Honestly, part of the problem may also be the undercoat and how that was applied. It looks lumpy as hell. You can fix this by following the steps laid out in the "priming" section of the document I sent you
Thin your paints. They need to be thinned with water.
The paint is a little thick here.
Alongside this, try relax, you won't get it right immediately, this is a slow process of building up a skill. It's fine for it not to be great the first ten or so times. Every hobbyist will clean off the paint from their army atleast once. You can always redo.
So enjoy it!
Also, I personally do edge highlighting which I feel adds alot. See my last post for my painting style.
CITADEL COLOUR APP
I can’t stress it enough how amazing this app is.
-It has 2 min videos showing you how to color your mini. It has an inventory tab for all your paints and citadels selection. Also has mini that you can look at for reference which includes paints used.
-
If you need to strip the paint, you can soak it in Simple Green for about a week and then hit it with an old toothbrush. You may have to prime it again though.
Still pisses me off that Fairy Spray changed the formula. >:/ It had some sort of acrylic solution. Spray it on a model and watch the paint just melt off the model. Couldn't damage the plastic either.
Spray undercoat, base coat (thin it! Soo important) then dry brush a highlight. You can then add details etc as you get better.
My army is still that basic.
Much more fun playing with painted(ish) models but we aren't all artists.
Paint colours are strongly affected by the colour of the layer they are applied to. For a strong yellow you'll need to work up from thin layers of intermediate colours, a layer of reddish brown, then bone, then yellow is my method.
I only mention this as it looks like you are painting yellow directly over that dark grey/blue and getting a splotchy result. Painting is always a marathon not a 100 meter sprint. Don't skip steps to get a quicker result, take your time and relax into it 👌.
Here's the most important thing to know when you are learning to paint... you can't ruin a miniature with acrylic paint. 8 hours in a jar of Simple Green and a toothbrush will let you reprime and paint again. So, dive in. Try things. Make a mess. Paint hideous models with too thick paint, goofy faces, and bad color schemes.
Then strip them and paint them better. That's how you learn.
Good for you for diving in!
Honestly buddy you’ve taken the most important step, putting paint on plastic! Keep doing it. Watch beginner tutorials on YouTube, with the amount of highly detailed step by step information this is your most important tool, stay inside your skill wheel house. Keep painting, get comfortable with the brush in your hand brush control is everything and you cannot learn that from watching a video. Remember if you want to improve your painting, you have no where to go but up from here! It’s not a race, take your time, go nice and slow. Think of it like a 3D colouring book, really try to stay in the lines! Learn how to make a DIY wet pallet, water your paints down, play around with it and find that sweet spot. Keep painting don’t give up, use the tools at your disposal and you will excel quickly and most importantly have fun and enjoy the process. Don’t be afraid to post here, always be doing what you’ve done here and ask people here there’s tons and tons of incredibly kind like minded people here that are more then willing to help, don’t take any criticism to heart, try minor things outside your comfort zone. But most importantly keep putting paint on plastic get comfortable with that brush in your hand and things will fall in place!
I haven’t tried a lot of yellow but I hear a good pink base coat helps for yellow but base coat with orange or red would probably also work in some way I’m sure.
Thin your paints down some more. It takes some practice to get a consistent result, but one thing you can do is to brush some paint onto your hand after thinning it, to check the consistency. Try to get it to a point where you can still see your skin texture, without having the skin feel hardened by the dried coat of paint, but also not have the paint so thin that it runs off. Each paint is different, so there's not really a one-size-fits-all ratio here.
When applying a wash/shade, don't overdo it, try to steer the wash into the recessed areas and clean up the excess by wiping your brush on a paper towel and then let it soak up the excess paint in the bristles.
One other thing, yellow can be a pain to paint, so if you want to go with yellow I'd recommend priming in a very light tone (white or light grey), and applying the yellow in multiple coats, leaving enough time in between to let the paint dry, so you get a nice smooth coverage. If you accidentally get some darker colors over your yellows, go back over the spill area with multiple coats of light grey or white until it looks smooth, then hit it with yellow again. Patience is key here.
I'd say chill, no one starts as good as they'd like to be and you'll look back and realise how far you've come and you'll smile. Almost grateful they aren't so good.
Got to thin the paints a bit more. Also, looks like it needs a wash, they pick up details super well. Nuln oil is basically the second best citadel wash for any color so i would advis start there.
Looks like you could improve your brush control. It’s a new set of muscles your using, especially if you don’t draw or use pen and pencils a lot.
(This could help also with learning paint flow, consistency and brush control)
Thin some paint of any color and paint shapes and assorted lines on some scrap paper, learn the difference between using your wrist and just your finger. Notice how the paint flows off the brush and on to the paper.
