Painting Warp Falcons to a good level

[Heru]

Don't know if this is where I should put this or whatever.

 

Currently all my painted Warp Falcon models are only in flat colours (layering, highlighting etc just escape me). I want to strip them and make them better but I can't seem to manage it. Written tutorials just seem to escape me as I don't know particularly how to get from A to B. While all the tutorials with text and pictures I've looked at seem informative everytime I try to adapt one of the techinques displayed I can't seem to get it to work with the Warp Falcon's colour scheme.

 

Now I don't have a Mac compatable digital camera to show people what I can do, which has left me in a difficult situation. :D

 

The only way that I see it of me improving my models is through imitation (which is also the way I draw). What I was wondering was if someone comfortable with painting, and perhaps with some availible free time, could paint up a single Warp Falcons Space Marine to the level of good (not expert, as that would take me years to re-do my army) and make a tutorial with pictures for each stage (may need to be two models, one for getting comfortable with the colour scheme, the other to show each stage in painting).

 

 

Now I know I could just send them to get painted by an expert, but I feel that, that would be spitting in the face of the person who got me the GW Mega Paint set for Christmas.

 

 

Anyways if someone feels up to it here's the main colours

Liche Purple (like the Hawk Lords Space Marines in the 4th Ed Codex).

Chaos Black

Shining Gold (for the Veteran's helmets, and the Terminators)

Boltgun Metal (for the Weapons, and for the non-first Company Veteran Sergeants)

Scorpion Green (for the eyes, and perhaps for power weapons)

 

 

and here is the colour scheme itself

 

Warp Falcon's Colour scheme

 

For clarification on what is Liche Purple

1. The Should Pad rims

2. The standard trooper Helmet

3. The Knee pads

4. The Elbow pads

5. The Chest Eagle, or in the case of no chest eagle the chest plate.

6. The Boots

 

 

For clarification on what is boltgun metal

1. The non-First Company Veteran Sergeant Helmet

2. The Metal bits on the Boltgun

3. The Silver Stripe on the Sergeants helmet

4. The Silver Stripe on the 1st Company Veteran Sergeants Helmet

 

 

The left knee pad designates the Company Colour using the Codex colour set. I'm painting 5th Company so black is the colour it should be.

 

I can make the Warp Falcon chapter symbol seen on their Left Shoulder pads once I fix my printer using decal painting. The right shoulder has the normal Codex markings for tactical, devastator, assault etc.

 

 

 

If anyone can help all I can really offer is a thousand thanks.

[rat of vengence]

Well, the simplest way to add some depth is to have a highlight and a shade. Go to GW and pick out the next lightest purple, and the darkest grey. Paint a thin line of these colours on the edges of panels, plates etc. For depth use black ink and very very carefully paint the recesses and joins with the ink. You could use purple ink instead, with a touch of black added.

 

I don't have time to paint one up for you unfortunately, but I hope this helps.

 

RoV

[Heru]

:sigh:

[Exquisite Evil]

OK...

 

I find with Liche Purple it works better if your basecoat is darker and then your first hightlight is pure liche.

 

I use black ink rather than paint as it not only thins the liche but adds nice depth.

 

Then first highlight in liche.

 

For the edge highlight use either bone or SW Grey to lighten your purple - not white. the SW will give a 'cooler' feel to the purple, the bone warmer.

 

here is WIP pic I took a while ago(marines left leg), lighting was terrible but hope you can see what I mean -

 

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y73/LLV/PICT2163.jpg

[-Q-]

:sigh:

It's quite a lot to ask someone to paint a model, take step by step photos, upload them and explain to you as they go. Pretty inconsiderate to sigh at someone trying to help you.

 

Go to your local GW store. Bring a printout of the scheme you linked to. Ask the Red-Shirt to show you how to paint those colors. If they are too busy they will surely suggest a better time for you to come back for such a lesson, if they don't then ask them when a better time would be. Some stores have painting clinics by schedule where you can learn the techniques. Non-GW stores often have this sort of thing, just ask the manager if they have a painting club or painting night.

 

You could instead follow the 'painting shiny green' tutorial threads of late only start with "dark purple" instead of Dark Angels Green.

 

You could instead follow the advice given above that upset you, using his suggested colors combined with the photos of some of the other bazillion tutorials about how to highlight and shade.

 

You could instead hire an expert as you mentioned to paint a squad of Warp Falcons but only do one step more of painting on each one with the first only being basecoated :tu: Then you'd have a 3D in-person tutorial.

[Heru]

I wasn't sighing at him, and I apologize to anyone that got that impression.

 

 

It was really a form of thread bump (it had fallen to page 3), and I wasn't sure what to write so I put ":sigh:".

