Dealing with Frustration

[XON2000]

Hi,

I'm one of those guys for which painting minis is a huge obstacle to getting into miniature wargaming. I'd tried 40K in the past, and was just overwhelmed. One of the things that I like about Warmachine/Hordes is that you don't have to have dozens of models to play. But I'm still having a heck of a time getting over the painting hump.

I know that it takes practice, and I know that I can't expect my results to look like the professional work shown in the books. But every time I sit down to paint, I have such a hard time just trying to get paint into hard-to-reach places (like under arms or between legs), or painting "inside the lines" without accidentally painting over another color, that I have to just walk away before I chuck a heavy jack through a wall.

So, I'm wondering, has anyone out there been where I am, and if so, how did you get past that stage? I really want to play the game, but I want my minis to at least look decent. I don't want to cop out and use unpainted, or single-color figures.

Thanks,

Shawn

[Michael]

Yep. I had the same problem. My first models looked awful, truly awful.

I did these few things to fix it:
1) Buy better brushes. I was using awful brushes, and that was a lot of the problem. Your run-of-the-mill $3 apiece golden taklon brushes at Michael's will suffice well enough for tabletop quality work.

2) Didn't try to get fancy. I laid down a base coat, painted the raised areas the correct colors, and was done with it. Five or six colors on the model is plenty, when you're just starting out.

Those two guidelines helped me get past the rough early days. Beyond that, it's practice, practice, practice. I followed the "battlegroup box in 10 days" articles at BrushThralls.com and found them tremendously helpful. I just skipped all the highlighting and shading parts of the article.

I also recommend the Privateer Press Core Techniques video. I've heard from a lot of people that it's helpful. Also, read the painting sections in your relevant Force book. It's got a lot of handy tips.

Lastly: set up a good work area. Make sure you've got plenty of light. Clean your brushes with decent brush cleaner. (Windsor & Newton cleaner, which you can get for around $10 per bottle at Michael's, is great.) Treat your brushes with care. Y'know, all the standard stuff.

I'm sure somebody else will be along with better tips in a bit. Hope this helps!

[khaohs]

I feel your pain, especially those hard to paint nether regions. To help get around that, I paint each piece individually, before attaching parts or basing. Good brushes as mentioned above, and eying the amount of paint on the tips. Also as mentioned above, Keep It Simple... and take your time.

You'll get better and faster over time.

All else fails, you could hire someone to paint them for you.

[berkzol]

Hey,

I am not an expert painter myself or not a master hobbyist, but I try to give you some advice.

First of all, don't let yourself frustrate because the CMON gallery, the studio paintings or so. They are professional painters over 5-10-15-X years of experience. Look at Ron in the PP DVD... With a big, fat brush ha can maintain his control like a god, and if I am understanding you correct, you aren't an experienced painter ;-)

Here are some advices:
- Paint the model what you like very-very much. You will be careful with it, you will see
- Don't paint the model assembled, try it unassembled
- Go from the inside out. Then you can paint it relaxed, without worrying to overpainting
- If you have a friend who is painting too, then ask him to paint together. You can learn that way easier, in a good mood.
- Don't hurry. If you paint a model for a month, then you paint it for a month. Who cares? This is not a challenge, this is art. And art takes time. See my exrteme juggernaut in my signature? I painted the model 3 month long :-)
- Try techniques, read articles and you can ask here a lot of people about techniques and little secrets. As I saw, the people here are a very friendly and 100% that they will help you.
- Know that Picasso was a "jerk" too, he learned to paint too :-)

I hope I helped a little,

berkzol

[Ulf]

As dumb as this might sound, the best piece of advice I can give you is this: Don't sweat the details. In all seriousness, 90% of improving at any kind of artwork is giving yourself permission to make mistakes. If you're worried about messing up your figures, the tension of that will cause you to make mistakes, and that just leads to frustration.

I would suggest picking up some inexpensive figures and practicing on them. You won't worry about how they look as much, which will let you feel like you can try more things, which in turn will help you improve your skills.

