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I painted some terminators      Blast from the past.    Him and his small adult son.  It's interesting to paint these minis that are products of design processes over 3 decades apart. The core design has clearly been carried over - there's the weird notch in the inner shoulder pad that's on the RT-era captain that has carried over to the newer models. The detail on the older model is definitely less well defined and much more flat, though there is certainly no shortage of detail - the skull-rivets and skull-codpiece are really something and there's are a few orders of magnitude more skulls in the RT captain compared to the modern guy.
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Mar 25, 2024 12:41
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Bohemian Nights posted:Maybe everyone have already seen it, but the golden demon winners for adepticon are out Was wondering in the BL thread if it's 3D printed. I'm assuming 3D prints are allowed if you did the sculpting yourself? Z the IVth fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Mar 25, 2024 |
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Mar 25, 2024 19:19
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Issaries posted:Yeah. NMM a cool way to spice up your characters and doing simpler versions of it doesn't take that much time. If nothing else the technique for NMM is the same as that for power weapons.
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Mar 25, 2024 22:43
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NinjaDebugger posted:Yeah. It's annoying as hell right up until you get it to work the first couple times, then basic NMM is pretty easy, and the hard part is putting in the absurdly large amount of practice to level it up. The actual laying down the paint part isn't hard. You can get better blends and more fine control with practice but actually grokking where to put the lights and darks is the hard part. I cheat by using a mantra of always light next to dark but it doesn't hold up on more complicated objects.
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Mar 25, 2024 22:57
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w00tmonger posted:first time ever entering a contest with this bad boy: I tried messing with my phone camera for ages trying to take good photos and realised it just can't be done well (at least not with a Samsung). You can take perfectly adequate photos but if you want to take really good photos you will need something that gives you better control of your focusing, shutter and aperture. The main problems I had were focusing and auto-filtering. The phones just can't manage that fine degree of focusing that a proper camera with a manual focus ring can, you have to adjust your aperture and hope for the best. Some phones (Samsung :grr:) have inbuilt filters which automagically make all your blends poo poo because they force the sharpness way up. There's no way to turn it off unless you shoot RAW and process it manually. I switched to a basic system camera with a macro lens (Sony a5100) which was dirt cheap second hand and it has made a massive difference to my photography. It has focus highlighting so you can just set a suitable aperture and dial the focus in manually with your camera on a tripod.
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Mar 27, 2024 18:28
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Eej posted:Don't do it man... it's only $40 for a vortex mixer: https://www.amazon.com/LABFISH-Vortex-Function-Stainless-Acrylic/dp/B0BWDH285V Do you need the beads for the mixer to work? I'm a bit leery of beads as I suspect they're going to jam my droppers.
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Apr 2, 2024 09:59
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Virtual Russian posted:I used to teach kids art, I feel your pain deeply. My kid wants to paint everything red. I'm not sure if he's an ork or a budding world eater. Bohemian Nights posted:I made my own and it worked alright, but I picked up one from greenstuff world that came packaged with 50 sheets, and I love it! Biggest pro about buying rather than making a wet palette is not having to constantly cut your own sheets but otherwise they're functionally identical. great big cardboard tube posted:Vallejo "acrylic 16 colors for fantasy figures": $33 seems to have the majority of colors I'd want, heard good things about the brand. I was a citadel paint slave before I've never tried a Vallejo paint. You've gotten a bunch of good advice already but here are my 2p 1. Vallejo paints are good but can be a little finicky sometimes and are less "reliable" than GW. They're also dropper bottles so you will need a wet palette (nbd you can make it for pennies out of a takeaway box, paper towels and some parchment paper). Citadel are damned expensive but generally reliable and easier to source. I've semi given up on regular Vallejo paints because getting them requires a mail order which is uneconomical if you just need 1-2 bottles compared to just getting paint from my local GW. Vallejo Metal Colour, Vallejo Model Air Metallics are all excellent though and are well worth a premium to get. 2. Citadel Washes are expensive but $20 sounds like a lot even then - ard you sure it's RRP? Nuln and Agrax are old standbys but they've changed the formula recently and some people don't like it. If you're up for an adventure you can try oil washes - $20 should be able to get you a bottle of low-odor thinner and 2 tubes of oils - black and burnt umber which will give you a lifetime supply of black and brown wash. 3. You dont need a whole pack of brushes. If you have painted before at all I would suggest avoiding synthetics as they'll hook within a few hours and be very irritating to paint with. You can get a cheap synthetic 2/3 brush to do basecoating, a pack of makeup brushes (any cheap China product) and a size 1 sable brush to do your actual detail work (Rosemary Series 33 is good and cheap). You don't need much more than that. 99% of my painting is done with a size 1. I switch to a 00 occasionally for eyes and fine details and I have trash brushes for my oils and drybrushing. 4. Get one of the proper tamiya side cutters (the expensive ones 74123). You can flush cut most parts and save the trimming time. Well worth the cost.
