Improve as much as possible?

[humør]

Hello again guys and gals. Im hoping to improve my painting pretty much this summer and at the moment im painting some AoBR marines and my question is, will I improve the most if I paint them in one scheme or if I try out different schemes on the different marines?

 

-Regards Humør :D

[Arnil]

Improve as a painter or in a scheme? As a painter then yeah paint each marine different but if you want to get a scheme looking nice paint them the same. My current army has one squad with a bad paint job as I got used to the nuances of the scheme and the rest are epicly painted.

[njm3]

best way to improve is practice... doesn't matter if it is one paint scheme or different things.

 

Try to get the basics down: good priming and base coating before experimenting with washes, inks, and highlighting.

 

If you have a bunch of figs, go crazy trying stuff out. If you have a lesser number of figs, and want to end up with a halfway reasonably sane army, try painting a squad or a couple of figs one way, then paint another squad using a different technique, rinse... repeat.

 

If you haven't decided on any paint color scheme, pick the chapter that interests you, colors that are nifty, or whomever has the 'ardest rules. I tried figs as ultramarines, crimson fists, and blood angels before deciding on BA, since red is cool (and goes faster).

 

anyway, bottom line, just paint, and to Hades hive with anyone who complains about your ability :D

[mario]

If I had to learn it all again (and had the self-discipline to do it) I would do this:

 

Pick one scheme and paint the base-coat on marines until I do not have to think about the painting process while doing it (i.e.,Flow). Another important point is that you must aim to improve your work a little bit with each successive marine (i.e., deliberate practice) or you end up with flow in painting at a low level.

 

That will teach you a few foundation skills. Depending on what primer you use (black, grey, white, or something else) you will learn a process that is relatively fast as well as as clean, although you should focus on clean painting first; fast comes with experience, and not with splashing paint on a miniature quickly. It is worth noting that it depends on you if you want to paint one marine after another in every colour until it is finished or if you want to paint one colour after another on a small batch of ten or so marines.

 

You will also get used to handling the brush which is most useful for all other aspects of painting and you should be able to learn other techniques (e.g., tiny script, weathering, shading, highlighting, blending, etcetera) faster because of that. Brush control is very important and something a lot of people forget then then want to replicate some colour scheme or technique. They get the same miniatures, and know the paints and ratios but end up with something that doesn't look like what they want.

 

It will also get you used to thinning your paints for base-coats. That is (in my opinion and workflow) a consistency slightly thinner than for tiny freehand details but a good bit thicker than for glazes or washes. It depends on the paint (its age, consistency, and manufacturer); a new, average, and unopened GW paint works at a one to one ratio of paint to water (or a tiny bit more water) and over a white primer should need two to four coats to cover evenly and without brush strokes.

 

After all this you have a good foundation on top of which you should be able to learn all other techniques much faster, as well as a few dozen (or hundreds) of marines.

 

Painting your marines in a different scheme each will only get you different schemes and focus you too on the schemes which doesn't matter that much. Once you know a few bits of colour theory and your paints as well as how to mix them to get certain other colours you should be able to handle any colour scheme thrown at you.

[GumbaFish]

The best advice I can give to improve, is not to be afraid to experiment and fail. I have had many miniatures I started painting and spent a lot of time on that I ended up striping and redoing because I wasn't happy with my efforts or tried something new that didn't quite work. The nice thing about minis is that if you mess up the model isn't ruined, you can just strip and start fresh again. Heck I have some miniatures I have painted at least 4 or 5 times when testing out schemes before I settled on something I liked. Other than that have fun, if it starts to feel like work you probably won't paint as much and cease to improve.

[Flak]

For technique, skills and a steady hand? My best advice is to get a bunch of different types of miniatures and practice new techniques on each of them. Get some fantasy, other sci-fi and everything in between. Get cloth robes, chainmail, power armored plates, demon skin and all sorts of new things to try. Don't be afraid to upscale and go for some 54mm minis as well, it gives a much better canvas to be able to scrutinize your own advancement where subtle variation or improvement might be hidden on 28mm figures. Sure, everyone's goal is to paint that stunning centerpiece captain in terminator armor, but ultimately getting there is going to have to take you out of your comfort zone.

 

Also, I had the luxury of a masterful teacher before internet media but there are a lot of great tutorials and even project logs that can give invaluable insight on new and interesting ways of painting. A lot of powerful techniques are really simple and just require knowledge and a steady hand, not years of scrutiny and study.

[humør]

Thanks for all the helpfull tips :rolleyes:

I have decided to paint my marines as Blood Ravens at least for now, and I just hope that they wont turn out super crappy :D