The other thing is correction & clean-up. Nobody, not even the best painters out there, applies color perfectly the first time. Every "clean" miniature you've ever seen has been corrected & cleaned up a lot. If you go "outside the lines", then just set the figure aside, let the paint dry, and touch up the area where you feel like you made a mistake. Correct the slip of the brush. Believe me, accomplished painters spend probably half their time doing some version of this.

Something else that new painters often do which can lead to frustrating mistakes is to use thick paint straight out of the pot. This leads to poor flow control and over-application. I would suggest you take some paint out of the pot, use water to thin it down to about the consistency of milk, and paint with that. You'll have more control and better results.

Hope this helps!

[Wishing]

With regards to not being able to get to various places on a model, my best advice is to spray undercoat black (and use a big brush with stiff bristles afterwards to get black paint into narrow crevices and nooks that don't get sprayed) and then not worry about it too much. If you can't get to it with a normal brush, chances are that that area of the model isn't one that will stand out as immediately visible, so leaving it black (as in shadow) will probably look just fine.

[XON2000]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. Keep it coming!

All else fails, you could hire someone to paint them for you.

This has crossed my mind, but it would feel like a cop-out too. I think I'd rather play with badly-painted models and at least have the satisfaction that they were my badly-painted models, than use awesome-looking figures that I paid someone else to do.

[Kegtapper]

If after putting on a base coat on your fig you are still not happy with it, try putting a wash on it. That really helped my figs not look so flat.

[Writer@Large]

I'm STILL there. It's half the reason most of my army is half-painted or unpainted. I want better results than I am capable of producing.

A couple things I've learned to do:

1) Stick to a model. I used to jump from project to project, unit to unit. Now I'm trying to focus on painting a couple things at a time, finishing them, and moving on. That model may turn out less than desired, but then the NEXT one comes out a little better, and a little better, etc.

2) Prioritize your models and the importance of paint jobs. I try to fuss more over warcasters than I do over units, and character warjacks more than standard jacks. Solos usually get more love from me, and character solos over generic solos. 10 decently-painted models that are cohesive look good on the tabletop even if they're individually less than perfect, while the warcaster leading the army shines on his own.

--W@L

[Col_Festus]

Hello there! I kind of pride myself on taking people such as yourself and helping them get over their painting hurtles. I've been painting for 15 years and decided to start a blog dedicated to helping people paint better. This includes tutorials, tricks and tips to help you get going. Let me give you a few pointers to help you get started.

Two big things can help you immensely when it comes to painting figures. The first a solid but smooth basecoat of colors to work on. For these I recomend any PP paint, or GW foundation paints. You can give it 1 or 2 goes over an area and should have great coverage. Enter the 2nd biggest thing, washes. I highly recommend Citadel Washes, they will make a crappy paint job look fantastic. The better the basecoat the better the washes will look. Here are a few great combinations

Devlan Mud washed almost any earthy tones - great for two step leathers
Devlan Mud washed over Deneb stone followed by deneb stone again - great way to start foundation for whites
Chainmail followed by Babdab Black - GREAT looking two step metals.
(on a side note I find Chainmail to be one of the best metal colors I've worked with, it covers just like P3 or a foundation paint)
Mechrite Red + 1:1 mix of Thrakka Green Wash+Baal red wash - makes for a great looking red that can be used for a variety of schemes.
Gold - Im still working on an easy way to do gold, but currently Im using dwarven bronze with Devlan mud wash followed by 1:1 chainmail to dwarven bronze highlight.

Finishing
Matte Varnish
A good matte varnish can help make a model look alot better and help hide bumpy paint jobs. Testor's Dullcote is a fantastic product that I highly recommend.
Gloss Varnish
This is great for hitting metals after a dullcote to breath some life back into them and make them shine in a realistic way. Can also be used on eyes, tongues, sensors, and blood. I can't recommend Pledge: Future Floor Wax enough. Can get it Online for fairy cheap.