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Apr 4, 2024 11:18
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SiKboy posted:You can absolutely use dropper bottle paints without a wet palette. Any rigid non-porous surface will make a servicable hard palette which is absolutely fine for starting off. Like I love my wet palette but I still use a hard palette a lot of the time for various reasons, its fine. As someone mentioned a piece of plastic from a blister pack, a spare tile or old side plate will do fine. Wet palettes just keep the paint hydrated for longer and can help with thinning which, dont get me wrong, is nice but isnt necessary at all. It might just be how dry my environs is but with dropper paints the need for a wet palette is acute. I do have a ziploc bag that I use as a dry palette for drybrushing or when I can;t be bothered to open up the wet for a quick job but I find the paint goes from ok to dry within 15 minutes or so and the consistency changes very rapidly in this time. For quick jobs nbd but if I'm going to be slowly laying on paint I prefer the wet. It's really no bother to make one. I wouldn't suggest going out to buy RGG's latest and greatest as the first move though! I've not had great experiences with synthetics, even with the W&N Cotmans which are supposed to be better quality. The tips just go to poo poo very quickly. Maybe I'm just fussy about having a perfect tip but I've found sable brushes just generally hardier all around. And when I can get a Series 33 for GBP6 which will easily last me a year or more it's fine. The good synthetics will have a similar cost with much less durability. The only downside with sables is some of the big brands have QA issues even with their expensive brushes so you can get Series 7s and 8404s splitting in half right out of the box which is deeply irritating.
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Apr 4, 2024 12:23
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SiKboy posted:I'm not buying good synthetics, the brushes that have lasted me over a year came from poundland (they do a pack of 2 "daler and rowney" branded brushes for £1, one hilariously big so only really useful for terrain or maybe tanks, but the other a size 1 with a decent belly and a nice point. The "watercolour" pack, not the "golden acrylic" pack) and temu or possibly wish.com (hosed if I remember which chinese reseller website I got them off, all I can tell you is they were like 20 for £5 or something like that, and I think the pictures were all nail art or calligraphy in the listing). Now, synthetics are something of a lottery, no doubt, but I figured if I got a year out the pack of 20 and you got a year out your series 33, I come out ahead both by saving some money and by having extra junk brushes. I can easily use my sables for 3 years without any noticeable loss in performance until the very end. My last 8404 got me 3 years before the tip abraded so much that I couldn't do eyes with it any more and I retired it for a Series 33 - Raphael had jacked their prices up to the point where even I didn't think it was worth it.
