Help me become a better painter! [Now with pics]

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ixupi

New member
New forum goer though I\'ve lurked for quite some time. I\'ve been painting for roughly 1 year now and enjoy it quite a bit. I\'ve won a small painting competition at a Games Workshop so I can\'t say I\'m a \'bad\' painter, but I\'m far, far from good.

So I figured I\'d come to the helpful and critical folks of CoolMini to guide me through this. I basically want to re-learn painting and make sure I get everything right! I have a miniature prepared and primed with plenty of elements to exploit, OSL, NMM, cloth, etc.

I want to make this a step by step process and was wondering if a few of the more experienced painters could take five minutes of their time per update to advise me and answer questions of mine and hopefully those following can learn something as well.

So how about it? If enough people bite, I\'ll post the pictures of the base miniature primed and ready to paint that I have! I thank any and all of you who can help me :D

***UPDATE***

Okay, so here\'s the deal. I\'m going to be painting a Space Marine. Equipped with a power-fist and plasma pistol. For those of you who aren\'t familar with the game, see the pictures. I hope to achieve NMM, OSL, clothing, and other such feats to an epic degree(it\'s called over achieving folks!). Anyways...list of supplies I\'ll be using(have available) are as follows:

Paints: Regal blue, Dark angels green, skull white, codex grey, chaos black, pure white, squid pink, snakebite leather, beastial brown, bubonic brown, shadow grey, blood red, dark flesh, dwarf flesh, deep red and a assortment of craft paints.

Brush: GW fine detail and GW large brush.


Sorry about the crappy pictures, it had all the lighting it could at the moment. I assure you that the WIP shots will be quality though.

I want to make the color scheme blue with NMM gold trimming(just a preference for this particular model, NOT an ultramarine) so unless I am convinced otherwise that\'s the plan!
CMmini.jpg
 
MPJ

MPJ

New member
Well I\'m bigger and better than these other guys and I try to do my best in the help department. :drunk:

Well, I\'m most likely bigger anyway (6\', 240lbs). And I didn\'t say better at mini painting did I? Fairly sure I\'m a better roofer.

Either post finished minis for voting and ask questions about theme in the forums (with links, lazy people like links) or post some pics directly in the forums with questions. People around here will do their best to give you pointers but it is likely better for you if you ask a couple of specific questions with each picture to better focus in on the answers (like \"How can I improve this minis weapons?\" and \"This one\'s cloth looks chaulky, what am I doing wrong?\"). Posting a pic and asking \"What can I do better?\" is perfectly valid but might get you so many different responses that it\'s hard to zero in on one thing to improve with your next mini and it can bruise the ego (hope you have thick skin).
 
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DaN

New member
Just the better painters...? :(
Us mediocre paintres might be able to help too! Lol

Welcome to da forums :p
 
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ixupi

New member
Originally posted by DaN
Just the better painters...? :(
Us mediocre paintres might be able to help too! Lol

Welcome to da forums :p
Click to expand...

Well I said more experienced...and considering I\'ve been painting for just a year, well then I think that includes a large majority, so don\'t feel left out. : P

Glad to see people interested. I\'ll have up those pictures as soon as I get back from the store.
 
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ixupi

New member
Okay, thanks everyone for there interest! If anyone else wants to chime in later, feel free!

I\'ll start by updating my first post to list my supplies and such and color scheme. Then further updates will be seperate posts.

Like I said, I\'m going to re-learn painting from the ground up. Hopefully these questions and answers will help other painters starting out as well So first, I\'ll start with some preliminary questions just to see how you folks do things. Remember I\'m trying to achieve the BEST results I can. So time really isn\'t a factor, we\'re talking display quality here:

1: When applying your base coat, how much do you tend to water down your paints?

2: When applying layers how much do you water down your paints(appearance or ratio for either questions)

3: What do you use to thin your paints? Just water? Dish soap, others?

4: Finally, what are all of your views on using retarder with acrylics? Recommended or not? If so, what is the best way to use them? (ratio used, thinning as well, etc.)
:D
 
F

funnymouth

Active member
Originally posted by ixupi
Okay, thanks everyone for there interest! If anyone else wants to chime in later, feel free!

I\'ll start by updating my first post to list my supplies and such and color scheme. Then further updates will be seperate posts.

Like I said, I\'m going to re-learn painting from the ground up. Hopefully these questions and answers will help other painters starting out as well So first, I\'ll start with some preliminary questions just to see how you folks do things. Remember I\'m trying to achieve the BEST results I can. So time really isn\'t a factor, we\'re talking display quality here:

1: When applying your base coat, how much do you tend to water down your paints?
like cream. i make it thin enough that it comes of the brush easily, but thick enough that it wont run everywhere

2: When applying layers how much do you water down your paints(appearance or ratio for either questions)
this really depends on what im trying to do. for washes i go thin and .... um...nonfat milk like in consistancy lol, for painting lines or edging i stay as thick as the basecoat. sometimes you want a different effect too. do you want the bottom color to show through, or be completely covered? how fast do you want to paint?


