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Miniature painting

Started by Beorning, August 12, 2015, 05:32:42 AM

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TheLaughingOne

ooff... that moment when you start painting again, and realize just how out of practice you are... at least on more smaller scale things...

That and you forgot to get flesh colors and such...
My Ons and Offs!

You! On our wavelength! Carry our message, its heavy! Made of rocks!! Apocolypso dancing! SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY! You'll want to cut your wrists with the whole knife, but you'll only need the edge!

Beorning

Quote from: Dhi on June 13, 2017, 12:13:10 PM
Are you trying any new techniques today with the distilled water?

I tried hair highlighting today :) The subject was female Ghulam Infantry soldier and she had hair that allowed for some fun with that...

Pockets

Beorning,

Here's an article on the Reaper site you might find helpful.

https://www.reapermini.com/TheCraft/15
08/02 - New A/A Update

Beorning

Thank you! I'll read that :)

Meanwhile, yesterday's results - a female Ghulam Infantry soldier for Haqqislam:






Okay, I will admit that I'm very pleased with her! For the first time ever, I managed not to ruin the face. Also, there are a lot of details visible - and I managed to do shaded / highlighted hair! It doesn't show very good on the photos, but it looks very nice (IMHO) through the naked eye.

Seems like thinning the paints is definitely the way to go - also, could the distilled water really be of such importance?

Dhi

I agree, great job preserving those teeny Infinity details. The first thing I thought when seeing the new pictures is that you're making noticeable progress on paint consistency. I can see her hair shadows and highlights best in the second picture.

There's certainly a logic to using distilled water for thinning paint. There are impurities in tap water, trace amounts of mineral salts (if it's groundwater), nitrates, chlorides, and fluoride.

I use flow improver, and Reaper's paints come saturated with it. Flow improver is a wild swerve in the direction of water impurity, so much so that it changes the behavior of water.

Here is Cat Zachary from Kingdom Death's Halloween Survivors.

TheLaughingOne

My Ons and Offs!

You! On our wavelength! Carry our message, its heavy! Made of rocks!! Apocolypso dancing! SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY! You'll want to cut your wrists with the whole knife, but you'll only need the edge!

Beorning

Quote from: Dhi on June 15, 2017, 03:11:32 AM
I agree, great job preserving those teeny Infinity details. The first thing I thought when seeing the new pictures is that you're making noticeable progress on paint consistency. I can see her hair shadows and highlights best in the second picture.

Great! :) I think they would show better if I was able to make a better picture... On that note: how do you manage to make such nice photos of your minis?

Quote
Here is Cat Zachary from Kingdom Death's Halloween Survivors.


Now, that's an... interesting mini :) But your paint job is exquisite! I especially like the details on the face.

Dhi

I was always using a modest light box and twin photo lights. The lights you can get for about $25 a pair and you can make your own light box out of cardboard and wax or tinfoil paper windows for diffusion.

What changed to make them look much better was when I moved the setup out of a room with ambient daylight and into a dark room where the only light was indirect lighting from the photo lights. It seems like even though the daylight wasn't affecting the brightness of the photos, it was affecting how the camera processed color, and resulted in some washed out, muddy pictures.

Setting the ISO speed to my lowest setting of 80 also seems to help the camera process light.

Beorning

You might want to slow down here :) It's been over two decades since I've read anything on photographic theory. So - what's a lightbox? And what's ISO?

Dhi

A light box is also called a light tent, it's a light-permeable box you put between your high intensity lights and the thing you want to photograph, so inside you have diffused, even lighting instead of spotlight glare. If you're ever shopping for jewelry especially, it seems to be floating on a white background and the light is hitting it from all around, that's professional light boxing.

ISO is one of the settings on your camera adjusting how sensitive it is to light. If you use a smartphone camera without features, you might need to download an app like Camera Plus to adjust the ISO.

Beorning

Okay, so! Has anyone painted anything recently?

Here are my two latest minis... Firstly, one I'm quite pleased with - the Naga hacker:




It looks so much better than the previous Naga (the sniper) - the details are reasonably visible and I found a better colour scheme, too. I liked the finished mini so much that I decided to buy another Naga sniper mini to create a better version of that trooper. The first attempt was quite disastrous...

And here's a second Dakini Tactbot:






Not much to say about this one - at least it's not as gloopy as the first one  ::) I tried a different approach to shading with this mini: first, I painted the white bits with a light gray paint, then painted most of it over with white colour. I hoped it'd result in some grey remaining in the crevices, but it's not really visible, I think...

TheLaughingOne

Ok! So, trying to get back into painting...

Working on Necron, inquisition, and Tyranid kill teams for Shadow Wars Armageddon.

Right now only got anything decent for my necron, and beside a D&D char..



Tick Tock Man (all the necrons are named after Masks of Nyarlathotep) is only one even a good portion painted, clean up around the eyes, shade metal plates some, and an Alt color for tesla carbine...
My Ons and Offs!

You! On our wavelength! Carry our message, its heavy! Made of rocks!! Apocolypso dancing! SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY! You'll want to cut your wrists with the whole knife, but you'll only need the edge!

Pockets

Give your Necron bones a once or twice over with a bone color thinned a little with Vallejo Flow Improver and that will look sick.
08/02 - New A/A Update

CopperLily

Dhi, is that a Macro Mat I see in the backdrop?

