Being inspired by the thread from Darkstarminis I finally got my game together and started painting my minis. We're currently playing a campaign as well and my promise to the players was that I would finish painting all the heroes and Mirklace before the final So far I've only done my character ofc, so first up was Avric Albright.

I'm not a very polished painter.. in fact I haven't painted for very long.. in fact, before gathering the courage to grab the brush for the first time I have watched tons of tutorial videos and read a lot of articles. This is maybe the 7th mini I've ever managed to paint though.

Any critique and comments are much appreciated! I'm probably most critizising towards myself anyway so fire away! I already have several areas I'm not particularly happy with, but you gotta call it done sometime I guess, a macro photo is brutally revealing though.

I should say though, all things considering, I'm very happy with this one

That is without a doubt the worst paint job I have ever seen ...

Now, will you paint all of my minis? Nice work. (<=== See, that is called "Tongue in cheek")

I think the figure looks wonderful, and you have inspire me to may be paint my boring grey figures.

You did a really great job, especially considering you've only done 7 minis in total. You've got talent.

Since you're requesting critique, I'll try and have a go at it. Personally, and this is a matter of taste entirely, I think a slightly brighter choice of colors could cheer the overall impression up a little further. Mostly since the Descent minis are rather small, and once they're on the board, fade a little in perception. Also, some sharp highlights just on the edges of things really help making them pop. This figure has a lot of metallic, but even then it's possible, by adding a bit of white to the metal paint and run the brush sidelong along the outer edges, leaving a very thin rim of highlight (don't put it on too thick, or else the lack of metal in the mix will be revealed).

At any rate, keep up the good work - hoping to see more pics.

I agree with Horus Eye--this is a great start, and highlighting would make things 'pop' a bit more. A slightly lighter color on the folds of the robes and the prominent parts of the face (nose, cheeks, etc.) is a trick that has worked for me. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the feedback guys. I agree with you on the stronger highlight part. It just feel so stark while painting them that I usually tone them down in the end.. maybe too much though. I've also realised I have problems with metallics..

It's been a while and I'm slow. Like really slow.. need to work on that! But today I finished another hero! \o/ It's not the most common one you'd see painted so hopefully someone enjoys it! Thaiden Mistpeak from Manor of Ravens:

Fun figure to paint, but oh so many details made it take forever and ever.. I think it turned out better than my Avric, do you guys agree?

Looks Great!

Yes it looks great! Im still wandering how you guys manage to make such smooth transition between colors. Its amazing. I especially like metall parts and shadows on Avric, and Thaiden looks overall a-w-e-s-o-m-e!

This is a very very good paint job:)

Great job! I am so jealous of your skills.

I have never painted before and I am beginning on my figures and, I gotta say, I am terrified. I don't want to mangle Jain's face, Leoric's book or anyone's shield, robe or weapon. So I started on the biggest (shadow dragons and elementals) which turned out great (great for me, not great for someone with actual talent). I have done the ettins and am working on the golems currently. I also did the spiders, which were quite simple after carving them off of their stands.

But the goblin archers and even more the heroes--those fill me with nothing but dread. How do I possibly get that minute detail? I couldn't even get a good eye on my shadow dragons.

Great job! I am so jealous of your skills.

I have never painted before and I am beginning on my figures and, I gotta say, I am terrified. I don't want to mangle Jain's face, Leoric's book or anyone's shield, robe or weapon. So I started on the biggest (shadow dragons and elementals) which turned out great (great for me, not great for someone with actual talent). I have done the ettins and am working on the golems currently. I also did the spiders, which were quite simple after carving them off of their stands.

But the goblin archers and even more the heroes--those fill me with nothing but dread. How do I possibly get that minute detail? I couldn't even get a good eye on my shadow dragons.

