Painting and Modeling ITP - Thread IV - Warhammer and all others

[Erloas]

So the last thread was only a month and a half old, but it was on page 50 anyway (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?197234-The-Warhammer-Models-Thread-III-A-Brush-With-Death/page50), so here is the new thread.


I'm working on my Dystopian Wars models from the Empire of the Blazing Sun. Right now I'm working on two frigates and a cruiser as well as the carrier airship.
The frigates seemed like good test ships, but decided to toss in the cruiser too to see how I wanted to expand the scheme for larger ships. The airship was mostly a place to figure out the theme for my wood (as there is a lot of it on that ship, but some on pretty much everything else as well) and to see what I want to do with the tiny flyer tokens. Sure the flyer tokens would probably be an easier place to start but I wanted to see how it would work with my other models, how they look on the carrier is probably more important than how they look on their own.

Clearly I'm still in the mid stages of painting. I've got most of the colors blocked in, and tried a few lining and detailing methods in a few places to see how it works with the colors. I have a lot of touch-up work to do then I'm going to start with the washing and highlighting. The big difference between these and previous models is that my wife is an actual artist and I'm having her help me learn how to paint as an artist as opposed to painting as a gamer. It has been probably upwards of 5 years since I've painted last and we hadn't meet yet, so there will be a lot of experimenting. I'm learning all about the fact that highlighting isn't actually what I thought it was (it should be adding interfering colors to make it look brighter, rather than just adding white to the base color, which changes the tone and intensity of the colors). Then working on shadowing, which again is using different colors to make it look darker rather than just adding black.
I haven't actually got to that part of the painting yet, but it is coming soon.

I've got a few pictures with the flash and without, I think the flash shows the real color better but it adds lighting highlights from the flash itself, rather than anything I've painted. I wouldn't normally do such poor lighting and a phone camera for models but I didn't have time to do better and these are just WIP pics.


http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/20160412_065705.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/20160412_065653.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/20160412_065643.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/20160412_065633.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/20160412_065504.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/20160412_065447.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/20160412_065404.jpg

[TheThan]

Well I finished a painting commission this month. So I’m back to actually painting my own models for a change. I’ve got about 50 models of Protectorate of Menoth (Warmachine/hordes) to finish painting. Mostly infantry I haven’t gotten around to yet due to commissions.

[Erloas]

Do you have any pictures of the ones you are working on or any of the commission work you've been doing?

I was telling my wife about commission painting, she was a bit surprised people would be paying for it. Of course she wished someone would do all the prep work for her before she got them.


So the next step in my models, mostly finished with the bases, done with the washes, just have to clean up from the wash and do highlighting and a bit of shadowing.
Although the propulsion part of the airship I sort of just keep forgetting, so I need to figure out what I'm going to do with that and get it done.
Used the flash here, I think it did a pretty good job of getting the colors true to life.
Although I spent a good hour or so last week calibrating this monitor, it seemed to be pretty far off when I started. (mostly just saying that to prompt others to do the same if they never have, MS has a decent calibration process built into at least Win7 and later)
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/4-18-WIP.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/4-18-WIP7.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/4-18-WIP6.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/4-18-WIP5.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/4-18-WIP4.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/4-18-WIP3.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/4-18-WIP2.jpg

[TheThan]

Do you have any pictures of the ones you are working on or any of the commission work you've been doing?

Sure do

A few Khador models
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g42/TheThan/Sorscha2_zpspbkdh8am.jpg (http://s53.photobucket.com/user/TheThan/media/Sorscha2_zpspbkdh8am.jpg.html)

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g42/TheThan/Butcher%203_zpsp3zrhcfw.jpg (http://s53.photobucket.com/user/TheThan/media/Butcher%203_zpsp3zrhcfw.jpg.html)

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g42/TheThan/Karchev%20the%20terrible_zpszcuaan1f.jpg (http://s53.photobucket.com/user/TheThan/media/Karchev%20the%20terrible_zpszcuaan1f.jpg.html)

A few cygnar models
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g42/TheThan/Hammersmith_zps3hcl52c6.jpg (http://s53.photobucket.com/user/TheThan/media/Hammersmith_zps3hcl52c6.jpg.html)
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g42/TheThan/Ironclad_zpsdzkkzc8x.jpg (http://s53.photobucket.com/user/TheThan/media/Ironclad_zpsdzkkzc8x.jpg.html)
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g42/TheThan/Stryker%20and%20battlegroup_zpso6npnk0o.jpg (http://s53.photobucket.com/user/TheThan/media/Stryker%20and%20battlegroup_zpso6npnk0o.jpg.html)
(flash was on this one)


The Khador models are part of the commission I just finished; I was asked to NOT finish the bases, never got an answer as to why (probably money). The Cygnar guys are part of one I did a while ago. I’ve also done a full Circle of Orobos army, a full legion of everblight army, and a full mercenary army but unfortunately I didn’t take very many pictures of those and the ones I did take came out poorly. I’m going to have to go and snap some better photos some time. these are friends and are (obviously) local.

In the past two weeks I’ve finished painting my temple flameguard, my Holy zelots with their monolith bearer and my choir of Menoth. Oddly enough I don’t have very many pictures of my stuff. I’m going to have to rectify that. It feels good to actually paint my own models.

I also found it generally better to take pictures outside in natural light than actually in my house. the lighting here sucks.

[Erloas]

They're looking pretty good.

Just out of curiosity what do you charge for commission work? (not that I would ever have time, I just know what some of the online services charge seems like a fortune)

I'm actually a bit surprised that my phone takes pretty good pictures of models, it looses focus with any depth (as can be seen) but for a single model up close is does a pretty good job.
Since I'm working in my wife's art studio she has pretty good light, but I still might install another light over the table she lets me work at. LED lights really have came down in price lately and many have great color reproduction.



