Problems Galore

[Sjeng]

Leave the tan skin, get some bronzed flesh (or whatever its called now) and perhaps some dwarven or elven flesh. Go from dark to light, painting over the elevated areas, leaving the creases dark, in layers, getting smaller as you go.
No more washes.

[IvenBach]

I picked up Basic Skintone to try and fix the dirty barbarian. I ended up mixing 3 parts Basic Skintone with 2 parts Dark Flesh with 1 part Acrylic Thinner and painted his skin over again. It covered well but took 2 coats and then when it was drying it looked way too orange then way too pink. I guess the Dark Flesh (orange) dried first making it look orange then when Basic Skintone was nearly done drying it looked rosy pink. I just used the extra and painted the other skin tones on the other barbarian. When the 1st one finally dried it looked fine. Whew! I then did simple highlight with just Basic Skintone and again it looked super rosy pink when it went on and was drying but once it finally dried I had a had time actually seeing the different shades. None of my players when I asked them seemed to notice it. I have never done skin and the goblins/orcs that I've done are the only other stuff I'd done till now. I'll just keep on trying and see what I come up with.

When using skintones is it normal for the paint while it's drying to look a different shade than when it's fully dried?

Am I just too inexperienced and focusing on the evident highlight while its wet? It seems like the color and highlight didn't matter and looked fine (actually good) when dry.

Played with them for the first time and one player commented that they looked good and asked if the minis were bought painted. When I told her no and that I painted them, pulling out the primered unpainted ones to show her, she was surprised. Partly because I redid the wizards face with the new skintone I bought. The white for eyes and just the tip of the brush (dots) for eyes along with eyebrows. Still not anywhere good but I'm progressing. It's late and I'm rambling so while the paint was wet was I focusing too much on the wet paint and visible highlight?

[IvenBach]

The little anus nibblers came out a lot better than I thought. I just wanted to get red eyes to make them menacing but then added a yellow dot for evil. I put the red on and then dotted with the yellow. I found out a really easy way to yellow on the very last couple that I had to touch up. If I left the red eye wet and then dipped the tip of my brush in the yellow and let it touch the wet eye it made it so much easier. It actually came out better than the initial ones I did. As such I may go back and redo the first ones.

Certainly going to pull these into HQ and bite some ankles.







What's an easy way to do the bases without them all looking like they've been done with the same colors? I noticed that they looked a lot like stone with the color I was using for the rats themselves. Should I just omit the main color that's on the rat and do the base in the remaining colors?

[Sjeng]

I usually start with the bases so I can drybrush wildly.
Black basecoat, dark grey drybrush, light grey light drybrush, white ever so tender drybrush.
You can also try red-orange-yellow for a sandstone look, or dab a few spots of green on with the tip of a drybrush for moss speckles. Or red for blood >:)

[IvenBach]

I'll try that and see what I come up with. Forgot to add some pics of my Imp I finished last light.





On to rat bases!

[IvenBach]

I like the emerald for the ring. It came out much better than I thought it would and then used it on the front of his cape-holder-things.


Slowly getting them done. Taking a break from only orcs and gobs was nice. Now to get a camo mini done. Got a friend say he'd play if I had one with camo to play with. Would it be against HQ policy to make an elf in fatigues?

[TMU]

I like your style, looks somewhat mine Very simple but effective. Great job

[IvenBach]

I don't know if i'd call it a style. I'm still trying new ways of painting and this seems to have given me the best results so far. I've no problem admitting that I'm simple; if my painting follows that path I'd not be surprised. I'm mainly looking for painting that leaves me happy and that looks good. There are still a lot of minor things I'd like to fix but so far I'm not too worried about those as I'm making progress on more critical areas.

[IvenBach]

Spiders. They didn't quite come out like I wanted them but I took them through to completion. The more I worked on them to fix what I felt was wrong the more it seemed to make it worse-er. I think it's the too-orange feel. Tried several times to get the orange to not be as vibrant and even tried a wash that toned it down but not nearly what I wanted. It was either too orange or pink as I don't have the right colors. Self rating them I'd give myself a C. Not spectacular or anything but they came out good enough to use. Is there a good way to make lines straight and steady? I was able to get straighter lines on my but as you can see these are a bit wiggly . Even slow progress is some. Elf is next one to be done, it's been basecoated and most highlights. Needs to have a few small touchups and he'll be done. Then onto Camo-Elf!

Inspiration:
and

Outcome:

[IvenBach]

Hoping my problems will become an answer for someone else.

Hi Mate,

In my view miniatures with more detail are easier to paint with miniatures with lots of flat surfaces. This is becauise all those raised edges etc help tell you where to put the highlights, and the model will have more overall contrast.

Everyone finds their own preferences when it comes to painting, so you need to keep practising to find out what works for you!

In terms of preserving detail, here's my suggestions

1) Lighting - make sure you're painting in an area with lots of light. I have an angle lamp pointed over my shoulder when I paint - you need more than usual room lighting

2) Undercoat. I paint a black undercoat, because this then forms the shading in hard to reach areas later. What colour do you normally do? I wonder if a grey or white undercoat might make it easier to see the details. When I paint the undercoat I'll water the paint very slightly if it's GW colour or maybe a bit more if it's Vallejo. If it's too watery it won't cover properly, but if it's too thick you risk obscuring the details. Use the brush to soak up any pooling of paint. Otherwise, spray painting may be an option but I don't do this...

3) When painting some HQ figures recently, I've been checking out other painted examples, this helps me understand how other people have tackled any confusing or problem areas on a particular sculpt.

4) Base coat - neatness is needed here! The neater the base coat the better the model looks overall

5) I always use the GW wash to put a shade on the model after the base coat these days - I use GW's "Agrax Earthshade" and coat it liberally over the model. It's a dark brown, and seems to go well over most colours

6) Once the shade is dry, I re-apply the base colours again. this is the point where I thin it a bit too, so that I don't obscure all of the shade in some areas. I try to leave an edge of shade around an area, and use the thinned paint to blend between that and the more prominent areas. This is the point where I make attention to the detail.

7) Once the first highlight is done then I paint the raised edges in a lighter colour, for example a face would be lighter on the brow, nose , cheeks and chin. I might do this a couple of times with progressively lighter colours for faces but maybe only once for boots and cloth as these areas don't receive as much attention when people look at them.

Oops. I wrote a lot there, but I hope some of it might be useful.

Cheers
Steven