Jump to content

First paintjob ever (dread)


Exanimo

Recommended Posts

Hiya,

 

Just started this crazy hobby and at the moment it's mostly a creative hobby, haven't played a single game yet altho i'm building an army as we speak as does a mate of mine.

I decided to make an Ultramarine SM army for the first one, mostly because of the great look of the marines and it's Dreadnoughts.

Checked out the internet for lots of inspiration and some tutorials and so i started painting my first miniature; a Dreadnought!

 

Not nearly as great as some of the paintjobs i've seen here but i'm guessing it's at least tabletop quality.

Apart from that i learned a lot which was also one of the goals ofcourse, most of the things i can do better next miniature... the shake in the hand will be a bit harder though. :P

 

Anyway, would like some responds on how i did and what i can improve.. just be gentle with me :tu:

 

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/8145/imgp1624kk5.jpg

 

Ah yeah... forgot the gun-holes, will need to paint those on still.

Link to comment
https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/158897-first-paintjob-ever-dread/
Share on other sites

Hi there, welcome to the fun. Well if this is your first paint job ever then I would be extremely proud of it if I were you. Good crisp paint job, the weathering is excellent, I love the burnished look as though the paint has been scrapped off down to the metal. The highlighting on the LED's is superb. All you have to do now is get gaming with him and crush those foul xenos!!

For a first mini it does look very good, but from what I can see you did a lot of drybrushing. While this brings fast and good looking results, many painters tend to frown upon it.

 

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I like it too when I am lazy, but don't stop there!

 

Your damage effects and the lighting on the lenses are already very good.

 

So keep practising, and welcome to the B&C

For a first mini it does look very good, but from what I can see you did a lot of drybrushing. While this brings fast and good looking results, many painters tend to frown upon it.

I'm kind of glad you mention this as i had some doubts on this aswell throughout the model.

Basicly i thought drybrushing with a lighter color was used to create the highlights but afterwards i started to get the impression that highlights were created in some other way, using freehand lining?

 

I coated the model with black, then painted it blue, used a wash, then drybrushed it with a slightly lighter blue all over.

After that i drybrushed it with an even lighter blue where i tried to mostly hit edges, this part is probably done freehand by others where they paint along all or certain edges... is that assumption correct?

The problem i had was that some of the highlights became a bit stripey where you see the strokes of the brush.

While this did give a sort of a wear effect, at other points it became a bit too obvious and i toned it down by drybrushing with the darker color again.

Worked out fine in the end :P

 

Still, quite curious if the highlighting normally is indeed done by drawing a line freehand. (not have the most steady hand so might be a problem for me personally)

Great job, really strong first effort.

 

There are things to improve on, as time goes on I'm sure you'll add more highlighting and maybe a glaze to smooth out the drybrushing. But now just keep painting like that and get an army done! Be proud, you'll be facing a sea of tin out there...

Excellent first model! Now don't forget to drill those gun barrels :)
Thats an idea aswell, was gonna paint them on but drilling them will give a better effect surely.

 

as time goes on I'm sure you'll add more highlighting and maybe a glaze to smooth out the drybrushing
Thats overpainting the model with a very wathered paint right?

I was painting some marines and tried to highlight the models by outlining it with a lighter blue (just on the blue bit ofcourse). The contrast is quite high now which is probably the intention in the first place, but as my lines are wider then i'd like to due to a not steady hand, i was wondering if glazing the model would benefit it. (after reading your comment)

Yes, glazing is using an ink (or paint) in a very watered down capacity (usually the consistancy of dirty water). This can work to change the vibrancy or quality of a color as well as bringing highlights. Its a technique you have to play around with to work how you like but it sounds like this can tone down your highlights.

 

Again, really nice start. I've been painting for over ten years and there's always something new to try out.

really is it just me or are the rookies getting better and better?

I must confess i have read up before starting so i did know the basics ;) , although on the highlighting it seems i don't quite grasp things yet. I've tried a marine (squad of 10 actually) and i wanted to not highlight them with dry-brushing this time and see if lining it would get better results.

So far, i'm not too impressed with my results. ^_^

 

I've kind of outlined the model and combined with the fact that my lines are often too thick and swirly (steady hand problem again) it's not as pretty as i hoped.

