A WhIP to skip (silasvb's WIP and painting log)

[silasvb]

Hi all,

Please excuse a new WIP log from another beginner; I hope not to offend anyone. My objective is to use this to primarily monitor my own progress, but any thoughts from more experienced eyes would of course be much appreciated. Clearly the voting system on CMON isn't perfect, but it's a fairly good approximation of overall standard so I'm going to lay down the gauntlet for myself and aim for achiving a 7 rated miniature at some point in the future (at the moment, I'm just beggining to get a handle on just how long painting a 'good' mini takes, so don't want to set a time for this goal). At the moment, I'd say I'm probably a 5.7.

Now for some pictures...View attachment 54760
This is the first set of minis I've painted in about 10 years so actually really satisfied with how they came out. Lots to work on (particularly, the guns hands, legs below the knees - I still don't know which bit is flesh, and which bit is cloth - and consistency of colour). I've decided to class these as finished, and move on, rather than going over the same thing again and again.


View attachment 54762
Next up, a battle suit. The pic above shows the pose I'm going for (held together with white tac and pins right now). I've invested the time in cleaning up a lot of joints in the mini, particularly where the two sides of each jet pack join togethr, leaving a nasty join down th middle of th grills

Also a nice chance to show off a photo using my new light box which is great (£10 USB fold up job from Amazon). Still using a phone camera though, but it's a start.

View attachment 54761
First bit of painting is on the helmet. Two techniques here that I've never tired before. First, the lighting on the visor, which I'm extremely pleased wirh, and second, the freehand lettering. The freehand needs a couple of further coats to improve the consistency, but im terrified of mucking it up.

If anyone has any ideas of how to make painting Tau drones interesting, I'd love to know (perhaps to try out new colour schemes???). At the moment I'm not intending to get into gaming, so no huge reason to stick to a single colour scheme, so a break from white might be a good idea .

Nice looking geenstealer cult waiting for me, but I better get the rest of this battlesuit done first.

Thanks for reading.

 

[KruleBear]

Welcome to the forums. Based on where you are at currently, you should be at 7+ minis before long. May want to visit the photo section though as getting your photos steaightened out will help with the scores as well

 

[silasvb]

Thanks Krulebear. I'm with you on the photos. I get the impression that there is a huge jump in the quality of photos at around 6.5 so there is no doubt that this is something Ill have to get spot on in order to get better. At the moment, I don't think the photo quality is giving a false impression of what I'm doing (if it looks a bit crappy, it probably was me, not the camera). The photos will need to get better though to clearly show my painting skills (hopefully) improving.

Last thing I want is for this to be another WIP full of apologies with each photo, and each C&C beginning with "it might be the photo, but...".

Feel free to quote me on the about in 10 pages time by the way

 

[silasvb]

Of the snaps in my first post, I think the middle photo is the best quality. Do people agree with this?

 

[ten ball]

Yep looks good to me

 

[Octavian80]

Your Tau squad looks pretty good. White is tough color to paint and you did an admirable job with those figs. If you plan to do more white, it might help to check out David Powell's (Bailey03 here on CMON) painting blog. He has a tutorial on painting white, which I used recently on one of my Zombicide survivors, and it worked out pretty good; better than expected at any rate. Anyway, keep up the good work and you'll improve each time!

 

[silasvb]

Your Tau squad looks pretty good. White is tough color to paint and you did an admirable job with those figs. If you plan to do more white, it might help to check out David Powell's (Bailey03 here on CMON) painting blog. He has a tutorial on painting white, which I used recently on one of my Zombicide survivors, and it worked out pretty good; better than expected at any rate. Anyway, keep up the good work and you'll improve each time!

Cheers for the link Octavian. Amazing articles. I'd seen the knight here before, and absolutely loved it. Kinda daunting though - sky's the limit in what you can do I guess. Considering I've been planning on painting up a couple of Genestealer cult guardsmen to break up the repetition of dealing with Tau body armour, and Immediately thought of red ceremonial robes and white body armour, I think I might struggle to avoid painting white again .

Legs on the battlesuit are part-way done (coincidentally, just missing the white sections), so I'll follow David Powell's colours schemes and see how it goes. Fingers crossed my next photo won't look like an albino squig.

 

[silasvb]

A few more pictures from the paintstation...

It turns out that trying to batch paint Tau drones is a bit of a chore, so I've done a pretty lazy 2-coat job on them and are using the nice flat top surfaces to practice freehand. Looks like I need a lot of practice View attachment 54834View attachment 54835

The brown domes are looking very patchy. Photos are fairly reflective of what they are in real life.

View attachment 54836

Feeling slightly happier with the other WIP, but cant wait to do something more organic

 

[silasvb]

Genestealer cult

Tau drones and fire warriors varnished and put away, never to see the light of day again. I think it's fair to say that looking at them now, particularly in photographs, a huge number of flaws become visible. For me, the greatest weaknesses are patchy paint (probably not helped by my choice of colour scheme), unimaginative and scruffy basing, and truly terrible photography. To this end, I'm going to try and actively improve on these areas in this next project by:

• being more creative with the bases
• taking more photos from different angles, and downloading some better photography software
• not painting white

The next project is a set of 12 Imperial guardsmen in a genestealer cult. So far I have assembled and based them.

