Black Reach Painting - Day 3

Today I spent few hours reading and watching videos on blending techniques.  Wet blending seems to be one of the easier, but advanced techniques as you apply unwatered paint on the area in question with at least two shades.  Then carefully use a wet brush to gently blend one colour into another as shown in this Thunder Hammer tutorial.  I will try this technique when I have more experience, but for now the simpler technique of blending a colour by starting at a single point and then thinning it to the area you wish it to fade too.  A good example tutorial of this is shown in this Blending Blood Angels video.
I also worked on the next pair of Ork Boyz by completing their base coat layer and first wash of Devlun Mud.  Finishing off tonight with some touching up of the edges where paint has overlapped due to my not so still hands during painting with the base colours.  The trickiest part of this is the new helmet not seen until now which has a fur edge and proving a required skill to make it look good.

Beginners Day 3

Attended our 3rd beginners day at Games Workshop in Northampton and continued to paint up our Black Reach models.  Completed my first couple of Ork Meks which I learnt a lot in regard of shading/blending (see Thrushbralls Blog for great tips) and how I might improve on the next couple.  One of my key learnings from the first painting experience was to use a simple layering technique of primer, base coat, midtone and highlight layers.  This allowed me to realise the need when mixing of colour to create the correct shades for the layers you really need to have the right colour shades to mix with.  This led to me purchase 3 more paints Golden Yellow, Bleached Bone and Blood Red.
Son has also completed his first 2 Space Marines and 1 Terminator which have turned out great for his first attempt.  He has gone for a similar scheme of Salamanders but added a blue camo to the mix which looks pretty good.  He will look at using more layers in his next couple of paint jobs.

Now I have the images taken and up I have noticed numerous painting over spills need tidying up, missed the metal teeth of orks boots.  Something for son and I to work on over the next set of models and go back to these with those refinements in the detail.

Black Reach Painting - Day 2

Another late night this time learning another important lesson - paint all your base colours before applying your first wash.  Luckily I learnt this from watching another Ork painting tutorial video of GirlPainting and proceeded to paint my base colours on the rest of the miniature.  I then proceeded with a Develun Mud Wash being careful to remove  from the open areas and ensure all shadow areas contained the main wash.
Once the the wash had dried I proceeded to work through each colour for its mid tone painting.  I found the following a good strategy to follow as my first experience in producing a matching mid tone of the same colour:

• Mid-tone of Knarlock Green/Snot Green/Water 3:1:2 on Knarlock Green base/wash
• Mid-tone of Mechrite Red/Iyaden Darksun/Water 3:1:2 on Mechrite Red base/wash
• Mid-tone of Iyaden Darksun/Skull White/Water 4:1:2 on Iyaden Darksun base/wash
• Mid-tone of Calthan Brown/Tallarn Flesh/Water 3:2:2 on  Calthan Brown base/wash

I applied the mid-tone for each area by focusing rough painting on the main non-shadow areas, the final result was the images below, just pending the final highlight layer and tidying up the detail edges. After taking the images its highlighted to me how messy the painting job is and under the spot lights in the kitchen they don't highlight the miniatures detail when painting. I'm now seriously looking at a descent Daylight Table Lamp to help show better definition of the miniature during painting.

Black Reach Painting Starts - Day 1

We opened our Black Reach set tonight and started our painting of the miniature. Started at 8:30pm and didn't stop due to forgetting time until 11:30pm, was great fun and learn't an important lesson. What ever you do don't try painting miniatures under ceiling down-lights as they create far to much reflective shine on the models while painting. So I am now looking for a good hobby or daylight desk light, any recommendations please post a comment.

Beginners Day 2 and Ork Painter Tryouts

Attended our second beginners day at the Games Workshop and attempted to test out the marine 2 colour scheme which after a planned 4hrs ended up at 6hrs and still not quite finished.  Once the  marine 2 colour scheme paint job is complete I will post a pic.  

This second day enforced our addiction further and I purchased Black Reach set for son and I to paint up and play.  As my son decided on the Space Marines for his paint job, I am left with Orks and hence worked on the Ork Painter to tryout palette schemes using a Games Workshop Colour Sheet reference (see Useful Resources) and below is my decided palette using the Games Workshop Hobby Starter Paint Set colours.

Spacemarine Painter Tryouts

Spent the evening reading up on colour wheels and palette combinations from a great site called How To Paint Miniatures.  This sent me looking for an on-line test painter app which lets your try out colours schemes on your Warhammer models.  The site The Bolter & Chainsword  had a great little tool (see Useful Sites) for trying palette's on Space Marines, some schemes I liked and may give a go are shown.  What I really like about the tool is being able to click a link after editing a palette scheme and displaying an image of my Space Marine with a list of the closest Games Workshop colours required.

Marine 1 Paints Required	Marine 2 Paints Required

Beginners Day Update

Awesome first beginners day, as we painted our 2nd model and tried out new wash and highlighting techniques.  Enjoyed it so much I spent the week reading up on minature painting techniques and starter requirements for getting into Warhammer 40k world of painting an table top gaming.

1st Day Wargaming

Took my son to Games Workshop this Saturday for a look around and ended up paint our first Space Marines.  We both enjoyed it so much we already booked our FREE Beginners day for Sunday, will let you know how it goes.