Painting Help

[Stupid Waldo]

So I have a question for anyone who has tips.  I really want to get a good look for my army, but I'm relatively terrible at painting.  My biggest issue is that I can't keep my hands from shaking, which inevitably leads me to screw up whatever I may be working on.  Any tricks or tips to minimize problems like this?

[serl]

what i do to prevent this is that i have a wooden box on my painting table, on which i can place the model i'm working on and can rest my hand on the box to get some stability for my hand and at the same time as raising the model to a more comfortable workinghight. For some clarification the box is about as high as the lenght of my forearm.

 

hope this helps

[Gurth]

Indeed: rest your wrists or the edges of your hands against something. This is a trick that painters of pictures have been using for centuries, using a stick held in the off-hand and resting against the painting so the hand holding the brush can lean on it. No reason why you can't do something similar when painting a model — a box, as has been suggested, can work, or the edge of the table depending on how you sit. You could also rig up a horizontal bar some distance above your work surface, if you want to hold the model in one hand and the brush in the other.

[S.k.i.t.t.l.e]

I hold the model in my left hand, put my wrists together (right at the joint, not along the whole of my forearm) and hold it like that. For extra stability on those trickier places I do this while rest my elbows on my work table. Also when I am holding it, I am not actually holding the model, I have it on a cork which gives me a little extra room to move around it. :)

[facmanpob]

Moderated breathing helps, particularly with the fiddly bits. Take several normal breaths to regulate your heart rate, then breathe out and hold it.... your heart rate will slow a little and your hands will get steadier. It's essentially the same technique as when a marksman shoots a rifle.

 

Being comfortable is also key....

[Digitalsyndrome]

I have the same problem, but today I came up with this...

 

 

It's a small cupboard doorknob made from some metal or other, rounded at the bottom. I've superglued a screw into it and then just blu-tacked the bit I'm painting to the top of it. Because it's heavy and rounded I can rest it on the table and move it round to get whatever angle on it, with my wrists rested in front of it. It's quite a nice shape and weight to hold to get underneath as well.

 

It's really helping me, so thought I'd share.

[Gurth]

There are also various hand-held vices that you can use, like this one:

http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server2900/jijtg7/products/211/images/513/nari16__40994.1372088376.1280.1280.jpg

though these have the problem that you can't set them down due to the handle having a rounded lower end. That could be solved by reshaping or removing the handle, but if a doorknob with blu-tack works for you, go for it

[Stupid Waldo]

My biggest problem comes with the hand that is holding the paint brush.  My fingers are too shakey and I end up messing up fine details.  The first time I painted marines, I got them based alright, but as soon as I tried to work on their eyes, things got messy.

[Grotsmasha]

things like eyes come down to practice, the more you do it the better your body will get a finer muscle movement. Also, going to an art shop and picking up their finest (smallest) brush will help minimise the effect of any shakes.

 

cheers,

jono

[Bryan Blaire]

Also, don't be afraid to get things a little messy when you are painting things like lenses and eyes. Since those things are usually deeper/recessed, etc, they fall into the "paint things inside before you paint things outside" tip. Paint the model from inside out, such as the inside of a cloak before the outside, etc. Eyes/lenses are inside the face/helm, so paint them, the mouth/breathing grill, etc, first. Then move "outward" from there to paint the rest of the face/helm. Then no matter how messy you were, you will carefully cover it up with paint (making sure not to cover your work on the eyes/lenses).

 

I also rest my wrists against my painting table edge while I'm working, that helps steady them some, and I will also echo facmanpob's suggestion on breathing, it is spot on and comes with practice.

[Gurth]

My fingers are too shakey and I end up messing up fine details.

Maybe you need to give up giving up drinking? (Once upon a time, I quit medication that I had been taking every day for a number of years (both on doctor's advice, BTW) and for the first few days I had real problems putting small parts onto models I was building because of my hands shaking ever so slightly. Big parts were no problem, but small ones, or painting fine detail … nope.)

However, don't forget you can touch up parts that haven't come out quite right. If you find you've painted the eye colour onto the helmet as well, paint over the excess paint with more helmet colour, for example.

[GhostLegion]

when I teach basic painting, I teach a trick I use myself when my hands start to shake (typically after too much time working fine details).  for this, just overpaint the eye, then clean it up after. 
 

what I mean is take the color you want the eye to be and draw it in a straight line through the eye area.  once this is dry you can clean up the area around the eye with whatever color the area is...be it skin or armor.  the trick here is to finish the eye with a touch of ink (if its a helmet eye lense), or just leave it alone if its a normal human eye. 
 

this trick might help you with the shaking hands.  no its not as pretty as the gemed eye some people like, but I think the ink finish give it a bit of a more workable shine.  you can also add to this by painting a small stripe of white into the eye lense before inking...this gives a bit of a shine to it, adds a focal emphasis...and can add an eeriness that works really well for legion of the damned and/or thousand sons...

 

[Stupid Waldo]

Interesting advice.  One of my big things is that I'm a perfectionist and really hate seeing imperfections in models.  I have a friend who plays grey knights, and he has his whole army painted, but the details are atrocious.  He offered to paint mine for me, and I refused because of how much he bled into other areas.  In this vein I also want my models to look very nice, so details, like inking the eye instead of using the gem effect hopefully help me out some.  Thanks guys!

[S.k.i.t.t.l.e]

Interesting advice.  One of my big things is that I'm a perfectionist and really hate seeing imperfections in models.  I have a friend who plays grey knights, and he has his whole army painted, but the details are atrocious.  He offered to paint mine for me, and I refused because of how much he bled into other areas.  In this vein I also want my models to look very nice, so details, like inking the eye instead of using the gem effect hopefully help me out some.  Thanks guys!

To be honest dude, even if you are shaky with the details, just get some spare helmets/heads and practice. You'll eventually learn to be a little less shaky and you will also learn to sort of compensate for your unsteadiness. I know I did, my hands certainly aren't like a surgeons, but bracing them and just 'giving it a go' works. Also, don't expect to get every single line right every single time, even GD winners have to paint over minor errors every time they paint. Good luck. :D

[facmanpob]

Oh, and something else I forgot to say - I find that if I'm stressing about getting something right on a model, I tense up, and my hands get less precise.... I usually paint the best when I'm relaxed (with maybe half a glass of wine inside me..... but not too much more! ;) )

[Rik Lightstar]

Also, doing some light weights wouldn't hurt, if you build the muscle tone you'll have finer control.

 

Rik