Sub par painter looking for help

[incenerate101]

I have been a competitive player for years and have been settling for the basic 3 color schemes and just sloppy worksmanship. I am building Necrons and wood elves now and have decided to take my time painting each unit before I buy more and I am happy with the results but still I can get better. I'll post pictures of my latest work in a few minutes but I would some advice!

[fuzzbuket]

yeah sure ill give you a hand :) if we can see your work ill give a few pointers and whatnot.

-fuzz

[incenerate101]

I tried posting pictures but failed miserably from the ipad so i will have pictures tomorrow for sure

[isotope99]

Models can look pretty good with a simple 3X3 system.

3 colours (excluding the bases) will cover most models


Basecoat - GW's base paints cover pretty well in most cases
Drybrush/highlight - Don't much rate the new dry compund but haven't relly used it yet
wash/glaze


e.g. for necrons

1) Bodies - Metal / silver / Black wash
2) Power cores & cables - Mid green / bright green / Green glaze
3) Helmets - Ceramite /really watered down black wash / re-highlight with white

General tips:

Do the bases first and keep brushes in a separate pot just for basing/drybrushing & washing. Nothing I do kills brushes faster that painting sand.

Batch paint in small batches (about 5 models at a time works for me) to balance efficiency/practice with boredom.

Wash your brush frequently (about every 4-5 times you dip it back in the pot). this prevents the piant getting too thick but stops you needing to thin everything down.

Thin down the washes. Having said that, i find the GW washes a bit overpowering neat and vulnerable top puddling so I usually thin them down a bit by dripping on some more water from the brush

Necron tips:

Paint the helmets a different colour to pick them out, probably a lighter one.

Apply the colour glaze/wash to a wider area than the power core/cables you are painting and you get super cheap object source lighting with no effort.

[Iceman]

isotope99 is absolutely correct. I find that you can almost just paint on the basic colors and give a wash of Devlan Mud for the clothing and Ogryn Flesh for the faces and hands and be done. I also have had a lot of good results with Wonderwash Ink and www.wonderwashink.com.

[incenerate101]

http://i798.photobucket.com/albums/yy262/incenerate101/145.jpg
http://i798.photobucket.com/albums/yy262/incenerate101/146.jpg

Theres a good example of what my Necrons look right.

[incenerate101]

And now for my Wood Elves.

http://i798.photobucket.com/albums/yy262/incenerate101/143.jpg
http://i798.photobucket.com/albums/yy262/incenerate101/147.jpg
http://i798.photobucket.com/albums/yy262/incenerate101/148.jpg
http://i798.photobucket.com/albums/yy262/incenerate101/149.jpg

[incenerate101]

http://i798.photobucket.com/albums/yy262/incenerate101/150.jpg
http://i798.photobucket.com/albums/yy262/incenerate101/151.jpg

Comments? Advice? Helpful tips?

[wittdooley]

What kind of paints are you using? You seem to be getting very, very inconsistent coverage.

[fuzzbuket]

hmm


as for basics:
-washes are your freind! a nice base layer and a wash can do a lot for a basic painting!
-work a LOT with your brushwork! I have VERY poor hand/eye coordination, so i spent a lot of time painting and even more time just sitting with a pen drawing to improve that. my writing sucks and i have very shaky hands but i now can paint quite well!
-as always thin your paints! (not too much, just a tiny bit)
-try to use a smaller brush for the details, im not saying for you to fork out a ton on a super pricey W&N brush but even a GW fine detail will do a ton of good!
-for insparation www.coolminiornot.com is a brilliant site
-and dont be afraid to try new things. but also remember that there is a diffrence between trying on a spare model and doing it on a whole army. so dont try a entire OSL SENMM army if you are not confident or very good at those techniques! (hey it took me about a year to get really good at plain NMM, and im just learining how to do OSL.)

and thats about it! if you need painting help in a specific area (ie: cloth/ armour plates/ yellow ect) id be happy to help, but these are some basic tips!

[incenerate101]

Im using the GW paintline for now but have wanted to try out the Vallejo (spelling?) paints.

Ive noticed that when painting a whole model i tend to overlook small places ( like the Dryads palm side of his hand )

Ive never tried thinning down my paints. What kind of consistency am i looking for? Is there a water to paint ratio that is reliable?

I generally can get the basic color scheme and look im going for but cant seem to get the fabulous look i so desperately want; i believe that learning to do highlights and glow effects and drybrushing will greatly improve the look of my models but i cant ever seem to get any of them right. If you guys could possibly give me a step by step on how do to highlights and such I would greatly appreciate it.

Any advanced techniques that would help me out that you guys know and are confident with teaching id love to hear them.

