Blood Angel Terminator 03 - WIP

[CaelynTek]

So I have two sets of Space Hulk waiting to be painted, but before I do, I have been practicing on some Black Reach terminators to get my color scheme and techniques back into shape. (Until about 2 months ago, I had not painted anything in over 12 years)

I would like some critique on the shading... which is more or less all I have done right now.

I used a combination of multi layer dry brushing, washes and wet blending.

Base Coat of Gore Red (Vallejo)
1/1 mixture of Black and Red Citadel washes over the whole thing
Liberal dry brush of Gore red
1/1 mix of Gore Red and Blood Red (Vallejo) dry brushed
added a bit of fire orange (Vallejo) to the pot and dry brushed again
Added a little more fire orange and dry brushed again
Red Wash (Citadel) over the whole thing.
Thinned out some straight fire orange quite a bit with some water, then wet blended it onto specific areas to bring them out even more.

Let me know what you think. I have two more Black Reach terminators to play with as I develop my color scheme and technique, before moving on to the Space Hulk mini\'s.

Right now I\'m looking specifically for critique on the shading, but any ideas for other parts of the mini let me know.

Thanks

I have tried using other forms of blending to get those silky smooth gradients I see on the top painters minis, but I just can\'t seem to do it, not even close. I\'ve watched videos, read articles, I still just can\'t get that to happen. I wish I knew what it was I was missing.

Oh I should also point out that I have diabetic retinopathy and eye floaters, and am massively color blind. So if you have a critique on the colors I am using, and want to recommend other colors and shades, you will have to give me specific product names, cause I can\'t go simply on sight for colors.

If you can recommend different colors for my shades, I prefer Vallejo paints, but Reaper will do.

Thanks ahead of time.

 

[CaelynTek]

I though perhaps I should show you the two previous attempts at these terminators, so you can see my progression:

This is the one I finished last weekend:

This was the first time I\'d ever used wet blending, trying to get a smooth gradient on the sword from orange to white... you can see it didn\'t turn out all that well.

This was the first one I painted:

I am trying to get all the power weapons to show the power running through them by showing a progression through the weapon from warm to white hot... but so far my attempts to show this haven\'t turned out like I wanted them too.

Any tips or help on that kind of thing would be appreciated, in addition to the critique of the shading on the armor at the top of the page.

Thanks

 

[demonelf3]

Well there\'s your problem; drybrushing. You will never get a smooth blend drybrushing large flat surfaces. The only time to think about it is painting fur... maybe not then either. Really the key to smooth blends is thin paint. A perhaps overused suggestion but there it is. Put down your basecoat, then to highlight add a bit of white, and add a few drops of water. Say 2 drops basecoat, 1 drop highlight, and 4-5 drops water. Load up your brush, dab most of the paint off, and then gently stroke on the color. It takes a LOT of getting used to, but you\'ll get there. Good luck!

 

[CaelynTek]

Originally posted by demonelf3
Well there\'s your problem; drybrushing. You will never get a smooth blend drybrushing large flat surfaces. The only time to think about it is painting fur... maybe not then either. Really the key to smooth blends is thin paint. A perhaps overused suggestion but there it is. Put down your basecoat, then to highlight add a bit of white, and add a few drops of water. Say 2 drops basecoat, 1 drop highlight, and 4-5 drops water. Load up your brush, dab most of the paint off, and then gently stroke on the color. It takes a LOT of getting used to, but you\'ll get there. Good luck!

Thanks for your reply.

I know what you mean about dry brushing, and I wouldn\'t use it at all if I could get blending to work. The only reason I still drybrush is because when I try to JUST use blending, it looks muddy.

That and when I try using JUST blending it takes forever... I can\'t ever imagine how people who do blending so fantastically well can finish a miniature in so little time.

I guess I need to find someone local who\'s good at it to let me watch in person.

Thanks though, maybe on the next mini I\'ll try blending only again and see if I can do any better.

 

[exilesjjb]

I think you have to decide what you want from your painting if it is good looking wargames armies then I agree you cant spend ages on every figure, for me a wargames figure needs to look good at arms length to which end I never paint eyes on my wargames figures.
If you want to paint as well as you can you have to take time out of the eqaution. You need to just enjoy the process of painting and when its done its done. I speak as a man who spent the weekend fighting with this problem and I found for me very good and fast must never meet and if I try, I get something that is not pleasing and needs a good bath and back to bare metal.

 

[CaelynTek]

Update #2

POWER glove.... F-YEAH!

I am so freaking happy with the result of this blending job I\'m ecstatic. It is by no means perfect, and I don\'t expect it to be, but I think I did a great job on it.

In addition to the blending job I did on the glove (Which took many steps and about an hour\'s time) I also did some highlighting on the rest of the armor, experimented with an alternating color pattern on the power cables (not done yet), base coated the storm bolter and skulls, and base coated, inked and highlighted the wings and belt buckle.

Both the wings on the chest and the power glove blend job were accomplished thanks solely to John Gemrich\'s advice on the subjects in a thread on a local forum... thanks John.

And here it is:

 

[CaelynTek]

Here is how I did the power glove.

I base coated it with watered down white. (About 2-3 applications) this gave me a fairly smooth finish to work from.

Then I made an orange wash by mixing some Citadel Baal Red wash with some old fashioned Citadel Yellow Ink, then added a little more water to thin it out more.

I used this mixture to wash over the whole power glove, then hit it with a blow dryer to speed up the drying process.

After the wash was dry I took the same thinned out white and re-painted all the flat surfaces with white, leaving only the crevasses and the areas around the bolts dark from the wash.

Then I added some yellow paint to the thinned out white and added a little more water.

I blended this yellow lightly, leaving only a small amount of white at the edge of the finger sections and the back of the hand.

Then I thinned out some straight Sunburst Yellow paint till it was almost like an Ink. Continued the blending process, always starting just a hair further back from the last layer.

Then added some Vallejo Fire Orange and some more water, and did it again.

Then added some Vallejo Blood Red and some more water and did it again till I finally finished.

I would have liked the transition from orange to red at the back to have been more smooth, but I can live with how it turned out.

 

[cheelfy]

If you want to do something more beautiful than usual way of painting armies, just try to highlight them without that we can see the transitions between colors andfor the stripes of the sergeant, if you don\'t arrive to make them perfectly you can take a little piece of paper and use it for them to be perfectly right (I know it can be strange but it\'s a good technique).
Cheers and keep working on them.

 

[CaelynTek]

FINISHED!

The image hasn\'t been released yet on CMON, but please stop by and rate this one once it\'s available.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/232042

 

[jdmchaos]

dude ill tell you what,your camera rocks!i can see every detail of that mini.what type is it?
anyhow remember to get thos stinking mold lines.they make a great paintjob look bad.all in all not bad id field that army.

 

[CaelynTek]

Originally posted by jdmchaos
dude ill tell you what,your camera rocks!i can see every detail of that mini.what type is it?
anyhow remember to get thos stinking mold lines.they make a great paintjob look bad.all in all not bad id field that army.

Believe it or not it\'s just a Kodak Easy share 8.1 Mega Pixel... but it has a Macro mode. I use a natural light desk lamp and just put the camera on the desk right next to the mini to take the pictures. For over head shots I put the camera on a short box and point it downward.

And yeah I know the mold lines suck... I\'m still looking for a good set of needle files and a sanding belt.