And you thought it would never happen

[Hoblit]

Well, I thought that seeing as you have all seen what I look like, I couldn\'t scare you anymore with my painting skills or lack of them. So here is the first of what will hopefully be many.

Mini the first

Feel free to leave comments. Be as harsh as you want, I promise i can take it.

 

[Mosch]

Um.... this photo is even worse than the one I took of my Formor Fiend. Seriously, I don\'t really have any idea what to say, it is very hard to see anything. Try taking the picture on the miniatures\' eye levels, get them into focus and don\'t move your camera so much.

 

[Hoblit]

As far as the photo goes, I took it long before I found this site. I will try and take a better pic at some point in the next couple of weeks.

I really just posted this to get over the worry of posting my first mini. I fugure that a bad pic and a paintjob with no highlights or shading will at least give me a base score from which to improve.

 

[Jkaen]

Don\'t want to be unfair but there is alot of room for improvement. Initial impressions would be to suggest
1. Thin your paints more and make sure the brush is clean between changing paints (detail looks obscured and the colours look dirty)
2. Base your models, its quick and easy to do and can really make a huge difference to the appearance
3. Try to include some shading and highlighting, especially obvious is the wraithguards guns

hope this helps

 

[Legacy Account]

I don\'t even want to make a comment on your painting, cos the photo is so bad!
Seriously, it is just not worth posting a photo of this quality. People can\'t give you any constructive advice, and you\'ll get a 5h1t mark purely because of the photo. Take shots of individual minis, and try to get them to fill the frame. Check out some of the photography tutorials in the articles section. Your photography can go a LOOOONG way to improving your painting/marks here.......

Congrats on your first post though, and keep working at it. People here are really helpful and give quality advice

 

[airhead]

Well, you said you would have a pic posted before your 100th post - you made that goal.

Group pics are very hard to judge. Very hard to see the details needed to judge a mini. Post a pic of the leader (hopefully your better work). Even if he is crap painted, a decent pic of a single mini will generally give a better score than a scattered group.

No basing costs about a point here. (no official guidlines, but about) Glue a little sand or static grass on the base will go a long way to making a mini look done.

Borrow a camera. Be sure to use a tripod with timed release of the shutter.

Tabletop (5) = maybe
Pic = -1 very blurry pic
base = -1 none
Blending = N/A unable to see
Effort = +1 Full squad with similar colors.

Scoring about a 3 to 4 here

 

[vincegamer]

Originally posted by airhead
Group pics are very hard to judge. Very hard to see the details needed to judge a mini. Post a pic of the leader (hopefully your better work). Even if he is crap painted, a decent pic of a single mini will generally give a better score than a scattered group.

This has not been the case in my experience. My group shots always score better than my individuals.

What you do need to do is get a light background (blue or gray is best). Get a closer shot with a macro. Don\'t space the minis so much.

As for painting, as above the photo limits my comments. I just want to say \"too many colors.\"
The bulk of the troops are wearing red, green, blue, yellow, gold, silver, and maybe some brown or purple. Think of modern uniforms. They try to be shades of one color, or at most 2 plus black or white. You can carry off more colors, but only by doing 1 or 2 main blocks of color then adding tiny detail lines in a 3rd color.

One more thing. A black wash on those weapons will improve them immensely, but ultimately you will want to do shadows and highlights in metalic paint just as you would flat paints on fabric.

 

[slidedog]

Woah Dude... gotta do something about that background. Waaaaay too distracting. All previous comments apply as well. Basic photo stuff, tripods, exposure, etc. I am finding that even with, and maybe especially with, digital cameras tripods are VERY important! A good coat of matte sealer would have made this one phtotgraph far better as well. Good luck and keep on painting!

 

[mickc22]

Originally posted by vincegamer

Originally posted by airhead
Group pics are very hard to judge. Very hard to see the details needed to judge a mini. Post a pic of the leader (hopefully your better work). Even if he is crap painted, a decent pic of a single mini will generally give a better score than a scattered group.

This has not been the case in my experience. My group shots always score better than my individuals.

What you do need to do is get a light background (blue or gray is best). Get a closer shot with a macro. Don\'t space the minis so much.

As for painting, as above the photo limits my comments. I just want to say \"too many colors.\"
The bulk of the troops are wearing red, green, blue, yellow, gold, silver, and maybe some brown or purple. Think of modern uniforms. They try to be shades of one color, or at most 2 plus black or white. You can carry off more colors, but only by doing 1 or 2 main blocks of color then adding tiny detail lines in a 3rd color.

One more thing. A black wash on those weapons will improve them immensely, but ultimately you will want to do shadows and highlights in metalic paint just as you would flat paints on fabric.

ditto...
the red & green will work together, but when you put the blue in there it kind \'kills\' the effect
in case you haven\'t heard: better pics = better scores, wha........., someone said that already?
and painting them...
..obviously painting them, painting goes without saying, but apart from better pics, & painting, what have the romans ever done for us!?....

 

[Klute]

I would pick the best one ,photo that as a single.By all means do a group shot as an insert to show its part of a squad.
This way you will get much better response to youre questions and hence better advice on getting better.
I genuinely would skip this as marking down would be unfair cos I cant see them well.If you just want to show your minis then fair enough,but if its advice on getting better you want then weve got to see what youve done up to now.

 

[Fizl]

I have to admit that I genrally give group shots a 5 or 6 unless it is obvious they are very very well painted. You can tell from a distance if they are to a table top standard, cos lets be honest, thats how the players will be seing them

I most definately prefer single shots, with a plain background. In fact it is the backgrounds that annoy me the most - either seeing the wallpaper, someone playing the ps2 (as I saw earlier) or blurry paint pots are way too distracting.

Shaz

 

[No Such Agency]

This has not been the case in my experience. My group shots always score better than my individuals.

This may be why: I\'ll give a single 7 model a 7. I\'ll give a squad of 7 models an 8 (or a group of 8\'s a 9), because it\'s impressive to have a whole squad painted to a superior standard I bet some others think the same way.

 

[Klute]

@NSA
I totally agree,as long as I can see the minis enough to score honestly.

 

[Hoblit]

First thing I would like to thank everyone who took the time to make comments.

I can understand the whole issue about the colour, but I had to put in the blue cloth as it goes with the background of the army.

I will probably get a better pic of the models in the next couple of weeks or so.

I am starting to paint up a Sisters of Battle force at the moment and will be posting those pics. Any comments and advice on those will be used as I want to improve my painting. I\'m hoping to get the first one up in two weeks.

Thanks again to all those who took the time to look at a terrible photo.

 

[Braveheart712]

Nice job

I just viewed your first post and the way I look at it everyone started somewhere. Your squad does have room for improvement both in painting and in the way it was presented (photo, background, etc) but I think it is great and you should be proud. If there is a Golden Daemon winner here who was fantastic the minute they first picked up a brush, I would like to meet them. Great first attempt, keep up the good work and like I have said hundreds of times before, have fun, this hobby is supposed to be enjoyable, right?

BTW- I too am working on a SoB army right now and having alot of fun painting it!