[Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Smoove_B »

Yeah, I just started messing with the Army Painter Speed Paints (1.0) and I was surprised at how different they feel from the 1.0 versions of the Citadel Contrast paints.

I did try a slap-chop but I'm not really feeling it. I might just stick with white priming as well...or maybe I need to get better at dry brushing.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by hentzau »

YellowKing wrote:Woohoo! Can't wait to hear your thoughts.
I was a big fan of the 1.0 versions, even with the reactivation “problems”. The colors are richer, the shading more pronounced…

I had the mega set, then heard they had released a complete set and I took my unopened set back to my FLGS to upgrade. They took it with no issues…they know how to keep a long time customer happy!

Hoping to get back to my minis soon as my son is out of the hospital.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by YellowKing »

Smoove_B wrote:I did try a slap-chop but I'm not really feeling it. I might just stick with white priming as well...or maybe I need to get better at dry brushing.
I slap chopped that zombie but given the "too dark" complaints I really went to town on the white drybrush and did several coats. Seemed to work well enough for him but he's also a dark figure with a ton of black.

The next one up has a lot more color so I'm going to be curious to see how it turns out.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Smoove_B »

I was thinking about making one of those texture pallettes that are all the rage now to see if that helps:

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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by em2nought »

That slap-chop technique is quite impressive. Makes me almost want to paint some figures, but then I remember that I'm a skilled procrastinator.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Malificent »

Etherfields - They may be large and mildly intimidating, but they are fun to paint:

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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by baelthazar »

So I went even more crazy than usual. I had some birthday money and sold some WH40K figures and decided to pick up this crazy painting case from Monument Hobbies: Go Bag EVO. It is an insane luxury item but I don’t have a clear space to paint or have a paint rack. So this is going to be a great way to store my most used paints and quickly grab and take my setup to my dining room table. Yes not needed but better than the numerous smaller boxes.

While I was ordering I got some of their translucent paints. They are fantastic! I would put this as comparable if not more flexible to contrast paints. They are basically inks, but easy to mix the primary colors into new stuff.

I also got some of their regular flesh toned paints. They have a great flow and coverage. I may be a convert!
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Malificent »

baelthazar wrote: Thu Jun 01, 2023 7:25 pm So I went even more crazy than usual. I had some birthday money and sold some WH40K figures and decided to pick up this crazy painting case from Monument Hobbies: Go Bag EVO. It is an insane luxury item but I don’t have a clear space to paint or have a paint rack. So this is going to be a great way to store my most used paints and quickly grab and take my setup to my dining room table. Yes not needed but better than the numerous smaller boxes.

While I was ordering I got some of their translucent paints. They are fantastic! I would put this as comparable if not more flexible to contrast paints. They are basically inks, but easy to mix the primary colors into new stuff.

I also got some of their regular flesh toned paints. They have a great flow and coverage. I may be a convert!
I really like their paints. I kind of want to replace all my Vallejo paints with stuff from them.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by hentzau »

My paint organization project, about 2/3 finished. Waiting on bins for my craft paints (for terrain) and Citadel Contrast paints.

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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

The first one is far, far too orderly. I used to use something similar, but I have so little desk space that I ended up switching to wall mounted racks, which have been great.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by hentzau »

Blackhawk wrote: Tue Jun 20, 2023 11:27 pm The first one is far, far too orderly. I used to use something similar, but I have so little desk space that I ended up switching to wall mounted racks, which have been great.
Oh, I guess you don't have any real perspective on these shots...those are shots looking down into desk drawers.

I set up a new desk using two Alex shelving units from Ikea after I found a video on YouTube demonstrating this. This is going to free up a bunch of space where I had my paint racks, and I can set up the second 3D printer I picked up about a month ago. And it's funny, for me, wall space is at a premium down in my game room.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Punisher »

Blackhawk wrote: Tue Jun 20, 2023 11:27 pm The first one is far, far too orderly. I used to use something similar, but I have so little desk space that I ended up switching to wall mounted racks, which have been great.
Those wall mounts look really weird. Like they are tilting forward and ready to fall out. I'm assuming it's an optical illusion though.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

The shot is on a wall. They do lean slightly forward (they're at or above eye level.)
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

From a couple of years ago right after I installed them.

