Shock & Awe's Acrylic Slather House

[Shock & Awe]

I'm new to mini painting and war games, but I'm really starting to love the hobby.  

I wanted to start posting pics of my stuff to get critiques or ideas to take my work to the next level, so I've created a gallery with my latest minis in it and will post any new ones I do from now on.  

The link is here:

**If it's better to link the pics instead, let me know... not 100% sure of the etiquette  

 

[Burnin' Coal]

The colour schemes you have chosen are both subtle and convincing...very impressive results from someone just starting out 👍....the highlights on the gold thread and jewellery really caught my eye....great stuff - just keep on doing what you're doing - look forward to seeing more

[Shock & Awe]

Thanks for the comment and the compliments!  I tried to make the gold necklaces the one piece that tied them all together, and I did want that to pop a bit more.  Glad it worked! 

[Nikodemus]

I prefer to just see the pictures here. Far less hassle for me

Looking good, all of them! Red haired guy is a standout for me, purely on a paint scheme level. His exaggerated red hair sells it for me. I haven't watched that anime but established works are often a good source for paint schemes if you're out of ideas. For feedback I'd recommend you read up on contrast, highlighting, shading, blending. All that jazz.

Take the backshot of the red haired guy for instance:

At the end of the day it's all taste but I think his hair looks a lot better than his coat or sleeves. For me it boils down to the 'distance' between highlights and shadows. Could just be a bad photo but sleeves have hardly any light-dark contrast and it's very mild on the blue. With hair you've gone very dark red/brown on the deepest shadows and comparatively light orange/red on the highlights. And that looks better. Could of course push the hair further still but credit where it's due.

Just look up various techniques and play around with them. See what you like and you don't. We're all doing this (I hope) for fun, so don't fret too much about it.

[Shock & Awe]

6 hours ago, Nikodemus said:

Just look up various techniques and play around with them. See what you like and you don't. We're all doing this (I hope) for fun, so don't fret too much about it.

Thank you so much for the comment and the detailed advice!  I felt the same thing you noticed on the back of the model as well (and the back of the red haired one is my favorite overall product on the models as well).  

The issue I am juggling now is my range of paints vs the new models I want to buy.  I have to budget my money, and it's hard to save on models to buy more paint... but then not have enough to paint.  But I am slowly building up my collection of paints as well and I think that may help with my ability to put that distance in there.  

I say this because, my reds and oranges are my most extensive sets of paints.  Blue I only have two of at the moment, and I am still learning how to mix without creating inconsistent colors.  

That said, thank you again and I will look into those things and keep working to deepen the contrast.

[Shock & Awe]

Got my Jury painted up.  Got a few last touch ups to do and I want to look into printing in the book, but I'm happy with her for now.  

What do you think of her?  

[Nikodemus]

Don't be afraid to mix paints. Malifaux can look really good even if you don't go for a unified paint scheme, as is evident with your trio of brothers already. It didn't take me a lot of practice to get "good enough" colour mixes, and things tend to blend quite well after you've done all your shading and highlighting if you do want a uniform look. Just start out with simple mixes. Drop of medium blue and a brush tip's worth of white. Write that down if it helps. Don't be afraid to mix paints.

If you use expensive model paint like Citadel, consider trying out (going by what I have access to locally, YMMV) Vallejo or Army Painter. Price difference can easily be the difference between three pots of citadel and four of something cheaper.

For prioritising your paint buys I'd say stick with medium tones, maybe darks too. Easier to mix towards light and dark extremes in my experience, towards lights especially. Browns take other colours very well, so rather than buying ten different browns just get one that's not too light and mix in yellow, orange, red, green or grey into it for different browns. I've gotten so much work out of my Army Painter's Oak Brown. Rather than buying a bunch of metallics just buy a single silver, gold or such. You can wash it down more heavily and follow that with your base metallic.You'll get effective shade, mid and highlight colour out of one metallic paint that way.

If you've got some time to spare and enjoy painting, look up colour theory. Lots of minipainting youtube channels have touched on it if you fancy those. It can be a bit artsy fartsy but at least it helped me think about colour more. Food for thought whether you're mixing paints or coming up with colour schemes.

___

Jury looks nice. I'm not sold on her eyes and smoochy smoochy red lips, but close up photography and tiny face details often don't go well together. I really dig your colour composition. For the book, simple squiggly lines get you to a decent end result if you want to keep it simple. That looks like a big book though, so it can certainly use something a little fancier. I'd also recommend you tone the white down a bit, or a lot depending on how worn you want it to look. If you have a sepia wash it's great for this. Pretty stark white paper as is. Just in case you didn't already plan to do something like that. If you do go with squiggly lines, consider doing it with dark red. Probably looks a bit more interesting than straight black and ties in with warmth of the overall paintjob.