Brushes
Brushes will help you immensly and I highly recommend Windsor & Newton Series 7. Great brushes, can probably find a good deal on them online.

Basing, Basing, Basing.
Make sure you base your models. A good basing job can turn a 2 into an 8. Use some of the combination I mentioned above to get great looking bases. My personal favorite is Graveyard earth, washed with Devlan mud, drybrushed with graveyard earth followed by a 1:1 mixture of Bleached boned and Graveyard earth drybrushed on to finish it off.

Preparing your models
Make sure you properly prepare your models before painting them. This includes removing all flash lines and giving a model a good undercoating using a BLACK primer. Black primer is a beginners dream, It helps cover up missed spots and gives an illusion of depth to areas that you can't cover quite well. Much more forgiving than white undercoat.

Hrm.. thats all I can think of off the top of my head. Check out my blog First Rank, Second Rank for more stuff, or feel free to email me at col.festus@gmail.com if you have questions concerning certain topics!

[Rion]

Oh heck yeah, I've been there. I read as much brushthralls tutorials and NQs as I could get my hands on and still do. Asking questions like you are now is probably the best thing you can do to help you get over that initial hump of painting. It takes a bit of patience, practice, and a lot of time; but it's worth it in the long run.

On advice about the things you mentioned I have a few pointers you can try. With trying to paint hard-to-reach spots I'll use a long bristle brush like the PP base hobby brush and manouver it (using the side of the brush or any part of it that will help reach) till I've covered the desired area during base coating and just let washes take it from there as they are normally shadowed areas, though there are times when it requires more finesse when there are areas that contain multiple colors in those hard to reach spots. This just takes patience and a little finagling.

Painting in the lines is mostly just a "muscle memory" thing that you develop the more you paint. My seraph, the first miniature I bought and painted is a testament to that. The best advice I can give is in each stage of painting (basecoat>shadow>highlight) start on lower levels of the object and work your way up. Such as, on warjacks the metal pistons and mechanics are the lowest level with armor plating above them. Though I will state that there is almost always going to be paint ending up in other areas where it isn't supposed to be that will have to be touched up but the better you get the less it occurs and in the amount of paint.

Seriously though if you start getting frustrated with a model, just set it down and walk away from it for a few minutes. Go get a drink/snack/beer and come back to it, that will make things at least a little less stressful and coming back to something with "fresh eyes" can help a lot.

Keep asking questions, they're the best way to learn.

[DemonCalibre]

Ask for painting tips from those better then you, though becareful not to ask the best , sometimes they can get far to technical, and be very intimidating.

Lastly, just keep slugging away, Stick to simple paint schemes(dark colors, and washs), stay away from Bright Colors which are a PITA to paint, and just keep slugging.

[paradox]

Have you considered having someone else paint for you? You can find some pretty reasonable commission prices for decent quality work.

Hi,

I'm one of those guys for which painting minis is a huge obstacle to getting into miniature wargaming. I'd tried 40K in the past, and was just overwhelmed. One of the things that I like about Warmachine/Hordes is that you don't have to have dozens of models to play. But I'm still having a heck of a time getting over the painting hump.

I know that it takes practice, and I know that I can't expect my results to look like the professional work shown in the books. But every time I sit down to paint, I have such a hard time just trying to get paint into hard-to-reach places (like under arms or between legs), or painting "inside the lines" without accidentally painting over another color, that I have to just walk away before I chuck a heavy jack through a wall.

So, I'm wondering, has anyone out there been where I am, and if so, how did you get past that stage? I really want to play the game, but I want my minis to at least look decent. I don't want to cop out and use unpainted, or single-color figures.

Thanks,

Shawn

[Mar]

The tutorials on Brushthralls helped me immensely. I just followed the guide step by step best I could, using the closest colors to the ones they were laying down. I don't try to make it as good as the pro painters. You can always save your first models you paint, then as you progress you can look back on how far you've come.