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Apr 4, 2024 13:35
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Lumpy posted:What's the secret to having primer actually stick to metal models? I scrubbed it down with soapy water, rinsed it, let it dry. Primed like I usually do, but if I touch it or look at it too hard, it comes off. Also, I hate metal models. Use proper primer - something automotive would be good or something that specifies metal primer. I've toyed with the idea of a etching primer as well. I think the actual metal composition itself appears to make a difference in adhesion (surface porosity maybe?). GW metals, and most other metals manufactured in the UK have been ok, as have Infinity miniatures. I painted an old RT terminator recently that I'm pretty sure is lead which the paint rubbed off like mad even with very gentle handling. I have some 1/600 Pico Armour jets from Poland which are made of some super hard alloy that the primer just seems to love flaking off. Warmahordes models are also horrible for this with paint coming off at the slightest provocation especially with their love of heavy models with lots of pointy bits.
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Apr 4, 2024 20:25
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I've tried old AP and 2 thin coats at painting demos. Neither are better than Vallejo and AP was worse with respect to coverage. I find GW paint is formulated to prioritise coverage in general which makes them a lot easier to handle even if you're stuck with their colours.
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Apr 5, 2024 15:06
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Issaries posted:Or you could order complete sets. You will definitely go through paints at different rates so paints that only come in sets of 10 (or more) with no easy way of getting singles is usually a terrible idea. It's one reason why GW paints are a foolproof recommendation - they're easily available and good enough so if you ever run out of that critical shade of red you can always get a replacement easily. Vallejo and AP are also quite widely distributed (though not quite as much vs GW here in the UK) so they're decent in that regard as well. I am far more leery of all the boutique and (god forbid) kickstarted lines. Doesn't matter if its the best paint in the world if the manufacturer goes bust or the distribution fucks up.
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Apr 5, 2024 19:45
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Cease to Hope posted:vallejo metal color is incredible but pricey at about $8-10 for a 35ml bottle. so, like, half the price of citadel per ml, lol. it uses aluminum flakes instead of mica, and you really can tell the difference, especially if you put in the work to make your metals pop. (paint over a surface with the tone and finish you want, varnish the metals separately according to the finish you want them to have, etc.) it's vallejo's ripoff of alclad II, at a higher cost but without the finickiness and toxicity of nitro lacquer paint. the main disadvantage of that line is that they have a muted gold and a muted copper and everything else is various different shades of silver. The solution to no gold Metal Colour is to use the beautiful Silver and Chrome and then overpaint with Snakebite Leather or Nazdreg Yellow Contrast and you'll get a beautiful vibrant gold. Use Gore Grunta Fur to get copper etc. They're really great for Candy Jobs as well VMA Steel and Gunmetal are excellent. VMA Gold is poo poo. Retributor armour is so much better.
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Apr 5, 2024 19:49
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I switched from GW over to Vallejo and found that somehow even paints in sealed dropper bottles can go bad and dry up!
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Apr 5, 2024 20:02
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SiKboy posted:Get a fineliner pen and never try to paint a pupil again. What's the trick with these? Every time I've tried a pen (apart from sharpies/chrome markers) on a mini it's never worked right - the ink just doesn't want to flow onto the painter surfaces. I might try some watercolours as acrylics have this annoying habit of drying on the brush tip when I'm angling for fine work.
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Apr 6, 2024 16:54
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Pupils (Irises to be mord precise) are also never perfect circles with white all around so always have them blended against the upper lid margin is the most natural looking - being able to see the complete pupil with white all around is proptosis caused by your eyes being pushed forward in their sockets.
