What is YOUR (painting) style?

[Warden]

I happened across THIS thread on the Lead Plague today, and it got me thinking about miniature painting style. Its a good read; the blogger has lots of great projects including great necromunda terrain advice.



The author came up with five categories to consider, summarized here:

Palette : The main colors you use, that you prefer, are fun to work with, or tend to be biased towards using in your work. Often the core of how you paint.

Skill : What painting skills have you developed? Can include some 'master' techniques such as OSL (Object Source Lighting), NMM (Non-metallic metal), or exquisite freehand work.

Technique : Lots of them... what are the methods you use to paint? Starting from a dark base or lighter base, millions of layers and highlighting, wet blends, airbrushes, stipple? What have you learned and what do you prefer?

Rules/taste : Personal choices and preferences that you make when you work. Neatness, grittiness, perfectionist, maybe even imposing specific rules such as using ONLY three colors. Maybe setting specific goals when painting new minis?

Gimmicks : Quoted direct from the article: "Now this is the kind of painting habit we do because it's become part of our painting grammar, exactly like we have our own expression that define the way we talk, these can be checkers wherever we can paint them, or battle damage or whatever, the kind of thing we don't really think about but that we do because it wouldn't feel right without it."



So with these categories in mind, how do you view your own body of painted work, especially if you have been at the hobby for a while? Any other categories that could be on this list?

Or if you are new, what examples are you attempting to emulate? The great thing about the hobby is that there is a constantly growing body of knowledge out there to follow and learn from (youtube tutorials and google image searches are great things!).



As far as my own personal painting style...

Spoiler

(My Warhammer forces one year ago in Jan 2018)

Palette : Green. Its my favorite color and I am heavily biased towards it (green Lizardmen, green-themed Bretonnians, green Black Templars, orks, green jungle terrain, regular orcs, green gatormen…) and tend to always pick color palettes that revolve around it or heavily use it. Even my terrain projects so far!

Skill : I am definitely NOT a master compared to some of the experts on this forum or against the internet at large, but I am learning! Most of my stuff is "tabletop" quality, if you forgive the fact that most of my models (especially the older ones) don't have highlights and were only based within the last two years... .

Technique : THAT being said, I have been trying to learn new techniques! Most of these are really simple, but learning simple washes was a huge step for me. I am slowly learning how to do highlights and am using drybrushing more often too. They are pretty basic skills compared to what the article mentioned, but they still count! I also really like the technique I use for basing with my jungle mud-recipe; super simple but I like the end result.

Rules/taste : I tend to prefer lots of nicely painted models with minimal weathering or actual battle damage, but that is changing as I am learning new techniques. I am excited to learn more stuff so I can build more gritty orks and necromunda projects! For specific rules I don't have too many (though 99% of my models MUST contain the color green ).

Gimmicks : I like making sure my big projects have a "theme" (Mayan Lizardmen, Lustrian Bretonnians, Flying Orks) but nothing really specific. I do love painting heraldry though!

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

What an interesting question! I have to say that a large amount of my painting style is dependent upon the army being painted (of which I have quite a lot), but I can make a few generalisations:

Palette : In practically every army I have that was painted by me, blue features somewhere in it as it’s always been my favourite colour (the only exception I think is my Tyranids as I resolved to paint them in the Hive Fleet Kraken scheme). It features in some armies more than others (my High Elves, Lizardmen, Ultramarines and Skaven who use blue Warpstone come to mind), but you can nearly always find some blue on at least one model in the army.

Other than that, I prefer to use more earthy shades of colours to ground my models in their grimdark worlds a bit more.

Skill : Probably my greatest painting skill at this point is my ability to paint freehand banner and shield designs - while they are certainly not ‘Eavy Metal grade, they are certainly coming on - my efforts include completely freehand versions of the Ultramarines 5th Company banner, heraldicI am also getting good at painting crystals of all forms - I use a darker colour to basecoat the crystal and then use a much lighter version of the same colour specifically on all the protruding edges of the crystal to make them, and thus the crystal’s shape, stand out. I don’t know if kitbashing counts here but another skill of mine is making creative use of sprues on the models themselves, my scratch-built Plagueclaw Catapult being my crowning achievements so far in that field.

Regardless of my particular strengths, I like to keep a balance between putting in a good, meticulous effort into painting my miniatures and also getting them painted in good time for them to be used in my next game fully-painted. Because I take a lot of time to make sure no colours overlap and that as many areas have been attended to, I tend to skip the use of more advanced techniques such as highlighting, yet my models still look pretty good I think without them. To be honest, if I attempted to use highlights on my models it would mess them up and take up far more time than I’m willing to put in, as they need to get out onto the gaming table sometime.

Technique : Being a traditionalist in almost every topic, I tend to see the advanced paint schemes used by GW and friends to be excessive to say the least - I rarely use highlights on my models for example - but one thing I have adapted to using is washes. I nearly always liberally apply at least one wash to every model I paint, most often on skin to reveal muscle detail, but sometimes also on armour, weapons and fabrics. Of course as I’ve said before, this all depends on the race I’m painting at the time. Elves very rarely get any washes on the skin or equipment, because they are naturally of pale complexion and their aesthetic generally revolves around clean, light colours and materials. Orks, Gretchin, Orcs and Goblins on the other hand very rarely take any form of bath (if at all) and I liberally apply every Greenskin’s skin with Reikland Fleshshade after the initial light green basecoat to really emphasise how filthy they are (I certainly find GW’s own scheme to be far too bright a green for mucky creatures like Orcs and Goblins).

