Space Marines" models are?

For facial hair on space marines, you're probably best taking a look at Space Wolves.

[Cikomyr]

Arg. I looked, and was disappointed. I was hoping to do a sweet Santa-themed Spesh Marine..

Anyway. Maybe some of you can help me out with a strange request. I receive for christmas a handful of Reaper minis to paint. Problem is, i have no idea what one of them is. My friends tell me it Frankenstein's monster, but i looked through Reaper's website and have not found anything like it that fits Flesh Golems or Frankenstein.

Its about half taller than standard mini size (like a small ogre), hes beefier than Arnold Schwazenneger, is bad but seems to wear a weird.. Crown of things around his head. My friends tell its the Screws.. But i am not sure.

He has the standard "man" pose with arms on the side. Closed fists. Any idea?

I trying to find color ideas for its skin.

Edit: nevermind, its the 77171: Stone Golem

[Janwin]

Arg. I looked, and was disappointed. I was hoping to do a sweet Santa-themed Spesh Marine..

Ah, yeah. If you want a beard that full, you're pretty much limited to using a normal marine face and green stuff.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

So after 5 years, this thread has now reached it's fiftieth page. That took a while. Any good ideas for new thread titles?

Picture tax:

These are the first models I've painted since I was a little kid, so any pointers are certainly appreciated! Purple is the army-tying theme, Gold is the elite-tying theme, Red is the Cryptek/Canoptek theme. I'll need to get a better backdrop for better pictures, there's no good light in my apartment, but here's what I got.

First, a group shot.

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My Spyder, the latest thing I've painted. Still needs a few touchups, there are some flecks of purple and red where there shouldn't be.

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And a group picture of my Spyder with his little Scarab-babies.

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My Overlord. I've since painted the forehead and shoulder-jewels red.

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My Ghost Ark. I've since painted the jewels on the 'ribs' red. Looks like I need to get rid of a blue fleck too.

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A basic warrior; they do have green eyes, but my light sucks. Also green between-ribs-glow.

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Immortals. I couldn't get the shoulderpads to snap together properly, I need to get some putty to fill in the gaps and smooth that over, so I haven't done a second coat of paint on them yet until I do that.

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[Erloas]

First I'll start with the simple fact that having an artist for a wife really has changed my perspective on a lot of painting and how I do it. Though I really haven't painted much of anything since we meet and got married, I'm looking at getting back to it very soon. (as in I got a new set of paints and brushes for Christmas and itching to get my new Dystopian Wars models going)

These are the first models I've painted since I was a little kid, so any pointers are certainly appreciated! Purple is the army-tying theme, Gold is the elite-tying theme, Red is the Cryptek/Canoptek theme. I'll need to get a better backdrop for better pictures, there's no good light in my apartment, but here's what I got.

I guess my first question would be are you looking to get them to stand out a bit more on the battlefield or are you looking at improving your technique for painting overall and trying to work more towards "centerpiece" quality of work?
They look good, but the colors are flat.

If you're looking at the battlefield then I say go for a bit of inking/washing, followed up by drybrushing on the majority of the models. Then finish with some highlights on the edges of anything you want to pick out. That will give them a bit of depth and make them stand out a bit more. Highlights like that tend to look a bit weird up close but look much better once they are placed at "battlefield" distances. Those are pretty quick and easy techniques, and look good on the battlefield, but it is kind of a dead end path of painting technique development.

The much harder technique but will go a lot farther, is learning to blend the paints and colors as you go. It takes a bit more understanding of light and how it works but it will give more realistic looking finish. It also takes a lot more color theory and understanding color bases and how to tint them the way you want. You'll blend darker in recesses and blend lighter on edges. You'll never have a flat color and you'll almost always be blending one way or another. Also to lighten and darken purple you aren't just going to use white and black, you might use red or blue with your purple to change its hue.
I'm just starting to learn some of this and it takes a lot more color knowledge (something I didn't know I was completely lacking until marrying an artist) but it is the sort of techniques really good painters use.

