How am i doing

[judojason]

Hi

I've just joined after weeks of lurking and reading and i'm already after a bit of help

I've been into the fluff for a ling time for 40k, especially Dark Angels but have only just got into the actual models.

I picked up the Dark Venegance box for very cheap, sold the filthy chaos models on ebay and bought more marines with the proceeds, plus a few extras!

Anyway, enough personal fluff - i've never painted anything more than a wall but i've attempted a dark angel space marine with the intention of painting everything i can!

I only have 5 colours and 2 washes at the moment and i fully intend on buying more but before i do i'd really appreciate feedback on if i'm doing it right and what i can do to improve. I'm going to get more paint and highlight up fully at the weekend, i have 2 green paints, black, red and Ushabti at the moment, what would be best for highlights for my colours?

Thank you in advance, be nice! http://i670.photobucket.com/albums/vv70/judojason/20150602_162246.jpg

[palin2222]

Looks good to me. Keep it up :)

[Corswain]

Looking good. I found the dark vengeance videos on YouTube to be quite good to start.

[Greenz]

Very nice highlighting of the green. I find red can be a little tricky. Personally, I base with Khorne red, wash with Agrax Earthshade, go Khorne again, then Mephiston red, then a faint highlight of Screaming Skull, though you could try Ushabti.

As Corswain said, the Dark Vengeance videos are an excellent start.

[egon1six]

Dude, you can paint my models any day! Very well done love the color of your green!!!!

[Pearson73]

Looking good with the green!

[judojason]

Thanks guys, didnt expect praise :) Green is the only colour i have more than one of - Caliban green, Warpstone glow and biel tan wash - the rest i'll pick up at the weekend. 

 

I've just found the mentioned videos in an older post so i'll definitely keep you posted how i get on. 

 

Greenz - i'll be repainting the reds as you advised, i only had the one red but it seems a bit bright and un-grimdark to me.

[Grotsmasha]

That is looking great, even more so for a first model

In regards to what comes next, Bryan Blaire has THIS awesome thread in the Resources section that covers everything you want/need to know.

Cheers,
Jono

[mactire]

Well done, that looks great, really neat and smooth. One thing drill your barrels.

[SvenONE]

Nice start, a little more in focus could help though.

 

Your linework and craft looks pretty good! keep it up.

 

Don't drill your barrels, flaunt undrilled barrels like me!

[Vissah]

If only my first models were painted like that...

[plasmaspam]

Your model looks great, really nice green you've achieved.

 

If you wanted to go a bit further, wash all green with black, then do a second delicate edge highlight of that same green . I think you'd be very pleased with the result.

 

If you don't though, be satisfied that an army of those guys will look great on the tabletop.

[Stoic Raptor]

For a beginner, that is fantastic work!  I had to paint for many years before I was that good.  That level of quality is certainly sufficient for tabletop play - and you can only get better from here, right?

 

Glad to hear you will be picking up more colors and watching the GW tutorials - I look forward to seeing what you can accomplish when you are unleashed!

[Gillyfish]

I agree with everyone else - that's excellent work for your first model! :)

 

In terms of paints, think about the look you want to achieve and the types of tone you want at the end. Then find at least two paints - one that is roughly the tone you want and one that is slightly lighter. Also look to see if there is a wash which is darker. Don't be afraid to pick a different colour for the wash. 

 

I'd suggest using a black wash to shade the green armour after basecoating, then use the warpstone glow for edge highlighting before using your Biel Tan green as a wash to pull the colours together.

 

A tip I have learned for getting good bone chest eagles is to use a mid brown tone as a thin basecoat over black. Then aim to paint each feather of a wing using screaming skull (leaving a brown line in the recess). Finally, paint the edges of the feathers with white.

 

The picture below should show you what I mean:

 

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o126/Gillyfish2010/Photo14-1.jpg

[judojason]

Thanks for all the help guys, i'm done painting til the weekend as I don't have any more colours! I'll definitely be trying the black wash - is that very thin black paint or something like nuln oil?

 

I'm really not happy with the chest eagle but I love the one above this post so i'll be trying that asap.

 

Shopping list so far - Khorne red, Agrax Earthshade, Screaming skull, black wash, a brown of some description, leadbelcher, lighter silver, nuln oil.

 

Anything else you think i'll need?

 

I've been consuming tutorials like i'm starving and i'll be basing the models with cork, texture paint and a tiny bit of static grass.

 

Again, thank you for all the help :)

[Major_Gilbear]

I think that looks like a really solid start actually - well done!

In terms of tutorials, I understand that they are very helpful when you're starting out or when trying a new scheme/technique. However, be careful not to get bogged down too much on exact colours or whatever - the intention, technique, and effect are what you're really looking to glean, not a step-by step to slavishly follow! It's also very easy to get into something far too complicated for painting 50-60 models in a reasonable time.

