Grgobart needs to do some converting and painting again

[Drider]

I'd be interested in reading anything you'd write up about it. My Sisters look fairly basic in comparison. I'm just starting to get back to playing after about 4 months and haven't picked up a brush in about as much time. Looking at your stuff has inspired me to pick up a brush and start working on the 11 melta girls i was half way through batch painting before my break.

 

Painting wise I'd like more about your processes for cloth and skin. My Habits are quite simple and muted, so i'd like to have some ideas for making them pop a bit more. My faces suck and I don't like doing them because they suck, and they suck because i don't get enough practice doing them. so they that's a kinda motivational catch 22 I need to overcome with myself, knowing a process i can refer to would be helpful.

 

I think a lot of the conversions you've done are fantastic. I've had a quick look through you'r gallery and some of them are just jaw dropping good. i still can't get over how good that Repressor looks both in terms of modeling and painting. without a doubt one of, if not the best home made Repressor I've seen. I'm extremely tempted to copy the gold edging you've done on it for my vehicles as i've not done any edge highlighting on them yet. I've got 3 exorcists, 7 rhinos (4 painted, 3 unpainted), 3 immo turrets and 3 penitent engines (at various stages of progress) that have all been on the to do list for the best part of a year.

[Grgobart]

Well then, here's how I paint my miniature:

I start by priming the miniature white.

The paints I use from there are:
- old Citadel Elf Flesh for skin
- old Citadel Dwarf Flesh for holsters, belts and other lether things
- old Citadel Boltgun Metal for all things metal (except blades for which I use Mithril Silver)
- old Citadel Bleached Bone for Scrolls, Paper and the white of the eyes
- old Citadel Blood Red for lips, jewels and the seal part of Purity Seals
- Vallejo Gory Red for cloth
- Vallejo Black for armour and casing
- Vallejo Polished Gold for anything ... gold.

Now since I'm not an advanced painter, me using a colour for something means (with a few exceptions I'll mention further down), I do only use just that colour and I usually apply it evenly in just one layer. No mixing colours, no blending or layering! The Major exception being the Gory Red for cloth, which I thin down a little more than the other colours, but apply a bit more generously onto the model. The intended result is, that edges and protruding areas have a bit of the white of the primer shining through, while the recesses and generally flat areas recieve a more properly covering red.

For the eyes, it shouldn't be too much of a secret: Paint the eyesockets black -> let it dry -> paint the eyesockets white, but leave a slight rim of black around -> let it dry again -> make black dots for the pupils, preferably in such an order, that when painting the second pupil, you don't obscure your view on the first one with the brush (a lot less cross-eyed Sisters that way! ).
I generally do try to make up the lack of fancy painting techniques, by painting as many details as I can on the models. This is especially the case, with anything I paint gold (which is generally a lot on my models). If a model has some greater expanses of gold I do add a layer of Vomit Brown, before applying the gold, which helps even a way too thin layer of gold look gold in the end.

The one part on a helmet-less Sister model I do actually use some form of "advanced" painting technique is the hair, were I dry-brush a lighter shade onto a darker base, from the range of colours I have available between dark brown to yellow/blond.

Then comes the Wash, for which I use Vallejo Sepia Shade. Originally coming from dip-shading my models, I only use one wash on the whole of my model, applied with a very very big brush! Juggling around the various drops of pooling wash, as well as the getting the thinning down just right, can be a bit tricky at times and might take an artistic casualty or two among your hard painted models, to get the neccessary experience.

