Newbie looking for advice

[OZAB]

Hey all. Kinda new to this paining thing. If anyone has the time to check out my first few posts and give some advise, it will be much appreciated!

Cheers!

http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/OZAB

 

[gohkm]

It's a start - you have grasped edge highlighting and thinning paint. What you should look at now is proper shadowing, and blending.

 

[Zab]

Good brush control, I'd just play with thinning your paints to make washes and blending. Basically just play around (maybe get a color wheel so you can play with contrasting and complimentary colors and such too)

 

[OZAB]

Thanks, colour wheel is a good idea. Gonna get some more paints today, and maybe some washes. Oh, and a pile more plastic to practice on. I don't play any games, so just buying what looks like I'll be able to paint!

 

[Milosh]

Start reading everything you can find on the web. There are tons of great blogs and tutorials to read and learn. Read them all and paint everyday if possible.

 

[Zab]

Thanks, colour wheel is a good idea. Gonna get some more paints today, and maybe some washes. Oh, and a pile more plastic to practice on. I don't play any games, so just buying what looks like I'll be able to paint!

That's the spirit! Paint everything. I could kick myself for only painting 40k minis for decades. I stopped playing the games and decided to improve my painting and in just a few years I can't believe how much i have grow (so has my cabinet of unpainted minis but we won't speak about that...EVER)!

 

[Bailey03]

Lots of good advice already. As Milosh said, read a lot. The WIP threads here at CMON are a good place to start. You can find painters whose approach and style you like, then post questions in their threads. You'll find most people are happy to talk about what they've done and how they did it. Another good source for tutorials is tutofig.com. It's a compilation site for tutorials from all over the web.

Other than that I suggest focusing on getting nice smooth blends/transitions for your colors. The rest will be built on that. Find figures you like and have fun!

 

[OZAB]

THanks folks. Bought some more paints and painted my 3rd wood Elf which i think is getting a bit better. Bailey - its the smooth transitions that im struggling with. I watched a few tutorials, but they always just seem to manage it by magic! Are people painting wet on wet to smooth it out? or is it brush technique?

Gonna try a Blood Angel Space Marine next - the models seem a little better quality, and i think it might be better practice as im concentrating on one colour mostly.

 

[gohkm]

Wet on wet just gives you a colour transition. It still requires highlights and shadows once you are done. If your technique is not good, you can still stuff that up.

The easiest method would probably be to paint your highlight as a thick line, then feather the boundaries with your base colour .

 

[Bailey03]

There are a number of ways to get the transitions. I think the most common is the layering technique where you apply numerous semitransparent layers (thinned paint). I think the first video over at Minuature Mentor shows this approach very well, although it is a tutorial you need to pay for. But you should be able to find free stuff online too.

Another popular approach is wet blending. There are a number of top artists who use that technique. You can get a drying retarder to allow you to blend on the mini.

You might also want to check out some tutorials on two brush blending as a third option for blending transitions.

 

[OZAB]

Thanks Bailey. Im checking out the Miniature Mentor Site, i dont mind paying for some good tutorials - when Im paying for all the paint and plastic, i guess paying to make the most out of my painting makes some sense!

I checked out your photos, and its amazing stuff. This site has really opened my eyes to non GW stuff. I think i need to hold off on posting pictures and just get practicing. It seems like a world between painting my first few and some of the stuff on here, but the hardest part is starting, i guess.

Im going through the WIP forum to try and find someone i can follow - sorry, your WIP is just toooooo crazy, its like learning to drive by watching F1....

Thanks all, its good to see some of you masters coming down to us pond life learners!

 

[Ninja_Butler]

Hey all. Kinda new to this paining thing. If anyone has the time to check out my first few posts and give some advise, it will be much appreciated!

