White spots, brown stains, looking for some feedback.

[frail pike]

Hello everyone, hope you are doing well. I recently finished this orc. I was quite proud of him, until I got a closer look, lo and behold white dots, brown stains, and uncolored areas; it just looks really unrefined. The kicker is that I didn't notice ANY of it until I got a really good look at it. Seeing as I was literally staring this thing down for about half a week I was really surprised, to be, well surprised! To remedy this I recently purchased a better lamp, one that has good diffusion and is rated at around 5000k's. Hopefully this is better than my current desk lamp that is smaller, dimmer, and has a much warmer "tone"? Anyway some feedback on how to achieve an overall cleaner look would be appreciated.

ALSO...how the hell do you paint black hair! I was looking for tutorials online but I couldn't find any decent videos that covered black beards using JUST acrylic paints. Soooo I just made it the fuck up, not too happy with the outcome.

Feedback in general would also be appreciated. Thanks for reading!

[frank comet]

Hi, I like your mini! I'm not an expert, hopefully someone more competent will give you some proper tips. In the meantime:

• white primed minis are very unforgiving about any tiny area you do not cover with your base layer. This is one reason why you might want to consider priming in black (and do a white dry brush if you really want to)
• you have a red-ish palette, very consistent and nice. But at times this results in different part of the mini being too similar. Black lining, ie painting a narrow black line to separate areas, could help, eg between the fur and the boots, boots and trousers, hand and weapon etc.
• nice use of green as complementary to the overall red palette. There could even be some more but not sure where. Maybe the base, which would also create some separation from the boots.
• adjacent parts shouldn't be of the same color. Like the skull on the shoulder and the rope for instance.
• the teeth, skulls, and shoulder skull might look nicer if they where a bit more white.
• hairs are difficult. I would recommend highlighting overall areas before highlighting individual hairs, and anyway never the whole hair top to bottom but just the raised part.
• the bottom of the mini could be darker, so more attention goes to the face. Maybe even just a dark wash on the red trousers .

Hope it helps! Of corse this is all extra, you could leave it as is and still looks cool 😎

[honest spade]

Agreed on all the above points, starting with a dark prime and then a zenithal/drybrush light color can help a ton. Also building up from a dark base to a lighter highlight should keep that prime from coming through!

Hair I like using Vince Venturella's videos, but keep in mind most of those tend to be more like display quality. For this guy highlighting up to a medium gray and then using a wash (don't let it pool too bad!) could look good!

+1 on the above compliments, he looks great!