The Miniatures Project Thread

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Dog Pants
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by Dog Pants »

That's pretty good. I wouldn't have known they'd been painted.
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by buzzmong »

Thundering through this now. As the aim of this thread was to experiment a bit I've tried a variation of my normal layering technique of base->wash->highlight.

They've all had two very thin basecoats, which actually on reflection wasn't too far off a shade of Dark Angels green.

#1, who I shall call shorty, has been washed straight away then lightly dry brushed, then washed again with a bit of a lighter wash than the previous one.

#2 had an thin extra top coat of a lighter and more vibrant shade of green, has then been washed and recieved a medium drybrushing, finished off very light wash to take off the edge.

#3 had the same thin lighter extra coat as #2, but was then heavily dry brushed with a much lighter colour, before recieving a singular wash.

It's a bit hard to gauge the results in artifical light at night but #1 and #2 have turned out well. #1 is showing off a lot of detail but is quite dark due to the basecoat, #2 is good far in terms of light/dark balance vs detail. #3 looks ok, but will probably recieve another wash depending on how it looks in daylight.

I'll update with pictures to be done tomorrow evening, but I'm on the home stretch and will start doing the fabrics and sundries later on in the week.
Last edited by buzzmong on February 18th, 2015, 20:28, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by Dog Pants »

Interesting approach, using different techniques. Good idea. I'm looking forward to seeing the difference.
Anery
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by Anery »

I'm lagging behind somewhat, I decided to paint mine in three different colours which has meant that I can't batch. And then the cat nicked one that was base coated so I've had to find another one...little shit. Two weeks...easy done though.
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by buzzmong »

Pictures:

Image

Image

Image

To be honest, there's not much difference in the outcome for #1 and #2, number #3 which got heavily drybrushed clearly isn't as good.

What I have found much more interesting is that there's not as much difference in the overall colour between #1 and #2 now they're dried, despite the extra coat for #2 being quite a bit brighter and vibrant.

I know the washes have dulled it, but I'm just suprised how much difference there is in the colouration between wet paints vs dried with the paints I'm using. The inconsistancy is a bit upsetting to honest as I thought they'd come out a bit brighter and lighter. That said, once I get some more colours on there, the contrast might help it pop a bit more.
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by Pnut »

Buzz, did you drybush 3 before or after washing?
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by Dog Pants »

There's not a lot in it is there? It does give good, soft highlight though. The acrylic paint you're using gives them kind of a weird fuzzy look. I've seen that before on Battletech miniatures and wondered why they looked like that.
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by buzzmong »

Pnut wrote:Buzz, did you drybush 3 before or after washing?
#3 had the same thin lighter extra coat as #2, but was then heavily dry brushed with a much lighter colour, before recieving a singular wash.
:) It was a very watery one though. I think it'll be getting another one to see if I can't dull the lightness a bit a make the detail stand out better.
Last edited by buzzmong on February 18th, 2015, 21:03, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by buzzmong »

Dog Pants wrote:There's not a lot in it is there? It does give good, soft highlight though. The acrylic paint you're using gives them kind of a weird fuzzy look. I've seen that before on Battletech miniatures and wondered why they looked like that.
Yeah, judging by the differences in the wet paint I thought they'd be a bit more in it. Shame really. I feel the route of going base -> wash -> hightlight -> wash has worked well though, as the paint has a bit more depth to it that's not shown up too well in the pictures.

I think the fuzzy look is part paint as these are not modelling paints but just general art acrylics (probably a difference in the paint particle size), part technique as I did my drybrushing on these by actually very lightly and very quickly flicking the brush over the models rather than just stroking it over individual raised edges like I'd do on pieces with more angular shapes, but also part camera as they're 3000x3000+ pictures that have been cropped down.

I'm erring towards the fuzzy look being okay though for these though, I've often seen minitures with a lot of flesh on display having somewhat hard colour transitions between dark washes and highlights or non hard areas (fabrics, fur etc) which to me look quite unatural. I'm just hoping the rest of the painting to things like the weaponry and hats will help give a soft-hard contrast otherwise it will just look too soft overall.

