Hello, I'm new to the forums and I want to try to improve as a painter. So I'm starting this thread. I'm currently working on some Trollbloods. The first up is my Fell Caller. I welcome any and all feedback. Thanks. Khonner http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics16/img51b7cc56784bf.jpg
Khonner's WIP
- Thread starter Khonner
- Start date
10 ball
New member
Welcome 
I like your mini, nice and colourful reminds me of the 1980s GW paint jobs.
Thin your paints down and build up the layers and keep up the painting!
View attachment 21056
I like your mini, nice and colourful reminds me of the 1980s GW paint jobs. Thin your paints down and build up the layers and keep up the painting!
View attachment 21056
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Appreciate your comment, how did you get the image to display? I usually use Reaper Master series paints in a 1 to 1 ratio with water, do I need to increase the water part? It's the slime green on his belt that's too thick, right? Please let me know if anything else is whacked out..
Khonner
Khonner
ozymandias
New member
I'm not familiar with the reaper paints so I'll let others comment on the level of dilution - although the red and green on the mini do look like the paint was slightly thick. I'd say that the your focus should be on contrast whilst keeping the blends smooth. If you you want the miniature to pop like the guys who are getting 8+ on CMON you need greater contrast. So far example on the skin on the arms it looks like there are two layers - the base colour and a slightly lighter grey. If you can work through a few more layers you can build contrast.
Chrispy
Active member
[ img]httpdootdotdangcom/whateva [ /img] (minus spaces)
Looking at Zreef's Chrome effect, I wanted to work on some NMM. Here is what I have so far with a champion hero. It's far from done, but I think I have the base grey pretty good. I'm going for more of a steel type look for the armor, I might try some gold for the cod piece. Let me know what you all think. Any tips would be appreciated as well. Thanks. Khonner
kathrynloch
New member
Looking very nice, Khonner!
My NMM is terrible right now but two things I do know. NMM depends on good blends and contrast. Blending goes hand in hand with thinning your paints. I use Reaper paints a lot. There's no set ratio for dilution because there are so many factors, certain colors can be thinner than others, age of the bottle (even if you just bought it, who knows how long it was sitting in inventory), humidity of the area you're working in...do you have fans going? Live in a swamp and have 110% humidity like I do? lol!
You may want to try thinning your paints gradually. I've always heard about the consistency of skim milk...but...that's an old analogy. Try thinning progressively until you can get the colors a bit more translucent. Go super thin and you'll be doing what's called juicing and that takes uber patience because you can barely see the colors as you apply them. But getting nice blends with highlights and shadows means you don't have to depend on wash to shade your minis. Wash can be good, but layering will give you a lot more control.
Contrast means taking those blends and pushing the highlights and shadows as far as you can. Not an easy thing to do, believe me I know. But, like most things, you just need to keep painting, keep practicing. It won't happen overnight but you'll get there.
Keep up the great work!
My NMM is terrible right now but two things I do know. NMM depends on good blends and contrast. Blending goes hand in hand with thinning your paints. I use Reaper paints a lot. There's no set ratio for dilution because there are so many factors, certain colors can be thinner than others, age of the bottle (even if you just bought it, who knows how long it was sitting in inventory), humidity of the area you're working in...do you have fans going? Live in a swamp and have 110% humidity like I do? lol!
You may want to try thinning your paints gradually. I've always heard about the consistency of skim milk...but...that's an old analogy. Try thinning progressively until you can get the colors a bit more translucent. Go super thin and you'll be doing what's called juicing and that takes uber patience because you can barely see the colors as you apply them. But getting nice blends with highlights and shadows means you don't have to depend on wash to shade your minis. Wash can be good, but layering will give you a lot more control.
Contrast means taking those blends and pushing the highlights and shadows as far as you can. Not an easy thing to do, believe me I know. But, like most things, you just need to keep painting, keep practicing. It won't happen overnight but you'll get there.
Keep up the great work!
Hi all..
Thanks for the comments. Worked on the Champ's axe head a little. I don't think I'm doing the NMM right with it. I'm not sure if it's the angle that I'm using for the light source, or if it's the color choices that I have picked. Any suggestions would be appreciated.. Thanks
Khonner
Thanks for the comments. Worked on the Champ's axe head a little. I don't think I'm doing the NMM right with it. I'm not sure if it's the angle that I'm using for the light source, or if it's the color choices that I have picked. Any suggestions would be appreciated.. Thanks
Khonner
Ok please bare in mind that this is only a VERY ROUGH guide (5 min photoshop).
View attachment 21214
This is a suggestion on how the shading of NMM would work on this axe if light is falling top right to bottom left.
By no means is it the "be all and end all" of how the axe should look.
Personally I'd be toning the shadow's areas with highly diluted browns to simulate earthy reflections. (*)
Use the curves of the axe blade as a template for the transitiosn of colour.
The NMM pallette I use is based on the one used by Theirry Husser who used to do a lot of the Rackham painting and uses Vallejo Model Colour Intermediate Blue as the starting point for Steel edged weapons. This is a slightly Blue'r colour midway between the old SpaceWolves grey and Shadow Grey.
Hope this helps.
(*Although someone has used the term "Juicing" its a clumsy way of describing the level of dilution needed. Probably coming from online translations, the closest term I can suggest is TINTING. Using many covering strokes of extreme diluted paint.)
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Zab
New member
Tinting is about right. And if you think of how water colors work that is kind of what you are doing.
kathrynloch
New member
Great start with the blending, what's getting you is the lack of contrast. Even though Mike's example is rough, you can see how it goes from very dark in places to almost white in others. You also need to work in graduations - for example well use dots. The bottom is four dots wide . . . . then the next color on top of it which is slightly lighter, is three dots wide . . . and then next color, which is also lighter, is two dots wide, and so on. Make sense I hope? :bulgy-eyes:
Even though Mike's example is rough, you can see how it goes from very dark in places to almost white in others. You also need to work in graduations - for example well use dots. The bottom is four dots wide . . . . then the next color on top of it which is slightly lighter, is three dots wide . . . and then next color, which is also lighter, is two dots wide, and so on. Make sense I hope? :bulgy-eyes:Hi Kathryn,
It does make sense.. If I use your dot example, I would do a very thin set of dots and then blend them with another wet brush, that prolly would get the transition that I'm looking for.. I think the trick will be since the paint is so thin, blending before it dries might prove to be challenging. I think I'm going to give the arms a dip in simple green tonight, I've noticed when I was messing around with it last night that the blade seemed very splochie, so I'm gonna wipe the canvas and give it another go. I will post up some update pics soon. Thanks!
Khonner
It does make sense.. If I use your dot example, I would do a very thin set of dots and then blend them with another wet brush, that prolly would get the transition that I'm looking for.. I think the trick will be since the paint is so thin, blending before it dries might prove to be challenging. I think I'm going to give the arms a dip in simple green tonight, I've noticed when I was messing around with it last night that the blade seemed very splochie, so I'm gonna wipe the canvas and give it another go. I will post up some update pics soon. Thanks!
Khonner