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Apr 6, 2024 17:06
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Ominous Jazz posted:it's stinky but not two container stinky If you're having trouble with CA glue remember that it goes "off" after a while even if its still liquid. I use cheapo hardware store superglue and after I year or so I relegate bottles for use mixing talc filler instead of gluing parts.. Frog Act posted:Instead of making GBS threads up the 40k thread with my scrub painting questions I figure I'll ask in here. What's the best way to apply stuff from a transfer sheet? Are 'ardcoat and Lahmian Medium really necessary? I have some Speedpaint Medium but I'm assuming that is a different type of medium, and I don't have any gloss, so I guess I should wait to try to use them until after acquiring those things? There was an exceedingly long discussion in either this or the 40k thread a week or so back about decals. In short 1. Gloss coat area you want decal on - doesn't matter if you spray or brush. You can use Stormshield or any other gloss. I personally use acrylic floor wax. 2. Wet and apply decal directly to surface. Wick off excess water with tissue or a q-tip and flatten down decal as much as possible but don't worry if it doesn't quite conform if the surface is complex. 3. Apply MicroSOL to the decal - just brush it on and leave it to dry. Repeat until decal flattens down - the Microsol will dissolve the carrier film until the decal lies flat. 4. Apply gloss over decal. You can brush this on if you're quick and careful, or spray it on. Then matte coat over to finish. Z the IVth fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Apr 10, 2024 |
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Apr 10, 2024 21:55
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grassy gnoll posted:A decal setting solution of some type is not utterly necessary, but it's kind of like a decent sable brush versus whatever synthetic you can grab at the local big box store. It's a huge quality of life increase. The setting solution is entirely optional if you have good decals and know how to gloss them properly. The softening solution is situational. If you're just placing decals on completely flat surfaces (eg robots/Gundams) then it's not necessary though it can still help "thin" the decals down if they're particularly thick. If you're dealing space marine shoulders though I would say it's pretty essential unless you want to get into cutting your decals to make them sit flat or spend ages slowly finangling them into submission. It costs less than a bottle of GW paint and that one bottle will last you forever if you don't tip it over. The opportunity cost savings alone is huge.
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Apr 11, 2024 08:55
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My Spirit Otter posted:you dont realize just how sharp an airbrush needle is until you drop it and reflexively try and catch it and bury a quarter of it lengthwise into your hand lol  You must have a very thick hand because a quarter of my airbrush needle would be a through and through on mine.
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Apr 15, 2024 13:08
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My Spirit Otter posted:it didnt go through and through, it entered between 2 fingers and dug up to the palm, thankfully Not helping! 
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Apr 16, 2024 19:29
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nessin posted:The sum total of my painting experience is four and a half miniatures. 2, and the half, of those were painted over 20 years ago when I was playing with others and using borrowed minis until I picked up my own right before our group suddenly disbanded. The other two were last week as I had the most ridiculous idea ever to suddenly paint the miniatures from a boardgame. Just laying that out to provide context for where I'm coming from. Watch the official Warhammer painting videos. They're tailor made for newbies and will go over a lot of basic stuff that the influencer channels will skip over. And they will repeat the same lessons over and over again. The only thing bad that can be said about them is they only use very basic techniques and you will want to graduate into something more advanced when the time comes. However, if you want to build a foundation, they're 100% the best way to do it. Also their presenters (especially Duncan and Peachy from years ago) are very pleasant - again, very corporate and 'bland' but at the same time they're meant to appeal to a broad audience. You have to tolerate characters like Squidmar 'I want to gargle Superman's balls' or 'high on cocaine Miniac'. Contrast paints are perfectly fine as a beginner technique. If nothing else you will learn brush control. They're just an easy way to basecoat + shade in the same step. Oils are not a straightforward way to paint miniatures. The skills you will need to work with oils are more or less identical to acrylics. The main benefit of oils is the very slow dry compared to acrylics which means you have an easier time blending OR for making up washes. However because they do dry so slowly you are going to need to take a day or two between each layer/colour for oil paints. In many ways using the same technique on acrylics is harder than oils - blending has to be very quick, and you have to worry about tide marks when washing. If you git gud with your acrylics you can transition across to oils easily. However if you start with oils you will take forever to git anywhere. Airbrushing is something completely different and the effects\techniques do not map directly onto brush painting. You can get pseudo-airbrush effects with good drybrushing technique (see the Artis Opus videos) but there is a significant outlay for equipment and you need to practice as well. If you're just getting back into painting and asking these questions I would strongly recommend doing basic brush painting, follow the standard GW style and then build on from there. It's designed so that even a kid can do it. Bucnasti posted:Yeah this right here. Also this. There's no real way to git gud apart from painting more. Stuff like the muscle memory for brush control and familiarity with your brushes and paints can only come from practice. No amount of Youtube Influencer videos can help with that.