So I'm looking for some "models" and I'm hoping someone here might be able to help. Whenever I'm painting my son wants to paint some models too. I bought him some cheap models around Christmas that were from a system that I think had been discontinued, either way they were really cheap for a lot of models. The only problem is that they were people, and I'm not painting people, I'm painting ships.
So I'm looking for some very inexpensive ships for him to paint. They can be air or water, even tanks would probably work. He is 4 though, so it doesn't have to be anything good, it doesn't even actually have to be a model. Even some "army men" style toys would work. I just haven't found anything yet that is all that cheap or has that many vehicles, most of the army men stuff is mostly men with just a few and haven't yet found any boats.

[TheThan]

I’ve taken to wearing an LED head lamp when I paint due to the poor lighting, it actually works pretty well. I cycle through two sets of rechargeable batteries to keep it going; it’s a lot cheaper than buying fresh batteries all the time. I usually just paint for people I know that are too busy or simply not interested in that aspect of the hobby.


Painting
small bases (30 mm and under) $2.50
Medium bases (31-40 mm) $3.50
Large bases (41-50 mm ) $5.00
Huge bases (51 mm up) $10.00

Bases
Finished bases: $1.00
All sized bases up to huge: $1.00
Huge sized bases: $5.00


I don’t offer custom sculpts, I’m no sculptor and I don’t make custom bases; I don’t have the stuff to make molds and I’m not that interested in it. My bro actually does though. I can however do custom bases. I’ve got a picture of one I did around here somewhere *rummages through computer*, ahh here it is.


http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g42/TheThan/IMG_0826_zpsacel947z.jpg (http://s53.photobucket.com/user/TheThan/media/IMG_0826_zpsacel947z.jpg.html)
These went on the Legion of Ever blight army I painted; it was quite time consuming.


I don’t charge for quality since I try to do the best work I can do. I feel that charging for different quality work is just a method of getting away with doing lazy work. While I’m no golden deamon winner, there’s still no point in not taking pride in it right? I do feel I charge a reasonable fee for someone of my skill level and for materials and sheer time it takes to paint hundreds of models.

[TheThan]

Guh. had to put TEN pins in a new acquisition to my warmachine army yesterday. Pining models is such a hassle. But that piece shouldn’t fall apart like ever.

I’ve also decided to magnetize four new warjacks. They’re the plastic kits so each jack has three options available to it. I figure why waste the extra bits when I can magnetize them and bring multiples of the same warjack. it's alot more work than i initially thought, so it's taking longer than i thought (only finished one today). now that i have a better idea of how to handle these, I should be able to finish it tomorrow. i did make the holes for the magnets a tincy bit too small so i have to go back and drill the holes bigger to fit the magnets but that's an easy mistake to fix.

[Erloas]

I've always been a fan of magnetizing models. Yeah, it takes quite a bit more time to set up, but it comes out way ahead in cost for sure and probably time as well when you compare what it would take to build and paint variations of the equipment on completely different mostly.

Your painting prices look very reasonable, it seems cheap for just a single model, but it seems pretty reasonable by the time you get to actual unit size. I'm not the kind of painter that could ever do it as commission work, I just take way too long to paint each model (and I don't have nearly enough time as it is).
I think I might be able to get a lot faster if I picked simpler color schemes, its going back and touching up areas between colors and switching between very different colors for some techniques that cost me the most time. One thing I've seen from watching my wife paint (paintings) is she is very good at mixing colors and blending them as she goes and can blend from shadows to highlights "on the go" as she is doing areas.
I think normal model paints dry too fast to do that without using extenders, but it also takes a very good handle on paint mixing and application that I just don't have yet.

I think I could do a quality split fairly easily though, right now I'm focusing on doing the best possible painting I can and I'm not worried about the time it will take me. I don't really have a gaming group and I've got more time to paint than I do to play, so I'm not worried about getting models painted to get them on the table.

I'm hoping to have some time soon to work on some terrain types of things. I'm hoping my wife will like doing things like that and will help. She does a lot of crafts as well as painting and I think she could do some cool things. Also from some of the threads on Spartan's forums it seems that some common map scales fit almost perfectly for Dystopian Wars so I'm hoping to print some out and then use those to make realistic sized and looking islands for the game.
Not that I've had much time to work on anything lately, but things seem to be settling down a bit.

[*.*.*.*]

Where do you guys get Bitz from? I'm looking for 3rd party stuff as well as official GW Bitz. I know Hoard O' Bitz is pretty great, but the shipping is insane.

[obryn]

Oops wrong thread

[Erloas]

I suppose it mostly depends exactly what you need/want to do. Usually though anyone that has been collecting for a while will have a huge pile sitting around somewhere. I know I picked up a grab-bag of bits from TheWarStore years ago, not sure if they are still doing that or not. I would bet that any FLGS would have boxes of bits that they would probably sell (I know I've picked up a lot from various stores that I regularly visited when it got too much and they were thinning out their supply).


So here is the next step with highlights and shadowing, to enhance what I got from just the wash on the last pictures. I didn't have a lot of time so I only got to the green but I think it is coming along nicely.
The first pictures are close up and some of it looks a little much that close, but the last two pictures are a bit of a distance and you can really see that the green pops so much more now (one frigate I specifically waited on the highlights to show the difference better).

The biggest difference between how I did these and what I used to do is how I mixed the colors for the shadows and highlights. Rather than using black and white I used a light blue and dark purple mixed with my base color to get the colors. For the last bit of highlighting I did mix a bit of white with the highlight color.


http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/07697626-a82e-40e2-9be6-47b7d98d952f.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/02bf10ca-0fb3-4606-a64c-99bd72f3f4b5.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/bdfcaeca-df28-4afb-ba15-53f28ca8b862.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/d3f60f86-e1ed-42f6-856c-42168990f3dd.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/d8fa2322-8972-496b-b1d7-ddc13508da1d.jpg


Is anyone actually interested in this sort of painting breakdown? I've been getting help from my wife (a real artist) to try to bring my models to a higher level and figured I would try to share what I'm learning, I'm hoping it will be of use to others.