Cheers!

http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/OZAB

I haven't painted anything for years (too busy learning to sculpt and tbh I sucked at painting) but I can thoroughly recommend investing in a decent lamp if you don't have good lighting. I use an anglepoise magnifier lamp. Also, use magnification if you have any trouble with the fine detail; I'm sure you have already noticed that when you take a macro photo of your work, it shows up every tiny little error. Some people use reading glasses, and I've read that an optivisor (like jewelers use) is even better. The magnifier lamp is good enough for me though.

A (slightly random) tip for painting white; I know you're not painting anything white yet, but it's educational about painting in general; you can get very nice shading on white by using nothing more than a single shade of light grey as the shading. It's not the effort that counts, only the results.

 

[Bailey03]

Oh, another good source for info is Painting Buddha's Academy
http://www.paintingbuddha.com/pages/academy

A friend was recommending it to me and it sounded like some really good stuff. I haven't bought a membership yet, but I plan to get one soon. You can see a lot of their stuff for free on youtube (the above link will tell you where to find the videos), but if you become a paying member I guess there are extra perks. One of the neat things they do is simultaneously show you three views: the figure, the painter, and the palette. Helps you see exactly how they're doing everything.

 

[Kadarian]

First of all,
hi community,

this is my first post here in the forum, so if I say something somebody don't agree with, this is only my opinion.

I'm painting for many years, but only for tabletop purposes. First, I think, you have to consider what you want to achieve. Do you want to paint just for fun, or do you want to start painting nearly every day to become an incredible expert like Bailey03 (your OSL is really awesome).
I have only time to paint one or two times the month and so I'll never be good as the top artist at cmon.

First I was inspired by the great techniques shown on the minis blending, osl, nmm, tmm, etc. etc. etc. But the problem is and a friend of mine told me. Good drybrushed is better than bad blended. Or better use true metallics than try to make an nmm wich is very difficult with the highlights and the choice of colors.

Many very old figures in my gallery are only drybrushed, inked and highlighted like the Ushabti http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics16/img5291c6708fa15.jpg . This techniques are very easy to learn and can improved very fast.

I know you are one step further than me at the drybrushing phase . On an younger miniature, the Celtic Warrior I tried nmm, blendings and all the other stuff I've seen here on Cmon...and you can see wich one was the better result .

Very disappointed with the younger results I nearly stopped in painting miniatures, but LBT took me with him to a beginner workshop from Massive Voodoo Jan 2014 and the instructor Roman was great. He told me that the most importand rule is enjoy painting and try what you want. You can't do anything wrong.

So better start with the easier techniques if you want to have good looking results and enjoy painting. I'm not a profi like other ones but perhaps try out the tmm technique. Start wich an boltgun metal/black color and make a blending similar to your cloak with silver and an highlight at the top with pearl silver. For your blendings I can't agree that inks are good for your purpose. The inks have to be used very carefully and if you take to much, it is very hard to control shading with it. Better start with an green tone of your choice (if you can't spend much time better use a standard tone first) On my last projekt the knight, I took the andrea color sets and for easy blendings, these colors are great. If you have GW/ vallejo or something like that, try to light it up with yellow and the shadow tone with blue. Don't take white and black it looks better if you take them but the blending is much harder.

I hope you can use some parts of my thoughts and always enjoy painting and don't be afraid doing something wrong

 

[MAXXxxx]

I have only time to paint one or two times the month and so I'll never be good as the top artist at cmon.

yes you can. All it takes is a bit more attention to details and a bit of practice.
I myself don't usually have much more time to paint / month and while I don't consider myself top, I'm good enough. (good enough that like what I paint )

But the problem is and a friend of mine told me. Good drybrushed is better than bad blended. Or better use true metallics than try to make an nmm wich is very difficult with the highlights and the choice of colors.

I can agree with the first part, but not the second. Using true metallics take just as long and are just as difficult as nmm.

