[Painting Miniatures] The War of Art 2: Brushes covered in paint edition

Echo

Got my KR multicase cardbox today. And I already filled the infantry part, so I guess I'll need to order another one for more infantry. :-P

McGibs

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I'll keep my eye open for the reaper adamantium black, as that sounds like the best bet. Failing that, a series of washes will probably work after some testing.

valhalla130

Oh look, Internet wrote: »

@McGibs, A good way to get that effect would be to paint a base of P3 Pig Iron (or Boltgun Metal) and then make a wash using P3 Coal Black. The wash of Coal Black should be thing enough that the mica flakes in the Pig Iron are still reflecting light. At that point, you can eihter leave be for a more muted metal look, or rehighlight with P3 Quick Silver (sorry, I use mainly P3 stuff, so that's all my reference,) for a brighter, polished blued steel, or even do a black wash (P3 Armor Wash, Nulin Oil) for a darker look that will only have glints of metal. The key is to keep every layer other than the metal base really thin.

@valhalla130

Those look great, dude! What would you say to a quick pin wahs of a brown in the crevices between yellow armor plates and shoulderpads? It'd help the yellows pop!

Yeah, that was my first bike and the wash didn't go over so well on it. I plan to do that going forward, but I consider that model done at this point. The terminator sergeant has a much heavier wash on him, and in Badab Black. I can see the contrast much more on it, although it doesn't show up so well in the pics.

I plan to do the brown wash over the rest of the models.

Accualt

@McGibs Do what Oh look said, do all of your highlighting, and then brush on GW Citadel's blue glaze. I really, really like the GW glazes over metallics.

Echo

Accualt wrote: »

@McGibs Do what Oh look said, do all of your highlighting, and then brush on GW Citadel's blue glaze. I really, really like the GW glazes over metallics.

I've considered that as an option for my Cyriss.

The studio theme uses a dash of blue wash for the dark metal parts.

Dr_Keenbean

So I tried something new with my Sons of Horus scheme. I basically lightened up the armor then gave it a Coelia Grenshade wash. I think it brings it more in line with the forgeworld scheme and I would probably stick to it if I were focusing on the traitor side of the legion. I'm still not sure I even like the green at all. Also I tried some dirty OSL. It was basically 3 steps and it looks terribad so I'm going to stick to my usual eye lens method.

DiannaoChong

So since devlan mud is out, what is the master race wash now? I got half a tub of it left, but I am almost afraid to use it up. I get scared of other washes, becuase I had bad experiences with a black wash once. Devlan is impossible to fuck up even if you just dip a mini in the pot.

J

Army painter washes are a really good match for the old GW ones.

Echo

Compressor is being shipped! Get my new toys here already!

Dr_Keenbean

GW wash - AP ink
Gryphonne Sepia - Soft Tone
Devlan Mud - Strong Tone
Badab Black - Dark Tone

What I'm saying is buy all 3 of the AP inks right now.

valhalla130

Isn't Agrax Earthshade the same as Devlin Mud? I still have two pots of Devlin Mud left so I haven't tried it yet.

Dr_Keenbean

valhalla130 wrote: »

Isn't Agrax Earthshade the same as Devlin Mud? I still have two pots of Devlin Mud left so I haven't tried it yet.

No. Though Agrax Earthshade is pretty good on its own, the AP inks are the closest thing to the old GW washes.

HexDex

Veteran painters. I have recently gotten into the 40k hobby due to the cajoling of a terrible friend who wishes to see me live in poverty.

That being said, I started painting my mans, but then have decided I want to switch color schemes entirely. My mans only have primer and a coat of base on them. My friend says simple green is the easy way to strip the paint off so I may start fresh.

Do you refined gentlemen concur, or is there a better way?

Dr_Keenbean

Assuming they're plastic mans, then yes, simple green is the way and the light. Yay.

HexDex

They are indeed plastic. It is a squad of Tau firewarriors. I gotta tell you. Reading this thread and the warhams thread is depressing. haha.

edit* If in the event I cannot obtain simple green, what other methods are advised?

skarsol

If you can't get Simple Green then you likely live in some horrible Eastern block country or something. Fairy Power Spray and LA's Totally Awesome are usually touted as alternatives. Any of the purple degreasers from the hardware store will also perform similarly (I use Zep's).

Dr_Keenbean

I use this. Doubles as a really good cleaner and drain clog remover.

Nasty stuff.

HexDex

I live in North Carolina. All of the Targets, and Walmarts and shit near me do not seem to carry Simple Green. Which stupefied me. I have lived here less than a year, so I am still adjusting to the area.

I hear tell Lowe's carries it though, so I aim to try there this weekend.

Tomanta

Lowes and/or Home Depot should almost certainly carry it.

JohnnyToxxic

skarsol wrote: »

If you can't get Simple Green then you likely live in some horrible Eastern block country or something. Fairy Power Spray and LA's Totally Awesome are usually touted as alternatives. Any of the purple degreasers from the hardware store will also perform similarly (I use Zep's).

I too use Zep's. For me it works absolutely fantastic.

ArcticLancer

Since I did a pretty good job fucking up my last reaper order, I have a quick question. Can anyone briefly summarize the difference between their inks and washes?

Dr_Keenbean

Reaper make inks and washes? Huh.

Washes dry matte and will not re-activate when gotten wet. They are thin and will pool in the recesses of the model to add easy shading. You can pretty much slop them all over stuff and it looks decent.

Inks are very thin and generally used for more controlled applications like lining armor plates and such. They tend to dry shiny and they often will return to liquid form when hit with water. They can be used like washes but I wouldn't recommend it.

Also glazes (sometimes called filter) are a thing. They are similar in consistency to washes but don't pool in the cracks of the model. They simply tint whatever they are applied to.