Dhi

The ones I have are made by Hangar 18 Miniatures. Looking at Macro Mats, I think I paid way too much for the same thing. Live and learn!

Dhi

This is what I've been working on. There are a lot of mistakes as I try new things.

Nyrissa is an older Reaper metal from 2011. After a painting hiatus (not that anyone but me could probably tell) I went back to the metal bin to find something to practice on. That bin is long picked clean of the things I really wanted to paint, and now exists as a reminder of how much my hobby is driven by impulse purchases. Other painters call this the shelf of shame.

I wanted a warm, dark woody tone for her skin and went with oil washes. The result isn't great. I think the skin I do in acrylic is often better than this and takes a lot less time.


Aelis Keesan is from one of Corvus Belli's Dire Foes packs. She is a tohaa, an alien species in the Infinity universe. You might look at her head doodads and think, oh, she is basically like the stripper aliens from Star Wars or the Amazonian sex fiends from Mass Effect. But no, the doodads are foliage, and responsive to the tohaa scent language. It's pretty neat.


Hasht is from the same Dire Foes pack. He and Aelis Keesan are not friends, not at all! There's a bit of fiction wherein Hasht murdered Aelis' whole family and she is seeking revenge, which honestly I could do without. You know a character arc is written by boys when the bounty hunter's agency is to avenge her domestic bliss. How about she is just a cool bounty hunter instead.


Speaking of cool bounty hunters, Hazmat is the one miniature I bought the pack for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6IqbPANekI&feature=youtu.be&t=12s

Druze Hacker is the preorder bonus for the third edition Human Sphere books. I decided to glue her together completely before painting, because I am silly, just a very silly person.


Maghariba Piot, from Corvus Belli's Bootleg line. Something went wrong with the brightest highlight on the greens with this one, best demonstrated on the hood of whatever that is and the top of her butt. Something caused that highlight to have an incredible shine and not even look like the same kind of paint- even Dullcote did not help. I'm not sure what caused that reaction. The last time it happened, I was sure it was drying retarder additive, but I did not use any this time.

Dhi

Here are some things I've been working on over the past two weeks.

USAriadna Devil Dog from Infinity. This was my first time applying stippling to a broad surface of leather. The contrast was too strong, so I covered it with a thin glaze of black- brown to try and make it look more weathered, less painted on.


Elvira Erza from Kingdom Death's Halloween survivors. Getting contrast down for a palette rich in black has been a goal ever since painting Fade. The black colors here, for the most part, are not pure black. A pure black base coat shows through highlights applied over it, which makes it difficult to pull highlights brighter without stark contrast. Starting with a slightly off-black makes highlighting easier because it shows up better, and the highlight color is already in the base black.


Cryx Satyxis Gunslingers were done almost entirely in white with glazes of saturated colors, magenta and teal. I think they turned out much better than the Cryx I was doing back in 2015 with solid colors of magenta and teal, which were a little cartoonish. These miniatures are still a little shiny and need to be hit with dullcote again when the weather permits. Plants are all bits of fake plastic flowers from Michael's. They needed to be soaked in Simple Green (a mild organic solvent) to get rid of the oily plastic coating before priming.


The third one (the one with a front and back shot) is the character I fell in love with and my reason for buying these. I love her short hair and her energy.

eBadger

Amazing stuff, Dhi!  I've been into Firelock stuff recently: 




TheLaughingOne

Model with boobelies!

Now thats a chaos Daemonette i could get behind....

But seriously that is some beautiful detail work on that.
My Ons and Offs!

You! On our wavelength! Carry our message, its heavy! Made of rocks!! Apocolypso dancing! SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY! You'll want to cut your wrists with the whole knife, but you'll only need the edge!

Pockets

That's actually the Lady of Corruption from Creature Caster. But yeah, the detail on those models is insane. I'm waiting for when they do angels and stuff.
08/02 - New A/A Update

Beorning

Hello again, guys!

Just to be quick (for now): I need help! I just had a total mini mishap and I need to fix it!

Basically, I tried glueing a mini together and it just kept not working. So, I kept glueing, reglueing, putting green stuff into joints... and in the end, the mini rolled under the bed and had dust and dirt stuck to it. :(

At this moment, the mini is covered in the CA glue, green stuff and dirt. I don't want to throw it away - so, is there a way of cleaning the mini? Is it possible to remove green stuff and CA glue from metal minis?

Help!

Pockets

Toss it in the freezer in a ziplock bag overnight, then in the morning carefully use a hobby knife to flake it away. superglue and greenstuff both get very brittle when frozen. As for the dirt, dish soap and a toothbrush once you got pretty much everything else off.
08/02 - New A/A Update

Dhi

Hello!

You can strip a metal mini bare by letting it sit in acetone for a while. Paint will melt, greenstuff will soften, and CA glue will de-bond but might need to be flaked off with a toothbrush. It's a little harder to get de-bonded CA out of small grooves like glued together joints.

Acetone won't hurt a metal mini but it will completely destroy anything plastic.

Beorning

Hmm. Any safety measures when working with acetone? Can I touch with my bare skin? Can I inhale it? Could I pour it into my bathroom sink?

*wonders if he even has any acetone at home*

Dhi

It'll strip the oils from your skin and might cause redness and dryness. You can inhale it but it comes with an unpleasant odor to warn you when it's around because it is highly flammable.

You're supposed to dispose of it in a metal tin, but sufficiently diluted, it won't harm anything going down the sink.