[Eldan]

Our local store has a bitz trade box: bring any two bits, take one bit. On new player event day, they are free. I also trade with colleagues a lot.

If I need something rarer (like the Arachnarok legs I tend to put on all my large tyranids), I use ebay.

[TheThan]

Thank you for the compliments. I don’t feel I’m quite good enough to charge those ridiculous premium prices and I only really paint models for friends. So I do aim for something reasonable.

I finished magnetizing my models, I actually ran out of magnets and had to go buy some more but meh, they aren’t that expensive. My initial idea didn’t work. I took bits of paper clip and twisted them into a flat spiral and glued them to the arms so they’ll stick to the magnets. It worked but the bonds were not strong enough and they would droop and fall off. So I had to just suck it up and magnetize the whole thing. Oh well; fixing that wasn’t too hard, just pry off the paper clips and cut off dried glue.

I saved an amount of effort by mixing up some of the in-between shades ahead of time. I have a paint pot of 50/50 menoth white base/menoth white highlight. Several shades of green (never seem to have enough shades of green) and a few others. I tend to clean up and reuse old paint pots so that saves a bit of money in buying fresh paint pots to mix in.

I agree on the wet-blending. It’s not easy with model paint sans flow extender ( I should really get some). I haven’t used oil based paint in ages so now I wonder how good that would turn out.

I’m currently painting the Avatar of menoth (the old sculpt with the stubby sword), maybe I’ll post pictures up when finish him.
Something weird I noticed last night. I’m never happy with my paint job while I’m painting. But after I set it down for a while and come back to it; it looks much better than I when I was painting it previously. Has anyone else run into that?

[Brookshw]

Where do you guys get Bitz from? I'm looking for 3rd party stuff as well as official GW Bitz. I know Hoard O' Bitz is pretty great, but the shipping is insane.

Local store, either their bitz box or talking to people. Lot's of people are generally happy to trade/sell unwanted pieces.

[*.*.*.*]

My 'local' store isn't so local, we game at each other's places and tables. I guess Hoard O' Bits is my best bet, I need like 70-ish pistols and CCWs

[Brookshw]

My 'local' store isn't so local, we game at each other's places and tables. I guess Hoard O' Bits is my best bet, I need like 70-ish pistols and CCWs

Don't be afraid to check ebay.

[TheSummoner]

Where do you guys get Bitz from? I'm looking for 3rd party stuff as well as official GW Bitz. I know Hoard O' Bitz is pretty great, but the shipping is insane.

I've used both Hoard o' Bits and Bitz Box with no complaints. Bitz Box is good when you just need single pieces or a few. Hoard o' Bits is cheaper when you need multiple, similar pieces since they sell them in sets of like items.

[Erloas]

I finished magnetizing my models, I actually ran out of magnets and had to go buy some more but meh, they aren’t that expensive. My initial idea didn’t work. I took bits of paper clip and twisted them into a flat spiral and glued them to the arms so they’ll stick to the magnets. It worked but the bonds were not strong enough and they would droop and fall off. So I had to just suck it up and magnetize the whole thing. Oh well; fixing that wasn’t too hard, just pry off the paper clips and cut off dried glue.
I've tried that too, it really just seems that it isn't strong enough without two magnets in anything I've tried. Maybe if we could find a pin material with a really high iron content, but so much of what we have to work with is whatever is cheapest for them to produce.


I saved an amount of effort by mixing up some of the in-between shades ahead of time. I have a paint pot of 50/50 menoth white base/menoth white highlight. Several shades of green (never seem to have enough shades of green) and a few others. I tend to clean up and reuse old paint pots so that saves a bit of money in buying fresh paint pots to mix in.

I agree on the wet-blending. It’s not easy with model paint sans flow extender ( I should really get some). I haven’t used oil based paint in ages so now I wonder how good that would turn out.
Since moving to the bottles that Vallejo and Reaper use and having a wet-pallet I don't see as much of an advantage of mixing paints ahead of time. Maybe if I were doing huge numbers of similar models but I usually don't do that. My last large scale army was Eldar and many of the units don't use a set color scheme anyway. It also doesn't help that it is so dry here that I quickly loose paint even in pots if it gets low.

My last set of pics (which I posted on the DW site but not here, wasn't sure if anyone was actually interested in seeing the breakdown here) I did a lot more wet blending. Having a dedicated secondary brush for wetting as I'm going seemed to help quite a bit.
My wife uses Golden fluid acrylics for her normal painting and those seem to have a lot longer drying time than the acrylics we use. Having experimented with them some too, it seems like most of them mix well with model acrylics without much issue (we did find one color combination that didn't like each other). How they compare with wear I haven't really seen yet, but she did a test ship and used a clear-coat when done at that has held up really well, how it would compare without the clear-coat I have no idea. (As I know clear-coats just don't look right on many models)



Something weird I noticed last night. I’m never happy with my paint job while I’m painting. But after I set it down for a while and come back to it; it looks much better than I when I was painting it previously. Has anyone else run into that?
I've had that go both ways. Sometimes you see stuff you missed or things that need touched up and some times it just feels better when you come back later and aren't looking at it with quite as critical of an eye. I think a lot of it helps that when you come back you aren't looking at it as close as when you are painting and many of those shading and highlighting points that just seem too much close really do look right with a bit of distance.

[Nepenthe]

Ooooh, I'm really glad this thread resurfaced. I need some advice on a mini I'm customizing for a pathfinder game I'm in. But first I'd like to show off my most recent completed figure. I'm probably not going to make any changes to this one, but I'd still appreciate critique and criticism for future endeavours.

