Duncan advent calendar soon edition

Lol, totally didn't see this when I posted Would two W&N brushes really do it all?

The 00 or 0 are solely for the fine details. You'll want something larger for other things but I'm not sure on sizes for that since I use an airbrush and then brush in details.

Assuming you're doing infantry you're going to want a size 0, 1, and/or 2 round. This gives you a good spread of brushes to do everything from basecoats to fine highlights. Don't invest in anything expensive like a W&N S7, just pick up some synthetics from Michaels or another art store (I just suggest Michaels because if you're subscribed to their email spam you'll get at least one 50% off 1 item coupon every week so it's really fucking cheap).

Don't feel like you're stuck with just one line of paints. As you use them you'll learn to prefer certain colours from certain lines (I love Vallejo blues, and Citadel yellows). Also each line has better technical paints for different things (Vallejo Thinner Medium is better than Citadel Lahmian Medium because it's in a dropper bottle that you can't contaminate with paint and easy count how much thinner you're using; Citadel technical paints like Nurgle's Rot and Typhus Corrosion simply don't have a Vallejo alternative).

I have W&N Series 7 size 1 and 2 and they easily the best brushes I have ever used but they are expensive and I can't recommend them for new painters because new painters usually destroy their first brushes since they don't know about brush care or accidentally get paint up into the ferrule.

Infantry, bought some termites and scouts.

I'm going to branch out of one brand of colors, I just remember that my friends who were amazing at painting loved them, and dropper bottles are easy to work with.

Coolio.

So does anyone else here use Leadbelcher for drybrushing? I like doing it as it gives metallics a pretty awesome look, but I always wonder if I should be using the actual dry-brush paints from Citadel, or are those memes?

Vallejo dropper bottles are notoriously hard to shake up right. If you pop the dropper off you can drop a metal BB in there and then replace the dropper. This will make it much easier to shake thoroughly.

If you are looking for good video painting guides, look up the WarhammerTV youtube channel with Duncan Rhodes. He of course uses all GW products, but the techniques can be applied to any models with any line of paints.

you can drybrush any paints. The dry paints were made to be easier to get a smooth and consistent drybrush, but before they existed people drybrushed with regular paints. The drybrush paints are actually good, but you don't *need* them.

Drybrushing metallics is really oldschool by the way. These days people usually wash them.

Thanks for the tip!

for my IW's I use leadbelcher drybrush to get most of the armour done quickly, wash down with earthshade and then bring back the sheen with a drybrush of compound and then highlight edges and create scratches and weathering where the metal might contact or rub together, gives me a nice worn look I like on my IWs

Link to stripping minis doesn't work

>These days people usually wash them
Care to explain this technique, I've never seen it.

I'm asking in here after 40kgen pointed me

>Is it really worth spending >£150 on an airbrush + compressor?
I'm honestly conflicted anons since while i'm not the greatest painter in the world i feel that using spray cans and brushing is limiting what i can do

If you have a big back catalogue, I think an airbrush is well worth it, I use mine mainly just for basecoating and highlighting on large models too, but I don't regret the investment.

you apply a solid base coat, such as leadbelcher.

then you apply a wash/shade of nuln oil or agrax earthshade.

then you go back and highlight the raised and flat areas with a brighter silver, like runefang steel or vallejo model silver

if you like, you can go back again with an even brighter silver and highlight the extreme edges

it takes quite a lot longer than a drybrush, but it looks really good and still doesn't require crazy blends like NMM techniques.

>i feel that using spray cans and brushing is limiting what i can do
It's not.

You might be able to go faster with an airbrush and there are a couple of techniques that are easier with an airbrush but the lack of one is absolutely not preventing you from painting better minis.

Post an example of where you're at now.

Painted this ~2 and a bit months ago, had to take a "break" due to work

you could do more laying on the armor to get gradients if you wanted

a lot of the black bits are missing edge highlights

looks like the skin needs one more edge highlight

are their highlights and shades on the metallics? they look flat

Something that's really easy that would increase the quality of this mini would be to go back over your highlights with your base colour, and thin the line a little.

Nah he's effectively 70% to what i call "done", i probably won't be back to normal hobby freedom until after the new years

Yeah i've never been too great with line highlights in general

Is an Airbrush just for priming, basing and a little bit of highlighting?

reposting

airbrushes are for flat coats and smooth gradients

so yes, priming, basing and highlighting large surfaces, but not edge highlighting.

You can also do OSL "glow" effects with them, but be careful as these look awful when done wrong

>done
if that's close to what you consider done, then it's not the lack of an airbrush limiting you. You're just lazy. Push yourself to do better, my nigga. It's the only way you can improve.

I prefer simplicity over anything, which is why all my bases are simply GW texture + wash + dry
I find anything else over the top and distracting

If i could consistantly paint, which i could do a few years ago while NEET, above average TT standard i'd be content
If an airbrush let's me burn through my huge backlog + gives me wetblending effects easier then it's all good

Works fine for me. Did you not include the ellipsis at the end when you copied it?