For some odd reason Army Painter has chosen to call their washes inks but whatever. Buy them.

DiannaoChong

Yeah reaper glazes are really weird, used them by accident once(havent found a real good use yet either). It's like putting a transparent layer on in photoshop, just gives it a hint while you see the full color underneath.

-Loki-

Glazes can be used a few different ways. One as described here by Mike McVey, is to add colour back after doing your highlighting. He used white in his highlights, which ended up a sort of pink. Then red glazes to bring the red colour back while maintaining the highlights.

Another is or obscure the steps in highlighting. Say you've gone through 3 steps. Use a glaze to bring them to a more uniform colour, which will blend the step lines throughout the highlight.

Accualt

The yellow green bits on here were all painted with three shades of yellow and then drowned in a green glaze. I feel it gave an unnatural, uneven look to the paint that you can't get from straight mixing. Not to everyone's liking, I'm sure, but it achieved what I wanted.

ArcticLancer

I appreciate the talk about glazing, but that's the one thing I didn't wind up with.

I did test out the new black wash last night and felt it was on par with what I've had before. I'll have to use the ink on something eventually to figure out how useful I find it.
Also, my reaper order came with a paint sample of a colour that actually proved useful, so that was a nice bonus to help offset the random and super annoying customs charges. >_<

HexDex

So I was in Walmart yesterday, picking up various odds and ends, and by pure accident I ended up in the automotive section, and what do I find? Simple Fucking Green. It isn't over with all the other house hold cleaners, it's in the automotive section. I was rather flabbergasted.

Dayspring

2 down, 8 more to go

Dr_Keenbean

Is that barrel not drilled?

Where is his beard?

This is the worst modeling I've ever seen.

Dayspring

Blame Tox for that, I'm just the paint monkey

Echo

Dr_Keenbean wrote: »

Where is his beard?

One guy in our group models beards on his IG.

Yes, all of them.

Long, sweeping hobo beards.

ArcticLancer

Dayspring posted a photo. I must return in kind.

This is a piece I've painted for @Nisi as a gift. There's a couple of parts I'm not 100% happy with, but overall, it was fun and certainly different from MERCS.

A Half Eaten Oreo

@ArticLancer Really like that blue.

Testing a paint scheme for my Warriors of Chaos. Think I'm going to lose the red and maybe and add a bit of grey to the green. Was also thinking of painting the armor mostly metallic, but I'm afraid of the units looking like a brick of metal on the board.

Mr_Rose

Wow, haven't see one of those in forever. Just goes to show how far we've come in terms of miniature design really…

A Half Eaten Oreo

Mr_Rose wrote: »

Wow, haven't see one of those in forever. Just goes to show how far we've come in terms of miniature design really…

Haha yeah. It was really easy to paint, so little detail. I found a box of the heroquest era guys painted bright red, stripped them all last week Didn't want to use the new ones to test the paint scheme.

I think eventually I'll have to do the evolution of the warrior of chaos. I'm pretty sure I have all the versions.

valhalla130

I finally finished something else!!!! WOOO HOOO!!!!

Dr_Keenbean

Are you going for a specific chaos god?

One easy thing to do is paint them up metallic then glaze parts of the armor to correspond with the chosen god: red for Khorne, blue for Tzeentch, Purple for Slaanesh, and green for Nurgle.

Plus painting them up as metals but painting ornamentation and other things as different colored metals can look really bad ass. Like dingy silver armor punctuated with tarnished brass looks really awesome.

A Half Eaten Oreo

Dr_Keenbean wrote: »

Are you going for a specific chaos god?

One easy thing to do is paint them up metallic then glaze parts of the armor to correspond with the chosen god: red for Khorne, blue for Tzeentch, Purple for Slaanesh, and green for Nurgle.

Plus painting them up as metals but painting ornamentation and other things as different colored metals can look really bad ass. Like dingy silver armor punctuated with tarnished brass looks really awesome.

Thinking Nurgle, but I'm really not into the whole putrefaction/slime/pus look. I like the glaze idea, I'll try it on heroquest dude number 2. Different metals really attracts me and it's how I was planning on doing my characters and small units, I'm just afraid of how it will look in a block of 25.

Woozl

So i've gone from not having really ever painted to mostly completing the DV set. With the new codex coming out, I am pretty sure I am going to be starting a Storm Warden space marine army (though I may switch the color scheme a bit from dark blue / white to lighter blue / darker gray). This will be a pretty big project, and it will also be my first time working with vehicles.

I feel pretty comfortable doing sand/cork/grass bases, basic prepping gluing, priming and painting. Painting wise, I'm still using a brush for everything. I generally prime => base => wash => base => layer 2-3x => highlight. It is pretty slow but I generally like the results.

I don't have the space right now for an airbrush setup (maybe in a year or two), though it is on my mind.

I'm trying to figure out what I should learn next. I have a couple of ideas
1. weathering pigments for when I starting making vehicles
2. sponge weathering (for same)
3. varnish and then using oil washes (rather than having to base => wash => base => layer
4. more effort on posing / pinning / greenstuff
5. magnetizing (at least for vehicles).

Is there anything people would recommend as a next step? I obviously don't think I'm ready for wet blending or anything. I've been watching videos on all sorts of techniques, and up until now, self directed learning has been great. However, right now I just don't know what I should be trying next. Thoughts?

Mayday

Dr_Keenbean wrote: »

One easy thing to do is paint them up metallic then glaze parts of the armor to correspond with the chosen god: red for Khorne, blue for Tzeentch, Purple for Slaanesh, and green for Nurgle.

In other words, paint his arms red, his head blue, his belly green and his crotch purple.