Go on, show us your minis (painted miniature gallery thread)[also Ultramarines movie "review"]

[RevRaptor]

at scumofsociety, yea the fantasy models are reaper, I have a lot of stuff from them. Nice job on the battle sister dude

Bitz Box Madness!! (and that is only about half of it)

and a lot of random models, most of them are waiting to be finished, some are quie old and not painted to my current standard

A little something I'm working on.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

I really like what you've done with this ship, it looks great. If you're after a quick way to tone the gold down a little though, what I do for my Chaos Warriors (and Chaos Marines) is to basecoat the area I want gold with a dark brown, and then build up from a 3:1 brown - gold mix through to a 1:1 brown - gold mix, then do final highlights with pure gold followed by a 1:1 gold/silver mix for the extreme edge highlights.

Thanks. That does sound like it would work nicely but unfortunately I don't think I'd have the patience to do a 5 layer job on something that small and fiddly, it drives me nuts doing a single layer and I generally decide what is going to be gold as I go along, and when you have 6 more of the fuckers to go, 5 light cruisers, 15 odd escorts, 1 battleship and 1 grandcruiser, all the space fleet ships, and I still have a couple more ships to buy, taking that much time over it gets a bit mind numbing. Maybe I'll go for it on the Battleships and Grand Cruiser as they are more centrepiece items. It's all a learning curve really, each model teaches me what works and what doesn't and what can be done easily and what takes more time, I've got to the point where I can do a satisfactory job in quite a short time. Unfortunately I've got back into the army collecting mindset with BFG so I buy loads of models and then feel I have to get them painted rather than taking my time and doing the absolute best on each one.

at scumofsociety, yea the fantasy models are reaper, I have a lot of stuff from them. Nice job on the battle sister dude
*SMIP*

Thanks, the back of the cloak is the best bit, I might post it with the next 2 models I finish.

Wow, that is a fairly large bits box. My bits box is just full of old RT era ork arms and weapons, but then I'm more of a collector than a modeller.
I have to ask how long you've been painting etc because I spy some very old stuff in your bits box, I had the plastic beaky boxset when I was a kid, unfortunately they all caught fire somehow, but they cost a load to buy these days, and I see some beret stromtroopers and they're also hideously expensive, even compared to new models. I'm painting a metal one with plasma gun right now so he'll be up soon.
I have started looking at models other than GW & affiliate companies recently and Reaper do some nice stuff but unfortunately a lot of it doesn't really go with GW stuff stylisticly, the male models look ok for the most part but unfortunately the female ones are pretty much all comic book superheroine proprtions and dress sense. Same could be said of most of the other companies I've seen really, stylisticly very 'comic book', if you see what I'm getting at, probably because that's the kind of illustration style that's become popular in RPGs. GW used to do some comparatively restrained female models, I'm working on an old Marauder dark elf at the same time as the beret IG that I'll post soon to show you what I mean.

Nice little buggy there. What's it from? It's not one of those Elysian buggies is it, they're pretty awesome but expensive.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Time for a vintage favourite of mine, Marauder Dark Eld sculpted by Ally Morrison and released in 1989. I managed to get the eyes just about spot on, took photos and then realised I'd missed out the eyebrows. Gah! I'd thought the nightmare 'possibly ruining the work I've done do far' detail bit was over and then BAM! Still, I'm very pleased with the overall result even if it's not perfect. Should have a shield but I'll get round to that later.

Spoiler: dark elf

[http://img526.imageshack.us/i/elfwitheyebrows.jpg/]

EDIT: The main purpose of taking 5 shots round the miniauture, was to show that I'd got them all in just about the right place. Unfortunately the resizing means you can't really see the eyebrows and eyes properly. Oh well...

 

[Zykon TheLich]

moar stuff

Spoiler: Dawww

[http://img132.imageshack.us/i/snots.jpg/]

Spoiler: Not in any way inspired by toy soldiers of British paratroopers

[http://img121.imageshack.us/i/stormtrooper1.jpg/]

 

[RevRaptor]

Well I've been playing for about 9 years now. I collect a lot of the old stuff if its cool. The buggy is a converted land speeder. Pretty much every model I paint has been modded, I almost never stick to standard.

Also if you are after a quick way to town down gold, just finish it with a brown ink wash, it will town down the colour with just one coat and of course settle in the recesses to give depth and shading - very easy very quick

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Well I've been playing for about 9 years now. I collect a lot of the old stuff if its cool. The buggy is a converted land speeder. Pretty much every model I paint has been modded, I almost never stick to standard.