I think that looks like a really solid start actually - well done!

In terms of tutorials, I understand that they are very helpful when you're starting out or when trying a new scheme/technique. However, be careful not to get bogged down too much on exact colours or whatever - the intention, technique, and effect are what you're really looking to glean, not a step-by step to slavishly follow! It's also very easy to get into something far too complicated for painting 50-60 models in a reasonable time.

That said, I do have a few comments and suggestions:

1) Two painting tutorials that I feel are very worth mentioning are those by Tale of Painters, and one by Ron Saikowski.

The first ones by TOP are very step-by-step and produce a GW studio-style paintjob that is clean and crisp. They cover all three paint schemes used by the Dark Angels (Deathwing, Ravenwing, and the chapter dark green scheme), which is helpful.

The second one by Ron I feel is much more suited to painting an army; it produces something instantly recognisable, and that looks more worn despite having some crisp details.

2) There are two broad styles of colour scheme for the Dark Angels; the artwork style (which is typically very dark green with sharp highlights and lots of small details), and the tabletop model style (which is clean, crisp, generally brighter and more saturated, and is sometimes referred to as the "Christmas look"). Both are very valid, as is any version in between, and depends as much on your personal preference as it does on your skill/ timescale/ level of bothered-ness. I prefer the artwork style myself, but with deep golds and a rich crimson for contrast (and general eye-catching interest on the tabletop).

3) For greens, I recommend starting with a fairly bright tone close your final highlight, and then washing down through greens, and finally washing down to a black/green. Finally, a sharp neat highlight will bring out any detail that may have lost contrast in the previous steps. This is much easier than trying to detail the whole paintjob all the way through, and lends itself extremely well to short evening painting sessions in the week. The weekend can then be used for the detail work and basing (which is always more involved and time-intensive).

4) For reds, I recommend starting with flat red, then shading down with a touch of blue or dark purple. Then, bring the red back up with the base colour and add a few careful highlights by adding a light flesh tone to the red. This gives you a dark rich red that isn't too bright, and that isn't too brown. The blue tones in the shading help to bring the red towards the dark green a little whilst still provide contrast. Using black or brown for the shading makes the red shading too neutral, and the model overall doesn't stand out as much on the tabletop.

5) For bone colours, I recommend starting with a mix of grey and brown. Add a little warm beige to this for highlights, increasing the amount of beige as you work up. Final highlights can be touched on with a little white mixed with beige, but I'd save this step only for hard materials or very sharp folds in robes.

6) For black colours, I recommend starting with a half-and-half mix of dark blue and black, and then highlight by adding a touch of white or ivory to the base mix. To give the black a deep colour, give it a thin wash of half black ink and half blue ink mixed, making sure that you don't put it on too thick or let it pool in the recesses. For very hard or shiny materials, a final spot highlight of thinned white used sparing here and there will give the required look. This produces a much better black than just using black on its own, and will look deeper and more saturated - the blue in the mix lends the shade a cooler feel even though you can't tell it's there, and the ivory in the highlight brings out warmer blue tones from the mix for the highlight. It's very easy to do, and covers very well too.

7) For golds, I add a little magenta paint to the first coat of gold, and then highlight up with plain gold, followed by a gold and silver highlight. I then wash this with a little sepia ink. The magenta in the base coat produces a really rich tone once the final sepia wash is applied, and the silver adds the "glint" to make the gold look shiny with the sepia wash tying it into the gold more smoothly.

8 ) In terms of paint, I think you can do better than GW paints. I mention this now, as you are starting out and don't have a lot of them yet! I would look into Vallejo Game Colour and P3 paints; they are extremely good, have a good range of colours, cover well, and you get a lot more for your money. You can of course mix and match (and intermix the paint) between any of the ranges as you wish as well, so if you like a particular colour or whatever, don't feel constrained to stick to just one range.

My own models (which are on a hiatus due to house moving - yes, I've been painting rooms with a roller recently!) are shown below:

http://i407.photobucket.com/albums/pp154/MajorGilbear/Dark%20Angels%20Plog/DarkAngelFirstMarineGroup1_zps57d31163.jpg

The photo was taken in the evening, indoors, with artificial light. Since they were photographed, they have been finished and mounted on bases. Now it's summer and I have better light, I'll try and re-photograph them if I get a chance (the highlights look more exaggerated because the lower light levels led my phone to auto-contrast the picture... Sigh).

One thing I did consciously do was restrict how much silver and white I used. I did this becuase the silver on the gun stands out more, and becuase the white is reserved for the chapter symbol and for final highlights, which makes them both stand out more whilst preserving the darker overall feel of the model.

