What Minis Are You Painting?

looks awesome Michael, though those minis I keep wondering why the Indianapolis Colts evolved into Space Marines.

I'll post my finished Ashardalon set soon, I just have the heroes (main problems - a couple of the sculpts are awful and since I want to keep the player colors in order I will try to keep the half orc in black armour, highlighted with a blue I guess, could turn out awful), and the red dragon which I will definitely come back for tips and advice on before starting (I will almost certainly spray prime red on that one and go from there).

Pretty happy with most of the minis, and its been great to see how those shitty smaller models let you get away with stuff that ends up not mattering, to kind of offset the more pain in the arse details and mess, and hard to get at fiddly bits. I am hoping this is one of the main reasons why I'm not entirely satisified with the base/wash/base/highligh dry brush/edge highlight because I just dont know if those models warrant it, I get impatient and dont feel like you get enough out of all that messing about, but I will post the pics and you can all tell me if its worth adding some time to them. I must say some of the smaller trickier bits came out amazing (IMO) and cant wait to play the game with them. Oh, and fuck yellow, especially Vallejo, that color stinks. Thank god for my citadel pots to get me out of Grell jail free. Loads of the great advice you all gave was gold, I'll probably review a few points that maybe were not focussed heavily enough and some which for now, probably seemed less important than they sounded. I can see some things I am doing "wrong" but on the other hand, I'm happy to get them done pretty quickly at a level appropriate for the use, so that actually feels like I'm justifying my own efforts (at this point, I'm more excited to paint up my boardgame minis to look OK but nothing to obsess over, and none of that display type stuff). Its amazing to me that you can get a pretty decent looking mini without any real talent to be honest. Who knew!

Another weird thing, loads of great resources, but wow, just today I looked at black painting, and saw Jays mini wargaming 101, those videos to start with seemed great, but (vid 28?) and some other one I clicked on looked fucking awful, I mean, just terrible, I wasnt sure if he was joking around like that Golden Daemon spoof video which cracked me up. I dont know if he had a bad day or just started phoning it in but I was genuinely confused. To feel better I watched Duncan do black with gold trim, I think I'd like to get a set of recordings of Duncan just talking to me, if he could replace Siri on my Iphone maybe, hes so laid back and content sounding. I know they do a lot of next level stuff but I'm more and more impressed with how straight forward the GW method is, both with the techniques, and paint progressions and instructions. Still, Michael had it right, a lot of those models seem piss easy now when you've been trying to dig a brush round some of these bent misshaped little boardgame midgets.

So I am a complete newbie when it comes to painting, but after being inspired by this forum and thread, I primed some Shadespire figures, and painted my first ever miniature, Severin Steelheart. There are a lot of little things that I had trouble with, small details, hidden details, paint spilling into other parts of the model, etc... etc... BUT, I had a BLAST doing it, and even though it's not perfect (some stuff needs touching up..but) , I feel I could use it in a match and feel pretty good about it. So... one down... 21 to go... and then there's Space Hulk... Big thanks to all you fine people here posting these amazing works. Makes you really appreciate the time and patience it takes..

Here is a shot of my mostly finished warband for Shadespire. I had a lot of trouble with the belts and small raised details (like the hammer/lighting bolts on the shoulders), and I have to touch up a few things I missed like joints and some smaller things. Overall I'm pretty happy with everything... Going to move onto Garreks next, followed by the skeleton crew. Just need more time! I'd love to see other folks Shadespire figures if you have em!

For first miniatures ever painted, those look GREAT. I have some pictures of mine somewhere...I also have the Reavers and Orks painted. The Reavers I think you will find fun to paint too- very different since they are all shirtless barbarians. Lots of BELTS though, which are always a hassle.

Use a layer brush (like a 1 or 0), something that will hold a fine tip. You want to go perpendicular to it if the belt is raised, but parallel if it is in a recess. Give the paint a little water so it run slightly off the edge, physics will hold it in the right place unless you use too much water.

I'm painting Saim-Hann Eldar right now. They're pretty fun to paint. Mephiston Red spray does most of the heavy lifting. I finished a Fire Prism the other day and got all bold with it, changing the color of the clear plastic parts to green with Waywatcher Green glaze. It kind of worked...ish. I've got another Fire Prism, a Farseer, two warlocks, 12 Windrider Jetbikes, and 4 Vypers in queue right now. This army is going to be ONLY jetbikes, grav tanks, and possibly a Hemlock Wraithfighter. No Eldar feet shall touch the ground. The new Codex gives Saim-Hann the ability to use heavy weapons without penalty after moving, which is kind of awesome- you can put Starcannons and Brightlances on Vypers for example and keep them mobile (i.e. out of range).

I actually did freehand stripes on the tank and a couple of the bikes, which was actually not as harrowing as I thought they'd be. They don't look perfect, but they are good by my low standards.