Also, I can not emphasize this enough: Thin your paints.

http://archive.brushthralls.com/mode...hroughs/2.html

[XON2000]

Awesome, more great advice, guys!

So here are a few specific questions:

1. I had picked up a set of Citadel brushes. Are these any good?
2. I have started thinning my paints, which has helped some with solid colors (like the blues on my Cygnar jacks). But I'm having trouble with metallics. I got the Vallejo Brassy Brass paint as a base color for gold (a suggestion I read on Brushthralls), but it doesn't seem to mix well with water. When I tried to think it, I couldn't get it to cover at all. The tutorial I read said that it can just about be used straight out of the bottle, so I tried that. It works okay at first, but it seems like it dries really quickly and starts to get gummy. Any advice on this?
3. What do you all use to measure out paints for thinning or mixing? I got some cheap little plastic trays for mixing in, and some plastic eyedropper-type things for measuring. The eyedropper works well for water, but paints are a bit too thick.
4. What do you think of magnifying lamps? I ordered one specifically for painting, but I found that when I use it, it gets in the way of my brush handle. Am I doing it wrong, or is this just not a practical setup?

[Valander]

Awesome, more great advice, guys!

So here are a few specific questions:

1. I had picked up a set of Citadel brushes. Are these any good?
2. I have started thinning my paints, which has helped some with solid colors (like the blues on my Cygnar jacks). But I'm having trouble with metallics. I got the Vallejo Brassy Brass paint as a base color for gold (a suggestion I read on Brushthralls), but it doesn't seem to mix well with water. When I tried to think it, I couldn't get it to cover at all. The tutorial I read said that it can just about be used straight out of the bottle, so I tried that. It works okay at first, but it seems like it dries really quickly and starts to get gummy. Any advice on this?
3. What do you all use to measure out paints for thinning or mixing? I got some cheap little plastic trays for mixing in, and some plastic eyedropper-type things for measuring. The eyedropper works well for water, but paints are a bit too thick.
4. What do you think of magnifying lamps? I ordered one specifically for painting, but I found that when I use it, it gets in the way of my brush handle. Am I doing it wrong, or is this just not a practical setup?

1. They're totally workable. The GW brushes aren't the highest quality, for sure, but they're reasonable and until you get really demanding, they should do fine.

2. The VMC metals don't really like being thinned much. You can thin them a touch, but they will dry fast and gum up your brush (as you found). Solution really is only to rinse your brush pretty regularly.

3. Eyeballs. There's no real hard and fast way, but you'll find with a bit of practice, you can judge "two brushfulls of this, one drop of that" fairly accurately.

4. I don't like the magnifying lamps at all. I find they screw with depth perception, and that's really important. I know other folks have used the OptiVisor things, but I hate those, too. Honestly, I just have two lamps mounted on my desk that I got from Ikea for 7 bucks a piece (silver architect lamps, so they're pretty adjustable) with 100W daylight compact flourescents in them, and they work great for lighting. I use a pair of reading glasses at +3.25 strength when painting, and that seems good enough for me.

[Rion]

1. They're not bad. Though my opinions on brush quality and painting differs from most people.
2. I still thin metals slightly to prevent loss of detail and flow a little easier. When the paint starts getting gummy stop and let it dry so your brush doesn't start to take off the paint.
3. I don't measure. Mixing I've used the back part of a blister pack, otherwise I have a cheap paint tray
4. don't use them, like you said, they get in the way.

[Dais]

brush control is 90% of good painting in my opinion. if you can get the paint where you want the rest is just practice and technique.
try base coating the colors first and do the colors in hard to reach areas before the outer areas, you can wash them and pick out tiny details easier than getting paint in every little crack.
when you hold your brush and model ALWAYS hold your brush hand against your other hand, the model itself, or even your table. if your brush hand is not braced you will twitch much more.
as for thinning metals, well, they get a bit grainy if you add enough water. the metal flakes in there start acting weird. i try not to thin metals too much and ive taken to adding a slow-dry to them with a little water to help thin them, and to keep them from drying too fast of course.