If you go to a site like CoolMiniOrNot and check out what is there you can notice things like that. If you look at the really highly rated ones you'll never see a flat color and you'll never see a straight transition line between the base color and highlight. The transitions between the dark recesses of the model and the highlighted edges will be seamless, you can see that it changes but can't point to an exact point where it does. Looking at acrylic painting in general, will probably give you a lot more knowledge than looking at painting advice directed specifically for modelers.

[Drasius]

So after 5 years, this thread has now reached it's fiftieth page. That took a while. Any good ideas for new thread titles?

I reckon they look great, especially if you haven't been painting for a while. I'd be basing them, calling it a day and being quite happy with how it turned out personally.

As for thread titles;

Models thread IV: Fancier than Fulgrim
Models thread IV: Warhammers next top Model
Models thread IV: Paint IV the Paint God

Also, apparently there is already a #4 thread - http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...ight=warhammer

[Cikomyr]

I vote for Warhammer's Next (table)Top Models

[Erloas]

The new thread seems to be about 6 months old. So we would need to get mod permission to resurrect it. Although if we started a new thread I would go more miniature painting and modeling than Warhammer specific. After all we had many other systems post in this thread.

Wargaming Painting and Modeling IV... I can't think of the rest of the title.

[Alent]

If Thread 4 is closed and locked and this one got necro'd... then perhaps the new title should account for that?

"Warhammer painting and modeling thread VI: thread count adjusted for inflation."

[Janwin]

any pointers are certainly appreciated!

First, I'll echo what was said by Erloas: washes are your friend. Gives them some depth.

Basing them would also help their appearance quite a bit.

Lastly, your paint looks a bit thick. Try using a plastic card or the top of a tupperware container as a pallete, and add some water to the paint before you apply it to the mini. If it's too thin, you can always add more layers. It's much harder to take layers away, and often involves simple green.

[Erloas]

Anyone have much experience with airbrushes?

Wife is going to get me something for Valentines day, and I figured an airbrush is something we could both use. But if it is too expensive I would probably go with something else. I've seen some really cheap ones on Amazon, but they are probably really cheap. Not sure what a decent one would cost, or even what makes a decent one decent. I've already got a shop compressor and I can easily get another regulator and filter for it.

[Erloas]

So is that a no on Airbrushes?

I ended up picking up a Harder & Steenbeck Ultra 2 in 1 Airbrus, the 2 in 1 just means it has the needle and nozzle for both 0.2mm and 0.4mm. I also picked up a bottle of blue airbrush specific paint; to get used to the texture, flow, and airbrushing in general before trying to dilute my vallejo paints to use in the airbrush. And lastly some Vallejo airbrush primer.

Using the blue I seemed to have very good control and a bit of testing on paper and a few test skeletons it seemed to work just great.
I then switched to the primer, I cleaned up a bit but was under the impression you only needed to take everything completely apart when you were done for the day. So I put some water through it to get the blue out and then switched to the primer.

It seemed to work fine on some paper (but it was hard to see, white on white) so I went to a smaller metal plane (thoroughly cleaned and dried weeks ago) and it started out good but after a bit I was seeing some build up and splotchy bits. I tossed it in the water and tried again with another one trying to keep it light.
It wasn't too long before the nozzle plugged up.

So the good news was that the primer cleaned up very easily in the water so I can easily try again. But it almost cleaned up too easily, I'm worried it isn't going to stay on the models that well. I'm not sure if it was just because I got it in the water right away, or if it is just the primer. Being Acrylic based and not having many of the chemicals (much more dangerous chemicals) that the can primer does I'm not sure if it is going to have the same adhesive properties or not. The reviews I read everyone seemed to love the vallejo airbrush primers.

With the nozzle, I'm not sure if it was mixing the blue paint and the primer. I'm not actually 100% sure it is acrylic, just that it was a rather inexpensive airbrush specific paint, and I figured blue I could use on terrain and bases (DW being naval based most of the time). Or it could just be that I was using the 0.2mm nozzle, I've heard that small can be an issue for some paints. Or it could just be that I live in Wyoming and our humidity is usually really low, like 10-30% low, so maybe it just dried out really quickly.

I plan on experimenting some more, but if anyone has some experience that would be good too.