The Eagles Spire - Semper Fidelis Eagles Eternal

[War Angel]

There little cuts of cd case. I got the idea from.... The guy doing the blood ravens. What's his name...

[recon0321]

Hmm will have to do that...

[HellChyld]

I use corks as temp bases while painting gives me something to hold and not rub paint off with my fingers. what about red glow for the LC?

[NightHunters]

Loving the new guys, very cool looking!

[War Angel]

thank you Night hunter, i cant remember if ive mentioned this, but youre Wip thread is very inspirational, i enjoy seeing youre updates.

 

i feel like i have to post this now, even though its not sunday and im already good for the week. ive been hard at work on these guys, and i feel like im pretty far along with them. but at the same time, i cant help but feel like my painting techniques and my proccess overall needs work. i think my work is decent, and im happy with my end results usualy, but i think the steps i take to get there are lacking. for example i will give you the steps i used for these guys.

 

step one, "quick brushed" the blue onto most of where it was needed, some areas where missed ive noticed. im not sure if it has a name, but i call it quick brushing, its like dry brushing (fast rapid motions with a bad brush) but instead of having almost no paint on the brush, i have a decent ammount.

 

step two, Quick brushed the white onto the the legs and hands. i then decided i needed to clean it up which led to...

 

step three, went back over the white with significantly more detail. i would occasionaly use my little pallet and mix the paint with water to help it go on smooth, but im not sure i had the mixture right, and it kept drying up. im still going to have to clean it up once more before i add any sort of shade or highlight.

 

step four, carefully painted black over everything that was not supposed to be blue or white. this included the Aquilia's, purity seals, wrist guards, and the collars.

 

step five, painted Tin bits (the first step in my gold recipie) onto all of the aquilias and purity seals.

 

step six, painted red on the collars and wrist guards.

 

step seven, painted my "scroll" recipe onto the purity seals. this involves several steps of dry brushing so i have to clean up the areas around it later.

 

step eight, paint the rest of my gold recipe on all the gold areas. this involves about 5 steps of drybrushing, so it gets paint everywhere.

 

step nine (which i just finished) clean up the blue to pristine, hopefully not having to do it again for the models. this is done with fine detail, and took me about 4 hours id say.

 

the remaining steps, which i have not yet done, nor do i know the order ill have to do them in, is to finish cleaning the white, then shading and highlighting of the reds, whites, and blues. on my tactical marines, i dont usualy shade the blue that i can remember. i think my process is redundant and needs improvments. i wish i had some kind of "teacher/apprentance" friend that could help me work it out, and teach me some more painting techniques. i think theres lots of room for improvment.

 

and now, for all of you who have read this post, (and hopefully offer feedback to the above, and/or the bellow) here is where i stand currently. No looking if you didnt read the above, i mean it!

http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/o567/lastdog/IMG_1103_zps9cf6fbdd.jpg

[HellChyld]

sounds like the term your using is Blocking in color in the begining. as for the other steps I'll have to see what cant be arranged for help if you want

[War Angel]

Thanks

[deathspectersgt7]

HEY BROTHER I use a similar technique .My base color I do in three steps mostly watered down blk then build up. and then a thinned down wash.no highlighting .will have pictures soon. but from what i've seen overall .

[War Angel]

I think my watering needs work too.

[HellChyld]

have you tried using a wet palet? quick to build. paint doesnt dry out near as fast, less waste in paints. thinning your paints inst near as troublesome either. nice tutorial in the Tuts section here on the B&C. might help you out with blocking through your final highlights

[War Angel]

Yeah I saw that, I think it requires something called a bog roll? No idea what that is....

[death given form]

Heh, dude, bog roll is just UK slang for toilet paper.

[War Angel]

O.....

[War Angel]

thanks to the help of Razblood and Skittles, ive managed to put some shade to my white.i first tested a few differnt ways on an old metal approthicay... i think it came out really nice on my aprothicary, maybe not so good on the sternguard i tested it on.

 

 

 i want youre opinion on what you guys think, and should i continue this onto all the other models.

 

http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/o567/lastdog/IMG_1106_zps45f659db.jpg

 

what do you guys think?

[Finn]

White is very chalky. Water down the paint more. I know it means a billion coats, but hey - in case of white you have to choose between fast and good.

Also, if you want good results, avoid drybrushing at all cost.

Maybe try this: white undercoat, wash inside the recesses, a layer of white outside recesses keeping the wash visible.

[recon0321]

I like the white, I mean do you really want a crisp white? I like the shading tho

[marine7312000]

I like the white in that area. However it does look slightly off texture-wise.

[War Angel]

Yeah, it came out really fuzzy, I swear it came out good on my test subject.

 

Well I've already ruined the nice clean white I had earlier with the shade, I think I'll take it slow and work on this tomorrow and hopefully it should end up looking more like my test model....

 

 

In other news, I have tossed one of my drop pods into the freezer to disassemble it so that I can paint it on the inside... Just a spoiler of whats to come.

[War Angel]

Thanks for the advice Finn, but I'm having trouble watering down the white and not destroying the wash at the same time. Got any tips?

[Finn]

If you water it down, MORE than to the consistency of milk, just try to apply it really carefully in places adjacent to washed areas you don't want to paint over. If you have enough paint on the brush and don't actually paint with swipes, but apply paint with the tip of the brush, surface tension should keep the paint out of the recesses. You do not have to do it on the whole surface, just by the washed areas you want to keep darker.

 

I don't know if the above is understandable :) If not, sorry for my English, it's not my mother tongue :)

[War Angel]

No, that makes sense. It sounds like a pain and I wish dry brushing was sextet looking so I could be done with this, but I understand and will comply. lol

[Finn]

Hmm... You can always do one more thing, but I guess you may consider it cheating Just paint the whole mini white and than use a stabilo pen to blackline the recesses

White is BTW my second least favorite color to paint. The least is black

[War Angel]

so i had a few miniture panic attacks, and almost lost my mind, but i think i finialy found a way to do it that i can enjoy. heres what ive got for the White trousers.

 

http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/o567/lastdog/IMG_1109_zps199b7446.jpg

 

http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/o567/lastdog/IMG_1112_zpsc7a7e52b.jpg

 

http://i1148.photobucket.com/albums/o567/lastdog/IMG_1111_zps995f0a3a.jpg

[HellChyld]

up close it looks good. how does it look at 3 feet? I think you have something so no worries

[Volfen]

What HellChyld said. :)

 

I find that when I take detail photos to show here and elsewhere, sometimes I groan at all the very obvious flaws.  The same mini on the tabletop looks just fine.

 

I love your color scheme and how you are going about it.  Keep up the good work :)