WIP First Post, need some help/insight DONE!

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Backstabbeth

New member
Greetings,

I am a long time lurker here and I can honestly say that you regulars have helped me improve my painting. Thanks for that. I am not entirely eloquent so I will try the best i can to paint a good picture here *paint.. sincker*

So here I am with my first post! excited to be here :beer:

anyway, I have been painting in a bubble since I was 12 years old (since I dont really know anyone else who does and my friends clown me for doing it ;-).) but it is the hobby i have chosen to stick with cause i fell in love with mini painting the first time i ever slapped globby green paint straight on an orc face. during this time i developed my own style which i now know is called feathering (i think) however, I have seen the amazing blending and amazing effects that the pros and most of you folks here are able to acheive using layering and thin thin (thin) paint. SO, recently I have read a lot of tutorials and watched several DVDs of pro painters giving tutorials. truely amazing and inspiring stuff. I got a good old eldar warlock to practice on. The reason: lots of open cloth area, some chances for NMM practice and some hair/fur stuff goin on. A little bit of everything suffice to say. well this new painting technique isnt coming along as swimmingly as I had hoped. Amidst rays of brialliance I have been stifled and frustrated for the greater part of the time. I feel like I wandered into some amazing forest, died, lost a level and couldnt find my corpse (bad reference)

Well, before I go on rambling further. Here is the eldar work in progress
Eldar_one.jpg


Please try to ignore the unfinished sections of him, i plan to show you guys my progress as i continue. This is the best of the photos i took with my little digital cam on macro (ill try to get better at that too). anyway I\'ll list my concerns and would also like feedback/encouragement/criticism in general

1. Is it just me or is Purple really freakin hard to get a handle on??? I initially tried to highlight using ice blue mixed into the base of lich purple... what a distaster that was. I don\'t know if it was just me doing it wrong or if that was flat out a bad idea. I seem to have seen several examples of purple highlighted with light blue, but when i tried it it turned out a chalky mess. i went with stright skull mixed into the base as a highlight and that seemd to work out.

2. I want to use more complimentary color shading and highlighting! but im pretty intimidated since i had never done it and dont really know what im doing.

3. I think i finally figured out how much thinned out (around 2-3 to 1) paint to have on my brush, still getting results that arent as smooth as id Like.

4. I realized after trying to paint those damn fur tassles, that I have NO CLUE of how to make fur, hair look good, other than washing it with ink (meh). I want those things to go from brown to white on the tips and have rich colors and shading but all attempts beffudled me! little help here? :-(

5. The tiny little NMM effects that I did on the 2 tassle holders turned out... OK but i really dont know what to do here. I am going to try a simple NMM on the spear but am preparing for frustration here if the paints turn out chalky again.

6. I thought the bone chest piece and jewels turned out pretty damn well ( looks ever better in person) any input there?

7. Any other comments on things that pop out to you please let me know.

If i can find them, ill post some images of past work to give you all a comparison.

ok im done! :bouncy:
Again. thanks guys! I have been painting for 20 years and have not improved more in a shorter period than from reading and studying off this site..! (well there was the time that i found out about shading and highlighting and that a glob of faint on the face didnt really \'help\' the model)

cheers!
 
G

GreenOne

I paint my thumb.
Can\'t help you much with your questions, just wanted to say welcome :)
I thin it looks nice so far.. If you want smoother blending, don\'t hesitate to thin even more.
 
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Monkeysplitters

New member
I think what you got going so far looks great. The jewel looks fantastic imo. If you are unsure about NMM id suggest find an article on the subject, I know theres quite a few on here, but so far far lookn great.

Also I feel your paint about painting in a bubble. The only plus side to it is u could paint just about anything and show a lay person and theyll probable be impressed.
 
D

DIablofollower

Guest
Welcome! =)

Looks great so far. the blending on the purple is amazing. Very smooth overall.

1). I generally use the same method for purple (highlighting white) although it takes some patience to make sure it doesn\'t turn out too chalky. Yours is looking great though.