This is Khalid'rondiel Aseliseth, or "Caldwell" to those who can't pronounce his elven name (so everyone). He's a Necromancy/Divination focused Occultist.
"Out of the box" figure for comparison:
http://i1259.photobucket.com/albums/ii546/ThisKindNepenthe/CaldwellBefore_zpssia95a7t.jpg

I shaved his moustache and cut down the staff, then added the goggles, ears and bow. He's meant to have a pretty eclectic style, but I feel I went a little too garish with the color scheme. In retrospect, I would have made his tunic blue instead of red.
http://i1259.photobucket.com/albums/ii546/ThisKindNepenthe/Caldwell_zpsmht9t59i.jpg

Now where I'm completely lost: He will very shortly gain the ability to summon a skeleton or zombie. I chose a mummy mini in hopes that it could pass as either as needed. I'm fluffing this ability as manifesting the psychic energies of the area rather than pulling an actual corpse out of the ground and I want the paint to reflect that. I just have no idea how to paint glowing, swirling, physical, psychic energy.
Here's what I have so far:
http://i1259.photobucket.com/albums/ii546/ThisKindNepenthe/Summon_zpsdwtmtjhr.jpg
I've been playing with dark purple washes and cyan and white dry brushing, but I've been messing with it so long that it's gotten really muddy. Also, how does one highlight and shadow something that's essentially its own light source?

[Erloas]

General advice on Caldwell...
The re-sculpting looks pretty good, I would have probably tried to make the bow a bit thinner but overall it looks very good.

The painting, technically it looks pretty good but there is just something about it that feels a little off. My wife could probably say exactly, but I'm thinking some of the colors just aren't playing well together.

A look at the base model and general design I get a Babylonian feel or at least general middle-eastern, so I'm thinking in that direction. I think all of the belt/scarf around the waste is all one item, so it should all be the same color. Along those lines, and that it fits both Elven and eclectic, I would probably go with more opulent and expensive feeling clothing. You could still go for a "worn adventurer" look, but starting from a richer color base will give a much different look than starting from a rather drab color base.


For the summon, I would probably pick a specific area on the model that you want to give off light, maybe just the flesh/bones area and not the bandages, and do the lighting accordingly.
I think you'll have a very hard time with normal model paints to get the look I think you're looking for, but if you pick up some transparent mediums to mix I think that would help a lot. The glow color, and green, blue, red, or purple would probably all work well, would have to be pretty bright, almost neon in some parts. Do a fairly whitish color for the bandages and bones with a very high contrast wash/lining (like black, brown, or purple depending on the glow color you choose). Then go over everything with the glow color in the transparent medium and work the color more vibrant in the areas where the light will be emanating from.

I hope that makes sense and if I've done a poor job describing anything just let me know and I'll try to fix that.

[Brookshw]

]

Now where I'm completely lost: He will very shortly gain the ability to summon a skeleton or zombie. I chose a mummy mini in hopes that it could pass as either as needed. I'm fluffing this ability as manifesting the psychic energies of the area rather than pulling an actual corpse out of the ground and I want the paint to reflect that. I just have no idea how to paint glowing, swirling, physical, psychic energy.
Here's what I have so far:
http://i1259.photobucket.com/albums/ii546/ThisKindNepenthe/Summon_zpsdwtmtjhr.jpg
I've been playing with dark purple washes and cyan and white dry brushing, but I've been messing with it so long that it's gotten really muddy. Also, how does one highlight and shadow something that's essentially its own light source?

Thoughts: nice job. For internal glow I'd probably do the eye slit in something bright, probably a light blue or yellowy-green with some SOL around it. You could go for other bodyparts but might be tough at this stage, perhaps some glowing runes on the fleshy bits instead? It's really late stage to try and add supernatural "fiery" bits via green stuff or another crafty method but its an option, perhaps you could work something into the base?

[Nepenthe]

I hope that makes sense and if I've done a poor job describing anything just let me know and I'll try to fix that. I think I get what you're saying. By "transparent mediums" do you mean a specific product, or just some generic chemical that I should probably already know about? (I still consider myself a complete newbie at miniature painting)


Perhaps you could work something into the base? I can't believe it never occurred to me to at least paint cast light on the base. Thank you!

Also, I'm not above stripping the whole thing and starting over if necessary.

[JNAProductions]

What makes a good Daemon Prince model? Currently, I've got an actual Prince model, and some Morghast Archai/Harbingers with modified weapons (Plague Flail and Balesword).

[Brookshw]

For anyone who uses an airbrush, what's your pre & post painting session clean up time? I've been thinking about getting one but a local painter told me his is a 20-30 min clean up after use. Bit of a turn off maybe but I'm not sure if that's just him.

[Erloas]

I think I get what you're saying. By "transparent mediums" do you mean a specific product, or just some generic chemical that I should probably already know about? (I still consider myself a complete newbie at miniature painting)
There are quite a few different mediums and most of them do similar things just with different final looks and probably different names from different companies. I think the most generic ones are "glaze medium" which is what I was referring to, though there is also things like gloss and matte mediums which do essentially the same thing but will change the final look to either matte or gloss (most acrylics are generally a satin finish, or between matte and gloss). I'm not sure if the shine from a gloss will work for what you are wanting, it might, but it might also make it look plastic-y or too shiny, but that tends to be good for water. If you were to go for a mud look then matte would probably be the better choice because it doesn't tend to shine at all.