[Mar]

With thinning your metalics, you just have to do multiple layers. It will look really bad at first, but as you put down more layers it will really come together. I like to do a light basecoat of my foundation metallic, and then apply multiple layers of a thinned down version of whatever gold color I'm working with.

[Aldarionn]

EVERYONE who gets into miniatures wargaming in one form or another goes through the exact same thing you are describing. Its a part of the hobby, and it takes practice to move past that stage. My first miniature was a Vindicare Assassin and it didn't look anything like a Vindicare Assassin when I was done with it. It was pretty much a lumpy black thing with blobs of color where detail should be.

Here are a few basic pieces of advice that should be helpful when getting into painting your figures:

1-Purchase quality brushes. To start, a decent set of Lowell-Cornell synthetic brushes should give you more control. You want a small, medium and large sized brush, as well as a few "trash" brushes that you can destroy with some of the rougher painting techniques (like drybrushing) without messing up the ones you use for detail. I also have a brush I keep around specifically for mixing paint, because saturating the bristles up to the ferrule (the metal piece holding the bristles) with paint will destroy a brush very quickly.
2-Thin your paints! This is VERY important. Do not paint with them straight out of the bottle or your paints will be lumpy and thick. I recommend distilled water and a little bit of acrylic paint thinner. I use Vallejo paints personally, but P3 paints are pretty good, and most GW paints arent bad either. Vallejo makes a good thinner that will work with all three brands.
3-Patience and practice. Rome wasn't built in a day, and most studio painters started where all of us did, at the bottom with blotchy miniatures and terrible detail. Be patient and let yourself screw up without beating yourself up. The nice thing about Privateer Press figures is that they are almost all made of white metal, and are very easy to strip of paint. So sit down and practice on the figures you have, and if you arent happy with the results, toss them in some Simple Green and get rid of the paint, then do it again. Try to note what went wrong and not make the same mistake again. If you are having trouble getting paint into smaller areas, perhaps try to paint the figure before its fully assembled.

Don't give up on the hobby if you are genuinely interested in it just because your painting results are not where you want them to be. It takes time to learn the ropes and figure out how paint behaves, so read some online tutorials (Brushthralls.com has some great ones).

[TheBigRedMachine]

The one thing I haven't seen anyone mention is PLANNING.

Most of your problems will be easier to tackle if you have some idea of how you want to do things. If you just put one color there another over there you will run into problems.

Everything else is golden.

Decent brushes help more than you think they will. Plucking down for them is the biggest hurdle.

Thinning your paint goes a long way to making smooth coverage.

Metals really can't be thinned too much. Just keep your brush kinda wet with water as you take it out of the pot/paint tray that should help keep them from clupping.

And if you really don't want to deal with too many details. You can always go for the Dipping method. There have been a few Dippers posting the last few months and they are great table top quality. Just look around and you'll find some quick run downs.

And most importantly just keep painting. You'll get better.

[Skyydragonn]

I found myself having many of the same issues when i started out, and eventually learned a few tricks/tips

1) dont be afraid if you accidentally paint over another color slightly, you can always touch it up later.

2) I prefer to drill and figure out where my pins will go before priming my minis now, I used to just glue em and spray, I find that having each individual peice makes A HUGE difference for getting those tough to reach area's.
2a) get a couple of "alligator clips" to hold your parts this alowa you to rotate the peice in many angles to ensure you can see it from every side and that its covered.

3) never stress over your first paint scheme, I've repainted my menoth army 3 times now becase by the time i was done I could see that I had improved so i went back later and re-painted them again.

4) the Core technique's DVD is an excellent resource to have, I find it especially helpful to pop it in while I'm painting so i can puase/rewind it as I'm working on a particular technique.

5) I'm sure anything else has been posted already or will be soon

just keep at it, and remind yourself when you get frustrated that it can always be resone later, focus on getting your entire army painted first and let that bit of satisfaction sink in for awhile

[Kage]

Lots of good tips so far and I won't trod over ground already covered, so a few of my own.

