Warhammer 40k

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Ok, I guess middle age crisis is settling in - are Eldar hard to paint? I kinda like the idea of Iyanden cuz I could paint all of these bulbs on wraith guys back thingies as gems. Should I go for normal paint or contrasts when it comes to yellow? Never painted yellow before and the last time I’ve painted anything was like 20 years ago…
Regular yellow is a fucking bitch to paint with. Multiple thin coats and often best to go on after a pink basecoat. Never used yellow contrast but that might be for the best.
 
are Eldar hard to paint? I kinda like the idea of Iyanden cuz I could paint all of these bulbs on wraith guys back thingies as gems.
Not at all. Undercoat with either white or pink, then slap your favorite yellow on top.
 
Ok, I guess middle age crisis is settling in - are Eldar hard to paint? I kinda like the idea of Iyanden cuz I could paint all of these bulbs on wraith guys back thingies as gems. Should I go for normal paint or contrasts when it comes to yellow? Never painted yellow before and the last time I’ve painted anything was like 20 years ago…
I prefer going the contrast route for brighter yellows for added simplicity. Only time I use a normal paint is for my Iron Warriors where I switched to using a darker yellow for a grimier look or when I have to paint flames.
 
Hm, I wonder with Total War 40k will we get a mod where you can have Felinids in the Imperial Guards.
Oh I already have a mod I’ll just include directions on how to download it in spoilers so it doesn’t take up space.


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Regular yellow is a fucking bitch to paint with. Multiple thin coats and often best to go on after a pink basecoat. Never used yellow contrast but that might be for the best.
Iyanden Yellow is a good contrast yellow, but you gotta be militant about not letting it pool or you get gross orange blotches. The Imperial Fist contrast gives a very good yellow basecoat, but it doesn't do as much shading and highlighting as other contrasts.
 
Ok, I guess middle age crisis is settling in - are Eldar hard to paint? I kinda like the idea of Iyanden cuz I could paint all of these bulbs on wraith guys back thingies as gems. Should I go for normal paint or contrasts when it comes to yellow? Never painted yellow before and the last time I’ve painted anything was like 20 years ago…
Just watch any guide about painting imperial fists, it'll be the same problems and solutions with regular paints, speed/contrast paints, primer, undercoats/shading, etc.
 
Simple green and a toothbrush will set you free my friend. Do not let it soak for a year, thats entirely unecessary. A few days, a week, TOPS, but most often overnight. Im a lunatic that repaints the same models over and over and over and over (Ive restarted my word bearers 6 times, and Im giving my blood angels a side-eyed at the moment) again and its never failed me.
A year? I've stripped paint with simple green, la totally awesome, and just rubbing alcohol and it should take hours tops. Let it soak, scrub with an old toothbrush, soak, scrub, repeat. Either you've got some weird mess of paint or you need a different stripper.
It wasn't intentional, but the ogryn has been bathing for quite a while and I never can seem to get the paint from his crevices even with a dental pick
 
It wasn't intentional, but the ogryn has been bathing for quite a while and I never can seem to get the paint from his crevices even with a dental pick
It comes down to having to try a few times. I have 2 baths for the minis with the first being a long soak and solid scrub before dumping them in the second. The second is to re-soak and give it round 2 for the crevices.

Sometimes theres a tiny part i still cant get and i just go fuck it. As long as 99% is cleaned.
 
It wasn't intentional, but the ogryn has been bathing for quite a while and I never can seem to get the paint from his crevices even with a dental pick
Ok, but what are you using to strip it? If one thing isn't doing the job, try something else. And is it just tiny bits that won't matter when you prime it? Post a picture.

If you've got a proper ultrasonic already for something else, sure it's worth trying. Buying one just for a handful of minis, I wouldn't bother. And the cheapest ones are just water tanks with vibrating motors that don't do shit(thanks temu/wish/etc. for flooding the market with literal trash). Even youtube channels like ebay mini rescues, you can see he rarely gets everything 100% spot free, and it doesn't matter for the end product.
 
