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If I post a pic of a miniature I painted can you offer suggestions or advice on how to improve?
Correction I have old reaper paints. I tried a little painting this afternoon. Man my hands are jittery these days. I have an old Thrudd the Barbarian mini I'm painting over. Sadly I did a poor job to begin with both painting and prepping so this might not be my best work.
I have a real hard time getting started for fear of screwing up.
I go to thrift stores a lot. I picked up some Lord of the rings plastic minis I'm going to fiddle around on for now.I'm working on my larger reply to you till, but I'll say I understand this - I went through a period of "painting paralysis" because I just didnt trust my skills were good enough to do justice to the minis I had that I really loved. My suggestion is this - go to Craigslist, or find a sale, of a batch of minis for dirt cheap. It doesn't matter what they are (I just used a bunch of Reaper Bones), and take each one and try out a specific technique. No pressure, just paint for the sake of painting. Take an effect you'd like to create and try your best to create it. Pretty soon you'll be confident enough to tackle the minis you like. Its also worth remembering that metal minis can be stripped quite easily as many times as you like.
You think I should start a new thread on our discussions on painting to a separate thread so it stops getting in the way of your painting primer?
You think I should start a new thread on our discussions on painting to a separate thread so it stops getting in the way of your painting primer?
For the foreseeable future I think I'm in the tabletop quality miniature painter.I'd like to see some examples of your painted miniatures, TristramEvans. Especially if you're got any step-by-steps visuals of your highlighting process or anything along the lines of wet-blending examples.
I am very much a tabletop-quality miniature painter. Painted on and off for the past 15 years. Watched a lot of YouTube tutorials; sat in the garage for hours painting, and meticulously correcting mistakes (lots of mistakes). Experimented with the dipping technique. I have a lot more to learn about highlighting and advanced techniques. (Well, techniques that are "advanced" for me. )
I've watched some interesting YouTube videos from a fellow named "Sorastro" who covers some advanced techniques. It's all a new world to me; there are some basic techniques that I have yet to ... well, I won't say master, but get a handle on.I'll be putting a gallery up soon of my more recent stuff, and doing some step by steps to accompany my primer, but as for the elusive wet-blending, I'm afraid its a notoriously difficult process to photograph (hence the lack of good online tutorials).
How much time would you estimate you've spent painting this giant? I'm always curious about the time investment that more skilled painters spend on individual minis. I can easily spend in excess of an hour painting a single rank-and-file - Blood Bowl miniatures, for instance. Though I do paint them in small groups.Anyways, here's one of my recent minis (note I also need to upgrade from my cellphone camera)
I will definitely check him out. I can always use more sources of painting knowledge, step-by-step tutorials, etc.If you like Sorastro, I also recommend Vince Venturella's Hobby Cheating series
lol, the hard part about this thread is actually a lot of stuff I'm saying here I'm planning on covering in more detail in the other thread.
For example, the reason my longer reply is taking so long is that its basically a summary of Chapter 2.
I'll try to keep this informative and helpful but as brief as possible, as I will be delving into way more detail.
The two main suggestions I have for improving on the work "as is" on the example figures is a series of highlights and sharper colour contrasts.
One of the early rules I learned was "never end on a wash." Always, after applying a wash, go in and reapply a layer of paint, even if its the same shade from before the wash. In particular regarding the Barbarian's skin, this will create a much smoother yet dynamic distinction between the shades and flesh, and clean up the blacklining. The biggest issue with painting minis is that they are so small that light does not reflect on them the same way it would if they were human or "regular" sized. A large parting of painting then is simply creating this illusion of light's natural reflections, which gives the figure a feel of weight and mass. I'd say the Barbarian was 90% done...I'd just go in with a very light glaze (using 2:1:1 ratio of paint: water: glaze medium or Future shine) of the mid tone, and then a series of highlights going one shade lighter, just picking out the top edges of muscles and the distinct facial features(cheekbones, forehead, length of the nose, and maybe for that model the top of the chin, as he has a very impressive chin!).
(In my chapter on this I'll provide a series of drawings showing the various highlight sections of the face, but here's an example from a quick google search...)
The colour contrast thing is a bit trickier, one of the reasons I'm devoting an entire chapter to colour theory. But to go with a quick example, there are "warm", "cool", and "neutral" colours. Most colours have both warm and cool iterations, but in general reds, yellows, and oranges are warm colours, while blues and greens tend to be cool colours. Neutral colours are just that - they don't draw attention and can kind of go with everything - this is whites, greys, blacks, and browns (but again, it is possible for some browns to be warmer and some greys to be cooler, etc). A good colour scheme will focus on one primarily, contrasted with the other. So a primarily cool figure will include a few distinct warm colours to create a dynamic.
In the case of the Barbarian, you'll notice attention is immediately drawn to the red pants/loincloth. This is because every other colour is neutral or cool (even the base is winter-cool). But because the red itself is a bit dulled, the figure seems a bit drab overall. And the question is, is that where you want the focus of attention to be? Imagine, instead of black, his eyepatch was also red. Or the jewel around his neck a vibrant ruby. Suddenly you've shifted focus to the facial area. Or, insted of the cool tan colour for his leather straps, a rich brown-red leather instead? This would cause his skin to "pop" and his muscular chest to be a major focus.
The other way this dynamic is created is by using complimentary colours - those that exist at the opposite end of the colour wheel to your main colour. So taking the knight for example, the primary colours are green and steel/grey (neutral). The details then are yellow, which is an analogous colour to green - its sits right beside it on the colour wheel, as yellow is part of the make-up of green. The opposite of green, its compliment, is purple. Any element of purple on that figure is immediately going to draw the eye's attention.
Thats a really brief and simplistic explanation, but this subject is what I'll be devoting the most time to explaining in my other thread.