3: What do you use to thin your paints? Just water? Dish soap, others?

people use all kinds of fancy additives, i stick to plain old water. ive used soap before, and it helps with watermarks, but the paint doesnt dry well.


4: Finally, what are all of your views on using retarder with acrylics? Recommended or not? If so, what is the best way to use them? (ratio used, thinning as well, etc.)
wrong person to ask

:D
Click to expand...
 
MPJ

MPJ

New member
Well your going to get a lot of different responses to these questions and eventually you will have to find what works best for you as everyone prefers things a little differently.

I rarely paint to \'artistic quality\', instead I like to lay claim to being a speed freak with emphasis on quality so my answers will probablly not be all that satisfying.

1) I fill the brush with water by first dipping it into my water pot then into the paint on my pallet, pulling back across the pallet while spinning the brush to make the tip. This gives me what I am looking for in a basecoat which typically gets good coverage in one or two coats.

2) I don\'t actually use the layering technique much so not much help here, instead I tend to blend by painting a solid line of highlight/shade color at the highest/lowest point then with a clean brush drawing it towards the opposite point (I clean my brush for blending by sucking the paint off as washing the brush makes it to clean and wet... Yummy stuff). As for thinning for this I do the same as in step one except with the wet brush I pull away a smaller amount of paint from the blob on the pallet.

3) Straight water and saliva as needed.

4) I have a little bottle of extender that I mostly just use when paint is drying up in the bottle, I put a few drops in. Have never really used it to thin the paints for painting.

Probablly not quite what you are looking for but I hope it helps some. Layering is indeed the big thing now but blending was the \'in thing\' of a few years ago. I rarely take more than a couple hours to paint a mini.
 
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ixupi

New member
Thanks for quick replies. I asked those hoping to get different reponses. For two reasons really. One to see what was the majority vote and secondly to see what possibly bizzare ways people have.
 
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Ritual

New member
1-2: I usually only water the paint down a very little bit on the pallette. Then, when applying paint onto the mini, I work with a wet brush so that the paint becomes thinner that way. By varying the amount of moist stored in the brush I can get any consistency I want without having to mix new paint. It takes a while to get the instictive feeling of just how wet your brush shoul be for different purposes. For basecoating I keep the paint fairly opaque because I want a solid, even coat.

3. Just water

4. I use it (Liquitex Slo-dri) when I do blending over large areas like cloaks or robes to make the paint workable for the time needed. But, I only use it when I need it, because it has a tendency of making the paint separate.
 
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DrEvilmonki

Active member
Originally posted by ixupi
Okay, thanks everyone for there interest! If anyone else wants to chime in later, feel free!

I\'ll start by updating my first post to list my supplies and such and color scheme. Then further updates will be seperate posts.

Like I said, I\'m going to re-learn painting from the ground up. Hopefully these questions and answers will help other painters starting out as well So first, I\'ll start with some preliminary questions just to see how you folks do things. Remember I\'m trying to achieve the BEST results I can. So time really isn\'t a factor, we\'re talking display quality here:

1: When applying your base coat, how much do you tend to water down your paints?

I tend thin my paints a bit more than some of the others (I just find it offers me more control). SO for me I would say base coat thin enough that it takes 3-4 coats to be solid.


2: When applying layers how much do you water down your paints(appearance or ratio for either questions)

for layers I wtaer down a LOT. Basically so it is like milk. It takes a long time to get a solid layer where you can\'t see the base colour, but you tend to be able to jump transition colours a little bit since you have much better control of where to end a layer.


3: What do you use to thin your paints? Just water? Dish soap, others?
Usually water and future floor wax.

4: Finally, what are all of your views on using retarder with acrylics? Recommended or not? If so, what is the best way to use them? (ratio used, thinning as well, etc.)
:D
I don\'t use retarder as it slows down painting time to much for my style of highlighting.
Click to expand...


Just some points about the materials you are using. Craft paint? I can\'t say I would trust adding anything that isn\'t proper artistic grade product to my painting. the results may be alright but you are more likey to end up in the poo.

GW brushes? EricJ and Cyril may paint using these but they are both freaks! lol Buy yourself a decent brush.
 
mickc22

mickc22

Granddad!
Mario Fuentes has an excellent article using the Vallejo Acrylics range, just tweak it a bit if you are using GW paints
it\'s not a direct link it takes you to the home page, once there click the appropriate flag for your language
--->(click)\"miniature & model colors\"
---> \"Model Color\" (top link)
scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page you will see a number of links
---> \"figure painting with acrylics\"
or under the heading Painting Figures with Model Color
---> \"Introduction\"

and away you go :D

I you can save it and print it off too
 
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