1) I use a paper palette instead of a big plastic one, and I personally don't care ones with the round blisters to mix colors in- I do it all on my flat paper palette. I've been using the same one for years, and a single sheet will last me months. Once I get done painting, I take a damp paper towel and rub off all of the paint that had dried from that night's session. When one side of the palette starts to wear, I turn it around and use the other side. Once that side is done, I tear off the sheet and start new.

2) Metal paints. I love, love, love the P3 line of paints! They're great for beginners because of their great coverage(I haven't tried the yellows yet, one of the worst colors for good coverage), the colors are nice and vibrant with a ton of pigment so you can thin them down into washes easily, and they dry into a nice, hard finish that you won't easily rub off with your fingers(see point 3).

However, I HATE the metals. I use Games Workshop metals(I have an altar built to the God-Emperor for delivering Boltgun Metal unto the masses), and I recently picked up a Vallego Game Color Gunmetal Metal that works about as well as the GW stuff. Note that the Model Color Vallejo metals are formulated differently. Also, you generally have to shake the hell out of Vallejo paints for several minutes to make sure they're mixed well.

3) I didn't read every tip on here, but another important thing to do is get something to hold your figures with other than your hands. Blue-tac on top of some kind of bottle and sticking the base of the figure to that is the way most people go. I will usually drill hole in the foot of the figure, glue a brass rod into it,and hold that in a pin vice; it helps you get to some of the hard-to-reach spots that the figures base might be covering up. Some people will pin the foot and stick the rod into a round piece of cork instead of using a pin vice.

4) Touch up. I've been painting off and on for some years now, and I still make mistakes and paint out of the lines now and then, getting paint somewhere that I've already painted. It happens, and it's just something you'll have to deal with. Sure, I do it a lot less now than when I first started, but no one's perfect. I've seen pro painters that will hand brush a gloss coat over finished areas in case of something like that, so they can just rub off any accidental paint, but that's too much work for me, and I'm also not good enough to sell a painted miniature for hundreds of dollars.

5) If you're really, really unhappy with a paint job, undo it. I have two plastic bins under my bathroom sink, one with Pine-Sol for stripping metal figures and one with Simple Green for stripping plastic figures.

6) Save money. This can be an expensive hobby, and I've seen lots of people quit it because of the cost. Invest in good paints and brushes, but cut corners elsewhere. That paper palette I bought several years ago was about 5 bucks. A friend of mine goes even more economical and uses wax paper from the kitchen for his palette, but it will wrinkle from the moisture after 30 mins or so.

My water bins are empty 32 oz yogurt containers. For the figures that I do still stick to a blue-tac'd bottle, I use Testors Airbrush and Metalizer Thinner bottles that I got from my older brother who empties out a few a month on his 'real' plane and tank models. The bottles are square, and I hold it in my left hand and rest my palm against the flat side for better stability.

If nothing else, you can buy 4 or 5 of the 1 or 2 oz empty dropper bottles from a local craft store, glue the caps down, and stick some Blue-Tac on top. You might want to fill them water or sand to help balance the weight of the minis.

Never, ever, ever buy tools from the game store! A pair of clippers from some of these places are 12-15 bucks, when you get the same thing from a hardware store for $1. Same thing with files: I got a set of 10 files from Harbor Freight for less than 10 dollars, and the same set in a game store was $30. I even bought a big 8" file from a clearance bin for $1, 'cause sometimes you really need to remove some metal, and it would take all day with the tiny needle file. Also check for pin vices, but you may have to take the hit from a game store on that(though I do have a titanium 1/16" drill bit from the hardware store- usually the smallest size you can find).

Several years ago, I bought a pack of 100 X-Acto blades for the cost of 3-4 of the 'refill' packs in game stores, and I'm not even a third of the way through them.

7) Posture. I used to paint with my hands sitting on the table and my back and neck bent over them. After several hours of painting, I felt like a 90 yr old man with bad joints when I tried to get up. I have since broken myself of that habit and sit with my back straight, elbows on the table, with my hands at eye level.

