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Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2021 7:17 am
by THE KILL
Mate, marriage is a complex and demanding affair. If you want me to just throw a spanner in the works, fine, I'll do it, but don't think I won't hold you at least partially responsible.

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2021 1:43 pm
by Eight Bit Alien
THE KILL wrote: Mon Mar 01, 2021 9:11 am Re: magnifier, now I'm curious but unfortunately I can't buy one because I have assured my wife that the really good mini painters never use one (I have no idea why I said that, maybe they do) and I can't let her have the last word.
:lol: :lol: :lol:

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THE KILL wrote: Tue Mar 02, 2021 7:17 am Mate, marriage is a complex and demanding affair. If you want me to just throw a spanner in the works, fine, I'll do it, but don't think I won't hold you at least partially responsible.

If you told her you won't use one because you don't need one, don't let her see you use one!!!!

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2021 2:25 pm
by THE KILL
Look at Mr relationship expert here.... yer not wrong, though, mate.

Anyways, finished the first Goliath ganger (Necromunda):

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I was going to play a Van Saar gang like in the 90s, but turns out ranged attacks are brutally effective in this game and my best mate was not too crazy about having to face a gang who hits on a 3+. So I'm going to play a Goliath gang, which was included in the base set anyway. Gotta say I love the sculpts; every damn gang GW produced looks fucking amazing, even Delaque...

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2021 2:28 pm
by THE KILL
Wait, did you paint Nietzsche and his horse, 8bit alien? If so, :tup:
Waiting for pics of it hanging over the fireplace in your mancave...

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2021 7:12 pm
by THE KILL
The few meagre pieces of Necromunda terrain I have already painted:
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Most of it is MDF-terrain by TT Combat, The yellow round tank I printed out. Been meaning to finish those Goliath gangers, but I'm sick of having to do everything nine times.

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2021 10:39 am
by Necrometer
damn, fine choices all around there

something from reddit:
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Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2021 10:56 am
by Eight Bit Alien
Bone blorks

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2021 10:58 am
by Eight Bit Alien
THE KILL wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 2:28 pm Wait, did you paint Nietzsche and his horse, 8bit alien? If so, :tup:
Waiting for pics of it hanging over the fireplace in your mancave...
Absolutely not, although i would hang that in my home np

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2021 3:10 pm
by FVBTVS

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Sun May 02, 2021 5:59 am
by THE KILL
Haha yeah, I love that bond is fielding a 90s Ultramarines army on old school terrain...

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2021 9:36 am
by spacehamster
So I finally resolved to get into 40K. I originally started AoS because the fantasy models were a nice break from all the sci-fi model kits, but really my bread and butter is weathered mechs and spaceships 'n' shit, plus I managed to snag an Indomitus box. So here's a Space Marine (not from Indomitus) that I painted as a test run, using basically all the usual techinques I'd use to paint something like a Gundam - airbrush highlights, chipping, weathering with oil paints, that sort of thing. Worked out pretty well, but I still need to tweak this a bit before I'd consider it a finished recipe. I think I can punch up those highlights on the blue a bit more, and I want to use a brighter gold color so that it pops more from a distance. Plus I'm not 100% happy with how the chipping came out, but I think that's an easy fix.

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Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Wed Aug 11, 2021 5:03 pm
by THE KILL
Good shit. The shoulderpads look awesome. Is he supposed to belong to a custom order or is it an Ultramarine and the camera fucked with the blue? Anyway, I think the chipping will be more convincing if you only draw highlights on the underside of the dents. Also, I like to imply texture and scratches by painting interrupted and jagged highlighting lines on edges; it's almost as quick as painting straight lines but a lot less Games Workshoppy. Plus sand from the ground would aggregate in the recesses.

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2021 3:03 am
by spacehamster
He's an Ultramarine, and he does look a bit pale. The midtone I used was Macragge blue, but I also applied a pretty heavy dot filter at the end, mostly with grey, that dulled down the colors. I'm working on another test piece and trying to keep the colors a bit more vibrant, but generally speaking, I don't mind if the blue's dulled down a bit because it adds to the overall weathered appearance. I'm more concerned about preserving a bit more contrast both in the highlights and in the detail so that it'll still pop from a distance.

I did switch to doing the chipping with the light line at the bottom to imply a highlight - a few of the chips and scratches on this one are done that way, and I realized it looks better. The way I did it here is just the way I always do it on larger mecha models, but despite the scale actually being larger on GW minis, that chipping technique doesn't really work. What I was actually doing here is differentiating between deeper and more shallow chips, i.e. where it's light blue, only the top layer of the paint is scratched off. But it just looks better if it's only light blue at the bottom.

