Monsters + Paint = Painted Monsters?

By Hawknight, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

These are my monsters, a few of my best from the base game, and i ahve yet to paint any of the expansion monsters. I use Testors medling paint, with a few brushes, q-tips and paper clips for the REALLY hard to reach spots. I am looking for any suggestion and ideas for the expansion monsters.

here are my beasties....please feel free to leave any comments about the fact that there may or may not be cat hair on my beasties....despite my greatest efforts, i can not seem to keep them free of those precious little bits of cat memorabilia.
Razorwing.jpg

SorcererDescent.jpg

Hellhound.jpg

Skeleton.jpg

Dragon.jpg

Dragon2.jpg

FamilyPhoto.jpg

I might use this last photo as my Christmas card this year :)

I am a BIG fan of using mettalics as highlights, and am looking for ideas for the rest of the beasties, like I said before. I would LOVE to see what you guys have done with yours and wouldnt mind seeing a few Naga either (mine might SUCK to high heaven).

opps, working on the whole image thing on here, guess i need to resize my wide angle shots....

I'll try & take some photos in the week. My photography is sucky though, but my painting is not bad.

I would also love any feed back, tips, ideas, what ever about painting my beasties, or on the beasties I have already painted :)

Your painting is impressive to my standards, anyway. I'm working on a 3D descent board, and my painting sucks on that.

Nice.

At least you got off your arse and painted some minis unlike me....

:(

Oh well, one day :)

I really like the hell hound!

from the images it looks like you are using an enamel paint right? While these are good paints for modeling they are only really effective for very advanced molders, even still they are not quite the best paint for the small figures in decent. I would instead paint the figures with acrylics, you can get these cheaply at craft stores or if you spend a little more money I would buy a dedicated figure paint like P3 (privater press paint) these paints will dry with whats called a satin finish, it wont be gloss but it also wont be dull and flat either, it will be just right!

If your looking for a good quality brush but are not willing to invest in one yet your best bet is a natural camel hair brush, cheap around 2-3 bucks. For figure painting you will want a round size two and maybe a size one (dont go any smaller though)

Cool, thanks, I have never heard of P3, i will look into that. I am indeed using enamel, mainly because I REALLY didn't like how many coats you had to do with a crullic. I could have been using it wrong, but man, the few i tried really turned out ugly.

you could use army painter.....for tips bout painting minis i would suggest to visit some warhammer fantasy/40k fansites or other mini-gamer-websites, cause there is a lot of knowledge bout painting there.

Hawknight said:

Cool, thanks, I have never heard of P3, i will look into that. I am indeed using enamel, mainly because I REALLY didn't like how many coats you had to do with a crullic. I could have been using it wrong, but man, the few i tried really turned out ugly.

Yah some paints do not have very good coverage, thats not a problem with P3 though. however the genral paint process is to base coat all your colors and then come back with a shadow/highlight coat. Most of my work is one or two coats. also look into inks and glazes.

I have been posting mine over at BGG but you can see them all in one place on my own website: http://www.rozmiarek.info/gallery/Miniatures

Except for the dragons, I have completed all of the monsters from the base and the first two expansions. The dragons are next after our planned session this weekend. Hopefully I will have ToI soon and will start working on those as well.

It is always good to have figures painted and your figures improve the game a lot. But there is also space to improve your painting.

I've played Warhammer 40k for several years and learned a lot about painting when I spent time in the shops. Your figures are very good painted - for using enamel. But there is a much better choice - water based colors from Citadel. Let me tell you the steps of painting and about the two techniques which make the difference.

The start is more effort. You have to prime the figure. Paint it in white completely, best is a spray because the color will be equally thick at each point and don't "hide" details. After this you paint the figure - like with enamel.

Now you take the color you used, let's say red for the dragon. Mix it with some black until you have a really dark red - 2/3 black 1/3 red. And dilute it with water until it is really a liquid. 1/3 color 2/3 water. Then you take a large brush and paint the complete figure without caring about any details, just everywhere. The diluted color will go into all "cavitys" (don't know if the wording is perfect). You will have darker color at all places where shadows should be.

Of course the complete figure will look a little bit dirty afterwards. So you have to drybrush. This means you take your red, mix it with a little bit yellow and put the color on your brush (a very hard brush) and paint until the brush is dry on a piece of paper - until no liquid is left - just dry color. Then you move the brush over your figure with some force and all parts which are higher become lighter. Do this several times using more yellow/white and less force - that will look three dimensional.

That's a brilliant example: (better than I can do)

lh3.ggpht.com/_Cz5_71-azps/SBHYKBMxIvI/AAAAAAAACl8/jD6WgQoWW7U/BILD0587.JPG

(for the scales, the technique I described could be used)

That is what everyone can do:

www.figuren-modellbau.de/briten/games-workshop-skeleton-army-marine.jp

edroz said:

I have been posting mine over at BGG but you can see them all in one place on my own website: http://www.rozmiarek.info/gallery/Miniatures

Except for the dragons, I have completed all of the monsters from the base and the first two expansions. The dragons are next after our planned session this weekend. Hopefully I will have ToI soon and will start working on those as well.

Nice beasties!! There is no way i ahve that much time to get them that good. I'm getting my masters while working a full time job, I was proud enough to finish them at all, but man yours look pretty sharp. How long does it take you per figure would you say?