8) Learn to look at your work objectively. I know, we're our own worst critics, but as long as you keep painting and you actively try to improve on each new mini, you *will* get better. If you just want to stick to basecoats for now, then do that. Don't worry about highlighting and shading, and just focus on getting down a smooth, clean, even coat of paint with no 'outside the lines' errors. The skill of putting down a good base coat will serve you will later when you start trying for more advanced techniques.

Once you're ready to move on, don't be afraid to try new stuff. Read tutorials, sure, but if you think that mixing that new ink you just bought with some silver metal paint would make a great color for a sword, then go for it. If it sucks, well, that's what the Pine-Sol is for. But if it turns out really cool, then you've just added another weapon to your painting arsenal.

For inspiration, I have a couple of my oldest figures sitting on my desk so I can look back and see how much I've improved when I'm bummed about the 'crappy' job I just did on a figure.

[Jice_]

Paint with other people. If your local store offers painting classes or just days to go in and paint, do it. It's easy to look at pictures and think to yourself oO(I Can do that) but then your hands wont cooperate. Seeing other people do it live and in person will make things click in not just your head but your fingers too. As well, the company helps to take your mind off the actual part of paining that becomes more tedious than fun, and I'm talking about repatition. One model is fun, a unit of ten is a hastle. Painting with friends while watching/listening too Robot chicken makes the process fly by.

[saxondog]

Two things; practice really is the only way to get better. Don't let yourself be discouraged. I fortunately/unfortunately still have some of my first few attempts at painting from twenty years ago. Horrifying is being nice to myself.
Second, find and good painter in your area and ask lots of questions. I learn better in a hands on situation and having someone demonstrate techniques helped speed up the learning curve.
Hope that helps and hang in there.

SFK

[PsychoLaughs]

what really jumped my painting into a level i'm happy with is what has been mentioned already: practice.
i also started with 40k, and i was fortunate enough to have experienced painters in my gaming group that gave me consistent tips and ideas on what to do with my miniatures. but soon my painting reached a plateau.

i was half decent at this point and then got a job at a GW where i worked for 18 months.

for all the bad things i can say about that company, i'll give credit where credit is due, cause working there was the best thing that happened to my painting. why? because part of the job was painting miniatures for the store collection. and that meant i was painting cool models, but they were not mine, so i could actually try things i wasn't used to.
as well, being around other seasoned painters helped me break some bad early habits i had picked up like painting from the bottle and not taking good enough care of my brushes.
using a pallete makes a huge difference. i picked up the little plastic one i own for about 50 cents at an arts supply store about 3 years ago. it has the dimples on it to mix paint which i prefer over a completely flat pallete (when you mix in the dimples with water, because of the shape of the shape the paint will take longer to dry, which means more paint saved, and eventualy when layering/blending become part of your tool belt, keeping paint wet is really a life saver).

another thing that i learned is that it's important to set realistic goals according to your ability. if you are still in the basic painting stages, don't worry about it. master that stage, to the point you can do it quickly and you can reproduce it. once you are comfortable at that stage then you can set a new goal and work toward it.
it took a long time to get to the level of painting i'm at today, and i'm happy with it, but it took baby steps. know your current limits. being overtly ambitious is a sure way to get frustrated when your work doesn't match your expectations.
with painting you'll get much better results from gradual gaining of ability.

it can be a little discouraging to hear that it takes some serious time investment to get good, but unless you have a natural nack for it, it's just the way it is. keep at it, work with people that are better at it than you who will be (sometimes brutaly) honest about your improvements and where you can still improve.

and if you really get frustrated, there is always some fantastic commission painters out there. it comes down again to being realistic. some people can paint really well and still hire commission painters due to a lack of time rather than ability. some never get happy with their own painting.

[shahryar]

my friend says I am one of the better painters he came across.

