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Newb Painter suggestion to any other newb painters out there.....

1K views 13 replies 9 participants last post by  farseer22 
#1 ·
WATER YOUR PAINTS DOWN!!!!

It makes a huge huge difference in detail. You may have to put a extra few coats on but its more than worth the time. I painted the tactical marines I got as a starter set right out of the pot with little water. Problem came when I tried to do highlights along the details. I could not see many of them because I had filled them in with paint.

Unhappy with this situation I started reading more on the internet about painting and then stripped the paint off them. Reprimed and now I have a wet pallet setup. This is pretty much a small dinner plate with a couple layers of soaked paper towel. A piece of parchment paper (stuff you bake on from the grocery store) placed on this and pressed so that it's damp. This keeps your paint wet as your painting. I then used a tip from somewhere online that I can not remember at this point :p

Water you paint down until it is like milk. About 3 water drops to every 1 drop of paint. It looks way to watery, it goes on almost like a wash, it covers great and leaves all the detail in place.

Really wish I had done this from the get go, would have saved a lot of time.
 
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#5 ·
highlighting, dry brushing, washing, it may take a while to get used to but trust me, its well worth it, models can look absalutly gorgous if painted right
 
#6 ·
The highlights were what I was having issues with, still will most likely that is a level of fine motor skills I have always had issues with. It will be much easier to highlight around detail on the armor when you can still see it though :p

I agree washes are awesome also. Drybrushing is still too messy for me, I think I will try it with the thinned paint this time, right out of the pot was a mess.
 
#9 ·
Yes thin your paints down. Wet paletes help out a lot too. I personally like the use of flow improver rather than just water. It seems to hold in the pigments better than water when you do mix it out onto a palet. (apparently I can't spell this morning)

With drybrushing, you really don't want to water down paint, since then it wouldn't be "dry" brushing. You really need to wipe off the excess paint from the brush though, on a piece of paper towel, almost as if there's no paint left on the brush.

Hope this helps and keep on painting!~
 
#11 ·
I am doing a half and half purple black scheme, before I stripped them they had red helmets for tactical but this time I am just doing all half purple half black. When I get to the point where I am considering highlights I might just stop for now. There is nothing saying I can not come back later and add those in. I know that before I stripped them the best they had looked was before I had attempted to highlight them. There was shading in the spots it should have been because of washes and the colors were uniform. I am going to attempt to do layering on one of them and see how it looks.
 
#12 ·
keep within the lines[/B
in all seriousness, forget washes and highlights, if your new practice getting a thinned layer of paint neatly were it is supposed to go, a neatly painted model looks far better than a poorly washed and highlighted one.once you can paint neatly within the lines you will have a better chance of being able to paint highlights and wash selectively.



 
#13 ·
:goodpost:

Basecoat, basecoat, basecoat. If you are not able to get that right, you'll never, ever get a good looking model. shading, highlighting, washing, glazing, they all boil down to haveing a solid, clean basecoat that is not patchy and remains detailed.

Choice of pallet is another thing. Bright, vibrant colors are a lot harder to do. Reds, whites and yellows are notoriously bad covering pigments. If you do want to learn how to do solid basecoats, practice with yellow. If you can get a none patchy, thin, even basecoat going with yellow, you are golden! Heck, you can even try that one piece of sprue or a leftover torso from a space marine set or something.
 
#14 ·
<snippy>
If you can get a none patchy, thin, even basecoat going with yellow, you are golden! Heck, you can even try that one piece of sprue or a leftover torso from a space marine set or something.
This sounds like good advice to me. I'm going to go home and paint some space marines that I have from the battle for mccrage.
 
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