The reason the sand isn't in the recesses is because it's drybrushed paint instead of pigments. The ground is Martian Ironearth, and Tuskgor Fur happens to be more or less the exact same color, so I used that because I don't really have any pigments that match the Martian Ironearth. We'll see about basing, though. I really, really like how the colors go together here, but at the same time, it's kind of a lame copout to just slop a texture paint on the base, and I want to try something new. I made a more sci-fi looking base for the second one, we'll see what that looks like when it's all put together.

Of course that's also more time consuming than what I did on this one, and with a 1000 point army to do... yeah.

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2021 5:42 am
by spacehamster
Here's the next one. Long rant below.

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So here's what I'm thinking at the moment.

1) Punching up the contrast on the blue has definitely worked. I also scaled back the dot filter a bit to keep the blue a tad more vibrant. It's still not where it needs to be, though. The brightest highlights are too big, especially on the backpack where it ended up looking like the top panel is a different color than the bottom one, rather than having a highlight, and I also need to stop having the color gradient on the pauldrons going all the way down to the darkest shade color. I did that in the service of MOAR CONTRAST, but it doesn't make sense.

2) The brighter gold works, and I think I also like the brown for the belt and pouches better, although I'm going to try a different one next time, and maybe give it a leather texture. I tried that this time and fucked it up, so I painted over it. But I want to try again.

3) The chipping definitely looks better with the lighter blue only on the bottom. It's funny - the way I did it on the first one is how I do it on Gunpla and other things that are a much smaller scale, so you'd think it would translate to this scale just fine, but I think the problem is that as soon as your brain sees a humanoid figure, it understands better when something's wrong. On giant robots you can kind of fudge it, but not on a Space Marine.

4) The big question for me at the moment is the bases. I know the edge on the second one looks like shit, but I can fix that on the next one, no problem. What I'm wondering is whether it's worth it overall. The Martian Ironearth base on the first one feels like a total copout - I've done this type of thing a million times before, it's easy, and it's boring. At the very least it needs some rocks or other debris. The sci-fi floor base is much more interesting, but at the same time, I feel like the Martian Ironearth is the absolute perfect color against the pale blue of the armor, and it overall just makes for a much more harmonious color composition - and once I have to do this on 1000 points' worth of Marines, I'll probably feel differently about it being a "copout", ahem. I tried to get some of that same orange brown on the new base, but it doesn't have the same impact, and doing the whole thing in orange doesn't make sense. So I dunno. Opinions?

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 9:43 am
by THE KILL
spacehamster wrote: Fri Aug 13, 2021 5:42 am Here's the next one. Long rant below.

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So here's what I'm thinking at the moment.

1) Punching up the contrast on the blue has definitely worked. I also scaled back the dot filter a bit to keep the blue a tad more vibrant. It's still not where it needs to be, though. The brightest highlights are too big, especially on the backpack where it ended up looking like the top panel is a different color than the bottom one, rather than having a highlight, and I also need to stop having the color gradient on the pauldrons going all the way down to the darkest shade color. I did that in the service of MOAR CONTRAST, but it doesn't make sense.

2) The brighter gold works, and I think I also like the brown for the belt and pouches better, although I'm going to try a different one next time, and maybe give it a leather texture. I tried that this time and fucked it up, so I painted over it. But I want to try again.

3) The chipping definitely looks better with the lighter blue only on the bottom. It's funny - the way I did it on the first one is how I do it on Gunpla and other things that are a much smaller scale, so you'd think it would translate to this scale just fine, but I think the problem is that as soon as your brain sees a humanoid figure, it understands better when something's wrong. On giant robots you can kind of fudge it, but not on a Space Marine.

4) The big question for me at the moment is the bases. I know the edge on the second one looks like shit, but I can fix that on the next one, no problem. What I'm wondering is whether it's worth it overall. The Martian Ironearth base on the first one feels like a total copout - I've done this type of thing a million times before, it's easy, and it's boring. At the very least it needs some rocks or other debris. The sci-fi floor base is much more interesting, but at the same time, I feel like the Martian Ironearth is the absolute perfect color against the pale blue of the armor, and it overall just makes for a much more harmonious color composition - and once I have to do this on 1000 points' worth of Marines, I'll probably feel differently about it being a "copout", ahem. I tried to get some of that same orange brown on the new base, but it doesn't have the same impact, and doing the whole thing in orange doesn't make sense. So I dunno. Opinions?
This one looks a lot improved (great weathering!), but already I'm thinking a 1000 points will take you forever if you're painting everything to this standard. Especially if you add stuff like leather textures.
Personally, I like LAAATSA KUNTRAST on my minis as well; if it looks cool/ convincing, go for it.
Re: bases, I agree that using Martian Ironearth would be a bit too simple, but creating custom bases for every single model will also take you forever. Once again I'd like to recommend resin printers, get one and you can print smashing base toppers for your whole army:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4500174
https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/base-toppers
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4168836