/edit to put the giant images in to spoiler tags.
Spoiler:
Image


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Last edited by Blackhawk on Thu Jun 22, 2023 7:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Punisher »

Thanks! Those pics definitely help me understand better how it works. I might need to think about those but would need to get a good count of all my paints to see how many racks I'd need.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Fardaza »

Blackhawk wrote: Wed Jun 21, 2023 2:07 am From a couple of years ago right after I installed them.

Image


Image
I think you need a couple more electrical outlets! :D
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by coopasonic »

Fardaza wrote: Wed Jun 21, 2023 9:20 am I think you need a couple more electrical outlets! :D
Are you trying to set him off? :P
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by GreenGoo »

I actually thought the outlets were the coolest part of the setup, which is super cool in general.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

Thanks. The idea was that I wanted the option of keeping a few different tools plugged in simultaneously without having to run the cords all over, thus the outlets spaced across the desk.

Since I took that picture a little over two years ago, the shelving on the left side was replaced by a DIY desk extension, and the empty spot to the left of the racks now holds an arm for a monitor (with the tower under the desk.) It's my oldest monitor hooked to a PC built with my oldest parts, but it's good for browsing, listening to music, and bringing up reference art/photos. Or, rather it was, as it is starting to die, dimming and brightening, dimming and brightening. The whole setup as it was then:
Spoiler:
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Smoove_B »

Been stuck (quite honestly) with painting. I hit a skill peak at some point last year and now I feel like I'm actually going backwards somehow. To be clear, I paint for tabletop-level quality, but for whatever reason (the minis I'm using?) the speed / contrast paints aren't working as well for me anymore. I saw this video last week and have been noodling on what he's doing (black primer; slopping two colors over, detail/edge highlights) to see if I can move out of my comfort zone and give it a try. Sharing for anyone else interested. I'm not even entirely sure what he's doing (shading?), but I do like his finished models.

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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

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Smoove_B wrote: Mon Jul 03, 2023 1:37 pm Been stuck (quite honestly) with painting.
I've been there for a while. I was painting like crazy keeping up with my various RPG sessions (D&D, Savage Worlds, Pathfinder 2), which ended up burning me out pretty badly. I was always having to paint what was needed for the current game/next session, and it was effectively always on a deadline. At the same time, I was painting to way too high of a standard when I should have been cutting corners on the less impressive/important miniatures. A few years of that and I was struggling to paint. Then the pandemic hit just as my gaming group imploded, and I was no longer pressured... but the burnout remained. I've sat down to paint a few times, for a few hours or a few weeks, but I still haven't been able to get back into the flow, back into wanting to paint.

In other words, I had made a commitment (which I now realize was partially self-imposed) that effectively turned my hobby into a job, and I haven't been able to shake that yet.

One thing that might help would be if I'd stop painting with goals (like getting all of miniatures for Zomicide painted (or Core Space, or Conan, or Batman, or Deep Rock Galactic, or...) and just painted whatever looks like fun to paint for a while.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by YellowKing »

Smoove_B wrote:Sharing for anyone else interested.
Thanks for sharing, I'll give this technique a try on the two upcoming Frosthaven minis I need to paint this week.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Smoove_B »

He actually did a much more detailed video and I think a deeper dive into this technique a few weeks ago:



I'm not sure I'm at this level yet, but I really like the finished mini. The other video is (I think) a much more approachable way to see if the style/technique is something you like.

EDIT: What's interesting to me is that there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to his initial color selection. Maybe he's more intention in the second video, but for the first, he's seemingly taking two random contrast colors and just slapping them on the black primer. On the one hand, that feels freeing. On the other hand, that terrifies me because I'm always thinking trained / knowledgeable painters are doing things intuitively that look accidental or informal - but they've actually made very specific decisions for reasons I don't understand.