Thanks so much for this guys. I greatly appreciate it!

[wittdooley]

Do you have a GW near you? If so, the new "paint by numbers" cards they have at the store are really, really fantastic.

I wouldn't move to Vallejo. They're good, but I really think for a novice painter, the new GW/Citadel Paints are the best. The opacity is really good and when coupled with the info cards, makes it a breeze to learn to paint.

Based on your pictures, it looks like you're having trouble with getting coverage. It looks like you're using black primer. This is fine. However, it really may behoove you to try the foundation/base paints first. Their a bit more pigmented, and provide a better 'once over' coverage, especially with the brighter colors.

Honestly, to get a good, "better than base 3" paintjob, you'll want about 3 paints per color. One as a base, the second as a wash, and a third as a highlight. But here's the thing: there are tons of ways to get around this.

Let's take your Dryads, for example. No reason you should have to base coat them. Try this:

Go to Wal-Mart and buy a can of the Krylon Brown Camo Paint and Krylon Khaki Camo Paint.
1-- Prime your dudes with the brown, full coverage style.
2-- Now, give them a light misting of the khaki From the Top of the model. This is called zenithal Priming and works wonders for wood. Make sure you dont cover up all the brown, as it will provide your shading.
3-- Get a bottle of brown wash (I forget what the new one is called). Wash your entire dryad model in this wash. It'll dull the khaki while deeping the shadows in the brown. Let it dry
4-- Now, get a lighter brown (it could be khaki if you want the wood to be really light) and do a light drybrush over top all the model. This will bring out the edge highlights for you. Remember when drybrushing you need a paintbrush with shorter bristles.
5-- Hit your detail points (the leaves, etc). You can mimic the above, too. Hit them with a base color, wash it, and then reuse your base as an edge highlight.

Honestly, washes, as a novice painter, should be your best friend. With pretty much any color, a base color followed by a wash and a drybrush highlight will be your bread and butter for getting the 'better than base 3' color going. Once your comfy with that, you can work up to blending your colors, etc.

[fuzzbuket]

vallejow paints are great! (you dont need to thin them) for GW paints a 9:1 ratio of paint:water is what i use (the new layer paints are thin though so thinning may not be needed)



as for advanced techniques we all want to do them but a lot of the time we need to learn the basics first!

for blending/highlighting a few pointers:
1)the guides in WD are fantastic!
2) you dont NEED 50 shades of grey, you need a bottle of grey, black and white :P learning to mix paints is really useful and saves lots of $$$
3) practice,
4) for edge highlights hold your brush at a angle to the line so that it can ONLY touch the edge! this helps a LOT and looks great!
5) washes are brilliant for shading! just apply it to the shadowed area
6) practice
7)practice
8) find a tutorial not to copy but to learn from
9) practice!
10) when priming have short swift bursts, and dont keep the can still. this helps HUGELY
11) white primers are really good BUT black is good for beginers, dark models and models with hard to reach places.
12) ask someone for help! your local FLGS or GW are filled with people wanting to help! if not just asksomeone here!

[Cpt Codpiece]

washes are the lazy painters friend :) i love them.

as for thinning your paint, the old line was "the consistency of milk" which is about as helpful as a chocolate kettle..... unless you want hot chocolate.........

but the best advice i can give on thinning is to always keep a pallet handy, never paint straight from the pot.
that way you can control not only consiostency but also the tone of the colour, if its too dark add a lighter shade, too light add a darker tone. dont just use black and white for this, you will get muddy and super bright colours only.
try to get the paint to flow from the tip of the brush, so that you do not have streaks (too thick) or mottling (too thin), the only way to gauge this is by doing it yourself. use your fingernail or a spare mini or base as a guide before going to the model.

i used to be an advocate of black primers, but now i try and use grey as much as i can. the zenith method works really well, but you have to use thin coats of paint to get the best results, otherwise you just cover up the highlights you created with the zenith spray.

GW range of washes are really nice now (they used to be really bad a few years back, but now they ae good), and they flow really nice. the dark green one for example would look great on the green details on the annhialation barge, just take a thin brush and wet it, then add a little wash and let it pool in the details, easy :)

[incenerate101]

awesome guys! Thanks so so much for the help! Im going to be picking up some new models here in the next few days and will take all of this advice to heart. The main reason I posted for help here is because i get to my local GW ( which just so happens to be the north american HQ here in memphis ) about once every two weeks and im going to be participating in AoP qualifiers for the next games day! And to top it off my next army in 40k is going to be CSM (Early Heresy Era) with a renegade guard detachment and i really want both of these to look phenomenal!

Ill be posting more pictures here in the next week or so! I'd love to see what you guys think after all the help youve given me!