[Rymeer]

As previously said, you can refer to several tutorials on how to paint and highlight figures. There are stickied threads at the top of this discussion area on the board that might help. Also, I have found that sometimes you can find tutorials on the web sites of various painters and model painting groups online. A bit of online research on your part might be in order. If nothing else, it will give you some ideas of how others have acchieved their 'look', so that you can plan how to acchieve yours.

 

Your chosen color scheme is a bit 'odd' to my eyes, but everyone has their own ideas for paint schemes. My own ideas were tut-tutted and all but laughed at by some of the players at my local battle bunker, until the first squads and vehicles were done. Now, I have one of the most recognizable armys at the store, and one that many players like to see across the table from them. As far as I know, no one had ever done a Bubonic Brown and Bestial Brown with Dwarf Bronze and Boltgun army color scheme. I like the results, and it fits with my background 'fluff' for my DIY chapter.

 

Just because I find your colors a bit 'odd' does not make it 'bad'. I could have my head totally up my butt like some others did about my scheme until they saw results. I look forwards to seeing what your army eventually looks like. But, my primary point is: Any paint scheme is 'good', so long as the creator is happy with the results. I still run into people that just don't like the colors for my chapter, and I don't mind that. It's not their army, and they don't have to be happy with my color scheme... I do, and I do like the way my ideas became real in plastic and paint.

 

So, as I said. So long as you're happy with the results, let no one else tell you otherwise.

 

Just my thoughts,

 

Rymeer

[ursidae]

I just have to throw a little bit of off-topic in here! When you get to the bottom of it, the BEST aspect of this hobby is the free form do-it-yourself aspect that it was born from. However, that also means that there is a certain amount of responsibility on the part of the hobbyist themself. Now I am not saying you are wrong to ask for help from your peers (thats what we're here for) but you can also do some on-line research and talk to people. I find most of the information is already available to me I just have to look. So I guess all I am saying is everything is probably on the board or the internet just waiting for you to look for it.

[Cluracan]

Heru Talon, I may be able to help you here,

I'm in the middle of painting up some Ulthwé Eldar and I want to introduce some purple on my Farseer and Warlock robes, so I'm currently working with the colours that you want to use. As I've never used purple before, it's a learning experience for me as well.

From your original post, you seem to know the basics of undercoating and putting on blocks of base colour, so I won't insult you by starting from scratch.

Take a look at this Marine I painted up a this afternoon and let me know if that's what your mini's looks like. if it is, i will post a step-by-step approach to highlighting and shading these particular colours to help you on your way and give me some practice at the same time! :tu:

 

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g68/cluracan_photos/WarpFalcon.jpg

[Heru]

Yeah that's sorta what they look like, though I normally paint the abdomen grill/wires Liche Purple too.

 

 

Has the picture been brightened or did the purple come out that light? (mine is normally painted onto the black, giving a slightly darker purple).

 

 

Those points aside it looks pretty much exact. :blink:

 

 

 

 

Edit: Ugh I hate net chatting makes my writting look like I'm being super critical :(

[Cluracan]

Good, I just wanted to get close to what you described for the base colouring.

 

2 things on the purple:

1. I did enhance the photo slightly, just to sharpen up the detail, as my camera and my lighting are not the best

2. I used Vellajo paints and the purple is "Hexed Lichen", which is the equivalent of GW "Liche Purple" and there are 3 very thin layers, which covered the black quite well.

Either could explain the slight difference in tone to what you have. In daylight, the purple is quite dark, although pretty vibrant.

 

 

So, having got the basic colour scheme set up, I can take the next step towards bringing a bit of life into the paint job with some basic shadows and highlights.

 

Given that you are struggling with the highlight/shadow issue, I'll keep things simple with 1 shadow and 1 highlight on the purple and 1 highlight on the black. This should give you a decent "Gaming standard" model, at least it will be something better than just the "flat" look you have at the moment.

 

By the way, if your models do look like the one in my picture, there's no need to strip them and start again, just highlight/shadow what you have, unless the paint job is too think and hides the detail.

 

I'll stop chatting now and get to work...I'll post some pictures a bit later on B)

[Cluracan]

Ok, try this...

 

Unfortunately the pictures are not the best quality, but hopefully they give you the idea of what I was trying to achieve...Nothing fancy, just a quick method of adding a few higlights and shadows.

 

Throughout, I have only used limited number of colours.

Chaos Black, Liche Purple, Bleached Bone, Codex Grey, Black wash/Ink and a spot of Scaly green for the eyes

 

First, add the shading to the Purple

 

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g68/cluracan_photos/WarpFalcon2.jpg

 

Add a thin wash of black ink into the recesses of the purple parts

Just washing over the chest eagle A and allowing the ink to settle in the recesses or being more precise, as with the Shoe B and in the recesses of the helmet area.