2). Either get yourself a color wheel, look it up online, or check the articles here on the site. Sorry I don;t have any links on hand tho. :(

3). If you want to get nice and smooth try and dilute the paint even more. I dilute my paints about 8 parts water to 1 part paint. I know some people who do 15 parts water to 1 parts paint.

4). Really there\'s no easy way to paint fur/hair. If you want it to look nice and neat you will have to paint it strand by strand.

5). As far as the NMM goes, again you want to dilute your paints as much as possible. For smooth blending especially on NMM you want very thin paint.

6). Jewel looks really amazing. Great job on that. As far as the wraith bone goes can\'t try high lighting and/or shading it a bit to give it some definition. Looks plain compared to the rest of the mini.

7). Don\'t have any other comments really. It\'s a great looking piece and aside from the minor issues that I mentioned above, it\'s looking great.

Happy painting!
 
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Backstabbeth

New member
Hey guys, thanks a ton for the input, im glad it looks decent! I put more time into it than i care to admit. well since i did it twice and all. man.. its crazy to think of goin even further on the dilution.. but ill give it a shot. i am honestly a bit intimidated with doing the head. I think it should be white with a purple mask but im not sure. if i do use white ill prolly use ice blue and a little space wolves gray as a subtle shade just in the cracks and such... unless someone else has a better idea ;-)

the blade on the spear i was thinking o going with a turquoise NNM effect.. well an attempt at it at least. Ill try to post further results some time tomorrow.

Thanks so much guys for the encouragement. I guess i have just been starin at it for so long!

any other input much appreciated.
 
obsidianpainting

obsidianpainting

New member
Im just throwing this out there as an idea. don\'t know how it would look, but you could try doing the face mask thing green, and then try gold nmm. Ass both green and purple look AMAZING with gold.

For the white i would say go a little deeper on the shadow than just space wolves grey or ice blue. and also add the TINIEST amount of purple to it. That way instead of just throwing on a blue-grey, you get more of a purple-grey.

The green is a triadic harmony of purple. and gold is in the yellow/yellow orange colour range, which is a complimentary/ split complimentary of purple. The turquoise is a tetrad of purple. and tetrads look really weird IMO :p and so you should try gold. or bronze maybe. but lean more towards an orangey yellow colour. A really nice nmm gold is Razzas nmm gold. The terracotta would add a nice colour to the model as it is slightly orange.

Hope this helps. Anyways, its just some ideas.

Gary.
 
Crayfish

Crayfish

New member
Hello backstabbeth, If you are using GW colors you can always try spacewolf gray, it has a blue tint to it that i would think could work instead of white... I would probably go all the way up to white then glaze a little bright bright yelllow to make it feel more alive and warm. And usually when doing something white i always keep a little glaze of yellow in it, and blue. If I go from blue to white it will a bit more like white then gray white, and if so i usually glaze yellow in the final highlights of pure white. I wouldnt go crazy with the yellow though, but if you want to go all the way to white it will look more realistic if you use a tint of yellow or a more off white!

The model is looking good btw, really like the eldar models!

Edit: Saw now that Obsidian and me had the same ideas!
 
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Backstabbeth

New member
Ok Some interesting ideas here.

obsidian, you may have me sold on the gold spear tip

Cray

So. you are saying for shade for your whites, you will use blue as a shade, then go up to pure white and put a glaze of yellow on that pure white?

this yellow glaze... extremely dilute i take it? so it more looks like water with some yellow than watered down yellow? and this wont make it look green?
 
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uberdark

New member
instead of using white as the only color, i use elf flesh as a midtone mixer and build up to skull white, you can get some amazing blends as you go..works great.... try it out.
 
obsidianpainting

obsidianpainting

New member
Yes, That is essentially what cray is saying, It won\'t make it green. The yellow kind of adds a little more warmth to the white. and with blue as a shade (space wolves grey) that would make it look pretty good. I would still say add the smallest drop of purple (either warlock or liche) to the space wolves grey just to keep to a simple colour scheme. The yellow would look great because its the complementary colour of purple so it would have an amazing contrast. and as of the elf flesh, it would look great, but the colour of elf flesh may not contrast well to the purple. Maybe add a little bit of yellow to it, as elf flesh is pretty red.

