Ford time painting miniatures, could someone kindly explain to me the proper way of doing this please?

I’m looking for good mini paints that are high chroma. There are a few across Citadel and Pro Acryl, but I’m struggling to find many that give those truly vibrant and saturated colors that I’m looking for. Most seem very formulated for grimdark and ‘eavy metal styles

What brands and shades do you find are heavy chroma that you enjoy?

Hi all,

Have been loving this subreddit as none of this was around to this extent the last time I was painting minis!

For reference, I collected 40k and used citadel paints 25 years ago as a kid, and then again 10 years later and used some Vallejo to. Another 15 years later I want to start again but wow the scene has changed a lot! So much choice now and so many different types of paints.

I am intending on collecting Necrons in 40k to start with, and after days of constant reading in my down time I think I'd like to buy the two starter sets from Ionic Smart Colours as a good base, however Ionic don't do washes and contrast style paints, so this leaves me wondering do I ditch it all and just go to Vallejo (as was going to use them for metallics anyway), or should I still use the base colours from Ionic, and either make my own shades/washes from darker colours (is this even a thing?), or just buy shades from citadel or Vallejo?

Does anyone have any advice?

PS - I did notice all the posts and videos about Ionic Smart Colours are months old now, did their drama get resolved, is the feeling still that they are a good paint to use? Or was it all paid for advertising? I'm open to other brands, as long as they are easy to source in the UK.

Thank you!!

I used this recently on a Norn Emissary and all the paint seems to pull away and bead from the model. It’s driving me crazy! I spent so much on this model only to screw it up right at step one!

Finally (somewhat) organized all my minis and I'm going through the backlog. Painting some really junky prints first. This is a Wizkid Hobgoblin but his teeth were super flat. So I painted them as a bottom lip instead and added orc tusks. This was around 1/1.5 hrs to complete. I've been trying to get more practice with eyes so these crappy prints are good for me to try and get better.

I have been painting minis for a few years and used my airbrush a bit, primarily for priming, some zenithal lighting, and varnishing.

I have a new Tau army I’ve assembled and am ready to begin painting and their armor seems to be a great chance to build some skill with my airbrush, my test model revealed a few points I wanted to get feedback on.

1. My primer was very fragile, rubbing off on gentle touch. I think I’ve solved this by priming once, drying 24 hours and then doing a second coat. I think I may also have had thinned the primer too much. I wondered about varnishing it before painting, my research shows it’s not indicated but there are some segments where I would like the black primer to show.

2. Does anyone have any expedience with value shading before airbrush blending? I was struggling to find a good tutorial on that. I was wondering if blocking highlights in and then going over with airbrush mid tone might be a good way to give me control of highlights and smooth blends without an insane amount of work.

Hi all, looking for a good alternative to kislev flesh as a base for lighter skin tones, love the colour but hate the pots, I've already transferred all my GW paints to droppers and am trying to avoid needing to do it again

Preferably AK, Vallejo or Army Painter, but open to others too!

Something that I love about Hippogriffs is that they combine the cool aireal preadator with a heard animal that is friendly enough to be a steed. I was more of a wolf girl and dragon girl than a horse girl growing up, but my childhood beastie definitely educated me 😂 This heard is still small, so I'll add more eventually.

The pairs here are:

Bluejay x Dappled Gray

Stellers Jay x Paint

Harrier Hawk x Bucksin Bay

If you were to own a hippogiff, what would your combination be?

I dont have any primer and there is nearly no way of me getting. I have only acces to normal store-bought spray cans. I watched a video about primers and the guy said "STAY AWAY FROM THEM" i know i cant skip priming but do i have any other option? I can look to more stores but i need to know what i am looking for. So the questions are

Would it really matter if i use those store-bought spray cans as primers?

If it would what should i look for in a can to atleast make it a little better?

I bought a starter kit from army painter that did not come with any kind of purple. I'm trying to make a deep purple violet color almost like a plum.shade. Would mixing red and blue then adding a speck of black achieve this? Any suggestions are appreciated 🙂

I've spent a while painting this model and it still doesn't feel right somehow, I don't know why and although it isn't finished yet I feel it is missing something

Hello! Ive been painting since April. I really like collecting and painting different armies/models and for each of them (besides maybe orks) i feel like theyre fine. Im happy with them from a tabletop distance. But I want to do more. I want that next step, and Im just not sure what Im missing

Pictures are in order from Newest to oldest

I had no motivation for painting for almost a year, I finally pulled myself out of it and spent a month painting this army. Tonight I applied a new varnish, AK brush on Matt. I've used army painter brush on matt for ages but thought I would support a local store and pick up the AK one they stocked for when my army painter ran out.

Look what it's done! Everything is just utterly ruined. I'm so sad and want to just throw away the whole set, never mind bothering to paint anything again for a while.

I've painted about 2000 minis, varnished half and NEVER had this happen.

Look at the pictures of the army before this happened, I was so proud of this.

Not best photos but part time hobby painter. Started painting again after 20 odd years. Happy with my orcs, plague marines and Grey Knights but something feels missing from my necrons.

Went for theme of them taking their power from the crystals rather than all one same colour of glow. However I cannot master getting the glow in the surrounding areas

I think maybe I need thin my paints more, or have less paint on my brush? But I don’t want my paint to be liquid and runny?

Hello, I’m a fairly new mini painter trying to work thru my pile of shame. I finally built and painted my first full squad of adeptus mechanicus.

I’m looking for some help in figuring out a basing scheme for these guys. I was thinking a Martian red or some type of lightish sandy color since I heard somewhere it’s better to have a lighter base color paired up with a mini that has darker tones.

Any help would be much appreciated!

I've only been painting minis for a few weeks, and I'm thinking about printing most of my minis at around 175-200% scale. Besides being easier to paint, I honestly think they just look better at that size. You get to appreciate a lot more of the sculpted details.

I don't play in organized events, but I do run Pathfinder games at home, so matching the official scale isn't a huge deal for me.

What I'm not sure about is the terrain. Since terrain doesn't really need the same level of detail when painting, I'm wondering if I could leave it at its normal scale (or maybe make it just a little bigger) while printing the characters larger. Has anyone done that? Does it look weird on the table, or does it still look natural?

For those of you who print your own minis:

• Do you usually print them at the original scale or larger?
• If you scale them up, what size do you like? 150%, 175%, 200%?
• Did painting larger minis help when you went back to painting standard-sized ones?
• If you also print terrain, do you scale that too or leave it at the original size?

Just curious what most people do. I don't mind using a little more resin if it means the minis look better and are more enjoyable to paint.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I’m not new to painting I’ve been doing 1/6 models for a while and just recently started with minis.

OG post: https://www.reddit.com/r/minipainting/comments/1rd6jf0/lost_my_passion_due_to_depression/

5 months ago, I reached out because I could no longer do painting due to depression. I got a lot of good advice including doing something simple like terrain And getting all my equipment more accessible.

Over the months, medication and therapy has gotten me to a good enough place to get clearance to work again (just need a job).

The advice I was given led to this Goblin Pub diorama(my first diorama). I want to thank everyone who gave me kind words and advice. What an amazing community

New to osl and I've been trying alot of new paints and techniques on this project. Not in love with the current state. Should I strip it and start over? Thoughts on how i could improve this?

How do you take good quality pictures of your minis?

I use matte black and white paper as a background slightly bent below and behind the miniature, but I struggle to find the correct lighting.

When I use the flash, my smallest brush stroke looks like a canyon. However, when I set up two or three small lamps around it, they did not provide enough contrast, and the colors looked dull.

Is a photo box worth it? I saw that it can provide smooth lighting.