Finally it's time to varnish. Presumably the biggest difference here is, that I gloss varnish all black armour (as well as red jewels and purity Seals). With the rest of the miniature getting the more classically matt varnished, means at least one of those varnishes has to be applied by brush. Personally I do both by brush as well as the priming by brush, due to some bad experiences with spray cans in the past.
As an illustrative example for the result of this painting method, my more ecclesiarcal looking alternatives for Death Cult Assassins (Crusader Battle Nuns from Reaper Miniatures):


I wish I could've show regular Sisters as example for this, but unfortunately I have painted all of them before I actually started using this, my current way of painting. Before, I primed black and thus used up to five layers of Citadel Red Gore to get cloth properly red. I also used much darker Citadel Shining Gold and as mentioned earlier, some dip-shader, from army painter I believe.
Saint Celestine and the older Order of Our Martyred Lady Banner Bearer were also painted back then.

Hope this is helpful and hopefully any advanced painters accidentally reading this, don't deem me too much of an barbarian.

[Drider]

Thanks very much for the write up!

Incase you wanted to compare, this is more or less how I do my basic Sisters
Start
Black primer
Base the armour Abaddon Black
 
Cloth
Base with Mephiston red
Shade with Agrax
Drybrush Meph red
 
Bolter
Base with Leadbelcher
Shade with Agrax
Drybrush Leadbelcher
 
Hair
Base Celestra Grey
Drybrush Ulthuan Grey
 
Leather belt pouches
Base Mournfang brown
Shade Agrax
Edge highlight Bugman's Glow
 
Aquila/Fluer De Lis
Drybrush Celestra Grey (unless it's a Cannoness, they get gold fluer de lis)
 
Misc Metals
Base the "I" and chain that are hung from the belt, the "I" on the Aquila and respirator(?) with Balthasar Gold
Shade with agrax
Highlight Gehenna's Gold
Base the respirator(?) tubes with Lead belcher
Shade with Agrax
 
Face
Base Bugman's glow
Base Cadian Fleshtone
Shade Axrax
Highlight Cadian Fleshtone
 
Finishing up
Clean up the mess the armour has gotten into with all the drybrushing with Abaddon Black
Edge Highlight the shoulders, knee and the ridge on the boob plate with Leadbelcher (unless it's a Canoness as she gets gold trim). I did use shades of grey but eventually settled on metal and i really don't like the blue highlights on black armour. 
Glue on the backpack and clean up any glueburn
 
There's a few things i could do but i'm lazy and tend to avoid fine details if i can get away with it as i'm afraid i'll mess it up, edge highlight the ridges on the foot and pick out the bits on the side of the leg that look like they should be metallic. I could also take a very light drybrush over the edges/raised areas of the clorth parts with shade lighter red.
 
Here's a close up pic I took of a Canoness i took ages ago when i was finishing up painting her.

http://i.imgur.com/bX39KGT.jpg

 

And here's a few shots of my collection thus far. 

http://imgur.com/a/cXA5f

It's reasonably up to date but the Dominions are almost finished now.

 

Once I get around to finishing the penitent engines I'm tempted to get some of the blood technical paint. put some on the close combat weapons and I'm thinking maybe get a small amount on a tooth brush to create a spray effect to go across the pilot.

[Isolia]

Nice ! Thanks for the painting details, I like to know how people got to their results :)

[Grgobart]

Finished my new Transport/Display Boxes for my new Banner Bearer and my Marija Jacobus models!

The purpose of these boxes is to be equally suited for safely transporting some of my more delicate miniatures and acting as a display case for some of the more spectacular models (which happen to be the more delicate ones) in my army.

First, one of the previous batch of boxes for my Saint Celestine:

Definately good enough for safe transportation, these boxes had a bit of a drawback, in that the cheap furniture magnets are showing. Something I managed to avoid with the new boxes:

One of these magnets is definately strong enough to hold a model and the only reason I used two in my first design, is to prevent the model from wobbling, as the actual magnet in these furniture magnets isn't solidly mounted in its fixture. With the new design I simply put a layer of sheet metal (from a tin box of cookies) to cover the magnet from view and also allow for a smoother gliding in and out of the model. Of course I had to insert washers into the bases of the models I built these boxes for. Also went from using extra magnets as closing mechanism for the "door" to cheaper velcro stickers.