Now in meantime i took a look at some more examples and i noticed most people rly highlighted the top parts of armor, where light would hit it. Makes sense ofcourse, just didn't look at that before.

There are some who outline the model but it seems that the color/tone difference is alot smaller then, it's just a slightly lighter color then the primairy layer... while i took a quite light tone.

 

Think i'll experiment a bit, seems my 2nd model (or 2-11 actually :P ) might be of poorer quality.

I can always go back to drybrushing it all ofcourse...

Your dread looks really good, and for a first paint job as well! (mine was a deathwing terminator that was humbrol khaki green ^_^ and I think the paint was about 2mm thick!). It sounds to me like you're off to a very good start in this hobby, you've really done a lot of research and background work on the techniques required to paint well, which is a good thing ;). A lot of us stumbled along painting really badly until we worked stuff out, but you've skipped that step and believe me it saves so much time and money and frowning!

 

As for your highlighting if you're using the Harsh Edge Highlighting and you're lines get too wide or wobbly, don't forget you can always go back with the darker colour and correct/thin them :P.

 

Welcome to the B&C and the hobby, I think we'll be seeing a lot more of your stuff here,

 

James

Don't forget you can always start with a slightly wider highlight in a tone somewhere between the base colour and final highlight, might help take the edge off a bit. Also I know of quite a few friends who find it helps them paint steadier if they keep their elbows rested on the table.

 

Still a good model you have there though, I'd be pretty chuffed with it if that was my first attempt and seeing as practice makes perfect gives you a great excuse to paint even more.

 

Welcome to B&C

As requested a pic of my spacemarines (not because they are any good but wanted once again your view on it if possible :) ):

 

 

First my first Space marine.

As you can see i tried drybrushing but as it's smaller i don't think it worked out that well.

Might be partially to blame on the big brush (getting small one tomorrow) but i guess my inexperience has it's effect aswell, simply went better on the larger Dreadnought.

I also messed up the first sandstuff on the base, need to try again with some better glue.

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5649/1stmarinera5.jpg

 

And next the second Space marine i've done...

This one i've tried highlighting it with lines instead of using the drybrush technique, it's not done yet by the way... need to detail it more (eyes, gun, metal highlights and decal to name a few)

My theory is that i overdid the highlighting, didn't simply do the edges on which light would land (say from light from above) but outlined most edges.

Now i look at it as a photo i must say it's less annoying as i first thought but some thinner lines and just lines on top side of armor might make it a bit less cartoonish and more tight.

http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/2489/2ndmarineyx7.jpg

 

 

Ow and yes... you can see the mold lines :) These are the marines i got for free (non-multipart) on which i decided to test first, didn't do too much work on them as i expect to replace them with multi-part ones later on anyway.

Anyhowz, think the highlight-line technique (how's that called anyway?) might give some nice results.

The second one looks pretty good. Once you've finished all the highlight lines, go back with your (I'm guessing) regal blue and thin brush and tidy them up and he'll look even better. It might help you to thin your paints with a little water for your multipart mini's, and (in my experience) this is especially important when highlighting because the paint flows from the brush easier you can control the brush tip more than if you were using 100% paint.

 

James

The "real" highlighted one looks far better than the drybrushed.

 

As pig of sparta said, water down your paints and use more coats.

 

And a hint for the purity seal: Right now it looks rather blotchy white. I guess your just painted it with several coats of white (correct me if i am wrong)

 

My recipe for seals and stuff like it:

 

Undercoat black

Thin coat of scorched brown

1 - 2 thin coats of bleached bone

last coat of skull white

paint on scribbly lines with detail brush and 1:1 mix of chaos black and scorched brown (looks more natural than just black)

 

At least that's how I do it, I guess there are much better recipes out there

Tried to paint a sergeant with what i learned so far.

I must say the photo doesn't do it much justice as some of the color differences seem to be lost... mostly in the tabard.

Sadly i couldn't drill a hole in the nozzle as suggested yet, smallest drill i got is 1,5mm and that still seemed to big. :tu:

I did this model mostly to see if i could get the tabard done in a nice way, was planning to give all my sarges tabards where possible.

