Ultras Commander - Lessons Learned

[montka]

Just finished my latest model. It has taken about eighty or so hours, and I would say at least half that time was spend correcting mistakes! I thought that it might be of benefit to myself and others to write a \'debrief\' covering the lessons I have learned the hard way, and also to hear your comments - I hope it turns out to be interesting

1. Patience, patience, and what was that other p-word?

I think that most of the deficiencies in my painting are the result of \'wanting to get it done\' more than wanting to get it right. I now know that if I want to paint a competition level model, I shall have to be painting with the right attitude, and just put in as much time as I have to.

2. Full fat or semi-skimmed?

Paint really ought to be about as thin as milk. The only places on this model where I\'ve consistently used thin paint are the skin (which took about nine hours to do!), the cloak and the metal - which in my opinion are the parts that turned out best. It can be frustrating to use thin paint because you have to make the same tiny sharp highlights over and over again in the same place, which is a real test of skill and concentration - it is tempting just to use thick paint and \'edge\' the rims of things, but this gives a far less consistent and smooth result.

3. Turning off auto-pilot.

I have found another problem in that it is very easy to just rush in and start brandishing your brush on an area, before you have really thought about where the shades/highlights ought to fall. If you have a concept of what something ought to look like and then concentrate on achieving it, you will have a far higher likelihood of getting the result you want. I often end up making mistakes simply because I haven\'t thought about exactly where my brush ought to go...

I think I\'ll take a break from pro-painting for a while now, and try and get a gaming army finished!

Montka

 

[marineboy]

Pictures please!

 

[montka]

I appear to have forgotten something!

http://www.coolminiornot.com/119057

 

[Talonicus]

I have checked out your mini and its quite good. The paint seems a bit thick in places and I think you could of made some use of \"freehand\" to break up the monotony.
The best way to improve is in my opinion to keep painting and painting. Then try your best on the occasional special mini. well that seems to work for me.
Good Job :bouncy:

 

[montka]

4. Another problem I had was that both my skull white and my scorched brown paint were full of tiny lumps - has anyone else ever had this problem?

 

[Avelorn]

I really like it! Eavy metal style.. I think the face came out really nice. Overall great work, just some highlights that seem a bit chalky. What you can try to do is use a thin glaze of a slightly deeper shade of blue over the contrasted highlights and then do the highlights again. Definately an 8 in my book. A large close-up with not many mistakes visible.

The lumps can come from either dust, dried paint or not shaking the bottle enought (rare with GW paints) I often find that small particles of dry paint can fall into the bottle if I\'m not careful removing dried paint.

 

[Ogrebane]

Great work there. The skin and gold look great. Did the vote thing. Nice write up. Not enough people do that anymore.

 

[Jericho]

Very nice Marine, I would be overjoyed to see an army like that on the gaming table.

As someone who\'s painted I think something stupid like 4 Marine armies over the years (and have 2 more on the way/in the bitz box) I can really appreciate how you didn\'t hilight all the way on every single crack/edge on the power armor. A lot of people do that, and it looks silly in most cases. Took me a good long while to break out of that habit

Anyway keep up the good work, and post lots of pics!

 

[mutantpotato]

I really like this mini. It is well painted and looks a bit like it is painted på the eavy metal team.

I don\'t know if you intended this mini for gaming or showcase, but I think it works well for both.

I really like his face. The skintone looks really realistic, and very well blended.

Cheers, Mikkel.

 

[montka]

Thanks for the positive feedback guys!

I expected to be defending myself against recommendations that I ought to wetblend like Bobby Wong!

Do you think I ought to take the photo from less close up next time?

Any advice on making bases more interesting? Or do you know how the eavy metal team get their flock to look so bright green? (Currently it does not look distinct enough from the gravel.)

Cheers
John