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:23 pm
by spacehamster
It's not as time consuming as it looks, tbqh. I'm used to painting Blades of Khorne with that insanely ornate trim, compared to those models the Space Marines are a joke. Airbrush on the blue and thighlights, and then, what? Trim, joints, belt, eyes, gun, done. The chipping takes a lot of care and precision, but it happens to be something I also really enjoy doing, and it also doubles as edge highlighting. The bigger issue is the drying times involved with oil paints, really.

I think I'm gonna go with Martian Ironearth plus some debris, rocks, skulls, whatever, or as someone on Dakkadakka suggested, a combination of the two, the industrial floor half covered with Martian Ironearth. The more I look at these, the more I find that the blue/orange contrast is just too good to pass up.

Not ready to jump into 3D printing yet, honestly. I've got too much shit taking up too much space already, and too much stuff to build and paint, I don't need a Star Trek replicator, I need more time to paint shit.

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 3:06 pm
by Chad
it's fascinating to see this...I collected baseball cards when I was young. my grandfather loved model trains...they were poor as hell, but he worked in construction and had an entire barn devoted to trains. I think there's something deeper in passions like this. probably some evolutionary quirk...either way, I love to see it and I think it's awesome

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2021 6:49 am
by THE KILL
spacehamster wrote: Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:23 pm thighlights
hahaha. is that a typo or did you make up a funny as hell neologism?
spacehamster wrote: Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:23 pm It's not as time consuming as it looks, tbqh. I'm used to painting Blades of Khorne with that insanely ornate trim, compared to those models the Space Marines are a joke. Airbrush on the blue and thighlights, and then, what? Trim, joints, belt, eyes, gun, done. The chipping takes a lot of care and precision, but it happens to be something I also really enjoy doing, and it also doubles as edge highlighting. The bigger issue is the drying times involved with oil paints, really.
May I recommend airbushing a mixture of blue and purple from below/ into the shadows, it deepens them quite a lot and makes the highlights pop even more.
Btw, what eactly do you use oil paints for? Your mentioning the drying times makes me think it's not only for the weathering, which I would normally assume would be your last step?
spacehamster wrote: Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:23 pm I think I'm gonna go with Martian Ironearth plus some debris, rocks, skulls, whatever, or as someone on Dakkadakka suggested, a combination of the two, the industrial floor half covered with Martian Ironearth. The more I look at these, the more I find that the blue/orange contrast is just too good to pass up.
I agree, the colours look really cool, but I'm thinking you need a transition between the two (in the form of pigments). Martian Ironearth looks like dried up riverbed or like the ground of a desert, it doesn't make much sense and won't look convincing if it's put on top of a factory floor.
spacehamster wrote: Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:23 pm Not ready to jump into 3D printing yet, honestly. I've got too much shit taking up too much space already, and too much stuff to build and paint, I don't need a Star Trek replicator, I need more time to paint shit.
That's understandable. Let me know if I can print you out/ send you a couple of base toppers for your character models :tup:

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2021 7:09 am
by spacehamster
THE KILL wrote: Sun Aug 15, 2021 6:49 am
hahaha. is that a typo or did you make up a funny as hell neologism?
I'm gonna say both.
spacehamster wrote: Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:23 pm May I recommend airbushing a mixture of blue and purple from below/ into the shadows, it deepens them quite a lot and makes the highlights pop even more.
I might try that, but I like to paint my minis superglued to a base these days, and then I'd have to break them off to airbrush on the shadow tone. I'm actually already going from a 50/50 mix of Macragge Blue and black as a basecoat, which basically looks like very dark purple.
Btw, what eactly do you use oil paints for? Your mentioning the drying times makes me think it's not only for the weathering, which I would normally assume would be your last step?
Pin washes, filters and streaks. These days I apply filters as a dot filter, which means you dot on small amounts of oil paint straight from the tube, in this case with a toothpick, and then wipe them across the surface with a brush damp with white spirits to cover the whole area. I find that's easier to control than thinning them down and brushing them on, and the slightly uneven result you get from it actually becomes a first weathering step, which is great. If you want to use them as a filter just to change a color tint or reduce contrast, you're better off thinning them first and brushing them on.

For pin washes I just prefer them to using GW's acrylic washes because they're easier to correct and I don't want to end up with coffee stains around my panel lines. I still use Nuln Oil for a few small things here, though, like shading the recess around the lenses and the buttons on the arm because for those things, the surface tension actually helps it behave the way I need to.

