Miniature Painting

Pill bottles, or 2x2s cut to whatever length you need work well too.

I also keep my testors laquer and spray paint lids for the larger models. Just stick blue tack on them like pull bottles and 2x2s.

ziggyholiday said:

meh
View attachment 313870
View attachment 313871View attachment 313872View attachment 313873

Click to expand...

What don’t you like about your results?

I can suggest a few things to make them pop a little. It doesn’t appear from the pics that you did any shading with washes or highlighting so most of your painted areas look like they’re all one solid color. So I’d suggest washing first. Like the chain mail, wash it with some Drakenhof Nightshade or nuln oil. Let it dry, then do another layer of the silver, but not I. The recesses. The leathers, do the same thing but with Agrax earthshade. Wash the entire brown area with it, then pick out raises areas with the original brown, then to the spike tips with lighter brown.

They don’t look bad for tabletop imo, and definitely not bad for being fairly new to painting.

ziggyholiday said:

Washes all over those things. As an example, chain mail has a grey base, earth shade wash and metal dry brush. I think, other than skill/experience painting it’s also the minis. They’re from one of the D&D board games, so they aren’t terrible but not great either.

Click to expand...

Yeah they’re definitely not great minis for detail. Try a blue shade on your metals next time, I think you’ll be more pleased, makes it look more metallic than dirty.

I’d also practice some highlighting. Lighten up the green that you used for the skin tone, make it real thin/watery. Take a paper towel and make it wet. Load your brush with the watery paint, do a quick wipe off on the wet part of the paper towel to get rid of some of the pigment/water. Then do some thin layers on the top of the skin tones and where raised surfaces are. It’ll look a little overly contrast when you first put the layer on, but as it dries it’ll blend pretty well with the color underneath. That will give your skin a little more depth. And make it look like light is hitting it.

One of my favorite highlights is for black you could do if you have the colors. Incubi Darkness on top of the black, then light The Fang on top of that. Really makes black things look much better since you can’t really shade black with washes.

Here’s an example of the effect, instead of pure black tentacles.

ziggyholiday said:

Yeah, I was trying to figure out what I could for the hair as it was black. You’re doing that by glazing?

Click to expand...

Yeah. I pretty much do all highlighting by glazing. I’ve found trying to highlight without glazing just creates too much of a distinct line for my tastes. Now I wouldn’t do that if I was painting like the spikes on shoulder pads or something where it has a physical change that would explain a distinct line. But if it’s just highlighting a natural curve or something I do the glazing method.

Hey ZyyzYzzy You’ll want some of this at some point too. For filling gaps, smoothing mold areas etc. you’ll especially need it on larger or more complex models that are assembled/more than one piece. Smaller/cheaper models are typically one piece and you won’t really need it for them. Forgot about it when I was replying to original list.

Games Workshop Citadel Liquid Green Stuff (0.4 fl. oz, 12ml)
Example below. If you don’t fill gaps like these it shows up terribly once you paint it. Looks as bad or worse than flashing.

ZyyzYzzy said:

Thanks. I also assume I need a gallon or so of nuln oil?

Click to expand...

Hah. You’ll definitely use shades a lot but I recommend getting a variety, not just nuln. Nuln has its place but it really dulls down anything you put it on and is very dark. I use Drakenhof on any metals for example, nuln just dulls and darkens metals so much, while the Drakenhof gives it a blue metal sheen instead. And on brown leathers I’d use Agrax instead. Using colored shades will bring out the warm/cool colors that are already on the mini while nuln really just darkens everything.

Nuln Oil, Drakenhof Nightshade, Agrax Earthshade, Reikland Fleshshade. Those four will get you through a lot of the basic things you’ll start with like dirt/mud, metals, skins.

Others I use a lot are the violet, green, and yellow shades from citadel. All those glowing lantern minis I was posting last year was using the yellow shade to make the light reflections. Green I use on plants. Violet I use as a shade on anything red. I have a few others but don’t use them often.