Also started to get a hang of the smaller highlighting lines.. more practice required ofcourse. ;)

 

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/671/1stsargeri6.jpg

 

One issue for me has been the red helmet actually, was quite a pain to keep the black from comming through.

I even used a foundation red on it which seemed to help, sadly enough my impatience caused me to use not thinned enough paint which made it lose some detail on the head.

Kind of curious what the best way is to do red. (Used GW red foundation and then Gamecolors Gory red 3 layers, of which one too thick)

 

Seems i missed a mold line on the boltgun in the right hand aswell.

 

Below another picture which is bit overlighted (can't reduce spotstrength so will need to place the lights further away next time i suppose) but it may show you a bit better what stance the model is in. Also shows the excessive paint on the helmet even better :(

 

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/7200/1stsargerightyq2.jpg

 

Once again, open for any tips.

Ow.. in case u wonder what's that on the left shoulder:

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/5817/leftarmsargegr8.jpg

Definately looks like you're getting the hang of it brother, keep practising and it'll get easier. The sarge's tabard looks pretty good although I think the gold cross might benefit from having a brown wash applied around the edges to help define it from the cream cloth.

 

A couple of recipes for red:

 

1) Mechrite Red base coat, Shade the mini recessess with a wash of 50/50 mix of Chaos Black and Scorched brown (maybe mix in a tiny drop of washing up liquid, it helps break the surface tension of the paints and makes them flow better) then use several thin coats (about 70/30 paint/water) of Blood Red to build a smooth red. Then Highlight with Blazing Orange and finally do the very top highlights with Elf Flesh. Both of the highlights should be thinned with water <_<

 

2) Scab Red base coat (a couple of thin layers should do it, keep adding them till you've got a smooth coat), Shade recesses with watered down Chaos Black or Badab Black Wash. Use Scab Red to tidy up any mistakes or over washed parts, then build up a few thin layers of Red Gore, then highlight with a 50/50 mix of Red Gore and Blood Red. For harsh edge higlights with this method, add some Vomit Brown and Skull White to your Red Gore/Blood Red mix and go for it.

 

Hope this helps

 

James

Definately looks like you're getting the hang of it brother, keep practising and it'll get easier. The sarge's tabard looks pretty good although I think the gold cross might benefit from having a brown wash applied around the edges to help define it from the cream cloth.
I did use the Gryphon Wash (which is brownish) on the edges but didn't give as much effect as i wanted to, probably need to apply a bit more next time.

Was also thinking: What if i mixed Gold and Bonewhite and did the gold cross with that, perhaps that would give a more woven effect? Didn't find it appropriate as the cross is clearly lying on top of the tabard but it might be a nice effect otherwise.

 

You are probably right that i need more contrasting highlights on the helm, the ones i did barely show on the picture... perhaps it will have the same effect when looking at it from a distance.

Will mix some orange to try it out.

I did try to shade the helmet a bit by mixing scorced brown and black and alot of water, kind of trying an inkting effect but a bit thinner then the wash i have (badab black) as i didn't want to make it to excessive.

That did work i think but does once again barely show on the photo... will try the red recipies next time which allows me to shade it with badab which leaves some more shade then how i did it.

 

Thanks again for the tips :P

Glad to be of some assistance :lol:

 

Was also thinking: What if i mixed Gold and Bonewhite and did the gold cross with that, perhaps that would give a more woven effect? Didn't find it appropriate as the cross is clearly lying on top of the tabard but it might be a nice effect otherwise

 

It might work, but I'm not sure how well, most metalic and non metalic colours don't mix too well. If you go back around the cross with really thin scorched brown that'll bring it forward quite well. If you want to go down the Non Metallic Metal route I'd suggest basecoating with a 50/50 mix of Snakebite Leather and Chaos Black. Then apply another coat of pure Snakebite Leather. Then highlight the edges with a 50/50 mix of Snakebite Leather and Skull White before giving the edges a pure Skull White highlight.

 

James

Wellcome to the hobby,you've made an impressive start,i like the dreadnought and your skills are improving in every

miniature you paint.

A tip regarding edge highlights,do not overload your brush with pigment (wipe of the excess paint on a piece of paper)

and use the edge of the brush to highlight,that way pigment stays only on the edge of the armour (mostly) and

does not spill over and if it does use your base colour for corrections.Keep it up.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.