Flagoon's noobastic W.I.P.

[flagoon]

Hi, here is my dreadnought I'm painting for too long. Anyway I'm almost at finish, but I would need some pointers. This is cleaning phase, because as you can see I'm still learning to put paint where I want it (thanks to Nameless and Marek it's much easier now). I'm going to paint rest of the model (arms and feet) with darker red and then highlight it, but I need advice of more experienced painters. How should I do this? My first though was to highlight edges with lighter color. This is what people usual do, but then I had this stupid idea to make it the opposite way and make flat areas brighter than edges. I think I saw something like this before and I was wondering if you can give me some advices how (or if) I should do this.

If anyone is willing to give me some other pointers, I'll gladly learn something more.

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This is my third miniature, so please be gentle

[Wraithlord]

For now, until you get more comfortable with painting highlights, I would suggest just going with the edges.

[arctica]

For a 3rd attempt i think you've done pretty well. I think inks and washes might help you here, such as on the gold eaglecrest on the front you could apply some brown ink on it to darken it and allow some of the watery ink to go into the recesses, allow that to dry, then apply the same gold over the raised surfaces to give that section more definition. Then to add to that, on some edges where you think the light might pick up is to apply a mix of your base colour gold and a lighter colour (if using GW, such as mithril silver will give it the much needed contrast).

I like using brown ink on most things even for blacklining as it gives a softer touch but helps define features on a model and especially works well with red models i find. To highlight/shade your red, you might want to get a palette and mix your base red colour with other colours such as brown for the shades and a beige for your highlights. That way you can apply highlights or shades to the areas you want to. Thin them down to a consistency of milk (at least that's what im comfortable with) and then in layers apply the shade or highlight to the flat surface, remember to dab your brush on a piece of tissue to remove excess liquid or else it will run.

[flagoon]

Wow! I think you just don't know how much help it was for me I really appreciate it. Do you think I can use wash instead of ink? I'll surely include some inks next time I'm shopping.

[arctica]

Well i usually buy inks and just water them down a bit more for washes or use watered down paint for a wash, to be quite honest it doesn't matter which you use as long it gives a desired effect. I personally think people follow recipes too closely, much like cooking, you need to give a whole personal spin on things and im glad it was helpful information.

I do find with large flat surfaces etc, something needs to be done to give it that little extra "umph" such as freehand work or nice transitional blends. I would recommend one or the other as a practice. You could do like roman scripture on the armour in select areas? that would certainly help practice your skills. But i would also recommend just getting the basics down first, im still struggling to be a neat painter and i've been doing this for about 4-5 years now.

[flagoon]

I never dared to even think to make any freehand on this mini and I wanted to be better with basics first (I'm still messy as you can see), but this won't win any prize anyway, so I can try some Roman numbers or letters after highlights.

[flagoon]

This are new photos from my WIP. I know many details are not painted, but I was trying to paint highlights on armor first. As you can see I failed completely I was trying painting using glazes, but it's much harder that it seams in Mahon tutorial. Is my glaze too thick? Is this the reason why my paint is so chalky? Any suggestions how I can improve this miniature would be helpful. My plan for this is:
1. Use orange color to highlight edges of everything red.
2. Use dark red glaze to make transitions smoother.
3. Paint rest of the details (missing skull, lights, scrolls)

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Main photo
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Cannon
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Arm
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Top
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Front
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Back

[mahon]

several VERY important things:

1. your paint doesn't cover well. not enough layers probably. you need more, until the surfaces are smooth and without primer showing through
2. then try outlining the edges with VERY LITTLE paint on the brush (almost dry brush) but by dragging the side of the brush along the edges.

rinse, repeat, return...

[arctica]

Yep i agree with mahon, need more layers for sure to get a smooth coverage, remember not to put the paint on too thick. It's getting there, bit more practice and it'll be there

[flagoon]

Oh I will return! You can count on this!!

ps. thanks for advices and keeping me on the track.

EDIT: I forgot to ask about chalky paint on the model? Is it because my "glaze" is too thick? How can I improve this?