This is the same problem I ran into when I taught myself how to play bass guitar from reading tab. I don't know techniques or music theory. If someone tells me to [do x], For painting, I'm a copycat - I look at a color scheme or a model that's already been painted and I recreate it. Freestyle color interpretations? I'm clueless.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by baelthazar »

YellowKing wrote: Mon Jul 03, 2023 2:46 pm
Smoove_B wrote:Sharing for anyone else interested.
Thanks for sharing, I'll give this technique a try on the two upcoming Frosthaven minis I need to paint this week.
This looks like a fun experiment! I'm pretty into my Zenithal for skipping a lot of the steps, but I might try this to see where it takes me! I have a ton of He-Man figures that need some color!
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by YellowKing »

I tried the black primer/sloppy saturated contrast top & bottom technique and was pretty danged impressed! I'm painting a locked class figure from Frosthaven so I didn't really want to post a photo for fear of spoilers.

At any rate, using the contrast paints top and bottom and blended in the middle produced a really cool almost airbrushed effect. I then used a combination of speed paints and regular paints to pick out highlights such as belts, skin, etc. I took the dude's advice and didn't try to cover every speck of surface, just let the underlying shadows do their thing and only focus on highlights.

The only thing I'm still struggling with is the black primer coat - the figures are still coming out a bit dark for my tastes, but I think I just have to get better at building up to really light shades.

Still, the technique was really helpful and cut time in one key area - covering up unpainted primer. It took less than 2 minutes to slap on the top/bottom contrast coats, and after that any area that wasn't painted still had color which was huge.

It worked well enough that I'll certainly try it again, particularly with figures I need to paint quickly.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Smoove_B »

Awesome. I'm waiting for a specific contrast color to arrive by mail, but I am hoping to be able to try this weekend.

I primed in Vallejo black and to my eye it looks much darker than whatever he primed with, so I had the same thought about how dark it might be as I'm layering up.

Regardless, that's encouraging.
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[Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by baelthazar »

I wonder if you were to black primer, then do a light dry brush with a gray (maybe darker gray) then move on to the contrast step - would that make the highlights easier and the model brighter?
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

baelthazar wrote: Thu Jul 06, 2023 12:40 pm I wonder if you were to black primer, then do a light dry brush with a gray (maybe darker gray) then move on to the contrast step - would that make the highlights easier and the model brighter?
Now we're back to slapchop! And yes, it would likely help.
Last edited by Blackhawk on Thu Jul 06, 2023 12:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Smoove_B »

In theory, but then you're tilting into the slap-chop method - at least for prep. I'm going to try it full black first and depending on how that looks I might consider priming is something that is less-more black. However, I really want to try his method first to just break out of my rut and see how it looks. My general feeling is that the contrast paints over dark black are really more about coloring a shadow, not so much about really using the full potential of contrast paints - so keeping the primer as black makes sense as all the impact comes from layering lighter colors in the details you're highlighting.

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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

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My problem was that I was always using the 5+ hours per mini approach, and that's part of what led to my burnout. My goal with a system like this, or slapchop, or any other speedpainting technique, would be to accelerate that to reasonable, but not necessarily to make it as efficient as humanly possible. I want painted minis, but I fear that if I turned it into an efficiency-focused assembly line, I'd lose the joy that way, too. If I'm not enjoying the process of painting just for the experience of the painting, I don't want it as a hobby (or aspect of a hobby.)
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Smoove_B »

For me, I don't mind spending time on individual characters or unique miniatures, though I don't know that I've ever skilled up to the point where I was spending 5+ hours on a single miniature. Maybe half that? Where I had to really mentally switch gears (and where I burned out) was in trying to detail paint legions of cannon fodder / grunts / enemies. Apparently it's so bad, I'm now just burned out on everything. If this method allows me to enjoy painting individual / unique main character minis so that I can get back to assembly line painting grunts in a more reasonable way, then that'll be a win for me personally.