Anyway, enough rambling from me now! Also please let me know if you'd prefer my picture here to be made a link and I'll change it (since it's not normally best manners to post your own work in other people's threads!). I look forward to seeing your progress.

[Epher]

And you said you were new at this?? They look great and the highlighting looks sharp!!

Epher approved!!

[shabbadoo]

Even though the picture is blurry, I can tell two things from it. First, you've put the paint on very smoothly, which is a very good thing. Second, your have painted the model fairly neatly. Sure, you are not quite finished yet, and there is some touch-up work left to do, but this is a great first effort. Altogether, what you have achieved here so far tells me you have the required level of patience and enough skill to produce some amazing models. Look around for ideas/tips/inspiration from others, and just keep at it. You are doing great so far, but you will definitely get even better.

[Stoic Raptor]

Major Gilbear's advice is solid in all regards - and if I could paint my Dark Angels to look like his I'd never play my Space Wolves army again.

 

The only thing I'd recommend is on the matter of paints.  Yes, Vallejo does have "more colors", but only if you count their "Model Color" line which is only military-style paints.  Their Game Color line is basically a subset of Citadel colors, but they share the same formulation throughout.  That means that you do not have Base paints formulated for coverage, Layers formulated for translucency with pigment saturation, etc.  

 

Still, Vallejo are excellent paints and I use them as well.  If you do go that route, I'd recommend Game Air colors - the consistency is thinner for airbrush use, but incidentally that happens to be the consistency you want for brush painting as well.  Most new painters do not properly thin their paints enough.

 

The P3 line of paints by Privateer is fantastic - it uses a liquid pigment so it can be thinned "infinitely" without affecting the pigment saturation.  This makes it easy to use for shading, washes, glazes etc.  The only drawback is the somewhat limited selection of colors, which are geared mostly toward Warmachines and Hordes factions.

[Space Truckin]

 

 

http://i407.photobucket.com/albums/pp154/MajorGilbear/Dark%20Angels%20Plog/DarkAngelFirstMarineGroup1_zps57d31163.jpg

 

 

 

1 reads post

2 studies picture

3 scratches head

4 chucks paints out  window

5 minis into simple green

:tu:

 

seriously though these are fantastic.

I'm currently working on a DV tactical squad and this post has me rethinking everything.

[Major_Gilbear]

The only thing I'd recommend is on the matter of paints. Yes, Vallejo does have "more colors", but only if you count their "Model Color" line which is only military-style paints. Their Game Color line is basically a subset of Citadel colors, but they share the same formulation throughout. That means that you do not have Base paints formulated for coverage, Layers formulated for translucency with pigment saturation, etc.

Still, Vallejo are excellent paints and I use them as well. If you do go that route, I'd recommend Game Air colors - the consistency is thinner for airbrush use, but incidentally that happens to be the consistency you want for brush painting as well. Most new painters do not properly thin their paints enough.

The P3 line of paints by Privateer is fantastic - it uses a liquid pigment so it can be thinned "infinitely" without affecting the pigment saturation. This makes it easy to use for shading, washes, glazes etc. The only drawback is the somewhat limited selection of colors, which are geared mostly toward Warmachines and Hordes factions.

Just to note that Vallejo's Game Colour range is more than big enough, and is fully compatible with the huge Model Color range. Also more colours doesn't mean better. For example, I don't think that for all the reds in the current GW paint line, there is a proper flat primary red. Wheras if I have a plain red, I am more than able to tint it as needed myself (or mix up a pot to use over an army); with a tinted red though, I can never get back to the pure red however.

VMC does have emphasis on historical uniforms and such, but still has lots and lots of vibrant colours - in fact VCM (and Vallajo Air Colour) are the paints used for all the official studio paint jobs for Corvus Belli's Infinity miniatures, and they are not drab at all!

In addition, Vallejo do a range of Opaque paints (which are their high-pigment Foundation-style paints), and a full range of washes as well as a separate series of ink.

You make an excellent point on Vallejo Air though.

In short, even though I don't use them as my main paints any more, they are excellent paints that are easily a match for GW's paint range.

For the P3 range: I use it almost exclusively now, and the Dark Angels I've posted are all painted with them. In fact, apart from preferring the Vallejo Game Colour inks, they are the only paints I currently use!

___________________________________________________________________

As an aside, responding to Ulfgrim has reminded me to make a couple more points:

9) Paint is paint. You may have a preference for a particular range or colour, or not. I would suggest trying out the others a bit though, and keeping an open mind on brands.