Thank you! I know what you mean by terrified.. it took a long time before I dared paint a mini. The reason being that I thought I'd destroy something I'd spent a lot of money on before I was confident enough in my painting skills to do them justice. I started a thread about it on another forum and got some motivation (one can always strip the paint and start over if you're not satisfied) and besides, they still look better than grey plastic in almost any case.

I'm not the one to talk about this though, I'm still terrified (I'm starting to loosen up now though, much thanks to comments like your own) My recommendation is to just do it! It took me several attempts to get the pupil on the eye right btw.. (repaint skin around eye, do white eyeball, try pupil, repeat until satisfied)

About the minute detail. What worked for me was buy a GOOD brush!! Also not too small. Many believes you should by a size 000 brush to do fine details like face or so but I would go mad using such a brush even for a face.. (I use a smaller brush than size 1 or 0 only when applying thin thin lines or when an area is very obscured and it's hard to get there) A good brush still holds a razor sharp point, with the advantage of having a body full of paint so you don't dry out so quickly.

I'll echo what many others say and recommend W&N Series 7 brushes. They're just amazing. What also worked for me was starting to use a wet palette. They're easy to make yourself and prevents paint from drying out.. (which I hated when I started!) it also helps with mixing gradients.

By no means am I an expert, but I've watched hours and hours of painting tutorials (way more than I've actually been painting.. haha) so even though I'm very limited in experience I still found the right tools fairly quickly with the help of those tutorials.

Hope this helps!

Great job! I am so jealous of your skills.

I have never painted before and I am beginning on my figures and, I gotta say, I am terrified. I don't want to mangle Jain's face, Leoric's book or anyone's shield, robe or weapon. So I started on the biggest (shadow dragons and elementals) which turned out great (great for me, not great for someone with actual talent). I have done the ettins and am working on the golems currently. I also did the spiders, which were quite simple after carving them off of their stands.

But the goblin archers and even more the heroes--those fill me with nothing but dread. How do I possibly get that minute detail? I couldn't even get a good eye on my shadow dragons.

Thank you! I know what you mean by terrified.. it took a long time before I dared paint a mini. The reason being that I thought I'd destroy something I'd spent a lot of money on before I was confident enough in my painting skills to do them justice. I started a thread about it on another forum and got some motivation (one can always strip the paint and start over if you're not satisfied) and besides, they still look better than grey plastic in almost any case.

I'm not the one to talk about this though, I'm still terrified (I'm starting to loosen up now though, much thanks to comments like your own) My recommendation is to just do it! It took me several attempts to get the pupil on the eye right btw.. (repaint skin around eye, do white eyeball, try pupil, repeat until satisfied)

About the minute detail. What worked for me was buy a GOOD brush!! Also not too small. Many believes you should by a size 000 brush to do fine details like face or so but I would go mad using such a brush even for a face.. (I use a smaller brush than size 1 or 0 only when applying thin thin lines or when an area is very obscured and it's hard to get there) A good brush still holds a razor sharp point, with the advantage of having a body full of paint so you don't dry out so quickly.

I'll echo what many others say and recommend W&N Series 7 brushes. They're just amazing. What also worked for me was starting to use a wet palette. They're easy to make yourself and prevents paint from drying out.. (which I hated when I started!) it also helps with mixing gradients.

By no means am I an expert, but I've watched hours and hours of painting tutorials (way more than I've actually been painting.. haha) so even though I'm very limited in experience I still found the right tools fairly quickly with the help of those tutorials.

Hope this helps!

Yeah, thank you for recommendations. Can you please elaborate or link some tutorials on how exactly you put gradients on your minis? I'm new to this and started to paint my minis not so long ago, I tryed layering, but failed to make smooth transition, its even harder if you think of how small some parts are =(((

Next week I will be able to publish some photos here, I hope

I use an airbrush for the cloak. Layering for the quiver and skin.

Awesomepaintjob, darkstarminis, paintingbuddah and thepaintingclinic on youtube are fantastic resources. Also the old articles on handcannononline.com have helped me a lot!