Graishak WIP

[Graishak]

Finally... it's finished & loaded to the gallery:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/422456

Next projects are already in the pipeline... will post an update as soon as I get started with the Weirdnob Shaman :-)

[Graishak]

Did a free hand drawing for my black knights... this is (at least to me) a quite challenging task.
Any tips & tricks how to improve on free hand drawings?
How do you guys draft it on the mini? Your feedback is very welcome ;-)

[Chaotic Creations]

Hey Alex, so sorry mate, just looking back through the threads and realised I didn’t leave a reply to your question. Hey definitely a decent attempt at freehand work. The first thing I can notice is the paint was way too thick on application, as with all painting you should build up a lot of thin layers instead of going in with thick coats to get the coverage.
So to get a really great look you have to blend the colours into shades and up to the highlights to give it that realistic feel.
Freehand is really just classical painting in 2D, although at a really small scale which makes it a bit more difficult. I would say if this is something you would like to master, just do a lot of practice, not necessarily on minis, just on a piece of paper, or even better prime a ice cream container lid etc so you can work on a medium which will be the same as the surface of a mini.
As for sketching onto a mini, I normally outline it in with a rather thin ink first as to not leave any brush strokes or texture, and this can be easily painted over if the lines aren’t too straight to start with.
Anyways mate, just keep practicing and you will learn a little more every time you try. Keep up the good work.

[Graishak]

3 already finished, 2 in painting, all others to be finally coverted...
Color scheme: Red, like in the army book... but couldn’t resisi to
add some purple elements.

[BloodASmedium]

You do some very good work on your playing models- must be fun adding unit after unit and seeing your army and legion beef up little by little.

[Chaotic Creations]

Looking good mate

[Graishak]

Oh yeah... it's really fun to see the army growing and to bring them onto the tabletop. I always need to dicipline myself not to by more... there are hordes waiting to be constructed, converted and painted.
But primarily I enjoy the painting. Having a good game each 6 weeks is fun, too ... but painting is such a cool thing to calm down and relax.

[Coyotebreaks]

That banner is very cool. You have a really nicely painted army in the works here. Good stuff.

[Foxtail]

Can we get a close up of the dude with a brazier on his head? He looks really well painted.

[Graishak]

With pleasure :-) So far it is the only guy, who is already in my gallery :-)

[Sigmar3]

Well done mate, Chaotic Creations is totally right with his feedback, but at the same time I think the banner design is still pretty good. Good progress overall

[Graishak]

I will do some tries for the next banner on paper
in order to improve. Will keep you posted...
The next banner will we for my second black knight
unit... so some time left.

[Graishak]

Musician of my blood knights is finished 😎

[BloodASmedium]

Excellent unit to be feared by all on that gaming board!!!

[Graishak]

Next candidate: An old blood dragon on a Chaos steed.
Quite impressive size

[Graishak]

Ten days later... Blood Knight #5 seems to be ready for action :-)


It took me a while to finish this one, as motivation kept dropping... but now I'm really happy to have it finished. 10 more to go....
I was really struggling with the demon on his helmet... mixing several brown + yellow colours, doing stripes, washing, again stripes.
Any advice from the comunity how to do this in a more advanced way?

For those, who wanna rate, here the link: http://www.coolminiornot.com/425785

[Chaotic Creations]

Nice one mate, this turned out great!!! That red is really nice... great work man!!!

[Graishak]

Thanks Marcus for your feedback and the comment in my gallery.
Seems like I‘m moving into the right direction. Feeling flattered to
receive a 10 from you.

The community has a split opinion about that. Scoring around 6 looks like
a medium quality work. So I would appreciate to get some inputs how to
improve further.

[Maenas]

Hi Graishak!
You have done well following CC's advice and joining the forum's WIPs!

I think the biggest problem you have now is paint dilution, I still struggle sometimes to get the correct dilution for each technique, but I find some of your strokes still show that the paint is quite thick, you can solve it diluting a tiny bit more your paint AND whipping off the excess of paint from the brush before applying it to the miniature.

The best thing I see from your paintworks is that you put the lights/shadows where they need to be, and that is the most difficult thing!!
Also on that freehand banner you did great, you just need to refine your brushstrokes (that's practice) but the drawing skills I think you already have them.

As a bonus xP you should be batchpainting those knights... going one by one will kill you downgrading you will to paint with each model. On the other hand I hate batchpainting, but moreover I double hate batchpainting mounted knights. xD xD
By batchpainting I mean that you should take 3-5 of them and paint them at the same time, specially if they are from the same style/unit. It will make you improve leaps also, since you are painting the same parts at the same time you will do it better as you progress through each model. On this short you tube video you can see what that means and some advice on it (paintwork is not the best, but hey, it's better than playing with plastic grey minis!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKC9oMszsqo

[Graishak]

Hola Maenas,
many thanks for that feedback... I did not so far think about diluting colours... This will for sure shrink the "thick" lines into something more narrow.
Will try that with the next model (and for sure it is going to help on the free-hand banner, too...).
The brush cannot get any smaller... I'm painting my details with 10/0.

Just watched the Youtube video... right, it can save time... I did it last time, once I was painting my spider riders, and your statement is very true... double hating
mounted minis :-D But I think your recommendation is good, to use 3-5, which will be not that demotivating, like doing 10 (or even 12 like in the video).

So... what are next steps?
I will do a break on my blood-knights unit and will practice diluting colours on my next spider project (picture next post), afterwards the batch painting will get a trial
on the blood knights (I got three conversions ready - two of them are flag bearer...).