But yeah, I get it (sorta).

EDIT: Vellejo makes a primer named "German Panzer Grey", which looks like it might be a better option than pure black. Researching and experimenting continues!

Also, I really wish I had a local hobby store. :(
Last edited by Smoove_B on Thu Jul 06, 2023 1:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

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Smoove_B wrote: Thu Jul 06, 2023 1:13 pm For me, I don't mind spending time on individual characters or unique miniatures, though I don't know that I've ever skilled up to the point where I was spending 5+ hours on a single miniature. Maybe half that? Where I had to really mentally switch gears (and where I burned out) was in trying to detail paint legions of cannon fodder / grunts / enemies. Apparently it's so bad, I'm now just burned out on everything. If this method allows me to enjoy painting individual / unique main character minis so that I can get back to assembly line painting grunts in a more reasonable way, then that'll be a win for me personally.

But yeah, I get it (sorta).
Actually, I don't think we disagree at all. We're actually saying the same thing, just to different degrees. A big part* of my old problem was doing character-level paintjobs on the rank-and-file, which meant that doing a band of six orcs was taking me 30 hours. Switching to a much faster system (slapchop + contrast) takes my 5 hours per miniature approach and drops it down to ~20-30 minutes (in other words, that same 5 hours finishes 10-15 pieces instead of 1.)

I just personally think that (for me), taking that too far (can I make it 15 minutes? If I stop doing [blank] can i make it 12?) will result in a different kind of burnout, as I'd end up constantly pushing myself rather than just sitting back and relaxing with the process. After all, for me at least, painting is like doing a jigsaw puzzle or coloring - a laid back, meditative process. Listen to music, an audiobook, or a podcast, and just go with it. If my goal is the journey over the destination, then, while I may streamline things quite a bit, there is a limit to how much I want to focus on rushing through the journey.

*The other part, as mentioned before, was that I was always painting for the next session, which applied a deadline and forced what miniatures I painted.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Smoove_B »

I think I shared it before, but I saw this last year and it was also something I spent a great deal of time thinking about:



Mainly, trying to think about 1 hour as a good target - what can I get done in one solid hour of painting. Oddly enough, it's that same number (~60 minutes) that Ninjon's technique comes back to for his method shared earlier; it feels reasonable. Of course if I follow this plan, what I can do in 1 hour in July of 2023 is probably going to look different than what I'm doing in that same hour by February of 2024 as that skillset builds.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

A lot of people (especially me) forget that 99% of the time, miniatures are one-inch tall representations that are viewed from several feet away.

One video that opened my eyes (and finally got me to start cutting back on what I did) was one that suggested looking at a human being from across a the highway (or a similar distance, so that they're of similar apparent size to a miniature held at arm's length), then trying to say what color their eyes are. When you actually look, you can't even see their eyes. And yet we put so much stress and focus on making the eyes correct.

Which is when I decided that a bit of wash would be good enough for eyes going forward, except where it was really essential for the sculpt, like bulging eyes, or eyes that involve strong contrast (like white eyes on zombies.)
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Smoove_B »

Yes - and helping to fuel that issue is when you take a photo of the miniature and the camera lens picks up on all the things you'd missed. It's jarring to see that photo on your phone (or Imgur) vs how you'd previously been looking at it on your tabletop. I know miniature photography (and painting for photography is another set of skills) but it definitely doesn't help. Definitely better (for me) to focus on taking photos of them on the table and being used - how I see them when I'm playing at arm's length.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

Smoove_B wrote: Thu Jul 06, 2023 1:58 pm Yes - and helping to fuel that issue is when you take a photo of the miniature and the camera lens picks up on all the things you'd missed. It's jarring to see that photo on your phone (or Imgur) vs how you'd previously been looking at it on your tabletop. I know miniature photography (and painting for photography is another set of skills) but it definitely doesn't help. Definitely better (for me) to focus on taking photos of them on the table and being used - how I see them when I'm playing at arm's length.
Absolutely - it's why I started posting photographs of my work at reduced size, closer to the actual thing. When people take/post photos of their miniatures that are so big that the miniature is 10" tall on a monitor, it has nothing to do whatsoever with what the actual piece looks like. People don't play RPGs or board games with magnifying glasses. All it does is make great work look terrible, and creates an impossible standard (trying to paint a miniature so that it looks great at 6" vs looking great at 1".)