In some regards, I'm actually happy #3 hasn't turned out too well as I've got a pot of Humbrol Satin Clearoat hanging around that I want to use to see what affect that has on the overall effect.
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by Pnut »

Sorry dude missed that post. I was going to say that when I had seen drybrushing done before the wash was added after drybushing to mute the effect down a bit, never tried it myself though.
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by FatherJack »

I thought my phone wasn't very good at taking close-ups, but I took some today using an app called Smart Magnifier and it was better than just using the build-in camera app, which might help some.

Here's a towel and a pen lid:

ImageImage
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by Dog Pants »

All finished bar the varnish, which unless it affects the appearance drastically I won't bother photographing. I was experimenting with new things on the bases. First was the crackle effect earth paint from the Citadel technical range. I didn't get the thickness quite right, but I think they turned out okay.

Image

I washed the base to bring out the cracks and darken it a bit, then in some of the bits that didn't crackle I glued some basing grit. I've not used this particular one before and it was quite light. The tub was also full to the brim and the bloody stuff went everywhere. So I gave it a once over with a brown wash, which wasn't too bad. Looks kind of like poop though. Then on the remaining flat areas I stuck a bit of static grass. That's been squashed flat over the years, so it's a bit messy. Looks okay in the picture.

Image

So they're the finished jobs. I'm not really very happy with the end result of the bases - normally I wouldn't use the cracked earth and the grass together, and I don't think it works. The grit I'd do before the wash, which might even out the colour. I think the grit would work fine with the grass, maybe mixed together. I'm happy with the paint job though, it's turned out better than I expected it to.
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by Pnut »

:likesitall:

Very nice Doggers.
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by Anery »

Well, I'm a few days late and minus one gretchin so I won't be deciding on the next one.

I found out a few things during this challenge.
1. I hate painting flesh, give me some power armour any day.
2. My ambition far outweighs my capability
3. My photography is shite

As you can see from the rather painful images below, point #2 is painfully obvious.
I wanted to steer away from traditional orc green and do something different but my red white and blue paint scheme for them really didn't work out. However, from a learning perspective this was a massive success, I learned a lot. Things like "if painting zebra stripes don't be afraid to make larger and fewer stripes" and "white makes for a fucking shit fleshtone dickhead"

Anyway...
Image
Image

I hadn't given much thought to this...how do we decide who gets to select the next task?
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by Dog Pants »

I like them, makes me wish I'd have put more thought into mine. The flesh tone on the white one looks pretty good to me. The red one doesn't really show up the gradients in the photo.

As for what's next, put it up for a vote once they're all in? What's the criteria for the challenge?
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by Anery »

Well, the idea was that whoever we picked as the weiner of this one would get to pick, find some refurb on ebay and we all chip in a couple of quid (won't be much more, ebay minis are cheap) then they get to set the criteria.
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by Pnut »

Nicely done Anery, I like them mate. If we are stuck for what to do next, I have a load of Skaven and men at arms from advanced hero quest that we could do.
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by Dog Pants »

That game was awesome. Also, Anery, if you hated doing flesh you're going to really hate fur.
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by buzzmong »

That off-white skin looks quite good actually. Doesn't quite fit an ork, but it's a good flesh tone for a zombie/undead.

I really need to finish mine off this weekend, I've been struggling with the tunics and some fo the fabrics, I also need to fix #3 as when trying to improve the flesh contrast I've had a wash unexpectedly go very blotchy.

Also, I'm never ever ever ever painting a model ever again when it has already been glued to its base. It's a terrible way of painting and I've no idea why tutorials keep saying it's okay and what you should do.
Small cocktail sticks or even some straight bits of left over sprue is the way to go for painting so you've got easy access to every part. Also allows you to mass paint and finish the bases, ready for when the models are done.
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Re: The Miniatures Project Thread

Post by Pnut »

My dudes.

Image

Image

Really enjoyed painting these little fellas, so much so I am thinking about doing an Ork army.
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