Shakkar said:

Now you take the color you used, let's say red for the dragon. Mix it with some black until you have a really dark red - 2/3 black 1/3 red . And dilute it with water until it is really a liquid. 1/3 color 2/3 water. Then you take a large brush and paint the complete figure without caring about any details, just everywhere. The diluted color will go into all "cavitys" (don't know if the wording is perfect). You will have darker color at all places where shadows should be.

Of course the complete figure will look a little bit dirty afterwards. So you have to drybrush. This means you take your red , mix it with a little bit yellow and put the color on your brush (a very hard brush) and paint until the brush is dry on a piece of paper - until no liquid is left - just dry color. Then you move the brush over your figure with some force and all parts which are higher become lighter. Do this several times using more yellow/white and less force - that will look three dimensional.

My main problem is i am severly color blind. The reason why i didn't post my nagas and a few other is because i was trying some stuff like this and REALLY screwed it up by getting the blending stuff all wrong, i have a hard enough time just seeing if I even paint over all the red (on the master beasties) if i am using any kind of dark color. I like the look of thees but I don't think as a colorblind soul i can ever achieve it the same way. I did use the dry brush method with the gold on my dragon up there, and it looks pretty cool to this guy, but then again, the way i see it might be a little different from the way others see it.

IMG_3611.jpg

Surfer monkey says "Slap me five up high!"

I'll try & take pictures tonight, but my Naga method:

1. Spray paint undercoat Citadel Chaos Black.

2. Base coat of Citadel Foundation Deneb Stone.

3. three or four washes of Citadel Leviathan Purple Wash (Citadel Asurmen Blue Wash for the Master).

4. Yes and lips picked out in Citadel Warlock Purple. (Citadel Ice Blue for the Master).

5. Mouth & teeth painted in Citadel Scorched Brown then Citadel .

6. Tongue painted in Citadel Red Gore then Citadel Blood Red.

7. Teeth wet-brushed in Citadel Bleached Bone then Citadel Skull White.

8.Teeth given a very light was of tinned Citadel Brown Ink.

9. Spray-varnished with Citadel Purity Seal.

Enamels are something I personally stay away from when it comes to painting miniatures with details. Also the high gloss is really not my thing I like a nice satin/matte finish clear coat. If this was your first attempt then there is definately some potential. However with so much paint put onto them you really lost quite a bit of the detail that really brings these figures to life. But again if your new to the whole painting gig then don't fret you will get better at it.

Heres a few for your viewing pleasure:

Shade aka Slim Shadey

IMG_3613.jpg

Lava Beetle aka the cockroach

IMG_3614.jpg

Wendigo aka NO DATS A BAD KITTY THATS MY POT PIE!

IMG_3616.jpg

Hellhound aka The yard dog

IMG_3615.jpg

EWJ,

Great stuff! Although I would love to see them based - the ToI guys would look great with stone and snow effects happy.gif

Now is it me but do you guys find that even if a model is completely painted, shaded and highlighted, it doesn't look right until the basing is done? Call me strange but I sometimes base my minis half way through the paint process just so I get a better feeling of how they are looking sorpresa.gif

Some day I gotta get my brushes in gear and paint my Descent minis, too.

sirvolkar said:

EWJ,

Great stuff! Although I would love to see them based - the ToI guys would look great with stone and snow effects happy.gif

Now is it me but do you guys find that even if a model is completely painted, shaded and highlighted, it doesn't look right until the basing is done? Call me strange but I sometimes base my minis half way through the paint process just so I get a better feeling of how they are looking sorpresa.gif

Some day I gotta get my brushes in gear and paint my Descent minis, too.

Oh I would agree that a mini is not complete with a nice base on it. I find the base just ties the whole piece together. For mine I just go with a kind of marble/stone looking effect since they are tromping through a dungeon. However on the Runebound minis I do bases that reflect the heroes as per the set they are a part of. I am currently wrapping up painting on the Heroes for Tomb of Ice and then look to get the critters done as my group is hoping to be able to get together this weekend.

OMG! That Wendigo pic made me laugh and allmost fall off my chair... partido_risa.gif great pic!

Now i have to dig my minis up and start painting them myself!

A few more.......I read the earlier posts on base painting and totally agreed. So. I added a nice little base to the manticore. Thanx guys.

Girlfriend wanted me to paint her current hero that she is playing so she picked the color scheme (shes in the background scorning me because of the camera shyness)

IMG_3619.jpg

Ok guys........now VOGUE! SHOW ME WUTCHA WORKIN WITH!

IMG_3620.jpg

FANTASTIC! NOW SHAKE YO MONEY MAKER!

Thanks for all the great inspiration guys i think i will have to get my stuff out from the closet and start painting it up again and get some pictures up of my first run...I currently have the skellies and wizards finished and the monks from the AoD done started about half way through on the beastman and the dogs then stopped painting.

Guess i get back to work tommorrow on these.

I am currently working on the Heroes from Tomb of Ice and down to just Arvel and Zyla left to complete. Then I will work on their bases as the same time to keep them somewhat consistant. Then once that is done I will get to a nice matte clear coat and then it is off to work on the Tomb of Ice critters! I am really looking forward to painting the Wendigo!

Nanok the Nature Boy, in his altogether.

IMG_3622.jpg