View attachment 54941

The bases are going to be based on a snowy tundra theme, with lichen coloured rocks (subtle yellow spots to contrast the purple tones of the guardsmen skin) and marsh grass (see photo below - the grass is made by drilling small holes in the base and inserting PVA coated twine)

View attachment 54942

To give an idea of what I'm looking to achieve:

View attachment 54943View attachment 54944

Each mini is pinned to their respective base so can be removed for painting, and to give a secure fit in the cork.

I'm struggling for ideas for colour schemes for these guys - so far my best idea is pale green trousers, black boots, dark green jacket and pale cream body armour, but this seems very uninspiring. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I've parked the Tau battlesuit for now. In the back of my mind, I'm contemplating stripping him and trying some HR Geiger esq circuit board style designs in a bone colour over black on the flat plates of his body armour - not something I think I can yet achieve without making a mess.

As usual, any C & C you have time to give would be much appreciated

 

[ten ball]

perhaps grey and light blue camo on the legs like alpine special forces

 

[silasvb]

perhaps grey and light blue camo on the legs like alpine special forces

Each time I've thought about camouflage, I've been thinking about doing it on the jacket - I keep discounting it because I think it tends to look very badly done on minis - having it on the legs as a secondary aspect of the uniform could help me get around this though. I'll try a mock up and see how it looks. I think this would be nicely offset with dark blue/grey jackets. This will hopefully make the skin (aiming for a slightly translucent purply flesh, highlighted up to very pale off white) really stand out on the head and gloves.

I'd previously been planning on trying a wooden effect on the last gun stocks and bodies, but think this will clash too much with the camo pattern so may save this for another day

 

[silasvb]

Didn't quite go to plan. I blame the colour scheme entirely on watching the England vs Wales game.

Still need to finish off the Lasrifle and the numeral on the shoulder.

Fairly happy with how things are looking so far, but would love some C and C. In my opinion the two strongest areas are the snow base and the face.

View attachment 55415View attachment 55414View attachment 55416View attachment 55417

At the moment I can't decide whether to paint up all 12 in the same way, or use each of them to try out different colour palettes.

 

[Wulfsaga]

I agree snow base and the face are the strongest. I think a few more tones betwee the darkest and lightest on the cloth areas. Kind of looks slightly like the paint is a bit watery. Have you considered using a touch more pigment? On the boots especially it looks like a watery layer of quite light grey was applied. Maybe try a darker grey with less water more pigment.

 

[silasvb]

I agree snow base and the face are the strongest. I think a few more tones betwee the darkest and lightest on the cloth areas. Kind of looks slightly like the paint is a bit watery. Have you considered using a touch more pigment? On the boots especially it looks like a watery layer of quite light grey was applied. Maybe try a darker grey with less water more pigment.

Thanks for taking the time to give your thoughts.

Completely agree with the boots. They were painted as an afterthought, but I've tried to add a bit more depth to them.

With regards to the cloth, there were actually quite a few shades and highlights. The main issue is my inaccuracy - quite often, I end up covering all he highlighted areas with the single colour intended to be the top highlight. I've tried to rework in some midtones to mixed success.

I've also added a few more colourful aspects (the skull, textured stock, jacket cuffs, and glow to the scope) to try and bring out some of the detail in the model.

Votes would be greatly appreciated for this fella - Seems very difficult to get up to the 50 needed to get a score, so contributions appreciated even if it's voting me down

http://www.coolminiornot.com/409764

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I've also been working on my Tau battlesuit. The whites and reds are looking very flat, but I'm going to call this one 'done' (at least for now).

View attachment 55423View attachment 55424

 

[Foxtail]

Voted.

Good work on the genestealer troop. You clearly have a good degree of brush control judging by the IX on his shoulder pad. The paint does look a littl chalky though, not sure how you could address that. It may be too watery like Wulf mentioned.

I like the crisis suit. Tau were my first army when I originally started gaming, I've always had a soft spot for them. With your whites, you need a couple more thin layers to get that coverage all the way there. Battlesuits are great for practicing highlighting as well, plenty of hard edges.

How much are you thinning your paints by?

 

[silasvb]

How much are you thinning your paints by?

Quite a bit, but sometimes a bit inconsistently. I'm aiming the 'milky' consistency people talk about here, and usually go for 33/33/33 water, paint, thinner. The results seem very inconsistent though.

I tend to favour pastel colours, so some of the chalkiness might relate to colour choice rather than paint consistency.

 

[Foxtail]

For your base colours you might be thinning too far. Take a look at the GW painting tutorials on youTube and how little Duncan thins his paint to begin with.

 

[silasvb]

Watched a couple. Perhaps I need to think 'thin layers' more, and 'thinned paint' less.

Really appreciate the time you guys have taken to give me your thoughts

 

[KruleBear]

Voted.

Just keep trying different things. It took me quite awhile to find a consistency that works for me and I still don't achieve it all the time. Brush time and trying new techniques are the only way we get better

 

[Maenas]

.../Votes would be greatly appreciated for this fella - Seems very difficult to get up to the 50 needed to get a score, so contributions appreciated even if it's voting me down http://www.coolminiornot.com/409764

Voted Your picture looks a bit underexposed, it may need more "shutter time" or more light, or maybe a bit of digital retouching.
It looks like you need to support the votings via other places since there is not enough people around the gallery (or at least enough people that uses the voting system) to get up to 50 votes, I also struggle to get to 50 votes. I think I only have a copule of submissions that pass through that limit.
But not being painting masters at all (me) makes it completely logical (IMHO).