Even with an airbrush you need to be able to edge highlight, drybrush, shade, etc. All skills that you appear to be less than proficient at.

Just clicked on the link
I'm on a cell at work though

>To use an airbrush you need to master X, Y , Z first even though they aren't related
I appreciate that getting an airbrush will not change my degraded skills, however, if it saves me time, lets my prime + base in all weather AND gives me another painting skill then it's all good
I was just seeing if anyone has stories about their skills b4 airbrushing and after

It might make you faster, but your stuff isn't even tabletop standard yet. Going fast before you're good at something is an absolute pitfall and a good way to ensure that you'll be stripping and repainting those minis once you get good at painting.

Try copying and pasting instead, sometimes when a mobile device turns a link into a hyperlink it won't include things like ellipses at the end which could be what's causing your problem.

Good thing i've got plenty of models to practice on then.
Fortunately i have a few m8s with airbrushes so i'll see if i even agree with it

>you must be 100% proficent before moving on
80/20 nigga

I've spent weekend on trying NMM on axe and OSL on hair.

Different user here. An airbrush helped me consistent thin smooth base coats in a hurry so I could practice highlights without having to do basecoating again.

99% of the time when I prime or base with a rattlecan it ends up a disaster, but priming or base coating with an airbrush is so easy

>you must be 100% proficent before moving on
Never said that. What I said is that you should be good at something before trying to speed up your process. The mini you posted doesn't even look halfway to tabletop standard, so maybe you should slow down and make your stuff look good before throwing paint on a whole ton of shit.

>isn't even tabletop standard yet

your threshold of what is tabletop standard is really out of sync with reality

99.9% of people, if they had an army painted to the quality of that model put down in front of them, would be totally fine with it. In fact, it even meets the official guidelines of what counts as tabletop quality.

Go run a google image search on "Tabletop Standard" That's what I'm talking about when I say standard. user isn't even close.

Looks cute

Good thing i'm only using my possible future airbrush to prime and base until i get back to my old NEET standard of painting

I'll take your points on board as the cricket on my shoudler when i want to go fast when painting in the future

I can at least recommend you to Next Level Painting on Youtube. He does nice work and his tutorials are fun.

Thanks user

What I consider "tabletop standard"

>You haven't missed any major details with your base coat, and you've applied a wash, maybe a few highlights on large edges.

That model is tabletop standard.

are you referring to next level painting's (kenny boucher) table top standard? He has straight up said his "table top standard" is for tournaments with hobby scores, not for casual games, but his definition is pretty much the same - don't miss major details, and apply a wash. He usually lays down some gradient highlights on the base coat because he's been working with airbrushes for a decade, but that's a lot of work for someone who does not have an airbrush, let alone the experience to use one so proficiently.

Tabletop standard is 3 colours and wash, to make it look good from around 3 feet away.

That's the official standard.

Have you seen Kenny paint a table top standard mini? His "tabletop standard" is better than most people can paint at all.
If you aren't rush painting for a tourney, then you should be painting ABOVE tabletop standard, not below, for casual games.

>confusing bare 3 color minimum with tabletop standard
sounds like your gaming group needs a new house rule:

All models gain Preferred Enemy (Unpainted Models)

I've been paiting for almost 2 years and I've only made like 800 pts, one board game and one skirmish game crews of models so far.
Recently I started playing at LGS small league, and my oponents always shows up with that "tabletop standard" minis. Imo they're (minis, not oponents) ugly as fuck, and I can't imagine how someone could call it his army, but I see their point, since most of them just want to play the game with no pref enemy penalty.

About how long after release can we expect new videos from St. Duncan painting the new Thousand Sons and a few Chaos Daemons?

>All models gain Preferred Enemy (Unpainted Models)
best house rule.

As a commission painter, if my "tabletop standard" doesn't make somebody at the table go "oh shit, how did you pull that off?" it isn't done yet.

big red

>fixing typo
I agree that you should always strive to do your best and improve.
Kenny's "Tabletop Standard" is in part due to him being a tournament player and in part due to him being a literal professional painter with a decade of experience.
Obviously his "Tabletop Standard" is far better than most people but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try your best.
And yes I love his videos and streams, despite all the memes.

If you listen to his videos, he says that regardless of his ability, he considers a model "tabletop standard" if they have basecoated everything, haven't missed any details, applied washes, and based the model. That's it.

He has a nice tutorial out about rushing an army to tabletop standard, but doing so in a way that lets you go back later and add highlights to bring it up a level afterwards.

lookin good so far, can't wait to see final result

my club has preferred enemy (faggots), it's a great house rule

>lighting makes the metallics look like sandpaper
I might have to graduate from poverty photo setup at some point.

First knight just about done. Need to work on the heraldry a bit more. I wasn't sure if I should use this shield at first because the previous owner had melted the plastic details a bit (presumably with some kind of shoddy paint stripper), but I think it works well enough.

I'm not a big fan of the warriors of chaos chosen models. Do you guys have any ideas of what I could convert to chosen? I was thinking stormcast eternals, maybe?

