BoardGame Minis : Warhammer Quest + SW Imperial Assault

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alexz3

New member
Hi everyone,

I am starting this new thread to discuss my board game minis for WH Quest + SW Imperial Assault. I just received the games this week and spent the first night just gluing 4 of the WH quest heroes (takes for ever).

The level of details is incredible on such small scale, but its very intimidating to me as I am afraid I will never be able to paint such small details properly. The eyes are like 1 micron big, how the hell do you paint it to such level of precision as seen on the GW box / site ? I am guessing its 'just' 2 white spots over a black / dark shading ?

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When you see the GW painting guides for the Dwarfs, it doesn't look as precise :

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Knight Venator

This guy is tricky to build and I will paint the wings separately to be able to get all the details in the back armor done right. Not sure I will use the bird either.

I just started with 2 thin coats of gold and did a first sepia wash to see the details. I'll paint the black undershirt parts now that I can see them :)

I think I will try painting the wings blue + white as suggested on the box, but was thinking maybe making them red / orange, what do you guys think ?

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Auric Runemaster

I had an issue building with this guy, as the super glue 'moved' over night and his main arm ended up moving down, so its not straight up like its supposed to be, and I wasn't able to move it anymore without risking breaking the plastic :( This guy has such small details... I have to rely on GW website photos and zoom in to see what I am missing (black undercoat doesn't help). I just started with 3 thin layers of pale skin, but I think I will change this to a dark skin tone and work on highlights from there as seen in the GW painting guide :

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Back to complaining... here is a comparison shot of the minis I am doing :

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That Lando SW mini is sooo small, its not even funny. Since I bought every single expansion for this game, I think I need to do another eye laser surgery to give me back my close sight vision :)
 
Sicks

Sicks

Active member
There's an article in the painting section of he forum (one of the stickies has a list of tutorials, i think its in there somewhere) but basically, do the eyes first, they're the hardest part and even harder to do if you've already painted the face and are trying to avoid getting paint elsewhere. Basically what i did when i was starting out is base coat the face, maybe a quick wash around the eyes so you can see the details, then carefully paint the eyes white (technically off-white is better because people tend to not have pure white eyes unreal life, something like pallid witch flesh or a light ivory colour) once that's dry take some black me try and draw a line straight down the middle, it's important to try and make them look like they're facing the same way, if you mess up just paint over with white and start over, it can be a pain in the arse but it's generally better to only have to repaint the eyes than what if you've done the skin already and then slip and splodge black or white all over the face lol
 
MAXXxxx

MAXXxxx

Well-known member
Hi, welcome to the forums/wips.

To your (not necessarily asked) question:

1. eyes are simple, the trick is having a good brush and a bit thinner paint than from the pot to let it flow easily. The way I do it on this scale is simply blacking out the eyesocket, when dry painting in the white. But from the sides. This way the point of the brush is at the eye corners. Then simply put a point of black in.
1a. small trick one to make the look more even: I paint in the iris/pupil with the mini being upside down. Weird as it is, but makes it easier on the brain to make the look more even
1b. small trick 2 if I don't want to mess with a brush: make one end of a toothpick sharper, dip it into the thinned paint, remove some by dabbing it on your hand, and then use it to 'paint' in the eye.

2. red/orange could work. It would be more unique, but at the same time gold is already orange, so you'd loose the contrast between the 2 materials. So at the end if you like it how it look do it, but I'd personally avoid it.

3. nah, no need for eye surgery for veery small figures, simply use the force :)
 
A

alexz3

New member
as always, thanks for the tips :) I'll try the eyes first on the dwarf and then work on the face skin. I have a super small detail brush, only issue is thinning the paint enough so that it doesn't dry in 1 second as the brush is so small.

I didn't remember how small these GW minis were back in my youth... I was nearsigthed back then and could see up close super clearly. I got lasik surgery and got rid of my glasses for good 3 years ago, but now my vision up close sucks...

I'll go with white / blue for contrast on the wings :)

Do you think the armor needs more wash / shading at this point?
 
Sicks

Sicks

Active member
You could also go for anywhere between the purple to blue spectrum for the wings, with gold being yellow to orange it would make a nice contrast. As max said red/orange could work but you'd be overloaded on similar warm colours all over.

As for the armour, it's probably ok for gaming with if you highlight from here, if you want to go further when i shade gold I usually do a wash of purple and then brown which gives quite a rich shade (gw druchi violet and agrax earthshade)

Edit: oh and also if you struggle with sight you could look into some magnifying glasses or a lamp with built in magnifier, i have one that's meant for nail art but it has a daylight bulb (which in itself makes it easier to see) with a flap that opens up to a magnifying glass
 
A

alexz3

New member
I bought a visor but the even with the highest magnification at 5X it doesn't help as much as I'd like. Plus I look like a total retard... my wife is already 'comprehensive' about my renewed hobby, so the visor is only out when she is out...

I mean, I am currently hiding my Imperial Assault giant box and WH Quest boxes in the basement and only bringing out 3-4 figurines at a time :)

For the gold armor shade, i'll try a very light purple wash on 1 area and see what it does, as I already did the brownish wash. But I feel the first wash wasn't strong enough on some part anyways.
 
MAXXxxx

MAXXxxx

Well-known member
small brush could be a problem with eyes. You need a decent brush with good point. For me a WnN7 (normal, not mini)/Raphaell 8404 size 0 or 1 is perfect.
At the start I always had problems with a 2/0 or smaller brushes.

if you want orange/red plume:
- you could play with shades on the gold (shading with blue or green instead of the brown) or
- you could paint the shoulderpads green/blue or
- you could desaturate the golds (using lots of steel like metals(silvers) at the highlights, so the gold is more washed out)
OR
- you could go back to the blue-white or change to a purple-white. Or even try some dark colors (black highlighted with red or blue or reddish brown or blueish grey, as a side effect it could make painting it easier as covering an area with black is much easier than with white)

armor: yeah, why not? worst case after wash you'll do one more highlight.
 