[Treehouse]

Welcome to the hobby and congratulations to a great  start :-). 

One thing that caught my eye concerning the photo of the jury is that the white seems very bright. Pure or almost pure white often looks too clean and stands out a lot. you could start with a bit light brown or a warm grey mixed in and use pure white only for highlights. Though, with the jury, i would try a very light blue, as it will create a nice cold contrast to the otherwise mostly warm tones. 

[Maulwurfmann]

Like Treehouse said, the white needs to build up from a darker tone like a "bone" color.  Painting straight clean white will look abnormal. Also the red and the black could use some more highlights. But for a beginner you´re very good!

Give the book some letters... not actually real letters but shaky doodle lines in black... (hopefully this makes sense in english)

Start with a capital letter in the upper left corner like in old bibles or medieval books. That will improve the book by far.

[Shock & Awe]

15 hours ago, Nikodemus said:

Jury looks nice. I'm not sold on her eyes and smoochy smoochy red lips, but close up photography and tiny face details often don't go well together. I really dig your colour composition. For the book, simple squiggly lines get you to a decent end result if you want to keep it simple. That looks like a big book though, so it can certainly use something a little fancier. I'd also recommend you tone the white down a bit, or a lot depending on how worn you want it to look. If you have a sepia wash it's great for this. Pretty stark white paper as is. Just in case you didn't already plan to do something like that. If you do go with squiggly lines, consider doing it with dark red. Probably looks a bit more interesting than straight black and ties in with warmth of the overall paintjob.

RE: paint mixing, that is really helpful, particularly the part about the brown.  I've been avoiding my brown for a bit because I felt like I didn't have a good set of lighter shades to alter it.  Now I have a better idea of what to do with it, so thanks for that! 

Re: Jury - 1, yeah, eyes I am still hit and miss on.  I left hers as they were because, when turned straight on (where you are looking straight at the kneeling man) her eyes ended up dead on the book.  From the side (which is the better shot to get a glimpse of the whole model) it looks a bit off (especially in close up).  In person, I'm satisfied with it, but I completely see why you wouldn't be sold from the picture. 

2 - The lips... ugh.  I did that because Jury is meant to be a female... and if she didn't have long hair, NOTHING about the model said woman to me.  That may be how I blended the little bit of flesh she had showing, but I wanted something to give her some kind of 'woman' accent.  The lips suck though, and I agree.  I thought about switching to my screamer pink to tone down the blaring colour of it, but that may not be the answer either.  I'll have to have a think about how to approach lips. 

3 - Thank you on the color comp. compliment.  I am going to buy a micro pen and attempt writing a few words in the book, but I have to still be careful with the scale.  If the words end up too bulky it will get odd.  The plan from here with the book is to layer it in a bone colour, wash it in either agrax earthshade (all my paints are Citadel - not because I'm snobby, but because I live in Japan and it's the only non Tamiya paint that's easy (enough) to find) or I might buy the Sephia shade this week and give that a crack.  The wash will come after the letters have been applied though.  Just wanted to have a think about WHAT to write in the book before I started going at it. 

4 - Dark red is a good idea.  I think I might buy a set of Sakura Micron Pens for that. 

Thank you again for the time you took to comment.  I really appreciate it! 

[Shock & Awe]

15 hours ago, Treehouse said:

Welcome to the hobby and congratulations to a great  start :-). 

Thank you! 

15 hours ago, Treehouse said:

One thing that caught my eye concerning the photo of the jury is that the white seems very bright. Pure or almost pure white often looks too clean and stands out a lot. you could start with a bit light brown or a warm grey mixed in and use pure white only for highlights. Though, with the jury, i would try a very light blue, as it will create a nice cold contrast to the otherwise mostly warm tones. 

My plan for the book you can read up in the comment above that I just made (because I don't want to be redundant  ) but I do want to try shading, mixing with blue and white because I've heard a lot of people suggest that.  

Now, are you suggesting I mix the blue into the white and then paint it, or use blue as the shade?  From where it's at now I was thinking to layer it with a bone color before shading it either brown or sephia, but would a layer with white/blue mix then layer with blue (toned down with a medium perhaps?) be more in line with what you're talking about?  

