The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

[spacehamster]

Speaking of Orks, it's Orktober.

[Hunter]

Holy shit, that looks great!

[THE KILL]

Good work as usual, SpacyMike. Personally I'd like to see a couple more highlights (especially on the orcs and gobbos), it makes the details stand out more and makes everything pop, but I admit that's a matter of personal preference. You definitely have your own style.

[spacehamster]

Good work as usual, SpacyMike. Personally I'd like to see a couple more highlights (especially on the orcs and gobbos), it makes the details stand out more and makes everything pop, but I admit that's a matter of personal preference. You definitely have your own style.

I know what you mean, but I'm not convinced it would work with the overall look of the vehicle. Or maybe I just think that because this is the first time pretty much ever I've done green skin, and you kind of have to develop an eye for it as well.

[THE KILL]

Good work as usual, SpacyMike. Personally I'd like to see a couple more highlights (especially on the orcs and gobbos), it makes the details stand out more and makes everything pop, but I admit that's a matter of personal preference. You definitely have your own style.

I know what you mean, but I'm not convinced it would work with the overall look of the vehicle. Or maybe I just think that because this is the first time pretty much ever I've done green skin, and you kind of have to develop an eye for it as well.

You may be right there. The toned down skin tones work very well with the realistic weathering on the buggy.
I like to use highlights (not the obnoxious edge highlighting GW miniatures usually have, mind) to add additional textures, like raw or scaly skin etc. When done a certain way, they might integrate your orcs and gobbos even more into the scene, most of which is richly textured.

[spacehamster]

Final push to finish my Ultramarines army, starting with the Chaplain from the Indomitus box. I think I'm finally getting the hang of painting faces and it's actually really fun now. Got a squad of Intercessors coming up with two unhelmeted heads.

[THE KILL]

Very cool! Face looks great indeed. I like to add some violet into the shadows, it deepens them quite a bit and makes the facial features more prominent.

Still working on my fourth edition and eighth edition chaos dwarfs armies, this took me 2 to 3 hours, so for me that's speedpainting:

[spacehamster]

Two hours? I hate you. That looks fantastic.

I use red to spice up the color variation around the cheeks a bit, and blue around the eyes. Works really well, you just have to remember to do it sparingly, ahem. After the Chaplain I painted a squad of Marines where two of them have their helmets off, knocked those heads out in two hours and later realized they kinda look like they're wearing makeup.

[THE KILL]

Two hours? I hate you. That looks fantastic.

I use red to spice up the color variation around the cheeks a bit, and blue around the eyes. Works really well, you just have to remember to do it sparingly, ahem. After the Chaplain I painted a squad of Marines where two of them have their helmets off, knocked those heads out in two hours and later realized they kinda look like they're wearing makeup.

well, maybe it's time to paint some more fabulous marines then!


Re: the chaos dwarf, I've adapted a rather effective method: simple white zenithal highlight over black primer, then speed paints, then metallics + the usual weathering techniques (nuln oil + sponge technique really), add and partially remove a dark brown oil wash, finish off by adding highlights with very thinned down white paint because I'm too lazy to mix paints, and that's it.
One thing I've added to my arsenal recently is another step (which I omitted here because it was already 3am): adding some colour (dark green, brown, blue, and violet) to the shadows by airbrush, a super simple method which makes everything come alive. IMHO it's almost as much a game changer as oil washes.

[THE KILL]

Jesus CHrist, this Massive Voodoo guy is amazing:

[spacehamster]

well, maybe it's time to paint some more fabulous marines then!

That reminds me, I saw someone with an all-pink Blades of Khorne army on FB a while back, and it was almost as great as the Skaven army where every model had a piece of cheese on the base.

Re: the chaos dwarf, I've adapted a rather effective method: simple white zenithal highlight over black primer, then speed paints, then metallics + the usual weathering techniques (nuln oil + sponge technique really), add and partially remove a dark brown oil wash, finish off by adding highlights with very thinned down white paint because I'm too lazy to mix paints, and that's it.
One thing I've added to my arsenal recently is another step (which I omitted here because it was already 3am): adding some colour (dark green, brown, blue, and violet) to the shadows by airbrush, a super simple method which makes everything come alive. IMHO it's almost as much a game changer as oil washes.

