Hello all!

Long time lurker, first time poster

I have some pics of my painted IA-minis that I want to share. I'm new to minature painting, have painted a couple of Mansions of madness-minis but other than that these are my first.

It has taken me about one year to finish them, mainly because I paint soo slow but also due to lack of time to paint

This would never have been possible without @Sorastro 's excellent tutorial-videos, so a big thank you, kind sir I have followed these to the best of my limited abilities and I'll post the pics in the order I painted them. Hopefully there's gonna be at least some level of progress showing from first to last picture

I apologize for the bad quality of the pictures, they were all taken with my phone. If the minis look a little crappy it could also be because I am a total amateur

Feel free to criticize or bash , I really appreciate any pointers and/or tips to improve my painting as I will try to paint Jabbas realm next.

Hope you enjoy!

Super work!

Amateur my ***, these look awesome. Very nice job!

Great work man, particularly the faces on Diala and Obi.

And you re-based them all, +1 for the extra effort there

Wow! Thank you guys so much for your kind words. I did not expect that.

17 minutes ago, 54NCH32 said:

Great work man, particularly the faces on Diala and Obi.

And you re-based them all, +1 for the extra effort there

I’m actually pretty happy with the way ob1 turned out. The last couple of minis I started to feel a bit more confident painting. The paint was working with me instead of against me so to speak

yea, rebasing some of them was a complete pain in the ***. (Especially the at-st and Weiss of course) but I’m glad I did now that it’s done

Nice. Yeah man, I restarted my 28mm mini painting adventure (after a 15 year hiatus) with the IA core set. So the quality from Stormtrooper (white, black, boring) all the way to Vader (Highlighting and OSL!) definitely improved.

Although 2 years down the line with better skills, kit and technique, I REALLY want to repaint or get a new core set now. (The rest of paint queue disagrees with this mad idea though ).

Hehe I hear you. Painting stormtroopers was not the best time I’ve ever had. I guess it was a good learning experience though. I could not imagine ever painting another core box again but I completely get you. Why didn’t I paint like this, why didn’t I think about that etc. 😂

I love painting bases, I think coming up with and executing the base is my favourite part of the mini, I am always debating how I will do it in my head while i paint the mini.. then when I am ready to go I do a bunch of dry runs with different things trying it out... such a fun experience.

All that said, the clear bases really do look sharp. They make sense in that they are going to match any tile/terrain and they don't look awkward around the feet really at all.

Nice job on everything, well done. I'm considering using clear bases on my next game (LOTR) based on these pictures.

14 hours ago, FrogTrigger said:

I love painting bases, I think coming up with and executing the base is my favourite part of the mini, I am always debating how I will do it in my head while i paint the mini.. then when I am ready to go I do a bunch of dry runs with different things trying it out... such a fun experience.

All that said, the clear bases really do look sharp. They make sense in that they are going to match any tile/terrain and they don't look awkward around the feet really at all.

Nice job on everything, well done. I'm considering using clear bases on my next game (LOTR) based on these pictures.

Thank you so much

I think a good looking, nicely done scenic base is an impressive thing indeed. I lack the skills though and have never even tried so for me I felt clear bases were a better option. The benefit in a game with beautiful tiles such as IA is that you can always see them.

I am glad you find the pictures inspiring

Can I ask where you got the bases? And your procedure for clipping the minis and securing them to the new base? Lots of times you see a lot of white haze around the feet, but yours look great. What products do you use?

13 hours ago, FrogTrigger said:

Can I ask where you got the bases? And your procedure for clipping the minis and securing them to the new base? Lots of times you see a lot of white haze around the feet, but yours look great. What products do you use?

Of course, I'd be happy to help. My english is not the best but I hope I can explain

Most of the bases are from litko.net and some of them are from appliedperspective.com. Both places have the sizes needed for IA. I accidently ordered tokens with 3mm thickness from litko when what I really wanted was 1.5mm. Still looks good on the table though.

