Return to the brushes

[Elmoth]

Well, breaking the brushes after a 15 year hiatus, and a sporty record before that. Let's see what I can get out of my lack of ability.

I ok bed to paint some white cream emchs, but I lacked white primer, so I went for black primer and started painted 2 test mechs for a drac-style force instead. Here they come in brown and bronzed flesh (really old GW paint, no idea if it exists still) and waiting for the red.

Any suggestions during my experiment will be appreciated.

[dread12]

Sorry, but i cant see anything.

[Elmoth]

Hmmm... There is an attached picture to the post. You can't see it or is it that the picture quality is too low and you can't appreciate anything?

[worktroll]

I'm seeing it!

Is the bronzed flesh thin, or did it go on thick? It's gone sort of dark on the depressions. If thick, you can usually just add a little water to Citadel paints, then stir/shake really well, with some small bits of spare sprue added to encourage mixing.

The coloured body/black arms & legs is a really good contrasting scheme which will look great. Consider going back & doing the heads black, or hands red. It's always easy to fix colour bleed - just paint black over it!

[Elmoth]

Considering the paint is 25+ years old yeah, I should probably need to add more water.
I tried to thin it, but dunno if I succeeded, specially with the dark brown.

The light brown (bronzed flesh) one is the black you see there, so it is thinner. I will need to learn patience here and apply several coats, and I am not a patient man.

I will co sdier painting the heads black. Thanks. Will try to make a report of the process.

[worktroll]

How are you with drybrushing?

[Elmoth]

Dunno xD been 15 years since I took a brush. I guess ok but I am relearning how to paint now

[worktroll]

I can dig out some basic instructions I did back in the A Call to War era, if you like. Short form, a very very faint drybrush - I call it a ghostbrush - of grey on the black areas adds a little highlighting without the pain of trying to do edging.

[Elmoth]

Those 2 test models wil be abused heavily. I will probably slap 3 reds on each and try different tecniques in the black parts (edging, drybrush...). So yeah, I am about to get started remembering xD I remember that putting too much paint on my drybrush was one of my sual mistakes. Not thinning the paint enough was another. Let's see how I do this time

[Renard]

I can't see the pics very well so I am not sure what I'm seeing, sorry.  But here are some youtubers you can check out, if you're just looking for some ideas and recent advice on how to get back into painting:

-- Goobertown Hobbies
-- Squidmar Miniatures
-- Miniac (just turn the sound down at the end of the videos...)
-- Midwinter Minis

They all have "intro" videos or speedpainting videos that talk about easy tricks or how to get certain effects without a ton of work.  Goobertown's intro videos (and videos in general) is especially laid back.  They all link to people who are better painters, but are willing to spend hours and hours just to get a mini looking slightly better instead of just tabletop ready.

[Elmoth]

Weird that you can't see the picture. It is attached to the forum itself... No idea how to help here. It is just a pair of black primer minis, with one having itrs torse painted brown and the other bronze flesh so I can paint red over them and test techniques and stuff.

I knew squidmar and miniac. I cannot stand the antics of miniac despite him giving good advise. I will check the others you suggest. Thanks. Most of the stuff they tend to say I know about. I am just veeeery rusty, and veeeery lame when it comes to painting, so it is not that I do not know what I am suypposed to do, just that I am bad at it  Let's see if I can improve slowly.

[Renard]

Why do you think you are lame?

A solid base coat with some metallic bits and a wash and some drybrushing looks great on a tabletop.  You don't need to do all kinds of fancy stuff to have fun and take pride in your minis.

I tend to be very bad at picking out color schemes, so I end up flipping through camospecs or unit color compendium to have a really clear idea what I am going for when I start. When I just throw paint on, it usually ends up looking like a little toy in a bad way.

[Elmoth]

Ok, i have been experimenting with schemes using some Warhammer elves. And some paints as old as those 1994 minis :p

I painted them like the mechs, one with a beige base the other brown, over a black primer both of them.

I tried 4 reds. Go fasta red (GW) and scar red, red (td) and orange red from Vallejo.

The red (td) was very thin and a direct fail. The other 3 covered well and I have them the black wash (he nuln oil).

Here you see the results. (Once I manage to load the pictures).

It looks like scar red is the winner here.

Edit. Looks like the picture with the orange red cooks does not load (too big) but anyway,, it does.not work.