I hope you don't mind but I'm going to go over the colors and layout of the model and see if I can figure out what I'm seeing. I'm pretty good at applying paint with a brush, but my knowledge of color theory is still pretty beginner. A lot of the color choices and the exact mixes I use for shading and highlighting is done with a lot of help from my wife. So I'm trying to apply what she has tried to get me to learn. This is a pretty good page I found earlier with color theory basics. (http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/color-theory/color-theory-intro.htm)

Your red, at least with the shading, ends up being on the purplish side, a bit cooler, and a lighter tint. The yellow is a warm color, and you've picked a bit on the orange side, and with a bit of tone. Blue is a cool color, you've gone with a fairly tinted version, and a touch on the green side. The neutrals are a lot harder for me to pick out the bases on still... The brown looks like a purplish base (so a purple with a lot of grey mixed in) making it a cool color. The black cloak looks like a purple/blue base, or at least that is what it comes across as with the highlight colors you've chosen. And the white on the pants looks like a very tinted base yellow, so a warmer white.
So you're kind of all over the color wheel. I think a split-complementary color scheme would be a close match to what you are trying to do. It would take changing the base hue (colors) of your neutrals a bit and keeping the tint of your highlights in line with those colors from the split-complementary color scheme you choose. That would be like a red-orange-turquoise scheme.

I hope that doesn't come across as overly critical. I'm mostly trying to apply what I'm trying to learn in color theory with practice. Just last night I had brought out some models that I had painted before that I thought I did a good job on and my wife let me know otherwise (I did them before we meet but they've stayed mostly in boxes since then), in that I may have done a good job of applying the paint with a brush but my choice of colors just weren't what they should have been and it just didn't work as well as it could have.


What makes a good Daemon Prince model? Currently, I've got an actual Prince model, and some Morghast Archai/Harbingers with modified weapons (Plague Flail and Balesword).
There are quite a few Bones models from Reaper that would make good daemon princes.


For anyone who uses an airbrush, what's your pre & post painting session clean up time? I've been thinking about getting one but a local painter told me his is a 20-30 min clean up after use. Bit of a turn off maybe but I'm not sure if that's just him.
Pre-setup time for me is fast, of course I have an air compressor in the garage and have it hosed into the house with a regulator hidden on the side of the paint table leg, so it is pretty much just a quick connect and go. Clean-up time is a bit longer, and it does seem to depend a lot on the paint being used. The first paint I tried was some cheap paint that I think was designed more for autos and such and I still haven't got all of that cleaned up from the cup. But when using acrylic primer and my model paints it seems to clean up pretty fast. I have a gravity feed cup, a suction feed would probably be a lot more cleaning. Having a bit of water to run through the cup (and some place to spray it into), and q-tips and pipe cleaners on hand makes it faster. The first few times I used it (not that long ago) I probably spent more time cleaning it than I did using it but once I got a handle on it then it went a lot faster. Of course I don't really think I'm going to actually be "painting" with it. My main goal in getting it is a better way to apply primer (a lot less waste and a lot more control compared to spray-can primer), doing quick coats of large areas (if I'm doing buildings, large vehicles, or terrain) and applying clear-coats when I'm done. It probably wouldn't have been worth the cost if I didn't already have a good compressor (and get a regulator and swag-lok connectors from work), and I assume my wife can put it to use too for her crafts, though she hasn't yet.

I wouldn't use it for short paint sessions, and for me I mostly got everything ready to go and primed a lot of things at once. If you're going to go from using, it to cleaning up mold lines, to pinning, and back to painting then it probably won't be a great choice.




So I was trying to figure out how to highlight the brass on my ships and my wife came out with an amazing color (though I bought it for her, she is protective of them). I used a different color of the same line for the windows, but this stuff is cool. It is a complete split-complementary color all in one, the violet and green are very obvious, the orange she insists is there but I can't really pick it out. She said they use some sort of binder with the pigments to have them not mix. I tried to get some good pictures but it is really hard to capture it with a camera. It has a very green tint when looked at but changing the angle just a bit and the violet really shines and the shimmer (not sure if it is a metallic or something else) just looks fantastic.

She picked that one because it helped tie the brass into the color scheme used in the rest of the model (even the grey has a greenish tint in the highlights, and we used purple in all of the shading.)

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/20160506_064723.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/20160506_064702.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/20160506_064628.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/20160506_064609.jpg

I haven't done all of it yet, just a bit on the prow of the boat and a little on the cannons on the side but you can see how much it almost glows. I didn't realize until later but I didn't crop out the ship when taking pics of the paint because it shows how much those highlights stand out even in the background without great light.

[JNAProductions]

There are quite a few Bones models from Reaper that would make good daemon princes.

Any specific suggestions? It's hard for me to tell scale from the online pictures, though the prices seem pretty good.

[Brookshw]

@Erloas: thanks for the detailed feedback on the air brush, there are definitely a lot of facets to consider. Primarily I'm considering using one for base coating and lighting. Still not sure what a potential clean up time of pretty fast is, if you were to bottomline it, 5 mins? 10 mins?

[Erloas]

Any specific suggestions? It's hard for me to tell scale from the online pictures, though the prices seem pretty good.
I don't know a lot of the names, but they do a pretty good job of pricing pretty much entirely based on size. So anything around the $10 range should be close to the right size. In GW terms, I would say most of their giants are taller but of a similar overall size to ogres. Their $20 models are similar in size to GW's dragons (at least their old dragons, no idea what the newest ones are in terms of size). And without the models here in front of me to measure, I think the $40 Cthulhu is around 10" tall.

This page is probably about the right size (http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/Bones/price/page20)


@Erloas: thanks for the detailed feedback on the air brush, there are definitely a lot of facets to consider. Primarily I'm considering using one for base coating and lighting. Still not sure what a potential clean up time of pretty fast is, if you were to bottomline it, 5 mins? 10 mins?
Yeah, hard to define "fast" and "slow" as they mean different things to different people. I would say around a minute to run some water through everything, another minute or two to pull the needle and tip and wipe them down, run a pipe cleaner through it, and another minute or two to put it back together.

I would add the caveats that requires you clean up right away and that is after you know how everything goes together and have had a bit of practice taking it apart and putting it together. Some airbrushes might take longer than others to disassemble and reassemble, I only have one to base that off of. If you leave the airbrush sitting for a while and things start to set-up/cure then it is going to take longer to do everything. Can't give a timeframe on that "a while" because it depends a lot on how humid it is where you live and how quickly the paints you are using dry out.

