New painter tips (First model)

[viscid cove]

Hi everyone !

Hope you are all doing well 🙂

Nothing too specific really but this is my first ever miniature and it took me hours , still have the base yet to finish.

I do feel like I let the model down a bit with my attempt at a blue glow especially where it flows onto the armour I tried a mix of dry brushing and washing (I think it's called)

Anyway...

Please can anyone who has time give me some tips , in well aware there will be a ton I need to improve. But anything that stands out or where I can improve would be much appreciated. I don't know half the terms or techniques but I'm happy to Google etc.

Really enjoyed doing it, The time seemed to just drift away so quickly !

Thankyou 🙂

[finite oracle]

It's looking great
You should paint the base too

[safe tapir]

for a first model thats pretty good. all I can suggest is to experiment and try to nail down techniques and neatness and you will improve the more you paint with a goal in mind.
At all costs SAVE the model DO NOT strip it, it is your newborn

https://youtu.be/Ra-c9QOhVuY?si=lM_1-12dyTFZoNz1
this is a good vid imo

https://youtu.be/peySwkcENcs?si=pc7SOlX5lklPVM0N
this is good aswell eavwn though it's about nmm (non metalic metal) the useful tip in everything is contrast.
contrast in light/vs dark, contrast in color palette ect. is the way I start my miniature though process

[viscid cove]

Thankyou , I've watched the videos and just wondering on my model I did try and add the darker brownish colour to the crevices and add highlights...But I'm wondering if I went far enough ? Should I try a darker brown or even a black ?

At this stage is it too late to then go in and try do these things or will it just get messier and messier ?

Also wondering about the eyes...I genuinely thought they weren't as bad as they are when using my eyes but in the photo I can see they are Terrible and the white messy and too big. Any tips on how to fix ?

Thankyou for the advice and critique it really helps.

[finite oracle]

Tbh Amicus is asking you to try one of the hardest of techniques
You shouldn't bother about NMM
For the eyes I'll recommend giving more color to the actual eye so we can have a contrast between the glow and the actual eye
Also you need to do the base of your mini
It helps a lot making it look cooler

[finite oracle]

Cause after years I never touched non metallic metal and aren't planning to look into it lol

[viscid cove]

So...I've just looked into Nuln oil and purchased some. I'm wondering if I despite having thought I'd 'finished' the armour...Could use a Nuln oil wash and then redo my highlights ? Obviously I don't think I'd want to touch the glowing hammer or near where it glows on the shoulders.

What do you think ? Would that help the contrast and depth.

I wasn't really sure at what stage to actually apply the contrast wash before...

[viscid cove]

Ok...so I've tried the nune oil which definitely helped to bring out the ab details etc...Probably a bit messy for my first go. But now thinking to really make a difference I should get to doing some highlights. Just wondering what to use , I have a silver...And the bronze...But I don't have a bright gold.

[proper flax]

Looks very good for a first model!
Tbh things like OSL might be a bit much for the beginning and I would suggest to only go that route once you feel somewhat confident with volumetric painting (you dont need to be an expert at it, but imo you should be able to apply it consistantly to some degree).

Looking at the mini my first question would be how the grainy texture happened, do you have an idea?

Here you can hopefully see what I mean. There seem to be big grains of texture.

So properly applying paint and thinning it might be a next step to work on. Luckily there are a lot of good videos for it on youtube.

Another thing to work on might be a cleaner finish and better separation of details.

At the belt you can see that there were 2 red paint floods. Cleaning this up would help a ton with readability 🙂

Similar with the weapon and the hand holding it. My eye cant really see any separation between the two.

[finite oracle]

I think all of our first mini have the same texture to it
It's hard to thin your paints enough and get a nice feeling

That would come in the future

[proper flax]

Yea, it develops over time.
But it is so important to point someone to it.
I for myself did not realize this for a long time and I improved so much by just noticing that I am doing it wrong and researching a bit

[finite oracle]

Definitely

@proper flax I want your opinion on Amicus recommending NMM ?

I'v been painting for years and i think I'll have a hard time trying

[proper flax]

Tbh I ONLY paint NMM and never TMM, because I dont like TMM paints
And because I LOVE the look of NMM if it is done really nice and want to reach that point sometime in the future (my NMM looks okish, it reads as metal at least).
However, I would not recommend it to any beginner unless you have a passion for the look of it and really want to suffer a bit.

[finite oracle]

I'm wondering how many hours it would take to paint just one mini

[proper flax]

i guess that depends on the quality you want

Another thing: The eyes are different. One is white with a blue ring around it, the other one is blue with a white ring around it. This definitely should be symmetrical unless there is a good reason otherwise 🙂