Also if you are after a quick way to town down gold, just finish it with a brown ink wash, it will town down the colour with just one coat and of course settle in the recesses to give depth and shading - very easy very quick

Ah. I started just over 20 years ago but I took a 15 year break when 2nd ed 40K came out so I have a lot of really old figures and quite a few new ones that I like but I missed out on a lot of the stuff from the middle years that's now been discontinued so I have to try picking them up on ebay.
Now that you tell me I see the landspeeder, I'm just not so familiar with the newer kits.
Thanks for the advice on the gold, washes didn't exist when I was a kid, you had to either thin normal paints or use inks, which also had to be thinned. I'm not a fan of the 'drown it in washes' approach to painting that appears to have taken hold but used sparingly they are very useful. I'm thinking of going back to the white and gold paintshceme for a couple of cruisers, any advice on making the 2 stand out from each other while keeping the white 'clean'?

 

[RevRaptor]

himm the best way I've found to get a clean white is to use the GW paint space wolves grey then put on a layer of white, it makes a vast difference in the finish. Then for the gold use a dark paint like tin bitz over a black undercoat then lightly brush with shining gold to achieve a darker gold colour. to finish the white use a very light wash of either space wolves grey or bleached bone to get either a cold white or warm white effect depending on what you want. You wont need to use a wash on the gold, so you can do that after the white without worrying about paint bleeding onto the white.

I'm a firm believer that you can get get really good results with only a couple of coats if you do it right. you really don't need to build up colours with like ten or so coat's for most models I mean really who has the time to do that, especially if you got a whole army to paint.

Here's an example of the method. The space marine statue at the top is painted exactly as I described with bleached bone and a light brown wash to finish it and the terminators use the darker gold method on their crux terminatus and gold bits. The white on the captains tunic has been kept very stark by using space wolves grey to shade it. (the colour of space wolves grey is actually a very pale blue.) The effect is kinda hard to see however as the flash has washed it out.

Hope that helps

 

[Zykon TheLich]

himm the best way *SNIP*

Thanks for the advice, I don't have space wolf grey but I suppose thinned down codex grey or similar would work?

Also 2 Epic scale Leman Russ. The one in the background was the tester that showed me it was a good idea to thin down the final black wash. You can't see it in the pic but there are some little elf grey triangles painted on the test model that actually looked OK even though the original idea for a 3 tone colour system didn't look so good.

Spoiler

[http://img577.imageshack.us/i/lemanrussp.jpg/]

 

[RevRaptor]

you can mix some blue paint with white to get space wolves grey, thinning down codex grey won't work. I use space wolves grey to undercoat white because it's a very pale almost white blue and it spreads better than white.

 

[Jaythulhu]

you can mix some blue paint with white to get space wolves grey, thinning down codex grey won't work. I use space wolves grey to undercoat white because it's a very pale almost white blue and it spreads better than white.

1:3:1 Shadow Grey:Ice Blue:Skull White should be pretty close.

---

Scums: I thought you might find my first method of doing gold a bit slow for BFG ships, so here the fast-way:

scorched brown, 1:1 tin bitz: shining gold, burnished gold, then some wash layers of 1:1 baal red: gryphon sepia. As many or as few layers as you like, but I tend to go with 3 reasonably thinned ones, the 1st two being all over and the last put just around molded details.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

you can mix some blue *SNIP*

1:3:1 Shadow Grey:Ice Blue:Skull White should be pretty close. *SNIP*

Thanks for the advice. I only have Necron abyss, Regal Blue and Enchanted blue, I suppose I'd have to thin them down a lot. You don't think Astronomicon grey would work as a basecoat?

Plus, any tips on how to paint wood on flat surfaces, I can manage on the ones that have a rough wood texture moulded into them but on flat pieces it never turns out looking good. For example the Dark Elf above, otherwise I'm really pleased with it but the X-bow looks flat and lets the rest of the mini down.

Also I've finished painting the last 6 Cobras for 'The Grand Fleet':

Spoiler: Cobra Squadron

Although I have at last managed to take a pic with flash that doesn't put half the shot into shade it does show up all the tiny little mistakes I've made.

[http://img231.imageshack.us/i/cobrasl.jpg/]

 

[Jaythulhu]

1:3:1 Shadow Grey:Ice Blue:Skull White should be pretty close. *SNIP*

Thanks for the advice. I only have Necron abyss, Regal Blue and Enchanted blue, I suppose I'd have to thin them down a lot. You don't think Astronomicon grey would work as a basecoat?