10) Get a small spiral-bound notebook, and jot down the colours you use on your models. Not only will this help you in future to match the paintjobs up, but it can be used to make other relevant notes as you paint. For any paints that I mix, I often put a blob onto the notebook page next to the description. This helps me if I ever have to match the paint in the future (for example, if a particular colour is discontinued). This doesn't need to be a complicated "work" type diary or anything either - it is literally just a record of what paints you used on what model, and ditto for any mixed colours.

11) Painting is not an exact science. You'll notice that while I've explained colours, I haven't used brand-names for colours. This is because the feel, tone, shade, etc, are all more important than using the "official" colour (which is often incorrect or varies by batch anyway). I see historical miniature painters obsessing in the same way over what shade of grey to use for a german uniform or whatever as well, and when you realise it's nonsense in the first place (because there is no one "correct shade" anyway for example), it's much more liberating and fun to just paint your models so that they look good! ...I mean, isn't that the whole point of painting them at all?

[Stoic Raptor]

 

For the P3 range: I use it almost exclusively now, and the Dark Angels I've posted are all painted with them. In fact, apart from preferring the Vallejo Game Colour inks, they are the only paints I currently use!

 

I'd be interested to know which particular P3 colors you used.  I'm not much for custom blending and tinting of colors, but if there are tones I can work with out of the pot, I'll give them a try.  In fact, for my first Deathwing I used the Menoth White base and highlight, but to me they came out far too yellow; I wanted a more brownish tint than that.

[judojason]

Wow, those marines! Thank you again for all the help, i've got a ton of information and i'll be trying Vallejo and Reaper paints before i go mad on paints - they definitely look better value. Major Gilbear - thank you for the advice and for giving me something to aim for, and everyone else for the information.

 

I'll keep you posted how it goes, i'm dreading the deathwing if i'm honest!

[Interrogator Stobz]

Great looking mini JJ :tu:

 

There is some fantastic advice from the other Frater; if I could add my 2c then it would be to shade the recesses on the chest icon (and others) a very dark brown to look more like the good Majors, the light to medium brown to me just looks washed out and unfinished. Two coats of Agrax Earthshade one after basecoating and the second after the first layer but before highlighting should do it nicely.

Same amount of work, twice the pop.

 

Carry on Sir, and welcome to the Rock.

 

:D

stobs

[Major_Gilbear]

I'd be interested to know which particular P3 colors you used. I'm not much for custom blending and tinting of colors, but if there are tones I can work with out of the pot, I'll give them a try. In fact, for my first Deathwing I used the Menoth White base and highlight, but to me they came out far too yellow; I wanted a more brownish tint than that.

(Without looking in my notebook) I used Iosan Green as a base tone, and started by adding yellow and Menoth White Highlight to it for the base coat. I then glazed down to Iosan green, and from there I used a mixture of dark green and black ink to shade down further still. If the highlights came through well enough, I go straight onto using very thin pure white for the sharp final highlights. Sometimes I need to go back into slected areas with a bit more Iosan green and yellow first though, but I generally find it more efficient to spend a little extra time getting the tones right (or nearly right) on the first pass.

For Deathwing, using Menoth White Highlight should be okay (it's a light ivory), but Menoth White Base is rather yellow-beige. I do think it would produce something that's close to the studio scheme however, although my preference would be to match the artwork colours more.

For that, I'd add Menoth White Highlight to a warm light grey (something like Hammerfall Khaki or Trollblood Highlight), and then build up to pure Mentoh White Highlight. Alternatively, start with a good even coat of MWH and the gradually glaze down into the recsesses with increasing darker tones made by adding the aforementioned greys.

To get some deep shading for contrast in selected areas, you can add a little Bastion Grey to the mix, as it's a nice warm mid grey. I'd then finish with using very thinned-down pure white for final spot highlights and to emphasis focal points like the helmet area (just as I do with the green marines).

When paintning these off-whites, you need a smooth transition, but that transition has to be quite tight - if you make the graduation of colour too broad and between two overly-contrasting tones, you will end up with a Deathing that looks rather brown and dirty. To get that nice bleached bone appearance, you have to be quite controlled in how much of the darker tones are visible, and leave the darkest ones only in selected areas. These selected areas for the darkest shading also need a little thought to ensure that they are spread over the model evenly, or the model may look "lopsided" - I'd suggest areas like the foot/greave, thigh/hip, torso/shoulder are probably the ones that most merit this darker tone.

Wow, those marines! Thank you again for all the help, i've got a ton of information and i'll be trying Vallejo and Reaper paints before i go mad on paints - they definitely look better value. Major Gilbear - thank you for the advice and for giving me something to aim for, and everyone else for the information.

I'll keep you posted how it goes, i'm dreading the deathwing if i'm honest!

You're quite welcome!

I haven't posted much recently, but I thought your very first efforts were well worth logging in to support. I look forward to seeing how you get on!