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Apr 18, 2024 11:30
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armorer posted:This is a stupid question, but I don't play any tabletop wargames so I don't really know: When minis come with small, irregularly shaped built-in bases (like some pewter models I've seen), they need to be re-based on a base of some particular size in order to use them in a game, right? Do people cut the existing base off? Or glue the built-in base onto a properly sized base and then disguise it with basing materials? Is there a "right way" to approach that? Depending on the base your choices for basing are 1. Trim integral base off completely and pin model to desired base. 2. Trim most of integral base off but reshape the bits under the feet into pins to attach to new base. IMO this is my preferred solution and ideal for minis with thin ankles not amenable to pinning or those who come with tabs rather than broccoli bases. 3. Stick the entire mini, base and all onto another base. Don't really like this as it adds a lot of unnecessary height.
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Apr 27, 2024 20:43
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Virtual Russian posted:Make sure you know what pigments you are powdering. Don't want to powder a heavy metal. Odds are cheap pastels won't have the good pigments, but always worth checking. Are the non-toxic pigments considered "good" or more expensive than the heavy metals?
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Apr 28, 2024 16:46
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Cease to Hope posted:heavy metal pigment powder is a health hazard Yeah I am aware of that. Just wondering whether buying cheap pastels would be more likely to get you toxic stuff or if the heavy metal stuff is actually more expensive and harder to source. Or if they don't ever get made into pastels in the first place. I am sure there are purists out there who would insist on using "original" pigments no matter how toxic they are.
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Apr 28, 2024 17:19
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Lovely Joe Stalin posted:If you are going to freehand a pattern like that. Try doing all of the straight lins first, so it's a grid. You could possibly stencil the grid using thin model masking tape to do one set of lines, then mask again for the other direction. Then go back and paint in the break points afterwards. There's another trick with freehanding that dovetails into the watercolour conversation - sketch your design with watercolours and finalise it before you apply the acrylics. If you varnish the surface beforehand you can erase any watercolours with a damp brush which makes painting with them incredibly easy. For my next freehand I'm thinking of just using watercolours and locking it in with varnish.
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Apr 28, 2024 21:05
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SkyeAuroline posted:
Quoting this for attention and adding to my last comment. There is a "trick" with these Celtic knot type designs. You want to paint the entire thing as solid lines first before you split the lines to make the knot appear. This tutorial summarises it nicely https://jaiunplanningcharg.wordpress.com/2021/02/10/tutorial-celtic-knot/
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Apr 28, 2024 22:16
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 Decided to give it a go because I can't stop myself. 1. Watercolour guides 2. Stroke one way 3. Stroke the other way 4. Clean up and make gross cuts 5. Make holes bigger 6. Make small cuts between the bands 7. Tidy up even more, highlight and clean off guides. With practice it can probably be made even sharper but this is really a design that would be best done as a decal.
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Apr 28, 2024 23:18
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NinjaDebugger posted:Protip: water through the airbrush will take off the watercolor and leave the acrylic completely untouched. I just wash it off with a brush. I've sprayed varnish on watercolour before to lock it in when I've been lazy with making sure all the painted bits are covered with acrylic.
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Apr 29, 2024 09:52
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Jonny Nox posted:Today’s Martens just aren’t as good as they used to be I guess. Didn't a whole lot of them get culled due to Covid? Maybe it's Long-Mustelid Covid. Either that or the good stuff is no longer available because someone decided to sanction the only supplier to hell and back. Also I switched to Rosemary after my last Raphael 8404 went funny on me right out of the box. Credit where its due Jackson Art replaced it for me despite me having purchased it over a year ago, but with the prices having more than doubled it's really painful.