Thanks Michael! I am looking forward to painting the Reavers, belts aside! Thank you for the suggestion on brush technique for small details, I will certainly apply it to those Reaver models when I get around to painting them (hoping to get some time this Sunday). Going to hit up the art store after work for small finer brushes. I guess this is how the addiction starts... oh boy. Going to try and find a decent lighting source next, and maybe a little shelf unit to store all the paints.

On another note, what are people's thoughts on the Vallejo 72 paint sets like game/model paints? Those look pretty interesting, and cheaper per bottle than citadel paints. Not sure I'd really need all of them, but it would be nice to have a nice range to pick from.

Vallejo is a high quality paint that is in the same range of quality as Citadel (some colors are better, some are worse, most are about the same). If you care about matching up the colors, they have a guide that provides the closest analog in several other companies lines. The one issue I have with Vallejo is that they will often use the same name for paints in different lines and the actual paint is not the same color.

Here's a shot of Garrek's band... mostly done, but there are a few things I need to fix. This was challenging for me, I had a bit of difficulty with the layering of lighter skin tone, it seemed a bit splotchy in spots, but it's cool, I still like the look. The belts weren't as bad as I thought they would be. I think the hardest for me was having primed the figures black, I had a hard time seeing the smaller details, so I might prime a grey next time. Anyways, a much different painting experience than my other guys, that's for sure! Next up is Sepulchral Guard... which I have painted all in Zandri Dust so it's easier to paint than black.

I started on Blood Bowl last night -- lots of details on those dudes. Might be able to get a lineman up tonight....hopefully.

I've going to do Blood Bowl soon too. But, I'm recovering from shoulder surgery so I don't know how productive I'll be.

Regarding basing, I have a question for the experts. What type of grass do I use for the bases? Is this the stuff?

I think you'd better off with "tufts". Much more easier to control and apply. They're already clumped and stand upright from the beginning.

I use the pictured stuff, but I particularly like how it looks.

Really depends on what you're going for as a look on your bases. If you're after the "lawn" effect, then the static grass is indeed what you need. You end up with bases looking like this:


Get some PVA glue, mix in 30-50% water, and apply generously to the base. Then grab a good-sized pinch of the grass and sprinkle over the area. Finally (and this is important), bring the mini base up side on to your mouth and blow on it. This will (a) dislodge excess grass, and (b) stand up the grass strands that are attached.

Tufts are also fine, but you get more of a barren/poorly-tended pitch effect on your bases.

Pug, your stuff is looking great man...for just starting out, you are way ahead of most folks. Shit, you are neater than I am!

On the Sepulchral Guard- I painted them in a couple of hours, ain't no big thang. They are pretty easy to handle. I primed black and went up through Zandri Dust/Ushabti Bone/Screaming Skull though, because I don't like putting silver over Zandri Dust spray- I can never get it to look not patchy. I would recommend that you just block in the other base colors- whatever you want for the cloaks, the leather, the jewelry (skeletons are all like "hang on, I gotta wear some bangles"), and so on. Go ahead and do the bases too. I did mine Mechanicus Standard Gray and picked out the bones with Zandri Dust. And then just slap Agrax on the whole thing, top to bottom. Then drybrush it all with the same base colors, and then maybe just do one round of highlights. I really enjoyed painting them, they weren't very taxing the sculpts are accommodating of basic techniques to get a good result.

On the Blood Bowl basing, I just used Army Painter's green basing grit. That GF9 stuff is too fluffy. Just some plain old wood glue and then stick the base of the model in the container it comes in. Let it sit in there. Then pick it up, tap the side to get the excess off. It looks good and "pitch-like". If you really want to go buck wild you could then paint a white stripe on it. I did not go buck wild. But I did the rims with Warboss Green.

I've only painted my Blood Bowl Humans- they were fun, but there were some challenging bits- their faces for example, what with there being helmet stuff in the way. But their clothes and all are pretty fun to do.

I'm still painting lots and lots of Mephiston Red...Saim-Hann Eldar. I wanted an easy win today so I started on the Necromunda doors/bulkheads. Black spray/Leadbelcher drybrush and you are 50% complete.

I bought the small Glaze Brush from Citadel. that it is the best brush I ever had for highlighting, all but smallest detail and even very localized wash jobs (like face&muscles). Very washable and bristles keep straight, stuck together and pointy after 2 months of solid abuse.
I made a comment about this to a good painter, and he told me that he uses it almost exclusively for detail jobs and that it is popular within golden demon circles, too, and that for some strange miracle (which he explained, but I kinda Homer Simpsoned that part) it is the best brush manufactured by GW.
Not sure if this is a Barnes-approved tool, but if not, it totally should be.

You know, I have one but I messed it up a while back- it is a really stiff, pointy brush. I might pick up another one tomorrow when I go to get some of that new Munitorium Varnish.

Try it, try it, and you may...
And please give your impressions on munitorum varnish!

By the way, I find Escher to be the most beautiful and hard to paint models. I've spent almost 2 weeks with 8 of them, still nowhere close to be done, and I doubt very much the end result will be anywhere close to what I expected.