Speed/contrast paints through an airbrush are a fantastic tool. As someone who's been doing pre-shading on larger model kits for years and has always struggled to cover it up just enough so it still shows, it's like magic to me. I'm working on a squad of Terminators at the moment, and I initially painted the sergeant's helmet white because I'm an idiot - all it took to turn it into the right color with all of the color transitions still there was a quick spray of red contrast paint, boom, done.

Anyway, once I'm done with these marines, one last Necron model and some terrain, I'm starting Soulblight Gravelords and I'll finally have to convince myself to put my airbrush and oil paints to good use for some speedpainting tricks because ain't no way I'm painting 30 skeletons and 30 zombies the same way I did these marines here...

[THE KILL]

Damn, the weathering on this guy is excellent, and the detail work is very clean, too. You have a really subdued style, which is a rare thing, but I think if you went for more spectacle, your skills would shine even more. IMHO miniatures just ask for a different treatment than Gundams. Not to belittle your skills, of course, the outlining you put on the details makes mine look crude and amateurish.

Speed/contrast paints through an airbrush are a fantastic tool. As someone who's been doing pre-shading on larger model kits for years and has always struggled to cover it up just enough so it still shows, it's like magic to me. I'm working on a squad of Terminators at the moment, and I initially painted the sergeant's helmet white because I'm an idiot - all it took to turn it into the right color with all of the color transitions still there was a quick spray of red contrast paint, boom, done.

Anyway, once I'm done with these marines, one last Necron model and some terrain, I'm starting Soulblight Gravelords and I'll finally have to convince myself to put my airbrush and oil paints to good use for some speedpainting tricks because ain't no way I'm painting 30 skeletons and 30 zombies the same way I did these marines here...

Without speedpainting techniques, I would have given up this hobby long ago. In the 90s, a single mini took me at least 12 hours, and I quickly lost interest when I had to paint larger batches of minis (didn't help that I had Undead, Skaven and Imperial armies). There have been so many improvements in the last ten years that it's become almost a new hobby. I remember we talked about this Marco Frisoni guy, I use so many of his tricks in my daily painting... I don't know any youtube channel that is even close to his level of usefulness. Anyway, skeletons and zombies won't take you long to paint I'm sure. Now the hard thing is to let go of old habits.... another detail here, a bit of rust there.. oh, and wouldn't these guys look cool with a bit of verdigris on their armour, and I've been wanting to try out glow effects for a while, and - wait a sec

[spacehamster]

Damn, the weathering on this guy is excellent, and the detail work is very clean, too. You have a really subdued style, which is a rare thing, but I think if you went for more spectacle, your skills would shine even more.

Shying away from contrast is something that kind of carried over from my illustration work more than Gundam models. I dunno. What you're looking at is already me trying to crank up the contrast, but I think that's a development that's going to take a while still.

You did correctly spot that the way I paint Space Marines is basically just taking my approach from larger sci-fi models and trying to scale it down. It's already taken quite a bit of adjusting - even though the scale is larger, you actually have to do the chipping smaller for it to work. The first few marines I did two years ago I did the chipping the same way I would on a Gundam, and it really didn't look very good.

Now the hard thing is to let go of old habits.... another detail here, a bit of rust there.. oh, and wouldn't these guys look cool with a bit of verdigris on their armour, and I've been wanting to try out glow effects for a while, and - wait a sec

I'm more worried about not having the eye for when things are too sloppy, to be honest. I know it doesn't look like it from the stuff I post, but with models as much as with illustration, when I try to speed things up, I very quickly cross over into "wiped my ass with this and called it good" territory.

With the Soulblight Gravelords in general, the plan is really just to speedpaint the troop hordes (I'm also thinking I might get some Kings of War zombies because I don't like the GW ones even though of course I already bought them) and then basically reward myself by taking my time on the characters. The faction as a whole just has some of my favorite character models in the entire AoS range, and it's going to be hard to resist just buying every single one of them and then not being able to actually play them.