Alright lad, first thing, watch this and this

youtube.com/watch?v=fWHnXyD8Qiw
youtube.com/watch?v=tmKMeY5gqZY

Also, I think you should make the left paltron a little bit more dark, and the brass knuckle more shiny

Also, you should rework on the feet on the left, and make the teeth a little bit more bright

But it's way better than the first minis I did

Salty faggot that doesn't have a painted army detected.

Blood Warriors with the heads and some of the khorne bits replaced.

Retributors, with the sigmar filed off and replaced with wholesome chaos

40k Dark Vengeance Chosen mixed with Chaos Warrior bits

>
They're scourge bodies hacked down and greenstuffed over, with sanguinary guard wings, and statuesque heads.

Here they are pre-paint

So here's the product of my first try at blending, and the first time I've used a wet palette. It definitely looks better than how I used to do my sisters but not sure I can stomach doing 80+ of these.
How does it look? Anything look a bit weird?

Has a bit of a spook vibe going. I like it

how do you blend properly? i keep trying to search this online but cannot get any good video demonstrations. do you with the second wet, paintless brush pull the wet paint away?

do you use drying retarder? how thin does it need to be? i wish some fucker could just do an in depth video on this

You can do wetblending, which is using very wet paints and painting them onto each other, leaving part of each paint showing. For beginners, layering is easier. Using glaze medium, you thin your paints to complete transparency and then you just smear it on again and again, decreasing the surface you're going over each time. More layers = more opaque.

I got myself Epidemius few days ago.
It was pretty easy to clean up, but I've never assembled resin mini.
Should I go with superglue or bind it with greenstuff, or try to pin and glue everything.

Nice work, user.

superglue

pin if you feel the part needs it

fill bubbles with liquid green stuff or a milliput wash

fill large gaps with regular kneadatite (green stuff)

when grinding or filing resin parts, make sure you are in a well ventilated area

POST YA WARBOSSES LADZ

I need inspiration.

Hrmmm... can you put a flat piece of paper behind the model, or something? The pictures aren't that clear and the shadows arent helping.

The OSL is bad the NMM is pretty solid. Just practice more and remember to shade with your light source. It should be brighter toward the light first then you add the colours.

It's looking really good, but you know.. 30k is supposed to be a historical army tabletop game. Lorgar did not have red armour.

This is chaos lorgar I guess.

The source of the light isn't anywhere near bright enough. It just looks like she has cotton candy hair. NMM is pretty good, just need to smoothen up those transitions.

I always got prob with OSL, I'm trying to slowly blend it form base colour to source colour, but usually it ends up not-blendy-enough, or look not-illuminated just, diffrent coloured.

There are several techniques for blending. Mainly: layering, glazing, and multiple variations of wetblending.

For Lorgar I'm using a technique called "loaded brush". It consists basically in having one color in the brush, then pick a little bit of the second color with the very tip of the brush. You then apply it carefully over a surface in one direction so the two paints mix gradually. With some practice you can get perfect blends in just a few seconds. It is only for small areas though.

Watch the Painting Buddha videos on youtube and pay attention to Ben who uses this technique a lot.

youtube.com/watch?v=VepXVggrfiE

>painting buddha
are all their videos on their youtube channel? or are some just lost because their website went rip a while back?

Thanks

I don't play 30k :^) My Lorgar is post-heresy Lorgar.

Have my 10 year old Snikrot

Some videos are premium only.

Source?

eurgh. oh well. guess I can't get my hands on those ever. thanks for the info.

I'm looking at Winsor and Newton brush sets for miniature painting. Which set should I be looking for? They're not labeled like Citadel and Privateer Press brushes are. No base, layer, wash/shade, etc. Just "series 7" and "size 12" and whatnot. No idea what I'm looking for, can someone provide a little guidance?

winsor and newton series 7 Kolinsky size 1 + size 0

that's all you need senpai

Those are you detail brushes, the base coat and regular brushes you can buy what the fuck ever, wherever

What do you guys think of my lord of plagues? I am a mediocre painter at best, but I think his skin turned out good. He is not finished in a long way, but I like my progress so far

Here he is from the back.

Does it matter that it's labeled as a watercolor brush?

Who gives a fuck? People like you who don't allow for variations in colour scheme are cancerous autists and you shit up this hobby for everyone else.

Red's not even a wildly divergent armour colour either, it'll go nicely with the post-Istvaan colours of the WB.

Does the axe not want straightening a little bit?

Looks promising though.

No.

It's the best fucking brush on the planet for what we do.

Yes, if it's clearly labeled as a watercolour brush, it won't work with miniatures, even though the bristles are much better quality and could deliver better performance.

That's why citadel, army painter and many others have released their own range of fine miniature brushes, especially designed to be used exclusively with miniature paints on fine plastic, metal and resin mini-choors.

/s

whatcha doin dunc?

I painted this a while ago but every time I look at it I feel it's missing something, any ideas?

Looking good with the skin user. I just grabbed him for silver tower. What's your recipe if you don't mind sharing?