For an example of what I'm talking about (blatantly stolen from a Quora post), here's a very well-done, highly detailed oil painting. Look at the woman's white apron near the child's hand draped across her knee. Look at the way it's pushed up and folded.

Image

Now look at the apron from up close.
Spoiler:
Image
Blotches, streaks, lump, and no detail at all. It doesn't even look like cloth.

Oil paintings are supposed to look good from a distance. They're not supposed to look good with your nose touching them. So when you are standing one foot away from one and it looks terrible, it isn't because it is a bad painting. It's because it was never supposed to be looked at that way.

Hold a finished miniature at arm's length and judge it that way.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Isgrimnur »

It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by YellowKing »

Great discussion and I agree with pretty much everything said re: time, burnout, picture taking, etc. All lessons I've learned the hard way.

I've found that teaching myself to be less critical has exponentially increased my joy of painting. And ultimately if I'm not enjoying it, then what the hell am I doing?

I've come to the conclusion that I'm never going to be at the level of painter that I'd like to be at. I have too many other hobbies, so I'm not going to devote the time to "git gud." And my eyesight is only getting worse as the years go on. So if I can get something to the table that has color and looks halfway decent at arm's length, then I'm happy.

Case in point - I've been playing Frosthaven for weeks with a mini painted by my buddy's young daughter. First mini she ever painted. Have I once thought, "I could have probably painted this better?" Nope. Have I ever looked at it and gone, "You know, I wish this was professionally painted by someone other than a kid." Not a chance. It's got color, and when it's on the table and we're fighting monsters, it's absolutely fantastic.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Smoove_B »

Since I'm not painting secret minis like YK ( :) ), I figured I'd share what the process looks like. Of course, I don't have much to share as the color I was waiting for just arrived, but I'm hoping to make some progress over the rest of the weekend.

Enlarge Image

This is a metal mini from North Star and it's been brush-primed Black with a Vallejo surface primer. After that, I applied Akhelian Green Contrast (which is actually blue) to the bottom half and Warp Lightning (which is green, not blue) to the top. It's not exactly what I was expecting (in a good way) - the very subtle tinting of the black is not something I have experience with (for painting) so I'm curious to see how it continues. I have experimented with using black as a primer before (and eventually moved on to whites and gray), so I'm kinda curious as to how this will come out.

Overall the plan will be to really focus on the top 1/3 (I think) with greens. while trying to add some greys and browns into the chest and legs. I don't have a color reference for this miniature (it was just released), so I'm flying by the seat of my pants (which is terrifying).

EDIT: Whelp, after a promising start, I totally messed up what I was doing and mentally started paining it like I would normally do things, completely ruining the effect and the point. Off for a quick cleaner dip, re-prime and re-color contrast...

This is why I can't have nice things. And why I need to follow someone else doing it, step by step. :?
Maybe next year, maybe no go
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Punisher
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Punisher »

I have thought about priming in black but it honestly scares the hell out of me for some reason. I just cant wrap my head around going from black to something colorful. Unless you are painting ninjas and I can't find the ones I have (which makes sense I guess). Might be time to pull put ye olde army men to play with and then just toss if they become horrible.
Need to really clean my paint area first.
I don't think I've painted anything since my medical adventure last year so I'm also curious if I got worse or will I be like those coma patients in the movies who wake up with a super skill. Hopefully painting because I don't have a piano.
Ideally I'm not so bad that I cant paint at all anymore in which case games will be on the table in their boring natural colors.
All yourLightning Bolts are Belong to Us
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