Theres a market for a book or at least a primer written on miniature painting that takes all the big art shit like color theory and values and lights and shadows and condenses it specifically for warhammer/miniature painting that Im surprised GW hasnt tapped their artists to write already. It could potentially solve every "how do I begin" question that exists. What would you inspiring kiwis want in such a book/primer?

At the very least it needs to be a condenced, easily followed (written with teenagers with short attention spans in mind) and then with varying degrees of depth. It should include basic color theory and light and shadows, how acrylic paint works and how to thin it, the variances between contrast paints, regular acrylics, and even oil paints. It should also include materials, like the differences in paint brushes either synthetic or natural hair, as well as the uses for each brush in traditional mini painting techniques. The book would probably be fucking FAT and factually dense, so a good rubric would be a necessity as well. It should probably include references to how to expand specific knowledge pools. As in, you probably dont need to know the nitty gritty of color theory to establish basic contrast and depth, but if you wanted to grow your artistic talent then go to (this book).

Just something Ive been thinking about a while. By all accounts on here and the reddit painting forums the number 1 question being asked is "how do I start". Talking about it here is monumentally easier than condensing very large topics into such a narrow scope, but I think such an endeavor would be very popular.
 
Damn nigga!!!! How the fuck did you do that?
It's honestly not that hard, even if the camera can't actually show it right(there's some depth missing that it just won't pick up). Hell, here's a video from earlier today that kind of explains it. It's just proper undercoating under candy paints for the type of effect you're looking for, using lighter colors, metallics, colors that don't match the candy coat so you can get some variation in hue, and then either stippling, using something different for a stencil, even wadded up plastic wrap can be used to make patterns and shit for the undercoat.


When you get away from the warhammer painting videos, you can learn some interesting shit that other miniature hobbies use. If you want to go really wild with candy paints(lets be real, it doesn't make sense on most 40k stuff) you want to look up car and bicycle paint videos. Want to have a bunch of noise marines in a landraider painted like a lowrider? All of those paint tutorials work on minis, you just need to scale them down. Want to do some crazy thousand sons crystal thing to look like some magic glass pyramids of Tizca, you can do it with plant fertilizer(the crystals are usually done with urea)

If you want to take an even more wild detour, look up nail art. Yeah, women's fake plastic fingernails, fairly similar to pauldrons on minis if you think about it. Anything that can be done on those can be done on a 40k mini. If some old asian lady in a nail salon can do a set of checkerboard pattern nails in half an hour like it's nothing, you can do it on orks or lamenters.
 
Theres a market for a book or at least a primer written on miniature painting that takes all the big art shit like color theory and values and lights and shadows and condenses it specifically for warhammer/miniature painting that Im surprised GW hasnt tapped their artists to write already. It could potentially solve every "how do I begin" question that exists
Related: the algorithm keeps putting this in front of me. Haven't clicked yet, but based on the thumbnail he might be making some non-miniature-specific suggestions that are good for miniature painting anyway:
Edit: and Dice Men, which is interesting, but it's more about pre-Warhammer Games Workshop, although Warhammer and 40k get a chapter, and there are plenty of pictures of miniatures in there, plus the cover art for Rogue Trader, first edition Warhammer Fantasy and first edition WHFRP.
And Talking Miniatures, which has low print runs or something, and the cheapest I've seen it for is $70.
Blanche: The Rise of Grimdark is decent, but the page size is a bit small for the subject matter. It's more of an illustrated biography than an artbook.
 
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Ok, but what are you using to strip it? If one thing isn't doing the job, try something else. And is it just tiny bits that won't matter when you prime it? Post a picture.

If you've got a proper ultrasonic already for something else, sure it's worth trying. Buying one just for a handful of minis, I wouldn't bother. And the cheapest ones are just water tanks with vibrating motors that don't do shit(thanks temu/wish/etc. for flooding the market with literal trash). Even youtube channels like ebay mini rescues, you can see he rarely gets everything 100% spot free, and it doesn't matter for the end product.
I'll find the time to make a showcase of my production and issues I have. I've been planning a massive sort of my backlog instead of attending a tournament, and getting help with some cleanup guides for my fuckups would be nice. Have some tease of my plastic garbage in the meanwhile
 

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