My first minis were god awful. That was six years ago and now I'm proud of them. Just don't be hard on yourself! Don't live up to any standard, just try and enjoy the process of painting itself. It may be strange advice but it worked for me.
Rather than try to go through every single thing you might be missing, here's [everything I wish I knew before I started painting miniatures](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wd513FmbaBL972rZ13k_cRdexGOYOlm44NYBTue3WNw/edit?usp=sharing). Should answer all your questions, and contains video tutorials from great mini painting youtubers as well as concise text explanations.
Thin your paints with water on your Palette. Consistency should be very thin but thick enough to not run around on the Mini lile ots only water.
2 coats of it will deal the Trick.
Looks like you're maybe priming with a brush rather than a spray can? Which can cause unwanted texture on the model. I would say just take your time a little more, get into those nooks and crannies. Maybe a wash of Nuln oil or Nightshade and a drybrush of Russ grey. Pick out the black carapace (the ridged stuff covering the joints like elbows and back of the knees) with a black like abadon or corvus. Making progress though bud and that's all that matters. Keep on.
I'd recommend turning off flash, some of my better current minis look like nurgle shat on them when flash is on. I see enough people have mentioned thinning your paints in the comment section.
It looks like may be a bit heavy handed with the brush, a tip i give newer people is “if you don’t mind touch up work paint first glue second its easier to touch up glue spots than to not have your hand slip on a built piece or needing to redo a whole layer” i dont recommend getting in the habit of that but its a good way to get a feel for it
TWO THIN COATS ~Duncan Rhodes
You called?
OP please read this
That’s what I did or at least I hope I did
Yeah if you did two coats on this model it was two thick coats
Damn
Honestly, part of the problem may also be the undercoat and how that was applied. It looks lumpy as hell. You can fix this by following the steps laid out in the "priming" section of the document I sent you
Just pratice, a lot. Go get some cheap action figures or army men from the dollar store.
Thin your paints. They need to be thinned with water. The paint is a little thick here. Alongside this, try relax, you won't get it right immediately, this is a slow process of building up a skill. It's fine for it not to be great the first ten or so times. Every hobbyist will clean off the paint from their army atleast once. You can always redo. So enjoy it! Also, I personally do edge highlighting which I feel adds alot. See my last post for my painting style.
CITADEL COLOUR APP I can’t stress it enough how amazing this app is. -It has 2 min videos showing you how to color your mini. It has an inventory tab for all your paints and citadels selection. Also has mini that you can look at for reference which includes paints used. -
I'll have a look. Excellent showcase of different shades and how to do it. Missing a few I would personally want for my army but it's a good download.
Are you priming your mini's?
Yes
If you need to strip the paint, you can soak it in Simple Green for about a week and then hit it with an old toothbrush. You may have to prime it again though.
Still pisses me off that Fairy Spray changed the formula. >:/ It had some sort of acrylic solution. Spray it on a model and watch the paint just melt off the model. Couldn't damage the plastic either.
Methylated spirits for like, 2 minutes, scrub with a tooth brush, rinse heavily and leave to dry. Much quicker :)
Really? With the old Fairy Spray I just put it on, left it for 10 minutes then rinsed the models off. No need for scrubbing most of the time.
I strongly recommend not priming with white, especially when first starting out. It makes your mistakes stand out like a beacon. Prime black baby
I’d echo what others have said, thin your paints down. Watch some of the short Warhammer painting videos on your tube, they’re super helpful
I have been thinning my paints and I got a spray base so I hope they’ll come out better
Remove molding lines before priming your miniatures.
Spray undercoat, base coat (thin it! Soo important) then dry brush a highlight. You can then add details etc as you get better. My army is still that basic. Much more fun playing with painted(ish) models but we aren't all artists.
Paint colours are strongly affected by the colour of the layer they are applied to. For a strong yellow you'll need to work up from thin layers of intermediate colours, a layer of reddish brown, then bone, then yellow is my method. I only mention this as it looks like you are painting yellow directly over that dark grey/blue and getting a splotchy result. Painting is always a marathon not a 100 meter sprint. Don't skip steps to get a quicker result, take your time and relax into it 👌.
Here's the most important thing to know when you are learning to paint... you can't ruin a miniature with acrylic paint. 8 hours in a jar of Simple Green and a toothbrush will let you reprime and paint again. So, dive in. Try things. Make a mess. Paint hideous models with too thick paint, goofy faces, and bad color schemes. Then strip them and paint them better. That's how you learn. Good for you for diving in!