Plus, any tips on how to paint wood on flat surfaces, I can manage on the ones that have a rough wood texture moulded into them but on flat pieces it never turns out looking good. For example the Dark Elf above, otherwise I'm really pleased with it but the X-bow looks flat and lets the rest of the mini down.

Hmmm.... 4:1 Astronomicon : Necron should be close-ish, thinned definitely. Using skull white to brighten for highlights should turn out ok.


As for wood.. after the basecoat I use a 2H pencil to draw some uneven, slightly wonky lines to simulate wood grain, then paint the 1st highlight layer directly over the pencil line, followed by a very bright highlight along the top of the original drawn line, and finally a much darker shade line underneath the drawn line. I finish it off with a couple of glaze layers to blend and soften the lines.

with races like Dark Elves though, I imagine a higher-quality of craftsmanship to their weapons, and so I'll generally go for either a polished black or polished brown, with just some extreme edge highlighting on wooden parts and a thin coat of gloss varnish to make 'em shine.

 

[Trildor]

Some pretty impressive stuff in this thread, makes me want to dust off my minis and get painting.

I have a Lord of the Rings Dead Marshes Elf that won fourth place in a competition. I lost all the pictures I had of it and it needs a repaint badly though. Doesn't help that I can't remember what mixes I used.

 

[RevRaptor]

Jaythulhu's method for the wood is bang on. Another method that is quick and easy is to paint the wood a dark colour then tack up some lighter paint (I like to add a little white glue) then paint some squiggly lines to mimic the grain, finish with some chestnut ink and you have wood. the guggler the paint the rougher the wood. its very easy and gives you a nice 3d grain. Just remember to keep the lines narrow

 

[Zykon TheLich]

Jaythulhu's method *SNIP*

Hmmm.... 4:1 Astronomicon : Necron should *SNIP*

Thanks again guys, I've tried out something very similar to Jaythulus method (I have no HB pencils) on an old skeleton warriors halberd and it looks ok though I need some brighter highlights.

Also another question, I want to highlight some black hair on a reaper mini I'm painting for my sisters late xmas present so that it doersn't look flat but I don't want it to look grey? any suggestions:

Spoiler: Actually I've finished in now

[http://img406.imageshack.us/i/paladink.jpg/]

Unfortunately the eyes are slightly uneven on the model, so viewed from the front it looks a bit wierd, not my fault though. Took al round photo's as it's going to my sister and I want a record of it.

Lastly I've managed to pick up quite a few RT era guard and commissars recently an I might be tempted to make an army.

 

[Jaythulhu]

*snip*

Also another question, I want to highlight some black hair on a reaper mini I'm painting for my sisters late xmas present so that it doersn't look flat but I don't want it to look grey? any suggestions:

Use dark blue with a pale grey mixed in to various degrees for highlights. Also, don't highlight every strand the same way, shorter on some, longer on others and try to make each highlight a slightly different tone.

I think there was an article in white dwarf not so long ago that had a great method for painting natural looking hair. The one when they launched the revamped dark eldar codex, if my slightly-foggy memory serves correctly.

 

[RevRaptor]

I always found black hair one of the harder things to highlight . It helps to remember that there is no such thing as the colour black. black is just a colour that is so dark you can't make it out - hence it looks black. so you can darken blue or green to almost black and highlight it or you could use brown. Red actually works quite well. If you look at black thing in real life (a car is a really good example) you will notice the colour is far more defined by its shades than any other colour.

 

[Labyrinth]

'sup Escaparinos.

I've finally finished my High Elf lord. Entering him in the local mini-Golden Demon competition, known as Golden Squig won me second. Here are the photos.

Spoiler: Photos here.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

'sup Escaparinos.

I've finally finished my High Elf lord. Entering him in the local mini-Golden Demon competition, known as Golden Squig won me second. Here are the photos.
*SNIP*

'sup/t... er hi Labyrinth.

Now you see, that's what being an artist gets you.
Very nice, well done, did you get a golden squig to take home?

I do actually have tiny bit of freehand work I could post in your artists thread, I painted a praetorian unit badge on the beret stormtrooper I posted earlier. Unfortunately I burn through detail brushes at a rate of knots and I'm a bit of a cheapskate when it comes to buying new decent painting equipment so it was painted with a "brush" with bristles in single figures which helped in ways but hindered in others.

 

[SH4DOWSL4Y3R]

I'd chuck a couple of warriors of chaos pics up if i knew how to attach pics properly. :S pitiful, i know. lol