I cannot do eyes.


and I have completely different advice.

base coating black is so over done, obvious, and unless you want the models to look dark, isn't helpful.

a long time ago I read a good guide to painting warhammer which elves and tested it out on Lanyssa. Sadly I do not have a spray paint for this yet.

Base coat in(for lack of p3 equiv) Ice blue.
Not only will it be easier to dissern every last detail on that model because of the bright color but the model will come out brighter.

I am planing to run more tests on aiyanna as soon as the replacement comes but I really like how lanyssa came out (even though everyone convinced me to make her blonde)

[SoulReclaimer]

Brushes
Brushes will help you immensly and I highly recommend Windsor & Newton Series 7. Great brushes, can probably find a good deal on them online.

Good gravy. I found some for 25-125.00 per brush. Are we talking the same brushes here?

[neravar]

You can find the newtons for like 10 a pop sometimes on sales and such, i shoulda bought some when i saw the last sale.

[SoulReclaimer]

How are these prices?

http://www.jerrysartarama.com/discou...or-Brushes.htm

[Temoinlanuit]

Cheat.

Base coat, then use inks, washes, or dip. It might not turn out fantastic, but it'll turn out looking pretty decent.

[blue loki]

Series 7s, while no doubt are fantastic to work with, are by no means required to get good results. Golden Taklon brushes work quite well and can be found for a fraction of the price in nearly any hobby/craft shop.

You need to force yourself to paint sometimes, but don't force yourself to do too much. Heck, I have nights where I apply a single coat of a single color and then have to pack it all up. Try and set yourself a schedule and stick with it. Once you have begun a session, it is usually pretty easy to keep going, but if you find yourself not having fun doing it, then stop. If you're not enjoying it, then take it in small pieces and then move on to something you do enjoy. It may take you forever to get anything done, but there is no point in torturing yourself needlessly over a hobby.

[Northern Ronin]

If you have trouble doing it, two things to learn;

Don't worry about the end result until you're there. Paint can be stripped, parts can be torn up and re-connected if the pose sucks, and even poorly painted minis look world betters then metal and plastic on the table, something to hold over an opponent :P

Secondly, make time for it. Have 1-3 hours set aside just for painting, where you sit down and do just that, even if it's just to practice keeping steady hands, testing color mixes, and the like.

My last suggestion is this; Go to some game store or second hand store, buy a board game that has some minis in it (Hero-quest, monopoly etc), and practice using things you could care less about just to get a feel of things.

[luxionmk2]

Lots of good tips so far and I won't trod over ground already covered, so a few of my own.
6) Save money. This can be an expensive hobby, and I've seen lots of people quit it because of the cost. Invest in good paints and brushes, but cut corners elsewhere. That paper palette I bought several years ago was about 5 bucks. A friend of mine goes even more economical and uses wax paper from the kitchen for his palette, but it will wrinkle from the moisture after 30 mins or so.

My wet palette consists of the back of a PP blister, 3 sheets of toilet paper and a piece of parchment paper. You can buy 30' roll of parchment paper from the grocery story for $3, and I only cut a small enough piece to fit the blister back each time.

7) Posture. I used to paint with my hands sitting on the table and my back and neck bent over them. After several hours of painting, I felt like a 90 yr old man with bad joints when I tried to get up. I have since broken myself of that habit and sit with my back straight, elbows on the table, with my hands at eye level.

Good tip!!

[PG_Avatar8481]

The thing that made the most difference for my painting was simplifying.

I did my entire Menoth army in three colors. Beige, red, gold. Admitted that I highlighted and used washes to get shading, but effectively it's a whole army in three colors.

What this lets you do is create a very cohesive effect without much effort and if all you're trying to do is get guys on the table then it matters less (much less) how individual models look.

Another thing is basing, even just gluing sand down can make a difference in how a model looks on the table, and if a whole army looks the same the effect overrides whatever imperfections there are on the models.

The advice here is great and good to remember, especially regarding taking it slow, practicing and giving your self the opportunity to see constant improvement.