Most minis wasn't very difficult to cut off the base. I used a regular hobby knife but attached a new, sharp blade just in case. Some minis with a bit more contact with the base (Chewie, Gaarkhan and the E-webs) was a little more annoying but in the end worked with just the knife. However, royal guards and ob1 was not possible to cut off using only the knife. Too much of a pain. So I used my citadel "fine detail cutters" to clip away small bits at a time from the base working my way in to the figure. When close enough I clipped in an angle inward towards the center under the mini to get as much of the base off as possible but there was still some of the base left directly under the mini. This last piece of base-plastic I cut off with the knife but had to cut it in a couple of segments because it was so thick.

The at-st and weiss were just horrible to be honest I used the same method of clipping away small bits of base until I had the feet completely free and then continued to work towards them and when close enough used the same "clipping in an angle inwards toward the center of the foot". I found it difficult to cut around the "toes" without damaging them but it turned out fine in the end. Just be careful around the toes is my advice. I soon learned that the plastic used in these bases were a lot tougher to cut with my knife so I softened it up a bit with a hair-dryer and then started cutting off segments again. Then blow-drying some more, cutting, blow-drying, cutting and so on until I was happy. I think cutting off these two was at least one hour of work per figure

I then glued them all to their clear bases using Loctite precision super glue. I have heard bad things about using super glue for this but I used the same glue when rebasing my Mansions of madness-minis and had no problems. People seem to recommend using something called craftics #33 acrylic cement or something like that but I can't comment on that because I have never used it. I live in sweden and it is very difficult to get a hold of here for some reason. I agree that there is very little white haze on the bases, only one or two figures had a little of haze. Sadly Vader is one of them, but it is only really visible when looking very closely and when playing at tabletop-distance I can't see it so I'm satisfied using my Loctite glue.

Hope this helped and that you can understand my english

Nice paints! I love the cloak of the Jedi !

9 hours ago, Fulkrum said:

Nice paints! I love the cloak of the Jedi !

Thanks Fulkrum! 🙂

fantastic work. these are lovely.

16 hours ago, Spidey NZ said:

fantastic work. these are lovely.

Thank you so much! I am genuinly surprised by everyones positive comments. And also very encouraged to continue painting

Jabba is done!

I'm pretty happy with him, looks nice I think. First time I tried real wetblending and it was a lot of fun.

Unfortunately I couldn't get the pictures to look very good. There is some weird **** going on with the light and colors that I just don't seem to get right. He does look better in person (or in hutt) but anyway, here he is.

Hope you like him

I think these look great. Fantastic, even. Really nice work.

Super-picky nitpick: I think you can do a better job of Luke's eyes, he looks startled. 😲 Try painting the eye in black, then two tiny dots of white per eye, that don't quite cover the black.

Also slightly more general advice: paint looks a bit thick (e.g. on the Stormtroopers and the E-Web) or chalky (e.g. on Vader) in places. Thinning the paint with water might help.

However - they are both very minor things - I think you've done a brilliant job here and have ended up with lovely models. Well done.

Thank you so much for your input Bitterman!

As a rookie painter I’m grateful for any tips and advice I can get. That was a big part of why I posted this thread to begin with. I will certainly try to keep in mind what you said about painting eyes, very helpful :) Luke does look a bit awkward and/or scared 🤣

Yea, thinning paint is something I struggled a bit with for a long time in the beginning. I feel like I have gotten better at it and it shows when looking at those first minis I painted, to say the least. Funny how something so simple as mixing paint with water can be so difficult to get right.

Could I maybe ask you how much or how little you water down your paints? (I realise it varies a bit depending on paint and what you are trying to achieve)

So... the way you're supposed to do it... water it down until the paint is a little bit thicker than milk. Then, use two (or three) thin coats. That gets the best results.

