Does this image scare you, soldier? Because this is what happens to guardsmen who are not educated in the ways of the enemy. You have been brought here to learn how to effectively fight those who oppose the Imperium of Mankind, as well as those who are to aid you. Nobody wants a repeat of the Kaurava incident.
You, over there in the back! Are you even paying attention, soldier? Do you not understand why you are here?
A lot of tabletop games involve the use of miniatures or other play aids (hand-made dungeons, illustrations, paintings, etc), and this is the thread for them. Herein we talk shop about the full gauntlet of tabletop hobby activities: modelling, painting, sculpting, converting, and many more I am certain I have forgotten. Do not be afraid to ask questions! We all started horribly, and we have no problem letting you know our secret painting methods(in turn, making them not so secret).
While I intend to teach you everything you need to know, you must educate yourselves on the dangers we face out there. Every Xeno, Witch, and Heretic wishes to end our way of life, you cannot let this happen. Its up to you, soldiers!
There are some great sites out there for painters, converters, etc. While I am not personally big on using them, I know a lot of people do. Feel free to let me know any other sites you know, I'll throw them into this post!
http://www.brushthralls.com/ - A long time favorite of many of the users on these forums, filled with good tutorials
www.dakkadakka.com - While its more community than anything else, the modeling and painting forums are a great place to get advice on things.
Put your hand down, soldier! Questions will wait until the end of the presentation. Questions will be directed to our Ordos Xenos representative. He will take you into that back room, and you will have no more questions about our enemies.
In this thread, a number of questions come up often about certain aspects of painting, so this is a small F.A.Q. for questions you have. If any of our regular viewers would like to add to this, just let me know!
Q: I see these beautiful models people post, so why do my models come out so much worse?
A: This is a hard question to answer, although part of it may just be you being critical of your own models. However, there are a few things that mini painters tend to all do, that highly increase the looks of their miniatures. First, you should always use primer on your models, whether plastic or metal. There are black and white primers, as well as coloured ones, such as red and green. I prefer white, but many people swear by the others. Experiment!
From there, it generally goes to base coating, which is what most people think at "painting". This is getting the main colours on parts. For example, you would be putting blue paint mainly on an ultramarine, with gold on certain parts, etcetera. This is also a good place to mention that you should generally water down your paints, especially if you use the main citadel line of paints. Just a few drops of water will really help getting the basecoats done.
The next two steps can be done interchangably, though I prefer to highlight before washing. So highlighting. This is just the practice of painting lighter colours on the raised parts and hard edges of a miniature. For example, lets take an imperial double eagle(the one with the two wings and two heads). Lets say this was painted with boltgun silver. You might, then, use mithril silver with a small brush to paint the edges of the feathers. This helps the model really pop, and look more striking.
Washing is the other step here. A wash is a heavily watered down paint, meant to pool in the recesses of a model to create shading and depth. The citadel washes are amazing, quite simply. They just work. Badab black will work in 90% of cases, though devlan mud has its place, and the other colors as well.
Q: Ohh no, I hate how this model came out. Should I just repaint over it?
A: No, that would really kill a lot of the detail. Models are not very hard to strip! Simple green is the commonly used solution to strip a model of paint. Just leave your models submerged in simple green for at least an hour(overnight works better), and take a toothbrush to them to get off the paint afterwards(You probably dont want to use the toothbrush on your teeth later). Acetone can work for metal models, but be careful to make sure they don't have plastic parts; Acetone will eat plastic.
Q: Do I have to use GW's paints?
A: No, although you probably want to use miniature paints of some sort. These include Citadel, Vallejo, Reaper, P3, and other paints. Make sure its a paint meant for miniatures, and that its acrylic, water based paint.
As it always comes up in these threads, here's Ashers method of painting his tyranids
Recipe is dead easy:
White undercoat (Skull white Spray)
Paint carapace Bestial Brown in a couple of watered down layers to get even coverage.
Now this is where it varies. For baby bugs, you can skip the next for steps and go to the straight Bleached Bone Layer. For bigger things do the following:
Streak inwards with a large brush using a 60/40 Bestial Brown/Bleached bone mix. Maybe go 1/2 to 2/3 of the length of the plate with this layer.
Then do the same using 40/60 Brown to Bone instead. Obviously you don't streak in as far.
Then you streak in using straight Bleached Bone. Use a small brush and have a lot of patience to get a good result. You can see in that picture about how far to go in.
Now, once again it depends on whether you're painting a baby bug or big bug. For Big Bugs, I carefully wash any recessed areas with Devlan mud, then go back with Skull White to tidy up any accidental splashes. Baby Bugs don't need this step.
Then, go ahead and wash the whole thing with Badab Black. You can water it down to keep the look a bit brighter if you want.
Then go back and re-streak with straight Bleached Bone again. This will give the edges of the carapace some nice depth.
Final step, Big Bugs only, mix 50/50 Skull White and Bleached Bone and do some selective streaking on the carapace to add a bit of highlighting. I haven't done that in that picture.
Hope that helps!
Onto the lesson, maggots! This is just a sampling of the horrors that you shall face on the battlefield. Remember, shoot first, ask yourself if it needs to be shot again, and then shoot last.
