another new guy in need of tips

[novalogic28]

hi all

i have recently finished my first figure painted for 11 years plus and would like some advice on how to improve and get my painting back on track,the model i chose was prince Tyrion i chose this figure because of the complexity of the fine detail and the large flat areas of the horse to practice my blending,i also tried NMM for the first time which i found very hard to get a convincing finish,

what i'm really after is advice and tips or critique to help me focus on were to improve,i don't have much time to paint these days due to work and family Tyrion took me around 3 months to complete due to this.so each figure painted needs to be a step forward any advise on what i should paint next would be great. you might notice the gems missing on the rear of tyrion but he was a ebay buy and cheap because of damage i striped old paint and filed of the damaged gems then re-built rear up with miliput.

thanks in advance
Richard

have added larger pic hope this helps

 

[dogfacedboy uk1]

Your pics are way too small to see the detail. From this distance he looks very nice though. Try and post them about 500 pixels wide. I cant say much more than that at the moment.....

dfb

 

[Einion]

First off, welcome back to the hobby.

Have to agree with dfb, about the second thing I thought of saying was your pics are too small for any on-point suggestions so the generalities of practice, practice, practice and try new stuff are about all you might expect.

...i also tried NMM for the first time which i found very hard to get a convincing finish,

It is hard to do for most painters, more on this below.

what i'm really after is advice and tips or critique to help me focus on were to improve,i don't have much time to paint these days due to work and family Tyrion took me around 3 months to complete due to this.so each figure painted needs to be a step forward ...

Many of us can understand this kind of time pressure. But it's a pretty tall order to seek improvement on every single paintjob though; expecting to improve with practice and dedication is fine, but getting better each and every time you paint something is not realistic, either generally or relating to specific techniques - some things require multiple goes over a long timeframe to get a good handle on. NMM is a good example of this - many people have struggled with this over years, not just weeks or months. It's not technically that hard to do at heart, but the conceptual side of it is often what takes all the time (unless you just grasp it pretty much instinctually).

any advise on what i should paint next would be great.

A sculpt you really like, that's one of the commonest pieces of advice - you're likely to do better work on something you like than on something you're a bit meh about.

Einion

 

[novalogic28]

Tried to add a bigger pic on my first post hope this helps thakyou for the replys so far

 

[Einion]

Sorry, actually the pic in your first post is a good size! When I moused over it I didn't get the change in the cursor that indicated the image would resize, but if we right-click and select View Image it comes up larger (2100 x 748).

Based on this, my first thoughts are work on the smoothness of your graduations and pay a little more attention to light direction so that lighting is handled more consistently from part to part and across larger areas. On the NMM front, there are different styles and ways of doing this that range from highly stylised to something more realistic so it's hard to give much more input than the usual - study painted examples you like and try to recreate what you see.

Einion

 

[dogfacedboy uk1]

Ahh yes, the pics are better now I have fiddled. I like the gems and hearts and the worn out feel the blue has on the horses barding cloth (whatever the tech term maybe..). I think a little more indicated wear elsewhere would have made it look better as the blue cloth on the horse is cleanly done towards the bottom. I am not a great painter and still very much learning myself so I don't like to offer too much technical advice as there are far better people than I for that on here. But I know what I like and the mini is nicely done. Not a fan of all those runes things GW sculpted onto the sword though.....

dfb