KruleBear

KruleBear

Active member
alexz3 said:
I bought a visor but the even with the highest magnification at 5X it doesn't help as much as I'd like. Plus I look like a total retard... my wife is already 'comprehensive' about my renewed hobby, so the visor is only out when she is out...

I mean, I am currently hiding my Imperial Assault giant box and WH Quest boxes in the basement and only bringing out 3-4 figurines at a time :)

For the gold armor shade, i'll try a very light purple wash on 1 area and see what it does, as I already did the brownish wash. But I feel the first wash wasn't strong enough on some part anyways.
Click to expand...
Lol. Welcome to the spouses think we are nuts club! i had my lasik at 45, so they did in mono vision mode...i.e. My right eye is good for distance and my left eye for close up. Normally the brain adjusts for the difference, except when you are tired. So I use the nerdy visor too. Lol

BTW eyes are a pain in the ass for most of us and you are off to a great start.
 
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alexz3

New member
lol :) just to be clear, those eyes are from the GW site, not mine. I'll try tonight and you can all laugh tomorrow ;)
 
Octavian80

Octavian80

New member
I used to majorly suck at eyes. Now I'm okay and getting better. I got myself some cheap reading glasses at the local pharmacy, a brush with a good tip (Windsor & Newton size 0), and thinned the paint down for some nice flow, and it made a helluva difference. Like everything else in this hobby, it just takes practice and getting a feel for things and working out what works best for you. As the others have mentioned, do the eyes first before moving past the basecoat on the face. Oh, and make sure that you don't put the pupil in the middle of the eyeball itself; it will actually be more toward the nose.
 
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alexz3

New member
So... I didn't have time to do the eyes last night, as I spent most of my hour doing the new purple + brown wash on the Knight Venator and re-doing the skin on the Dwarf.

Knight Venator new wash before it dried fully :

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Wash Drying up, so applying 2 coats of bonewhite on the parchment stuff (some place of this thing is so hard to reach):

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Dwarf: as planned, i did a new brownish base coat on the skin, then started building highlights to define the muscles and fingers, and finished with a light wash to help the blending. I am really really happy how it turned out :) It doesn't do it justice on the pics, but it looks really good (well, to me at least)!

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Laying down some orange base coat to start the hair + beard while the wash is drying :

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I did use the Visor again, and this time it really helped and didn't give me a headache ;) I almost felt like doing the eyes would be easy :)

Next steps is applying more of the base coat layers on both models. I'll admit I was a bit desperate before last night because I thought these models were so small and my skills sucked so I would never be able to do anything that would look good, but after these small updates, I feel confident I can finish these minis and make them look good!
 
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A

alexz3

New member
Finally got 1 hour of painting on the Dwarf last night. Time just flies when you are painting... anyways, I managed to make progress on the beard / hair, started building up a blue magic flame, because hey, why not ?! its a magic blue flame in a fantasy world and will contrast better with the rest of the figurine. Same with the runes on his arms, the golden version was not visible enough, so boom, magic blue runes. Dwarves love blue magic I heard.

Also got the eyes done. What a nightmare. On my first try, my brush was too wet, because with my tiny 5/0 brush the paint dries in 1 second if its not thinned enough. So i put a dot of white and the white just spreads ALL over the face. Panic mode, got a dry brush to soak it all up, blowing on it, using paper towels and managed to remove 95% of it, but it did make the skin lighter a bit. After 3-4 more trials, I finally managed to get a small white dot and decided to give him blue eyes. I think they look OK and for this small size, I can't do much better.

Lot of things to finish still, as I now see with my pics that parts of the lower beard I have completely missed, some other elements need more touch ups, etc...

I am also happy with the highlights on the back cloak on the red part. For the fur part, would you guys do even stronger highlights ?

I like his current look, he reminds me of a Roman warrior :)

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Octavian80

Octavian80

New member
Those eyes look pretty damn good for your first time! A helluva lot better than my first twenty attempts, haha. Everything else is coming along nicely. A definitely improvement from your first, and even most recent, Star Wars figs. On the fur cloak you could try going a little higher with the highlights and if it is too much you can throw a wash on there to tone it back down.
 
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bullfrog

New member
I like the way you have painted the wings. Blue always looks good against gold. If you want really orange hair and beards on your dwarves think about priming those areas with white first. Either mask off the black areas and spray it or brush thinned paint on.
 
A

alexz3

New member
Hi, back after a long time. I moved houses and had no time to paint until last night.

Only managed to do a few touch ups on the guys :)

Glued the wings to the Knight, now needs some finishing touch up and glue to a proper base.

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Pink horror got some trial on more highlights, but it just ended up making it look... white :( I'll try a quick pink glaze or purple wash to give it back some color. Also need to do the gems and should be done.

if you guys have better ideas to brink back the pink into place without losing to much the highlights, let me know.

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Also tried my first SW IA mini, Lando ! Only base color done at this point, cape and shirt received a blue wash from Vallejo, but i wish I hadn't done that now and just did highlights...



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That's it for now !

Any tips always welcome!
 
A

alexz3

New member
Did some work on the cloak yesterday and worked on my blending technique.

Should I push the highlights more ? I also feel like the blue is a bit too light. Should i try a light wash of darker blue over it ? Or just leave it as is ?

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No update on face, just did the gun and started on the belt. Its supposed to be black but I wanted a first layer of silver/gold to make it pop!

Inner cloak (gold part) is also in progress.

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Top down view to mimic view when playing SW IA, along with the clear based Knight :)

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