The Traitorous Chaos
Paint Vagrant(Big image is big)
GrimDog420
The Coniving Eldar
Zatar
The Fledgling Tau Empire
Poidwah
The Unending Swarm of the Tyranids
Expired Hero
Halos Nach Tariff
Asher
-SPI-
The Green Swarm of the Orks
Gahmrious
But fear not, soldier! You have allies in this fight!
The Hammer of the Imperium, The Imperial Guard
Timspork
Unarmed Oracle
In His Image, the Adeptus Astartes!
Dayspring
Foolish Chaos
Altmann
Niklas
Matrias
Mago
But not all is clear, soldiers. There are forces out there that we have but caught a glimpse of, and cannot fully understand. By the firepower of our armies, we shall keep our ignorance strong!
Ein
J
Raslin(Thats me!)
Posts
With...ultramarines? :P
Someday...
Because you are a heretic!
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Brody, I use Apple Barrel and Folk Art paints rather than the more expensive brands and feel I'm getting good results. I do want to pick up a set of Vallejo Model colors eventually to compare, though.
If you use the Wal-Mart stuff, make sure to go to your local craft store and get some Flow Aid and Drying Retardent. I bought huge bottles of these from Liquitex for about $8 each, and use a ratio of 2:1:1 (water:FA:DR) for my thinning agent, which I usually mix between 2:1 to 1:1 (Paint:TA) depending on what I'm doing. It has helped incredibly.
Here are some orks I did:
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Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
Wait... does this mean I have to pick up my paints again?
I guess that means I should get painting!
Photos are a bit poor. I also need to figure out where to put the team number on each dude. The beastmen will probably get shoulder tattoos, but i'm not sure about the warriors.
I also finished the first ever rank of troops for my new Dark Elf scheme. Only took me a couple of evenings, which is good as I have a load of spearmen to do next.
On the other warriors, cut that little spike off the circle of armour on his chest. That will give you a nice circle plate to put a number on.
Put a little "My Name Is" sticker with the number on each Warrior. Don't need to have the text, just have a white sticker with a red line on the top part and the number in black in the white. Put that sticker right on their chest armor.
This is a good idea for the Chaos Warrior team, no?
The Army Painter plastic glue is garbage. I was trying to glue the gunner onto his perch and it was taking forever for the glue to set at all. I just went back to the CA glue and the gunner was in place in no time.
Has anyone else had any luck with plastic glue?
I use Revell Contacta pro, mostly because of the fine metal dispenser with the 0.5mm bore.
For some jobs though, I also use something called "plastic weld" by EMA Model Supplies; it's a brush-on cement that flows like water and will dissolve nearly any plastic, so you can fit perspex to polystyrene without trouble.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
She she lost when she panicked with this dwarf. I think he looks pretty good, but I could see how it's not first place material:
She signed up for several more speed painting contests this year. She didn't paint all that much between last and this coming Gen Con, so she tried a couple of speed painting test runs. I gave her a difficult, detailed model to get back in the swing of things with. Epic Allister Caine:
I'm really proud of her and am now waiting on her hand and foot to meet every painting whim she has because a.) I have no painting talents, never have and b.) she's got some chops while having only painted/practiced on less than a dozen mini's ever. It's amazing having a painter in the house who can whip any D&D figure into shape! I didn't want to blow up this post with gigantic pictures, so you can see the pictures extra big by visiting The Hopeless Gamer.
Hopeless Gamer
Still. Nice selection in OP.
"EVEN IN DEATH I STILL COOK MOTHERFUCKERS".
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
The Gobber was 45 minutes, the dwarf was, I think, an hour, and the Epic Caine was like an hour and a half, I believe (that was one she did for practice). Hopefully we'll have new mini's to post soon on The Hopeless Gamer.
Hopeless Gamer
Those look impressive for that time. If I really focus on it most I could do is one model per evening.
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
Sure it will look way better than grey plastic, but still a long way from done. Right now, from a squad of 20 shoota boyz I have everything with the base colours on and 5 nearly done. Should finish them before the weekend and move on to another 5.
My goal is to paint the following before 2011:
- Warboss (still in need of some converting)
- 40 Choppa Boyz (11 done or almost done)
- 19 Shoota Boyz (5 almost done, rest is table worthy)
- 4 Nobz (1 done)
- 3 Killa Kanz (1 nearly done)
- 2 Trukks (still assembling one, other is half painted)
- 1 Battlewagon
Yes that's the 1000 point list I used on the first 40k league :P
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
If I don't focus on an army I will never any of them. I am tired of grey mans. Don't worry tough, they're on the list right after the Battlewagon, which is after the Shoota boyz. If I keep up pace I can paint it all before the year ends. I hope.
Well, they may LOOK like blood angels, but they're flesh tearers at heart.
And by speed painting, I mean, it's week 3 and I've finished 6.
"Oh what a day, what a LOVELY DAY!"
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
What the hell is going on here!? Damn kids! Getoffa my lawn!
That's gratitude for ya.
You should see what he did the last time he got flesh tearers...
http://www.dust514stats.com
What have I gotten myself into