This is the specific airbrush I bought. (http://www.ebay.com/itm/261952898553) It was actually a bit cheaper to buy through EBay than buying from the same company on their website. The cleaning brushes provided weren't as good as the ones in the picture and I would recommend getting some better ones.

[JNAProductions]

I don't know a lot of the names, but they do a pretty good job of pricing pretty much entirely based on size. So anything around the $10 range should be close to the right size. In GW terms, I would say most of their giants are taller but of a similar overall size to ogres. Their $20 models are similar in size to GW's dragons (at least their old dragons, no idea what the newest ones are in terms of size). And without the models here in front of me to measure, I think the $40 Cthulhu is around 10" tall.

This page is probably about the right size (http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/Bones/price/page20)

Thanks, Erloas!

[Brookshw]

Figured I'd share a few things I'd done recently (2 were goofy projects for fun and hopefully a chuckle). These are some of my learning curve for using pigments. PEACH welcome!

http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a515/brookshw/1755e437-5553-46fd-83c9-a46ee2bb3563_zpsv0rov3bn.jpg (http://s1281.photobucket.com/user/brookshw/media/1755e437-5553-46fd-83c9-a46ee2bb3563_zpsv0rov3bn.jpg.html)http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a515/brookshw/77d777d6-f54b-4b12-ae4c-6e6677d870cf_zpsuj2urkp7.jpg (http://s1281.photobucket.com/user/brookshw/media/77d777d6-f54b-4b12-ae4c-6e6677d870cf_zpsuj2urkp7.jpg.html) Kinda orky, mix of old dreadnaught bitz, a busted deff copta and some plasticard.http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a515/brookshw/f750a993-b8d8-4723-8a6d-8a7f0ba7010a_zpssihdz4kp.jpg (http://s1281.photobucket.com/user/brookshw/media/f750a993-b8d8-4723-8a6d-8a7f0ba7010a_zpssihdz4kp.jpg.html)http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a515/brookshw/3b9d80ee-91ae-44a2-90de-980e09777895_zpsh7agk4uk.jpg (http://s1281.photobucket.com/user/brookshw/media/3b9d80ee-91ae-44a2-90de-980e09777895_zpsh7agk4uk.jpg.html) Still orky, a busted up terminator and old scout bike I found in a junk bin at the local gaming storehttp://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a515/brookshw/chimera%201%20resize_zpskzsw9qed.jpg (http://s1281.photobucket.com/user/brookshw/media/chimera%201%20resize_zpskzsw9qed.jpg.html)http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a515/brookshw/chimera%202%20resize_zpsicgpsj3m.jpg (http://s1281.photobucket.com/user/brookshw/media/chimera%202%20resize_zpsicgpsj3m.jpg.html) Though I used some pigments in the goofy things things, this was my first actual time with them. Love the way the treads came out, dozer turned out to be surpirse, had used large piles of pigments on it, but it seems to have come out pretty well regardless,....maybe.

[Erloas]

Well my wife really didn't like the colors and said they clashed pretty badly, but being Orky, that is probably exactly as designed.

The mold line on the right arm of the copta stands out like a sore thumb, I think you left it on purpose, ork tech tending to be very random, but it just doesn't work, it is in the wrong spot to be natural and is clearly just a result of how things are cast.

Overall I think they are really good, but I can see some room for improvement in consistency and lighting.

You've done a great job of weathering and aging the yellow, but nothing else (except the one shoulder on the bikenator). Everything should be pretty evenly worn and rusty, it should be made out of all the same materials for the most part, just painted differently and red isn't going to hold up any better than yellow.

The missiles are much too clean and flat, as is the engine area. And the propeller should be much more worn, especially on the leading edge. I tried to find some good example images but pretty much everything I've found so far has been refurbished and resurfaced.

The rest is all lighting, and that also applies to the tank. Nothing is casting shadows, nothing is catching the light. Even old rusty cars will have edges that catch the light. You can see some of where they should be in the pictures because the lighting does it itself, but you should paint that in, it will make things stand out a lot more at a bit of distance. The tank commander in the hatch is almost completely lost because he doesn't stand out.
I can see a bit with what looks like a wash, but doing more to shade and highlight will really make things stand out.

[Brookshw]

Thanks so much for the feedback Erloas, really appreciate it. There were a few points you made that I was hoping you could elaborate on a bit or might offer further suggestions.



The missiles are much too clean and flat as is the engine area. And the propeller should be much more worn, especially on the leading edge. That's the rear one, not the overheard, right? I fail at helicopter's and wasn't entirely sure. If the overhead, I had had dried brushed a lighter shade of grey along the edge but maybe it's not coming through enough. Maybe another layer of drybrush on the edge of metal for where paint wore away? If the rear I was thinking maybe the leading edge with a bit shinier metal or a grey drybrush, I'm a bit stumped on how to do the back one.

Definitely agree the engine area is pretty "meh". Originally it was a standard black w/ metal drybrush, wash, but then I went at it with some weathering pigments, maybe too much for that matter. Being new to pigments I'm not really sure what you can do w/ them after application, is painting over them w/ highlighting/washing etc something that really works?


The rest is all lighting, and that also applies to the tank. Nothing is casting shadows, nothing is catching the light. Even old rusty cars will have edges that catch the light. You can see some of where they should be in the pictures because the lighting does it itself, but you should paint that in, it will make things stand out a lot more at a bit of distance. The tank commander in the hatch is almost completely lost because he doesn't stand out.
I can see a bit with what looks like a wash, but doing more to shade and highlight will really make things stand out. This is definitely an area I'm trying to figure out how to improve. Regarding the light, do you just mean edge highlighting or were you thinking more of picking out certain places to really catch the light? For the tank especially I did to a lot of top edge highlighting but maybe I'm just using shades too close to the original so it's not really coming through or standing out enough? As to casting shadows, interesting. Usually I just hit it with wash for that, drybrush over (depending) and call it a day for many things. But for something like the gun barrel, I guess I'm not entirely sure how to go about trying to have a shadow underneath it. A controlled drybrush of a grey maybe? Or would you go the opposite and create the shadow by lightening up the areas around where the shadow would be?