[THE KILL]

Shying away from contrast is something that kind of carried over from my illustration work more than Gundam models. I dunno. What you're looking at is already me trying to crank up the contrast, but I think that's a development that's going to take a while still.

You did correctly spot that the way I paint Space Marines is basically just taking my approach from larger sci-fi models and trying to scale it down. It's already taken quite a bit of adjusting - even though the scale is larger, you actually have to do the chipping smaller for it to work. The first few marines I did two years ago I did the chipping the same way I would on a Gundam, and it really didn't look very good.

I remember we once talked about edge highlighting and how you were used to doing it an all edges (not just the lower ones to simulate lighting from above) since it works on big models and how this doesn't seem to work on small ones - strange how painting basically the same objects in a different scale follows different rules.
Maybe you need to go totally overboard with colours - crazy highlights, shadows in complementary colours etc. Oil washes take contrast down a notch anyway. In fact, I'm still trying to get used to that fact and I usually try to up the contrast as much as possible before applying oil washes to balance that fact. Contrast (especially contrast of colours, not just of brightness levels) works so well on even the smallest minis.

I'm more worried about not having the eye for when things are too sloppy, to be honest. I know it doesn't look like it from the stuff I post, but with models as much as with illustration, when I try to speed things up, I very quickly cross over into "wiped my ass with this and called it good" territory.

With the Soulblight Gravelords in general, the plan is really just to speedpaint the troop hordes (I'm also thinking I might get some Kings of War zombies because I don't like the GW ones even though of course I already bought them) and then basically reward myself by taking my time on the characters. The faction as a whole just has some of my favorite character models in the entire AoS range, and it's going to be hard to resist just buying every single one of them and then not being able to actually play them.

Yeah man, I rather think you're suffering from perfectionism. I'm the same, and it's rare that I like anything I've done since I usually focus on all the mistakes I made instead of judging my minis in their entirety. It's so easy to find faults, and due to the internet, we're used to seeing world class painting twenty times a day, and it's hard not to compare yourself to all the ridiculously good painters out there. Not trying to turn this into a pep talk, I just think your shit is up to an excellent standard and I'm looking forward to seeing your Soulblight army (which also lends itself very well to weathering techniques)

[spacehamster]

Yeah man, I rather think you're suffering from perfectionism.

i don't think it's suffering if I'm having fun

I dunno, I just still don't really think of it as doing "good enough" paintjobs for gaming pieces that only have to be serviceable because model kits can take me months to complete sometimes and so cranking out a whole unit of Space Marines in a week is actually lightspeed for what I consider normal. And there's also the fact that out here in normal world, GW prices are FUCKING INSANE. A 40K character model that's 3cm tall costs as much as a Gundam kit that consists of hundreds of parts. It's just difficult for me to take something that costs 50 bucks and go, eh, I'll just spend two hours on this and it' ll be fine. It's a model the price of a Master Grade Gundam. Why wouldn't I take my time with it? Plus these things still spend 99% of their time in the glass cabinet to my right as I'm painting this, and so their primary job is to look good.

[spacehamster]

So I've been busy, like.

First I did these Terminators. Absolutely gorgeous models and I ended up spending too much time on them as usual, but I regret nothing.





The power sword is an attempt at a Kirby Krackle effect - I need to refine this a bit still, but I'm thinking I'll do all my power swords like this from now on. I've never liked the two classic approaches to painting power swords that everyone does.

Also, here's a semi-successful attempt at OSL on the teleporter token. Looks ok from a distance, but I don't know why my hands forgot how to glaze or wtf happened.



So that completed my 1000 points of Ultramarines, and now I'm taking a break from these guys. I could paint Space Marines all day despite the excessively time consuming recipe I've devised for them and I'll be back soon enough, but for now I'm happy just to have a playable army finally.



So next I finished this Doomstalker to get my Necrons to 1000 points as well.



My Necrons recipe is pretty much speed painting, honestly - the few color transitions on the tubes and the lighting effect on the eye orb take like half the overall painting time, the rest is just sloshing around Vallejo Metal Color and washes with a bit of drybrushing.