[Elmoth]

OK, after the test with the old 1990s vintage elves I returned to the test mechs (wolverine and clan thunderbolt wannabe).

Once I applied the Nuln Oil wash the wolverine ended up being a tad darker than I thought it would be. Too dark in fact. On the opposite end, the clan thunderbolt looks good in that red! I think I will go for that. The red used on the cthunder is Army painter red. SO, a very basic red that all brands tend to have. Should be easy getting more of it if necessary.

Now I have to work on the blacks. My idea was to edge them with grey. Until I saw the ammount of edges in those minis!!! They have an insabe ammount of edges! So being unsure of my own technique AND patience I decided to go for the sure thing as a first test, and I will drybrush the legs and arms with grey followedby a nuln oil was to correct the splashes of grey on the flat surffaces of the legs and arms.

After that it will be the turn of weapons (metal) and details (lenses, cockpit...).

SO far I am quite happy with the effort-results ratio. Let's see if I can keep it up.

And I have to buy some 21st century paints. Most of the current pàints I have are too old to use (dried up). I am using paints that are older than some people I game with.

Cheers,
Xavi

[worktroll]

That Thud is looking sharp!

A drybrush of red might lift the Wolverine back up.

Remember, the grey edging drybrush has to be really really dry. Try on the back of the legs first. If you leave smears on the flat parts, it's too wet. You can easily re-black.

[Major Headcase]

2 other ways to do black:
One: do a VERY light dusting dry brush of light grey or even white all over a black base, and the wash with black mixed with dark blue. It works well, but the amount of light dusting can really make or break the "black" look.
Two: dont paint it black at all! Use a very dark gray base coat (like charcoal gray dark), lightly dry brush medium gray over that (German panzer gray is good) then wash with black. The was will darken the seams and shadows, but the plates will be ever so little bit lighter than black, and the panels will stand out.

[Elmoth]

It seems that the thunderbolt wannabe is a clan Summoner/Thor. I just checked. I had no idea since my knowledge of clan machines is basically "this is a mad cat/ this is not a mad cat". The later category is somewhat large. I think I will use it as Thud myself.

I will try to drybrush the legs. If it does not work, I will try the "black-but-not-black" grey techniques you suggest. Thanks!

Xavi

[Elmoth]

I as told to paint the edges of the legs (in other forums). Lining, I think it is is called.
I was also told to drybrush the legs in a VERY light dybrush.
I looked at both options, saw the ammount of pannels in the mech legs and decided thast either option was too much for me right now. So I did a HEAVY drybrush of vallejo basalt grey on the legs and arms of both mechs. After that I put Nuln Oil wash on both. The result is not black but grey, but it looks ok to me.

I repainte the body of the wolverine with 2 drybrush coats. The first one with the same red use din the other mech, and the second one with a Vallejo cadmium red (red-orange). This has brought the mini much closer to the color of the clan-thunderbolt wannabe (thor) and makes both mechs be acceptable as belonging to the same unit

I painted the head of both mechs black. I will line them with grey in the next days, with a light drybrush.

Without being Golden Demon or Coolminipornot winners they are quite OK and I am happy with them at the moment. I have been told by y mates to stop messing around with them now and I think they are right. I need to do other colors and details (weapons, weapon lenses, cabin glasses...) and the bae and we are ready to roll.

Better than expected when I did pick up the brush after 12 years, really.

EDIT. Link to a smaller picture if you want to see it better than with the HUGE pivture that the forum loads.
http://laarmada.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=36882.0;attach=20686;image

[Mecha82]

Very nice.

[Elmoth]

Breaking a new scheme based on the Lothian guards. This is Arthur. It needs the black wash, si just testing how many panels to paint  blue.

[Elmoth]

Test model for the Lothian guards scheme phase 2. Arthur, with a black wash

[worktroll]

That'll do it! 