The streaking is also done with a toothpick and then feathered with a brush, usually with some corrections with cotton buds. It just looks way more realistic than if you just paint on streaks with acrylics, plus, like with everything else, you get more working time to adjust things.

The problem is that that's three steps I do with oil paints, and you really need to give them at least 24 hours to dry before you do the next thing. I also fucked up the clear coat over the decal on one of the pauldrons because I went in with the oil pin wash when the clear coat hadn't cured yet and it ended up eating into it.
spacehamster wrote: Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:23 pm
I agree, the colours look really cool, but I'm thinking you need a transition between the two (in the form of pigments). Martian Ironearth looks like dried up riverbed or like the ground of a desert, it doesn't make much sense and won't look convincing if it's put on top of a factory floor.
Yeah, it's the transition I'm concerned about as well. I'll just have to try it and see what it looks like, but there's definitely doing to need to be some orange dusting with pigments or stippling so that the desert ground doesn't just break off. It's supposed to look like the factory floor is half covered with dried mud/sand, basically.
spacehamster wrote: Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:23 pm That's understandable. Let me know if I can print you out/ send you a couple of base toppers for your character models :tup:
Thanks, dude. I'll keep it in mind if I come across something.

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2021 12:51 pm
by spacehamster
Here's the next one. I had a few mishaps here - the black outline on his right pauldron isn't supposed to be anywhere near that wide, and don't even talk to me about that fucking moldline on his foot, I can't believe I didn't notice that until I was almost done.

Anyway, as planned, I did the final highlights more focused, which resulted in exactly what I wanted. I also switched to Evil Sunz Scarlet for the eyes and Vallejo Metal Color Gold, both because they're brighter for more pop. Conversely, the leather is now Rhinox Hide with highlights in Doombull Brown, which is darker, but I think it looks much better.

Still undecided about basing, but I've now also started on the Necrons, and since those basically have to get natural bases (they all come with one foot attached to a rock because that's where the attachment peg goes), I'm kind of thinking natural bases for them and tech ones for the Space Marines kinda makes sense.

I think this is basically it. I'm doing one more for some fine tuning and practice, but I got the Recruit starter box last week and the models are all built and primed and I want to get started for real.

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Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2021 8:55 am
by THE KILL
Good shit! Love the scratches on his legs and especially his shoes. I'm sure that a whole army done with this type of base will look really cool. It's probably best to stop overthinking things and just do it...

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Sun Aug 22, 2021 1:22 pm
by spacehamster
It's gonna be a lot of sanding, but yeah, I think I'm just gonna bite the bullet and do these damn bases. I tried the Martian Ironearth/factory floor combo that someone somewhere else suggested, but it really doesn't work. You don't get a good transition if you just slop on the Martian Ironearth. Sigh.

Since I'm doing one more, though, I think I'll give that one another Martian Ironearth base with some junk on it. Just to see. But I think we know where this is going, ahem.

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2021 12:30 am
by THE KILL
Have you considered doing the factory floor/ desert-combination, but instead of Martian Ironearth you use modelling clay or whatever first to sculpt the ground next to the factory floor (nothing too fancy/ time-consuming, just enough to get an uneven ground), then cover it with fine sand & small rocks, all of which can then be painted with diluted acrylics and pigments? If you put on the sand & rocks first, then douse them in IPA and then in diluted wood glue, the transition will look very natural, and it will make the bases indestructible.
Also, you could just put some glowy green shit (crystals?) on the Necrons bases to differentiate them enough from the Space Marines. Gives you the opportunity to practice your OSL skills ;-)

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2021 7:22 am
by spacehamster
Doing the combination is really just a way to reintroduce the Martian Ironearth into the plan because I like the way the colors go together so much. If I'm not doing that, making the factory floor is enough work, tbqh...

Re: The Bottom of the Nerdhole: Miniature Painting Thread!

Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2021 10:58 am
by spacehamster
So here's that last paint test I did:

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And then it was time to say screw it and get serious. Here are the Assault Intercessors from the Recruit starter box.

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Overall I'm pretty happy with these and I'm definitely sticking to the color recipe and basing scheme. There's still some consistency issues - on some of them I went too hard with the highlight on the head and lost the shadows on the temples, and obviously some of the bases look better than others because I friggin' hate puttying and sanding and as usual, I thought I could get away with doing a half-assed job and then it turned out that I couldn't.

Anyway, I'm moving on to the Necrons from the same box now, and then the two HQ models. And then I'll really, really for real crack open the Indomitus box maybe eventually.