Same situation here, really - I'm glad I finally have a playable army, but I also still have a unit of Warriors and a Hexmark Destroyer, and I think eventually I'll buy some bigger models to get it up to 2000.

But that concluded this year's big fat 40K project. Well, that and about ten pounds of terrain pieces, but I'll take pics of that when the varnish has dried, plus it's still not enough - I'll need to make some rocks and craters and stuff to fill up the rest of the board because all the cool-looking 40K terrain is out of stock and it's all stupid expensive anyway.

But that project being in the can meant I could finally start my Soulblight Gravelords army that I've been thinking about ever since I got Cursed City in March last year. Marco Frisoni has this tutorial for the Deathrattle Skeletons on his Youtube, and I've always wanted to try using oil paints for something other than weathering, so I decided to give that a shot and hoo boy howdy, it works like fucking magic.



These guys took maybe two hours each, which is absolute lightspeed tier for my standards, and I really like how they came out.



They're hilariously tiny as well, just to give you an idea.

So I'm thinking what I'll do now is alternate between speed painting horde units with this method and doing the characters. Should be shockingly easy and fun, honestly.

[THE KILL]

Daaaamn homie, those terminators are amazing!

[spacehamster]

Honestly, I don't want to pat myself on the back, but with the Terminators being the last Space Marines models (at least for a while), I do kind of feel like it all came together - no matter how many test pigs you do, you still get better at your own recipe over time, and I could use everything I'd learned on the other models on these guys. And then I spent literally three times as long on them as I did on the Intercessors because I really wanted to do the best job I possibly could.

And then I spent a week just drybrushing and sloshing around oil paints on terrain pieces to recover.

[THE KILL]

Just out of curiosity, how long did a single Terminator take on the average?

[spacehamster]

Just out of curiosity, how long did a single Terminator take on the average?

No idea. I worked on them almost every evening over the course of something like 3 weeks. But there's also the fact that I use oils and enamels on these, so you've got the drying times adding to everything overall, plus the scratchbuilt bases etc etc - it's really hard to say and I don't particularly pay attention. It's just one of those things because I'm coming at this from model building and not "getting armies ready for the tabletop" - more time spent on a model means I get more bang for my buck, it's not a negative.

Having said that, I'm totally clocking myself on the skeletons because I'm curious. The first two took 4 hours overall, but now I'm working on a batch of 8 and so it's taking less time per model.

[THE KILL]

Just out of curiosity, how long did a single Terminator take on the average?

No idea. I worked on them almost every evening over the course of something like 3 weeks. But there's also the fact that I use oils and enamels on these, so you've got the drying times adding to everything overall, plus the scratchbuilt bases etc etc - it's really hard to say and I don't particularly pay attention. It's just one of those things because I'm coming at this from model building and not "getting armies ready for the tabletop" - more time spent on a model means I get more bang for my buck, it's not a negative.

Having said that, I'm totally clocking myself on the skeletons because I'm curious. The first two took 4 hours overall, but now I'm working on a batch of 8 and so it's taking less time per model.

Yeah actually enjoying painting minis is ideal, I was merely curious how long it takes you to get to that kind of excellent level. Sometimes, I hugely enjoy doing nothing all day except working on models and terrain, nothing puts me into a flow-state like putting the final highlights on minis. And sometimes I just want to have nice models to play with.

[spacehamster]

nothing puts me into a flow-state like putting the final highlights on minis.

Yeah, it's the eleventy hours of base painting before you get to that point that are the problem

That's actually part of the reason why I can't really put myself in the "speed painting" mindset. You can cut corners in terms of the number of base paints you put on a model for sure, but no matter what method you use, there's going to be an amount of time that you spend blocking in colors, and where you can save the most amount of time is with everything you do after that, which is actually the fun part.

I may or may not already have said this, but this is why I always work on units of 20 clanrats until it makes me lose the will to live and why I'll probably abandon Skaven even though I love them as a faction. I just can't leave them without highlights - if I've spent all this time base painting them it just seems idiotic not to go the extra mile to make them pop.

Been thinking about adapting the oils/contrasts method for the skeletons to Skaven though. It would probably work just fine, you've basically got fur, armor and cloth, so...