So better start with the easier techniques if you want to have good looking results and enjoy painting.

again can't agree
Take BloodfatherOfKarnagh here. He started a wip thread about a year ago (or at least I follow that thread since about febr-march) and he basically skipped the fast and easy parts.
Still I don't feel that he doesn't enjoy painting and the results are looking pretty good (even if in the time he finishes 1 mini I finish a small group, but painting is no speed competition)

 

[Kadarian]

I can agree with the first part, but not the second. Using true metallics take just as long and are just as difficult as nmm.

Perhaps the problem is 30 cm in front of the miniature ... it's me. For me it's very hard to get an fair result in doing nmm and in tmm it's not as hard as.

I think, if you'll @OZAB have the chance to be part of an beginners workshop, it will help you much more than reading and looking countless tut's. Many tut's are really good, but the most tut's are very challenging for me. But it's only my opinion and perhaps the tut's perfectly fit to you.

 

[Webmonkey]

Black-lining,.... definitely black-lining

 

[Zab]

Black-lining,.... definitely black-lining

Yeah, this is overlooked a lot and will help you with brush control and freehand later. How hard could it be to trace a thin dark line between two raised areas on a sculpt, right? You could go mad. MAD I TELL YOU!!! :messed:

 

[oistene]

Perhaps the problem is 30 cm in front of the miniature ... it's me. For me it's very hard to get an fair result in doing nmm and in tmm it's not as hard as.

I think you are like me, Kadarian... doing nothing else for a long time makes you stuck in your ways. I painted from I was 14-15 to I was maybe 15, with a small break between 18 and 22 or so. I only used drybrushing and washes back then. I never thinned my paint unless making a wash. I knew nothing else. When I started painting again this fall, ten years later, things had changed. With the internet (and with a proper income and being able to pretty much anything I needed), I had a whole new world before me. Things I hadn't even heard about was explained to me. At first, it just seemed SO HARD. I almost went back to drowning minis in wash and then drybrushing them again, but slowly but steady (and with a lot of help from many people here), I saw that I was actually able to pull this stuff off. I still have a long way to go, but I improve for every project, I learn new things all the time, and I have fun when I paint. My only source of frustration is that I can't find enough time to paint.

In conclusion: Find out what you want to do, and practice. I want go so far that I'll say that everyone can be a fantastic artist, but by researching and practicing, anyone can be a better painter than at least 80% of gamers. Also, I second trying to go to a workshop - I want to do that, but I'll have to go abroad for it.

 

[OZAB]

Hey all, Happy new year to ya'll, if youre into that kind thing....

So, ive spent some time digesting all the info on here, and scouring you tube etc, and i guess these are the things that have helped....

1 The Colour Wheel - and just a general awareness of colour. looking at things in real life (Graffiti, adverts etc) that i think have good colours, and thinking about why they work...
2 Lighting and Magnification. When i posted my first few images,i thought, "That wasnt like that when i painted it!" macro lenses pick out all the faults. i find it hard to actuall paint under magnification, but using it to check is great. Ive even photographed as i went along on this model so i can inspect it!
3 Wet Pallet - This was great for creating and keeping the colours i wanted.
4 Two Brush Blending.
5 Picking the correct Miniatures! i find the Space Marines a MUCH better cast than the wood elves i had. Its easier to paint something I like, and dont have to guess whats what on it!
6 Some of the links - The Paining Buddah and Miniature Mentor as recommended By Bailey.
7 The WIP forum on here- Very inspirational
9 STOP watching you tube videos! i got to a point where i was saturating myself with info. I think its best to digest and practice a few techniques at the time. Im fortunate enough to have the disposable income to get more plastic, so I guess just practicing and "messing around"

@Kadarian and oistene, Yeah, a workshop sounds like a good idea. im gonna be honest tho, im a good bit older than the majority (all??!!) of the people that hang out at the local GW, and probably want to avoid that. I might see what else i can find, Although West Australia has its limits!

Brilliant help everyone, thanks! So, now i just need to practice these things, and get some brush time!