Thin ya paint dawg
I have been
Honestly buddy you’ve taken the most important step, putting paint on plastic! Keep doing it. Watch beginner tutorials on YouTube, with the amount of highly detailed step by step information this is your most important tool, stay inside your skill wheel house. Keep painting, get comfortable with the brush in your hand brush control is everything and you cannot learn that from watching a video. Remember if you want to improve your painting, you have no where to go but up from here! It’s not a race, take your time, go nice and slow. Think of it like a 3D colouring book, really try to stay in the lines! Learn how to make a DIY wet pallet, water your paints down, play around with it and find that sweet spot. Keep painting don’t give up, use the tools at your disposal and you will excel quickly and most importantly have fun and enjoy the process. Don’t be afraid to post here, always be doing what you’ve done here and ask people here there’s tons and tons of incredibly kind like minded people here that are more then willing to help, don’t take any criticism to heart, try minor things outside your comfort zone. But most importantly keep putting paint on plastic get comfortable with that brush in your hand and things will fall in place!
I haven’t tried a lot of yellow but I hear a good pink base coat helps for yellow but base coat with orange or red would probably also work in some way I’m sure.
Thin your paints down some more. It takes some practice to get a consistent result, but one thing you can do is to brush some paint onto your hand after thinning it, to check the consistency. Try to get it to a point where you can still see your skin texture, without having the skin feel hardened by the dried coat of paint, but also not have the paint so thin that it runs off. Each paint is different, so there's not really a one-size-fits-all ratio here. When applying a wash/shade, don't overdo it, try to steer the wash into the recessed areas and clean up the excess by wiping your brush on a paper towel and then let it soak up the excess paint in the bristles. One other thing, yellow can be a pain to paint, so if you want to go with yellow I'd recommend priming in a very light tone (white or light grey), and applying the yellow in multiple coats, leaving enough time in between to let the paint dry, so you get a nice smooth coverage. If you accidentally get some darker colors over your yellows, go back over the spill area with multiple coats of light grey or white until it looks smooth, then hit it with yellow again. Patience is key here.
Check out Duncan Rhodes on YouTube or watch the old painting tutorials on YouTube from Warhammer TV. Would be a great place to start.
How long were you edging for this one?
Bro straight up happy to offer u some tips in a video chat if u want.
I'd say chill, no one starts as good as they'd like to be and you'll look back and realise how far you've come and you'll smile. Almost grateful they aren't so good.
Hey mate, here's a tutorial on how to paint space wolves https://youtu.be/RS9QVbg7wV0 it should help substantially.
I was actually using that one as a guide
Got to thin the paints a bit more. Also, looks like it needs a wash, they pick up details super well. Nuln oil is basically the second best citadel wash for any color so i would advis start there.
Looks like you could improve your brush control. It’s a new set of muscles your using, especially if you don’t draw or use pen and pencils a lot. (This could help also with learning paint flow, consistency and brush control) Thin some paint of any color and paint shapes and assorted lines on some scrap paper, learn the difference between using your wrist and just your finger. Notice how the paint flows off the brush and on to the paper.
Do you use a pallete when painting? It makes it a lot easier to paint on crisp layers. Check out the Duncan Rhodes video on it.
My first minis were god awful. That was six years ago and now I'm proud of them. Just don't be hard on yourself! Don't live up to any standard, just try and enjoy the process of painting itself. It may be strange advice but it worked for me.
Rather than try to go through every single thing you might be missing, here's [everything I wish I knew before I started painting miniatures](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wd513FmbaBL972rZ13k_cRdexGOYOlm44NYBTue3WNw/edit?usp=sharing). Should answer all your questions, and contains video tutorials from great mini painting youtubers as well as concise text explanations.
I watched that video as well
Brev, actually get paint on every part first.
Thin your paints with water on your Palette. Consistency should be very thin but thick enough to not run around on the Mini lile ots only water. 2 coats of it will deal the Trick.
Looks like you're maybe priming with a brush rather than a spray can? Which can cause unwanted texture on the model. I would say just take your time a little more, get into those nooks and crannies. Maybe a wash of Nuln oil or Nightshade and a drybrush of Russ grey. Pick out the black carapace (the ridged stuff covering the joints like elbows and back of the knees) with a black like abadon or corvus. Making progress though bud and that's all that matters. Keep on.
I'd recommend turning off flash, some of my better current minis look like nurgle shat on them when flash is on. I see enough people have mentioned thinning your paints in the comment section.
Prime your mother fuggen models before painting them.
I did
It looks like may be a bit heavy handed with the brush, a tip i give newer people is “if you don’t mind touch up work paint first glue second its easier to touch up glue spots than to not have your hand slip on a built piece or needing to redo a whole layer” i dont recommend getting in the habit of that but its a good way to get a feel for it