I really want to learn how to shade/highlight white better!  I did a passible job (I think?) with the Ten Thunder Brother I posted, which was worlds better than my first few shots at painting white, but this is an area I need to get better at.  

Thank you for taking the time to comment, and I'll keep the advice in mind.  

[Shock & Awe]

9 hours ago, Maulwurfmann said:

Like Treehouse said, the white needs to build up from a darker tone like a "bone" color.  Painting straight clean white will look abnormal. Also the red and the black could use some more highlights.

I painted the black by using a grey base with silver highlights, then let the black shade do a lot of the work to try and create depth.  When I've highlighted black I've almost always used silver to do it, but I feel that's becoming an 'old bag' trick (in other words, I over use it).  So what would you suggest I highlight it with? 

9 hours ago, Maulwurfmann said:

But for a beginner you´re very good!

Thank you very much, I really appreciate the compliment.

9 hours ago, Maulwurfmann said:

Give the book some letters... not actually real letters but shaky doodle lines in black... (hopefully this makes sense in english)

Start with a capital letter in the upper left corner like in old bibles or medieval books. That will improve the book by far.

I'm leaning more toward this idea.  I'm going to buy some micron pens and give this a shot, but once I've decided how to layer and shade the white pages first.  

Thank you for taking the time to comment and for the advice.  

[Nikodemus]

Here's how I did my Arcane Effigy's book. It's much smaller than Jury's so didn't really need any fancy stuff beyond the squigglies. Might give you some ideas on how to approach it. Use what you like, ditch what you don't:

I think I started the pages with a light beige colour, did the 'text' with dark red and washed the thing (before or after text, I don't remember anymore) with a sepia wash. Tried to not let it pool anywhere, so just tinted colour a tad towards worn book look. Did very light edge highlights with original beige colour. Very simple tabletop job. It's not visible from this picture but I did a vertical squiggle on upper corner of the pages to approximate those large, ornamental first letters you sometimes see in old manuscripts. Much like how Maulwurfmann advised.

Red text wasn't the only option of course, nor would it be my default choice. But for this one I felt it tied the model together better than dark blue, black or even brown would've.

[Teirwin]

Like the red and white contrasts.

[Shock & Awe]

Okay, so I'm calling Miss Deed done. 

I messed up glueing her right leg and it was kicked up a bit.  So when I thought about how to paint her, two things were a factor: How am I going to compensate for the leg, and what style am I aiming for. 

The answer to one came after the answer for two - I wanted a full on old school cowboy look for her.  I saw a picture recently of a muddy jacket and I wanted to give that a shot... and I wanted to stick with one brown and try mixing in colors with it to get variation.  So it's really only two major paints at work; Averland Sunset and Mournfang brown, just with random other paints mixed in.  I like the overall end result. 

The answer then to question 1 was, where did the mud come from?  I tried to make a cracked earth look for the base and I'm relatively happy with how it turned out. 

What are your thoughts? 

[Argentbadger]

Wow, terrific work.  Especially for a newcomer to our wonderful hobby.  Keep it up, and please keep sharing for us less-talented types to admire.

[Shock & Awe]

On 9/16/2017 at 1:04 AM, Argentbadger said:

Wow, terrific work.  Especially for a newcomer to our wonderful hobby.  Keep it up, and please keep sharing for us less-talented types to admire.

Thank you.  The 'less-talented' doesn't apply, in my opinion.  I'll keep at it though, and I hope I keep getting better.  

[Shock & Awe]

I got my Grootslang all painted up.  

I know what you're thinking, "Why did you make a huge model taller??"  Well, I read up on Grootslang, found out he hoards diamonds, and I liked the idea of a muddy mound of diamonds.  I think it came out more or less how I pictured it, and I like the end result, but I know it's not going to be for everyone

What do you think?  

[Maulwurfmann]

A few points on Grootslang. He looks like standing on a diamond cookie

Next time try a little less obvious rock. Maybe not so big and shaped inwards. Try a rock like wall with natural cork and work the diamonds in.

Something like that from Amazon. Just cut a small bit out and use it as rock/rockface.

You drybrushed really hard on that big fellow. Try to make the color a little bit brighter and wash him afterwards. That will merge the color together and you would have smoother color blendings. Also he is only in one tone. Try to make the face brighter to pop out. So you can focus his face more.

Is that a gloss varnish on the gems? If that`s the case look where the light is reflected try to paint the same reflex next time with color instead If it`s not you did a good job.