Thanks for the great feedback, I'm going to think about the lighting especially for a while, see what ideas I can come up with or research. Any suggestions are appreciated!

[Erloas]

That's the rear one, not the overheard, right? I fail at helicopter's and wasn't entirely sure. If the overhead, I had had dried brushed a lighter shade of grey along the edge but maybe it's not coming through enough. Maybe another layer of drybrush on the edge of metal for where paint wore away? If the rear I was thinking maybe the leading edge with a bit shinier metal or a grey drybrush, I'm a bit stumped on how to do the back one.
I was trying to find some good real pictures to give you an idea of what I was thinking but I haven't been able to find any yet. They all seem to either be new, completely refinished, or just moving/too far away to really see. What I would say though is take a look at the front of your car and look at all of the pitting from rocks at freeway speeds, then think of how many more rocks and debris would be on the battlefield and that the blades are spinning significantly faster than a car moves.

I'm not sure if you can go much brighter on the front edge, though some darker areas from pitting might be good, and if you darken the back edge it will make the front look more worn.

That would be the case for the top or the back, they should worn on the leading edges and cleaner on the back edges.


Definitely agree the engine area is pretty "meh". Originally it was a standard black w/ metal drybrush, wash, but then I went at it with some weathering pigments, maybe too much for that matter. Being new to pigments I'm not really sure what you can do w/ them after application, is painting over them w/ highlighting/washing etc something that really works? I haven't used pigments yet either, but I would say experiment with them and see. I know my wife has used a lot of different types of textures in her various art endeavors and she paints over all of them.


This is definitely an area I'm trying to figure out how to improve. Regarding the light, do you just mean edge highlighting or were you thinking more of picking out certain places to really catch the light? For the tank especially I did to a lot of top edge highlighting but maybe I'm just using shades too close to the original so it's not really coming through or standing out enough? As to casting shadows, interesting. Usually I just hit it with wash for that, drybrush over (depending) and call it a day for many things. But for something like the gun barrel, I guess I'm not entirely sure how to go about trying to have a shadow underneath it. A controlled drybrush of a grey maybe? Or would you go the opposite and create the shadow by lightening up the areas around where the shadow would be?
Highlighting and shading to the right level is definitely something that takes a lot of practice. I think one thing that gets many newer painters (and I still do it regularly) is that you have to look at the setting the model will be in and what you want it to look like, rather than the setting you are painting it in. And actually what looks good in a really closely set picture is almost completely lost when looked at from even a moderate distance. Your shading and highlighting needs to be done as if your tank is outside and much larger than it really is, you can give it the effect of being larger than it really is with the shading/highlighting.
The best example I've heard is the concept of "stage makeup," and a few searches should give you a good idea of what that is. Since the actors are pretty far away the makeup has to be rather extreme for the audience to actually see it. If you get up close and look at them they look "over done" but at a bit of range they look normal.

Since the models are very small they simply don't case shadows the way the full sizes version would, and the fully saturating light you paint under makes things look different. If you look at your car or any pictures you can see that any large surface doesn't look the same from one part to another, especially rounded edges. Usually the point will catch the most light and the rest will be darker.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Sherman_Tank_WW2.jpg
You can see that while it is all clearly painted the same color it doesn't come across that way to the eye.
http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/71/7f/2d/wrecked-wwii-tank.jpg
I think this one does a great job of showing lighting and how hard edges look different from one side to another while still being the same color, and how much lighting can change the appearance of color.
https://www.defensie.nl/binaries/content/gallery/defence/content-afbeeldingen/latest/news/2014/01/a-leopard-2a6-tank-in-the-field-archive-photo-netherlands-ministry-of-defence.jpg

So you can see that to portray the size they actually are, and how they'll effect their own lighting, you have to go farther on your shading and highlighting that you might think.

As for the colors used, I think one of my first posts about color theory touches on a lot of that. There is no one color to use the highlight or shade, it depends entirely on the base color. White will make your color more of a tint, but some colors, especially brighter or more reflective surfaces will become brighter, and that isn't always more white. And adding purples tend to make more realistic shadows than black does, but it does depend on the base color. Yellow tends to be a good option for brightening and highlighting (but not always).

I wish I was better at color theory to help you more, but I can at least give you things to think about and look for. I just don't know how some will mix as well as I should yet. I do know from my wife's help that often the right color to add isn't white or black or grey, but the results will often end up greyish. It is figuring out the colors to mix with your base to get there that I'm struggling with the most.

I'm thinking that for the ork stuff yellow would probably be a good addition to the red for highlights and a bit of orange to the red would probably be good. I would probably add a bit of red to the metallic on the blade. With the tank I'm thinking a bit of light blue for the highlights on the green and probably a dark blue or purple for the shading. Yellow, and maybe a touch of green on the lighter color with more green for shading. Of course I would try mixing and a bit on some paper to see how they work together first. It would probably be a good idea when you start to take your base colors and mix various colors into them and paint patches on some paper and see how it all reacts. Until you get really good at identifying the components a color is made up of it is really hard to know exactly how it will react to mixing them. I still mess that up all the time and get my wife to help find the right colors.