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Apr 30, 2024 21:27
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I did some stuff EC Spartan          Bretonnian Sorceress    Broodlord *taps head*    Cerastus Knights   
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May 3, 2024 21:35
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Did you follow Louise Sugden's tutorial for these weapons? Got it in one. Its an excellent tutorial and very easy to execute.
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May 3, 2024 21:55
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muike posted:longtime Gundam guy here, bought my first warhammer guys (grey knight terminators) and looking forward to painting them. Everyone's minis here look so good, I can't wait to get started learning to do hand painting for minis It's a very different set of skills, particularly for figures. I've seen some of the Japanese gundam makers who make absolutely stunning gundams but when it comes to painting small scale figures their stuff looks very beginner level by comparison. It's like Golden Demon level gundam paired with a barely tabletop standard pilot/crew figure.
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May 9, 2024 22:46
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Perestroika posted:I'm trying to do something with a somewhat more complex base for the first time (it's a 40k knight, feels like a crime not to go at least a bit ham on the base), and I'm a bit unsure about the best order of operations. Basically, this is the base as I have it so far (the knight is not yet glued on): Wrap feet in clingfilm/masking film/masking tape. Apply texture to entire base, smush down, let dry then tease apart.
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May 10, 2024 18:18
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Ominous Jazz posted:is greenstuff naturally sticky or do you have to glue Depends on the surface. It has some grab and it's quite sticky against itself or a porous surface but you can peel if off smooth plastic and metal easily if you flex the part a little. It's also much more sticky if you mix in more of the yellow. It becomes less and less sticky as it cures. Also if you use especially oily lubes like vaseline it can stop the greenstuff binding against itself and your sculpts can split apart.
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May 10, 2024 19:31
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Kylaer posted:Ohh, I was wondering how to adhere models to 3d-printed bases with uneven surfaces, sounds like greenstuff might work. If you want something that has a little less structure UV resin grabs a bit faster.
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May 10, 2024 20:02
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Eej posted:The evergreen answer to any "how do I stick to a base" question is pinning Resin printed figures with 2mm ankles and feet laugh at your "pinning"
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May 10, 2024 20:06
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Bucnasti posted:When I print my guard infantry, I add a pin in the form of a 1mm wide cylinder to the bottom of their feet in blender, then drill a 1mm hold in my plastic bases. No need to drill into the resin and it securely holds. Unfortunately I get ppl to print for me so it's always a bit of an imposition to get them to modify the stls. Goes to show how little thought most stl creators give to the practical function of their creations. So many nice models that are unusable because they can't be attached to a base at all because there is too little surface area under their feet.
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May 10, 2024 21:59
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Cease to Hope posted:A 1/64" drill bit is also called a #78 or a .4mm. Past a certain point even if you could drill it the remaining material isn't sturdy enough to hold everything together and it fractures around the pin. Resin doesn't have the tensile strength of metal or plastic sadly. Jonny Nox posted:It's caused no end of complaints every time they release a new army because slim highly detailed minis look amazing in renders. and good table top minis look worse in renders than in print It's actually very obvious which digital sculptors have a modicum of physical sculpting/casting experience and which ones have come from a purely digital background. Unfortunately good looking renders appear to sell well despite being absolutely miserable (or impossible) to handle in reality. I recently got some White Werewolf Tavern stuff which looked beautiful in render but started falling apart the second I unwrapped if since all the parts were so fine and even touching the sculpts wrong would cause them to break. I've had to start looking for intentionally "chunky" minis on render since they inevitably end up less chunky in real life.
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May 12, 2024 10:55
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Nebalebadingdong posted:painted an ice base Loving the maroon and gold scheme. Very regal.
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May 12, 2024 11:16
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On the subject of ice bases here are some that don't require quite same degree of dedication to freehand- the shards are chopped up first. Do you want to summon a Gargantuan Ice Elemental?
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May 12, 2024 18:32
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