Hopefully that doesn´t sound too harsh. I like your progress and with a little extra work he would be great.

[Shock & Awe]

2 hours ago, Maulwurfmann said:

A few points on Grootslang. He looks like standing on a diamond cookie

Ha!  Now that you've said that, I can't un-picture it.  I'll have to call him Cookie-Slang now and give him a theme song like the Cookie Monster.  

2 hours ago, Maulwurfmann said:

Next time try a little less obvious rock. Maybe not so big and shaped inwards. Try a rock like wall with natural cork and work the diamonds in.

That would have been a better idea, and I will definitely try that next time, thank you for the advice.

2 hours ago, Maulwurfmann said:

You drybrushed really hard on that big fellow. Try to make the color a little bit brighter and wash him afterwards. That will merge the color together and you would have smoother color blendings. Also he is only in one tone. Try to make the face brighter to pop out. So you can focus his face more.

I have painted like that before and find I'm more inclined to the rough look that dry brushing leaves.  I know that puts me in the minority, and I can fully appreciate that shading after a higher contrast brushing blends the colors a bit more, but my taste at the moment goes in the other direction.  

As to the single tone, I felt that too when I'd got him done, but looking at the art and trying to wrap my head around how or where to add a second color outside of the green I put into the scales on his back, I could not think of what or where to add it.  The model seems like a copy of the Xenomorph from the Alien movies, and it felt like it should be a solid color.... but again, I see what you mean.  As to his face.... he has one, but he doesn't.  He has a head.  But, again, I see that and will think about it a bit more for next time.

2 hours ago, Maulwurfmann said:

Is that a gloss varnish on the gems? If that`s the case look where the light is reflected try to paint the same reflex next time with color instead If it`s not you did a good job.

Actually the gems are one of the Citadel technical paints, Waystone Green.  It's meant to be used to make gemstone colors or a bit more of a glossy finish.  I wanted it for the tongue because I don't like matte colored tongues (that looks odd to me) and I liked the idea of the scales looking gemstone like.  I know I need to learn a bit more about light reflection and angle, so I'll keep that in mind too.

2 hours ago, Maulwurfmann said:

Hopefully that doesn´t sound too harsh. I like your progress and with a little extra work he would be great.

It's not harsh at all!  I understand I have a lot to learn and I'm trying to do something different each time, so some of it will work and some of it won't.  The idea is to keep what does work and chuck what doesn't, but we can't learn anything by just doing the same thing over and over - you have to mess it up a bit to get better (hence, now I know to avoid making base cookies!)  

All in all, my models are like my children; I love them and all their imperfections.  I felt there was something more to do with him, but I'll admit the scale and lack of variation in the build made it hard to get my creativity going.  I'm happy with how he came out, but I'm also happy to have the ideas and input to think about for next time. 

Thank you for the feedback, it's always appreciated.

[Shock & Awe]

So I'm calling the Midnight Stalker done.  

The pictures didn't quite capture it, but I was really happy with how the back came out (his jacket looks technicolor-ish).  

I was trying to get the 'midnight' color into his jacket with a mixture of purples and blues.  It worked on some levels but not others.  Overall I felt like it was an uninspiring model to paint in some ways, and his legs felt flat to me (like he'd been pancaked).  

Still, I tried some new things out and learned from it, so onwards and upwards! 

[Shock & Awe]

I got Talos painted up.  I've got some touch up work to finish (especially on his back), but he's 99% done.  

As soon as I saw the art for this model I though, "rusty old furnace" so that's what I was aiming for.  I know it could use a bit more contrast, but I had a lot of fun playing with and learning how to make 'rust'  

[Shock & Awe]

Calling my first Thalarian Queller done.  I had fun trying some new effects with him, but he's a bit too 'brown'.  Still, I like how the magic bits came out and I think i'll try it with green with the woman.  

 

[Nikodemus]

Staff being such a brassy colour contributes to the browness. Could've gone for more red-brown overalls too. That is, if you wanted to get away from the browny browness that is the brownerian queller.

Digging it as is though. I don't mind it being so brown 

[Shock & Awe]

I got two models painted so far this month: 

Thalarian Queller Female (I tried to think outside my comfort zone with her... and it came out a bit odd, but I like it in a strange way) 

Next was a reclamation project.  I started painting minis in December of '16 and Lady J was my first ever set of models.  So the first image is of one of her death marshals in his original paint job (what will follow that is the update I just did on him.)  I'd like to think I've gotten better  (if at nothing else, taking pictures!)

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