 

Next, mix equal parts Liche purple and bleached bone and thin this down with water. Add the highlights to the raised areas and edges of the purple parts. As in A B C & D of the next picture. keep the paint thin and don't overload the brush. Also "drybrush" the high points of the chest eagle at this point, to restore the purple colour. (If you're not sure about drybushing, I can explain it later)

 

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g68/cluracan_photos/WarpFalcon3.jpg

 

To finish off the highlighting, mix a small amount of 1 part Liche purple to 2 parts Bleached Bone and just use this at the very tips of the chest eagle feathers A

 

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g68/cluracan_photos/WarpFalcon4.jpg

 

Lastly, just highlight the black with some watered down Codex Grey, adding colour to edges, again being careful not to have too much paint on the brush. This last picture should show what I mean, most obviously around the fist area. (If you find this highlighting a bit bright, you can always tone it down with a wash of watered down black ink)

 

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g68/cluracan_photos/WarpFalcon5.jpg

 

Once again, apologies about the quality of the pictures, but hopefully if you compare the left hand side of the model to the right hand side, you will see a reasonable difference.

 

I did the highlighting/shading on this model in about 35-40 minutes. It's not a fantastic job, and the camera exaggerates some of the imperfections, but in daylight it looks a decent gaming standard and certainly much better than it did with just the flat base colours.

 

I think you should get your paints out and give it another go...keep your paints thin and dont be afraid to experiment...There's no "Quick fix" to achieving a decent standard of painting, you just have to practice.

 

Have fun :D

[Heru]

My attempts at gaining something similar to the one you've done have came that nought :lol:

 

I just don't seem to have a hand for adding super detail (my "highlights" are like 3 times the width of yours, my black ink work went nuts and turned most of the purple black..., when I repained and went with purple ink it went almost as black, my liche/bleached bone highlighting attempts looked wrong completely etc etc etc).

 

 

It took me four hours to come to the mess the single model is in now. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to manage this at all (even with months of work, if I ever did manage the Medusa V campaign will be over).

[Rogue Trader]

If you find your highlights are too wide, simply narrow them by painting over with the darker base colour.

 

I use purple as well -

 

http://www.emador.com/temp/test_4.jpg

 

but I start with a darker base by mixing Chaos Black with Liche Purple, and working my way up through about pure Liche Purple to LP plus Bleached Bone. It's about seven or eight very thin layers - by which I mean the paint was very thin - it makes the highlighting process much more subtle, since you don't have the sudden jump in tone as each thin highlight allows some of the colour below to show through.

[ursidae]

I've been there with my DA... It's really hard to halp you when we cant see whats going wrong. The best I can offer is to keep at it, don't get discouraged and you'll be amazed with what comes with a little practice. :ph34r:

[Cluracan]

My attempts at gaining something similar to the one you've done have came that nought :blink:

 

I just don't seem to have a hand for adding super detail (my "highlights" are like 3 times the width of yours, my black ink work went nuts and turned most of the purple black..., when I repained and went with purple ink it went almost as black, my liche/bleached bone highlighting attempts looked wrong completely etc etc etc).

 

 

It took me four hours to come to the mess the single model is in now. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to manage this at all (even with months of work, if I ever did manage the Medusa V campaign will be over).

 

As Rogue Trader says, if your highlights are too wide, then narrow them with the base colour. The highlighting I did on the shoulder pads was too wide, so I went over them with liche purple to restore the base colour.

 

If you are "flooding" with your black ink, then you've got too much on the brush. However, if you keep your paints/inks well thinned, then even if you do accidentally turn your purple black, you can always drybrush with the original colour ( I'm assuming it was the chest eagle you had a problem with)

 

But listen, you have to have patience and you have to practice. If it didn't work, strip the mini (using whatever your favourite method is) and try again, and keep trying until you get it right.

 

Actually, what size/type/brand of brushes are you using? Decent brushes don't make a decent painter, but the right brushes will help you get better results a lot quicker.

[Heru]

GW Standard Brush and GW Fine Detail Brush primarily.

 

 

The Fine detail brush was a joke (A fine detail brush should end in a sharp point when new, this one didn't).

[Cluracan]

Well, there's part of your problem...GW brushes are ok up to a point, but they are not the best quality.and lose their points very quickly. Go to your local art supply shop and buy some decent Kolinsky sable brushes, a size 1 for decent coverage and a size 00 for the fine detail work, and I reckon you'll see an improvement in your painting straight away.

A Winsor & Newton Series 7 sable will set you back about