[Elmoth]

Next step. Highlight the white with ivory, then tried to panel the miniature. Didn't work well, so I resorted to pure white light (not ghost) dry rushing. Worked well, specially in the blue.
Tomorrow details

Edit. Somehow the image seems to be too big despite cutting it around like 90%. Will try to npost it tomorrow since it is 0.30 in Spain right now. In the meantime a link to the image

http://laarmada.net/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=36882.0;attach=20698;image

EDIT: image is available now. I was trying to emulate the color shceme from the unit color comprendoium webpage: https://unitcolorcompendium.com/2019/05/31/lothian-guards/


Now I am considering that this should work with red arms as well. Or purple. Or whatever except green or yellow. Those colors do not seem to fit well with the grey and black wash. So I might try to modify it some and use it for my Aran Guard mercenary unit. They did a campaign in Dersidatz after all. I might even try to combine it somewhat, like using the Lothian Guard scheme with the right arm painted another color (purple if you hail from the FWL, red if you come from somewhere else...).

So in the end my formula has been [posting this for my own reference]
- White primer
- Vallejo medium blue. I will go for Army Painter "blue" (starter box) in the next one since the Vallejo one is a little dark. I ended up trying to lighten the blue with white at several points. The differences in the mix made for some weird stains in the legs of the mech. Meh. I prefer paint straight from the container to prevent that, so will try to go that route next time.
- Heavy Nuln oil wash.
- Raise the white with heavy Ivory (vallejo) drybrush. Not really a drybrush, just a discharged brush but applied liberally on the mini.
- Failed edging/paneling on the blue and white. Smeared with the finger to smooth it.
- Drybrush the whole mini (white AND blue) with pure white (vallejo)

I can cut a few steps next time.

[Elmoth]

New test. I did a Commando using the urbanmech scheme. (white primer, medium blue legs and arms, nuln oil wash, white drybrush). Only that this time I painted one of the arms red. if the urbanmech looks like R2D2 ("Arthur") now we have Captain America ("Steve").

This time the nuln oil did not penetrate as much. I think that I did not splash enough of it, and removed too much of it with the brush afterwards. The white looks rather flat even after drybrushing. I am looking at how to improve that now.

[Elmoth]

Ok, more progress.

The first one is "Dino", a Wasp 1A piloted by Nathan "Leaf" Washburne (Son of Zoe and Wash). It has a brown right arm as a mark of identity, since it used to belong to Malcolm's Browncoats. I am dong that will all the mechs of the unit: the right arm will be of different colors depending on the original allegiance of the mech owner.

The second is a mech that the Periphery people call "an Archer". It is a cobbled together thing that would NOT be called an archer 2 jumps in from the periphery, but it serves the same role and has the 2 LRM racks and the 4 medium lasers. Since it is a periphery design the medium lasers are quite inefficient and need to be massive. They are also reinforced to be used as clubs. So yes, it is a Clan mech, but I do not do clan invasion, so it has been repurposed as an ugly Archer.

Regarding the minis, They all came out darker than the original test urbanmech. I really liked how the urbanmech turned out, so I am disapointed I could not reproduce the color scheme. I think I might have mixed my blues and used a darker one here :/
- The Wasp came out well in contrast between the dark and the light, but the blue is really dark. a lighter one would have been better. 
- The commando was too dusty. "repairs" on it did not solve the issue completely. it seems a little bit flat.
- The "archer" has a dark white. A little bit darker than intended, really, but when I tried to raise the color it did not come up well.

In all cases I avoided an intermediate off-white step that I did with the commando. That might be the reason why the white came out darker than in the test model.






Finally I painted a Tió. A traditional Catalan Christmas character that you feed with food scraps for a month and on the 25th of December brings you gifts.

[Elmoth]

And the second picture.

[Elmoth]

Next batch. I did the basic colors tonight. Waiting for the nuln oil wash to be done tomorrow.

The different right arm colors represent the origin of the unit and it's pilot. It is painted in the color chosen by the pilot, really. The grey MAD will be dark grey after the oil, so I hope to paint a white line on it and make it Canopian. The green Cronus (ex SHD) is Capellan, of course, while the red WHM can belong to anyone, but I guess it will be Canopian as well (haven't worked on that pilot's story yet).

[anarchy]

Oh, I like what you are doing here. Nice mechs!

[worktroll]

Something to consider. Before you do the nuln oil wash, try a very very dry brush of lighter blue over the blue sections. If the brush is really dry, you just get a ghosting of the lighter colour on raised edges. They stand out a little more, even after the nuln.

[Elmoth]

Too late xD
I will do normal drybrushing when the oil is dry. Thanks for the idea in any case. I have not considered doing highlights before the oil.