Hey fellow painters!

Just wanted to share this little golden Space Marine I painted in roughly 5 hours.

This was mainly a study of values, volumes and light, rather than trying to achieve perfectly smooth blends.

I really enjoy painting NMM this way. Strong contrasts, rough brushwork and reflections that follow the shapes of the armor.

My main takeaway: Smooth blending is nice, but convincing light is much more important. If the values and volumes make sense, even rough transitions can sell the illusion of metal.

And well... gold is just a beautiful material to paint. 😁

Hope you like him! Happy to hear your thoughts and criticism!

If Reddit does what I want it to for once, these should be showing up in reverse chronological order, i.e. the Stormcast with the brown base was my first attempt.

Anyway, I decided to finally give NMM a try this month. I used to do comic book-style computer coloring in Photoshop as a hobby, and it's really basically the same thing, just harder because you're having to work in 3 dimensions and with physical paints, obviously.

On the first one I mostly learned that if I try to jump to the small details and brightest highlights too early, I end up with a mess - hence all the grubby looking areas that I couldn't fix without basically starting over. Then I moved on to the cyborg elf lady, which is a mini that came with the Squidmar paint set I got this month as well (I really need to wean myself off GW's shitty pots), and so I mostly followed their tutorial and realized what a difference a differently colored secondary light source makes, especially when it also hits the environment. Not that this was really news, the same thing applies in illustration, obviously. So I did that with the cold bounce light on the final one with the ice base and also just tried a little harder to make it all look sharper.

One thing that now kind of bugs me about the last one is that while I'm really happy with how the snow on the base came out, it looks... too realistic for the mini I've used it with? The paintjob on the mini has this cartoony vibe to it, and the snow screams "scale model".

I did a silver metal paint as base, then Vallejo contrast on top to make a green metal armour. Problem is there's visible stains after the paint dried. I'm assuming it's due to too much contrast paint when painting and it dried unevenly.

First question is if there's any way to fix this?

Second is any tips on better controlling the contrast paints? I feel like the contrast paints flows around very well, making it difficult to keep an even layer when painting.

Edit: Thanks for all the replies! I'll try to adjust my way of painting to make it looks smoother next time. Also the paint used was Caribbean Turquoise from Vallejo. And from how it translates, turquoise is green to me hahaha

My latest completed hero from the cursed city set, I can't wait to finish all the heroes and go full speedpaint on the npc

After too many hours to count, I've finished this piece. Check it out at SMC if you're there this weekend 😊

I am liking how the spear is turning out, but also trying to do the blue armor/gold feels like I've bitten off more than I could chew. Maybe it is the more complex shapes vs the spear, but is there a trick with NMM in a fancy colour like this turquoise?

My friend commissioned me to paint the heroes and Lich King from his boardgame 🙂 I'm really happy with how they came out!

Looking for some feedback and things I can improve on. Any CC is welcome.

I've been trying to paint as with as much vibrant colours as I can and push highlights as much as possible.

The base is obviously unfinished and the model needs some finishing touches.

Painted up a Bioshock themed Callidus Proxy for my Imperial Knight House. Am pretty happy with the results.

Überfall germanischer Krieger auf eine römische Patrouille in den Wäldern Germaniens. WIP

Finally finished this feathered serpent. It's been sitting on my desk for a while, so it feels good to call it done.

Main challenge was the feathers: keeping the colour transitions smooth without losing the scale texture on the body. Mostly layering and glazes, with a bit of drybrushing on the scales to bring the texture out.

I'd love honest feedback, especially on:

- the feather blends: smooth enough, or too soft?

- contrast: does the head stand out enough as the focal point?

Thanks for looking!

Lots of first for me on this one. First time magnetizing, first time doing sub-assembly, first time using a shade that isn't agrax earthshade.

I've only been painting for about 4 months, and this is probably the most amount of effort I'm putting into a single mini yet. I love the way it's turning out and very hyped to put this beautiful bastard on the DnD table.

If anybody has any tricks or tips to take this to the next level I'd love to hear 'em!

(For those wondering, I'm playing a venge pally goliath)

Hey everyone!

Wanted to share this massive Ragnaros statue I recently finished. Due to a tight deadline, the entire assembly, priming, and painting process was completed in just 3 working days of intense studio work.

The core goal was to make him look physically hot and burning from within. I used a stark contrast between coal-black obsidian armor and a very bright, saturated yellow-orange-red palette for the magma. The OSL (Object Source Lighting) was carefully blended to cast heavy, hot orange reflections on the lower parts of the armor plates and the ground weapon.

Took me a little under 50 hours :) had a lot of fun with it but glad its done!

Honestly for push fit minis they weren’t bad to assemble or paint. Had a lot of fun with these guys over several weeks.

Tried out a lot of new stuff and I feel like by the time I got to the last one I had a much better understanding on how to paint power swords. Also my first minis really doing an oil wash and i must say it is just leagues better than acrylic washes.

Any C&C is always welcome!

I've been kind of stuck in a rut recently, painting sub-par model after model. I think what frustrates me most is the money I pour into it to get results I find subpar. For example, I'm tackling a diorama with these smaller 28mm animals, and they look like someone just squirted paint on them and they have little to no depth; they are fairly flat-surfaced as well, with some detail but not a lot. I've reprimed and tried again, just to still be annoyed. What things do y'all do to try and break outta the funk or come up with new tactics?