[Erloas]

Here is the finished version of my models

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/3bcda0ca-217f-4208-9ae0-6f3c46ae34c3.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/0430f61b-edf2-4b55-99ba-c10ab0fdd1ed.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/895e01c6-cd9a-4079-9d8b-75979e46cd42.jpg

It should be pretty obvious which frigate I left at the base color and which one I did the shading and highlighting to. The reason should be very clear in the last set of pictures.
The blending on the green I did a better job on the cruiser, there are less obvious lines between the color changes.


http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/7f9d64df-782f-4660-9091-bfe9717e148c.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/0d354049-d383-4bbc-b85f-e8ac7a4e3dcc.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/492b0409-6245-4909-ac19-c4f9d52416c5.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/c4b95943-20d1-4613-900a-b902139dcf62.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/dd43618f-febe-407e-b69c-4af4ee6f9255.jpg

The landing lines on the ship seem too much on the first, but that has some to do with how the flash caught it, you can see on the others and next pictures that you can see it but it doesn't seem so overdone. I have at least one really hard shadow line on the front point thingy that I should have blended better.

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/16d72faf-7860-4669-8cca-0c6d0c929ea6.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/6986697b-f794-4a2a-8731-6eacb297ae69.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/165ed138-5335-4a43-9e04-2f3962ae507f.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/42f5fdde-4380-46c7-a04d-6126e0fab773.jpg
These are all taken more at what you would see while playing with the models. The phone camera didn't do a great job, but is still shows what I'm trying to show. The camera I think just didn't like the color of the light, maybe I'll try retaking some outside in the next few days and see if that works better.
I think it shows pretty clearly how the flat colors on the base model are almost completely lost, they are just dark and hard to pick out, you can't see the detail nearly as much.

Not sure what else to say really...
I'm also open to any questions, criticisms, or suggestions. I'm still working on getting better.

[Erloas]

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/ae0729d9-e0f5-4c3a-a925-e798a94e6d5b.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/add55ba4-0fe1-4fad-a14b-1a2ba3d5dcf6.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/06275035-e871-41b9-9f16-4c6a6d652f9c.jpg
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/erloas/f86de5e9-79ca-4004-9ea1-b6802b12b48a.jpg


So here is the start of my next models. I thought to take a picture of the colors I used this time, as well as the mixing. The mixing looks like a bit of a mess, but it allows me to grab a bit of the range of color to blend in. I put the slow-dry (retardant) in the base color and mixed it out to to the highlights and shadows colors. Doing all of the colors all at once with the slow dry gave me a lot better control over the blending, it looks more transitional and with much fewer hard lines. And more importantly it took significantly less time than doing it separately like I did the first time. The grey I'm not quite as happy with, I don't think I got my blend colors quite right, the color range just wasn't enough to really stand out between the shading and highlighting and the base color.

Once I get the wood and brass done then I'll do a wash. Followed up by the detailing, then one more pass with lite/minimal highlighting.

[Janwin]

I'm working on my Dystopian Wars models from the Empire of the Blazing Sun.

I'll see if I can dig up my Prussian Empire ships. Did a pretty good job on them. One of them warped in the heat of the car, though, which made me sad. Some frigates, a couple cruisers, and a battleship.

[Erloas]

Did you find your Prussian fleet?
You been following the game at all lately? They just released a set of fast-play rules that I'm looking forward to trying, but so far it seems like the distribution is taking a while (pre-order was supposed to be released the 25th and I still don't have any shipping info from the 3rd party retailer I ordered from, not in the UK to order from Spartan directly).

So if anyone is interested those silk paints I used are currently on sale for the next week.
http://www.colourarte.com/products/
I think they fill much the same role as metallics, but they seem much more vibrant than regular metallics, also lots of different colors. It seems to mix and blend well with normal acrylic paints too.

I haven't tried their Radiant Gels, but I could see them doing some cool water effects.
Also haven't used pigments either, and they have a line. I'm sure they work just like pigments from various other companies, not sure how the colors or prices compare though.

[Brookshw]

I was working on a storm raven recently and when applying some wash encountered something I'd never run across before. It's just nuln oil, about 50/50 water mix. In some places, specifically a few nooks and crevices, the wash left behind a small whitish area. The whole model received a good deal of wash so im kind of surprised here, I cant tell if the discoloration was a result of pooling or not, seems like there might be a connection but I'm not positive. In the past I've never had this happen before with this wash so I tried a new bottle of nuln, same water, same result. I assume it has to be something related to the water, however the effect is so sporadic I'm unsure, I haven't encountered this previously when I've used the water to thin other paints.

Anyone ever run across something similar?

[Erloas]

I haven't used Nuln Oil, and without a few pictures it is going to be really hard to tell.

But some general thoughts, have you been preping models lately or had the storm raven sitting around for a while? It is possible you're picking up dust and it would naturally accumulate more in certain places and the as you cover the whole model it is likely to end up in some areas more than others.

Another possibility is that it is spring and pretty much every place gets the most rain this time of year (at least in the USA, not sure where you are specifically) and so there is more "stuff" in the water in general and it might be coming out of the water in the areas where the most water ends up. As a water and ink/wash mix will never apply 100% consistently and the parts with the lowest viscosity, ie most water, will pool more. If that is the case it would essentially be hard water spots.

A few things to try would be to apply the nuln oil on its own, see if that does it. And apply just some water, and see if that does it. If it is specifically in the water then getting a 1g jug of distilled water from the store should fix the problem, and you should be using so little of it that it will last a long time.

[JNAProductions]

Chaos Spawn. How do I convert a box of gargoyles into one?

[Nepenthe]

I think my next project is going to be a Ratfolk Gunslinger. I'm having difficulty finding a small-sized base mini to modify though. How do Skaven scale against Pathfinder miniatures? I'm assuming they'd be more appropriate for a Medium creature, but if they can pass for small it'd open up a lot of possibilities.

[Erloas]

Reaper has a whole series of western themed miniatures, I'm sure they would have something that would fit for a gunslinger. They also have a decent selection of models from races that are generally considered small, including a few rat based ones. I'm sure you could find two to cut and combine to make a good fit.

As for skaven, they are a bit smaller than humans, but I don't know if it would really fit the definitions from pathfinder or not. I know that GW's orcs are a fair amount larger than their humans, and if you called their orcs "medium sized" then the skaven would be "small sized" for sure.