However , I personally don't have the patience for that! I personally thin the paints just a little from how they are straight out the bottle (yes, that varies depending which paint you use). That gives a balance between paint flow and my patience limits that works for me. Find what works for you and you'll do fine. (You keep saying you're a rookie, but honestly you're at least as good as I am, if with a somewhat different style, and I've been painting for 30 years!).

The "little bit thicker than milk" route is the way to go. Yes it means more coats (some pigments more than others). But its worth it.

My patience also was tested early on when I got back into painting, but looking back, I find more coats and a smoother finish is more rewarding and a lot less frustrating than less coats and trying to make it go on smooth (with swear words and an insane amount of brush manipulation!).

Are you using a wet palette? It can take some getting used to, but they are great not only for keeping your paints from drying, but to visually see if you paint if thin/thick enough. Its more a "you get a feel for it" kind of thing, but once I've thinned a paint, I press down on my mixing brush to spread a small amount of it onto the paper, and the speed of which it separates / rejoins together is a great visual clue to indicate whether itd the right consistency (too fast = too thin, too slow = too thick, you need to find the "just right" point - Hard to describe, a video would prob be best, I'll look at putting one up at some point.).

Also, in regards to eyes, sharpened cocktails sticks are you best friend.

Thanks a lot for the pointers, guys!

I have rarely done more than two layers of anything, but I hear what you say. Next mini I’m gonna go thinner and at least three layers where necessary and try not to rush things. My patience will be tested for sure but anything that improves my painting...

I have not tried using a wet pallet but I have been thinking about it for a while. Maybe I should? 🤔

Also, Sanchez, please tell me more of these intriguing cocktail sticks 😄

I mean 2 layers is a pretty good aim to be honest, So it sounds like you might have got there over the course of the core set, (I know I did, started with thick looking stormtroopers, ended with lightsaber OSL glows), so its definitely just practice.

Your stuff looks good, just keep painting and refining. I've come on light years since my core set, I started with totally the wrong sort of paints (Tamiya Acrylics via brush!), rarely highlighted and didn't paint eyes, now I freehand logos and spend hours highlighting, but that's just practice and pushing myself

On eyes...

So starting from a shaded and highlighted face:

You appear to be painting the whites of the eyes first, then adding the pupil as a dot of black. As with Luke, this gives an impression of wide-eyed staring. (Han seems fine though).

The way I do it is to paint a line of black, then dot in the white iris. It needs a very fine brush with very careful control - I guess this is where @54NCH32 recommends a cocktail stick, a good trick which I will try! A cocktail stick sounds like a great idea for painting exactly one dot worth of paint. I like it.

Looks a bit weird up close, but zoomed out (even this image is much larger than you'll normally see the face on your models) it looks just fine.

No more staring, scared, or startled models!

I dare say there are other ways to do it, but that works for me...

Re eyes - it also helps if you don't try to make the eyeline face forward but to the side. No more a cross-eyed look if you are not exactly precise with both eyes.

Yep, picked up the cocktail stick trick somewhere (but defo sharpen it into a very fine point with a scalpel / craft knife), and it helped take me from not doing eyes at all, to always doing eyes

I paint the eyes/face base first, then finish / highlight it as last thing. I like the building up from black technique, but my hands can shake at times, so I i find it hard to approach it that way.

As an alternative, I tend to go with:

- whites of eyes (I paint the face, but leave a white primer gap for each)
- black/dark grey dot with sharpened cocktail stick placed in a position that works (As Albert says, dead middle can look weird if you're not exact on both).
- fix any overspill with flesh/white paint.

- I then (As very last part after model is in final stage - as the head can some times take a knock while painting!) apply a few pin wash/shades to the flesh around it to build up the area. With a bit of flesh wash or very small amount of nuln oil on a very fine point.

- Give the eyes a very light 50/50 (nuln/lahmian) wash to take some of the white down a bit

p.s. Bitterman, props for the diagrams man! Good effort 🤘