Maybe this could be a possible step-by-step:
- basecoat 50/50 skull white space wolves grey
-shade space wolves
-shade spacewolves grey plus a dot of purple
-blend the midtones with elf flesh with a dot of yellow
-blend highlights back up to white
- glaze entire area with sunburst yellow.
-(optional) redo the very highest highlights with white.

Maybe that would work. As i\'ve not done this before with elf flesh. so try it out. if it works than its a bonus:) if all else fails, and it looks bad, then just rebase coat and try another thing:p

-Gary.
 
mickc22

mickc22

Granddad!
hi Backstabbath, and welcome

you can dilute as much as 12-15:1, to give you smoother blends, obviously it will take a bit longer

if you haven\'t been there already there are some good tutorials over at Brushthralls


mick
 
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ScottRadom

Shogun of Saskatchewan
Hey, I just wanted to poke my head in and say welcome BackStabbeth, and a thanks to Mickc22 for that link to brushthralls! I had never heard of it before. What a great site!
 
Crayfish

Crayfish

New member
Hmmm... Obsidians idea sounds pretty fun.

I would have thought something like Liche purple (the one that has more blue in it) blend with spacewolf gray to white and glaze with yellow... but i dont know, you could probably add a little elf flesh as said in to the mix to balance the red in the purple so you dont get too much blue...

If it dont work just redo the area hehe!

And yes, glaze is just paint dilluted to the max! I always paint with glazes, for me personally its more comfortable to not layer 40 layers... but thats my way :p
 
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Backstabbeth

New member
I think im gonna try obsidians mix without the elf flesh. i can definitely see that it would do well with white, but id rather stay on the coolor side with lich purple and spacewolf gray. I hope it turns out wellt he first time since id love not to have to do it over like i did the robe! LOL

So guys, you think badmoon, sun burst, or golden?

again thanks so much all! will post results ASAP
 
obsidianpainting

obsidianpainting

New member
Yah i agree without the elf flesh. I only threw that in their because uber said something about it.

Yah definitely try it, it should look pretty good.

I\'d say sunburst. Golden is a little darker, and has more red and blue in it. Sunburst in my opinion would work better, as its colour saturation would be very nice in contrast to the purple. i think. Even though its just being used as a glaze the colour would look pretty awesome.

Thats my two cents on the yellow.

Have you decided what your going to do with the mask?
I still think green would be pretty awesome. I would try for a more yellowy green, that way you can stick to the complimentary/ split complimentary colour scheme.

The way i would do it would be to start with a base coat of goblin green. Shade with snot green mixed with a little bit of purple. then highlight with rotting flesh with a dot of scorpion green.

That should work. As the rotting flesh will bring the saturation of the scorpion green down to give it a more neutral colour. That will make midtones stand out more. you could even skip the rotting flesh and just do scorpion green. That would give you a more colourful mini. and with the looks of it so far that might be a better option.

Gary.
 
S

ScottRadom

Shogun of Saskatchewan
Dude you are a linking MACHINE!

Another bookmarked site. My favorite part of that tutorial is the simple reference indicating the coverage you can expect from diluted paint.
 
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Backstabbeth

New member
Mickc22,

I have read that article in darkson press! great article and what I would say is the impetous to me starting to evolve (devolve?:)) my painting style.

Man this thread has become a link mecca.. those are all awsome!

Ok, I think ill give this green thing a shot, but Id like it heavy on the highlights and lights for that glowy wint of color rather than a big in your face green. simply because my original concept was to go light blue on the mask (to kind of bounce off the light blue in the wraith bones and white on the helmet.

Shoot if i dont like it i can always try light blue afterwards on the mask.

Will post results ASAP

Tim

By the way. When i started painting i lived in San Diego. Now i live in the san francisco bay area.
 
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