Figure Painting after 10 years - Advice sought

[silasvb]

Hi All,

Growing up I used to love figure painting and modelling, but stopped when I was around 15. Having a slow Xmas so thought I'd give it another go... The results so far seem OK, but I'd love to get thoughts on how I could improve. Reading through advice given on these forums the most obvious take-away seems to be that I need to water down my paints further to reduce streakiness and brush marks.

Tau Fire Warriors:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/408026
http://www.coolminiornot.com/408024
http://www.coolminiornot.com/408023
http://www.coolminiornot.com/408022

Ethereal:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/408029

For what it's worth, I'm using Vallejo Paints and a white primer base coat.

Thanks in advance.

 

[ozymandias]

My immediate thought is that you need to aim for more consistent coverage so as to avoid streakiness. The white that you are using does not look too thick. To the contrary, it appears to need some additional coats to get a consistent finish. The same appears to be true for the red on the armour. I would suggest focusing on getting a smooth and even base coat as a starting point.

my second observation is that you are jumping too far in the highlights. For example, the skin on the 4th fire warrior leaps from a brown to almost white. Focus on more thin layers with more gradual transition of colour.

This all comes with practice, and given the break that you have had, I wouldn't be too harsh about these as a new start in the hobby. Keep painting and keep posting. Improvement will follow with practice.

 

[silasvb]

Thanks for the comments. In hindsight I think you are spot on about the patchiness.

I've unfortunately got a very limited palette at the moment (couldn't justify shelling out on lots of paints straight away) so almost every colour is a blend. This means I'm really struggling for consistency on multiple costs - perhaps a wet palette might help (or buy more colours instead...).

Is there much of a consensus on painting prior or post assembly here? I've fully assembled the remaining 6 fire Warriors plus a load of drones, but in future I'm planning on, at a very minimum, doing the base separately.

Reading though this forum really indicates I need to spend a bit more effort on prep. A few minutes hacking off the worst of the mould lines clearly doesn't cut it.

 

[supervike]

You're off to a good start.

Like the other poster said, more layers consisting of thinner paint will help. White is a very tough color to do that with, as it tends to look clumpy immediately.

I think better pictures would help too. The photos you have are rather dark, and just my opinion, but less of the photoshop and more of the miniature would be nice.

A solid front/back pic of a well lit mini would be more interesting to look at than the collage thing you have going. (again, this is just my opinion)

For my two cents, I'd much rather assemble a model first, then prime and paint it. I've tried painting then assembling, but I always seem to either screw up my paint job or goober glue all over.

And, yeah, Prep work is really boring, but really important. I skimp on this too much.

Keep painting, that is the only way to really improve.

 

[Zab]

Stick with the limited palette. You will learn more about color theory and mixing and be a better painter for it. You can add more colors as you need them. You can do a lot with just primaries black white and brown

 

[silasvb]

I think better pictures would help too. The photos you have are rather dark, and just my opinion, but less of the photoshop and more of the miniature would be nice.

A solid front/back pic of a well lit mini would be more interesting to look at than the collage thing you have going. (again, this is just my opinion)

Thanks for the thoughts here. In the short term I'm reasonably limited in what I can do with regards to photography. I can't quite justify spelling out for a camera, and I'm severely space limited. I'll aim for improving the lighting though. Was it just the composition thing you weren't keen on, or was it overly noticeable that I'd turned up the brightness and contrast on the images themselves?

 

[silasvb]

Stick with the limited palette. You will learn more about color theory and mixing and be a better painter for it. You can add more colors as you need them. You can do a lot with just primaries black white and brown

In that case, I'll try and follow one of the wet palette tutorials tonight. Hopefully that'll help me with mixed colour consistencies somewhat.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

 

[silasvb]

my second observation is that you are jumping too far in the highlights. For example, the skin on the 4th fire warrior leaps from a brown to almost white. Focus on more thin layers with more gradual transition of colour.

Moving on the the next two Fire Warriors I've got a chance to test your advice. Following photos are show skin following 4 layers of base base colour, one layer of shading and I layer of wash. Obviously a long way to go (and I'm sure I'll screw up the highlighting) but I'm pleasantly surprised so far.

View attachment 54462View attachment 54463

Also stumbled across a great solution to cheap painting stands...

View attachment 54464

Does anyone reading this know if it is possible to migrate the threat to WIP?