Rules/taste : Again the rules all depend on the race I am painting at the time. With more civilised races like Elves and Dwarfs, I always attempt to maintain a uniform across members of a unit, but on the other hand I like to make sure each unit has its own uniform to give a ‘regimental pride’ sort of feel in each unit. This may look inconsistent across the army but I have always seen the more civilised races as being made up of small units of elite soldiers each with their own heraldry and uniform to stand out from the other units in the force, yet all are tied together by race. Armies of creatures like Lizardmen, Tyranids and even Necrons on the other hand all have a common skin-tone or Dynastic colour scheme to tie the force together, because Lizardmen and Tyranids are more tied-together by colouration (Lizardmen through Spawning brother colours and Tyranids by the natural colouration of their Hive Fleet) and Necrons are unified specifically by their Dynasty with its own unique colour. Finally, I portray anarchic races like Greenskins and Skaven as extremely non-uniform creatures - every individual has their own unique objects and adornments that are all coloured differently to everyone else’s, to represent their crude and ramshackle culture, especially the 40K Orks, who I’ve given all sorts of uniquely-coloured belongings (one even wears a particularly daring light blue cap). Of course each member of these factions still has one or two nearly-uniform elements (the Skaven all having shields in the colour of their clan, the Orks having the same-coloured warpaint dags and Night Goblins having predominantly black robes) but all the models have their own uniquely-coloured elements.

Similarly the more civilised races have pristine equipment while the less civilised ones often have chips in their armour and on their shields (most notably my 40K Orks again).

Gimmicks : One main gimmick of mine is that I always think metals should be done with metallics unless it represents armour that has had paint applied to it by the race in question - it’s certainly something I can’t do without! Also I always try to include painted eyes on my models, although I still have trouble including them on my Elves and Dwarfs - Lizardmen, Tyranids, and even Orks and Skaven are much easier for some reason!

 

[tom1017]

I'm a rookie painter so my answers will be short but they may be useful for the ones like me who always feel like they'll never master miniatures painting.

Palette : I try to define a color theme for the unit I'm about to paint and then gather according colors. Using Citadel wording, let's say I mainly rely on "base" and "shade" although I try to use "layer" from time to time to understand how it works. I'm also about to try to use some "glaze" for the first time for my first unit of skinks. I want them to look firy and I'll be using yellow/orange/red variations finishing the usual treatment with "lamenters yellow glaze" the guy from GW advised me to use, or maybe just convinced me to buy...

Skill & Technique : I do things very simply because I want my army to look nice from a distance (table top style you'd say) so I usually don't go into details until the whole table top bunch is done.

For my present Orcs, Goblins and Trolls AoS Destruction army I went for a brown undercoat because I wanted to use dark & metallic colors and give them a dirty look with some dark shades. Also a brown undercoat is great because it doesn't stand out if you can't really reach this or that spot, if you forget a spot or even want to leave it for later (scabbards, belts...).
For the Skinks I'll go for a white undercoat for their bright colors. I haven't made up my mind for the Dinosaurs. I may want them a tad darker so I might use a brown undercoat for them.

Anyway, after the undercoat I simply apply base everywhere, then shade. Sometimes I dry brush some areas to highlight them. I usually leave it to that because it's enough for table top imho.

Rules/taste : The only area I can be meticulous about is the face. For the rest, as long as it just looks nice when I play, I'm happy with it, although from time to time I try and add a funny detail but it's very rare.

Gimmicks : I'm not skilled enough to have developped gimmicks. It may come one day, though...

 

[Aginor]

Palette : blue, red, and green for me. I use a lot of colors like all of us do, but I notice that I go back to those relatively often and I feel comfortable with them as I have the recipes ready to make those highlights and shades look pretty good.

Skill & Technique:
Base paint, regular shading, recess shading, a lot of drybrushing for highlights, gradients by drybrushing, edge highlighting (not as often or good as I would like to) and a bit of OSL and layering.
I also like to work with glazes, and for metal I like to do rust effects using effect colors.

I am bad at wet blending, doing gradients with shades, airbrushing, and at things that require high precision.

I usually start with a white primer (except for mass units like Skinks and Skeletons, I use color primer there so I can skip parts of the base coat). The parts that need dark colors are then painted black if I need dark colors, but I think the white primer helps with my bright colors.


Rules/taste :
I seem to like bright colors and high contrasts. Even on my darker, mkre gritty Deathrattle models there are bright colors for contrast.
I rarely use more than five base colors on a model.
I want to have my army fit together style wise, which means that I stick to a style even after I found a way to make it look better. My Skinks are an examlle for that.
I lack the patience to really make that next step in quality, so I will never pass the level of tabletop quality I guess.

Gimmicks :
Not painting, but building:
I love magnets and I like to build and paint all options there are for a model, so I do that quite often, especially for hero units.
For bases I like to use sand as the basic material and to apply electrostatic grass.

Painting related:
Glazing over white or silver is something I often use. I use it for a variety of effects, like eyes, gems, ectoplasm for ghosts, or liquids in bottles. Everything that has to look a bit eerie. Many of my more complex models have a glaze applied to them somewhere.

 

[Warden]

Found this neat image on Hot Dice minis, they have an article about developing your own painting style (part 1, part 2)



Also led me to a John Blanche youtube video on his painting style, Blanchitzu. His stuff is great.

 

[ravagekitteh]

Palette: Almost all the models I own feature the colour blue. It’s not outrightly deliberate but it is my favourite colour, so that probably does end up influencing my choices. Other than that, I do like the idea of cold palette models, but that’s by no means a defining rule when it comes to my armies, and I lack the colour expertise to be able to do it technically.

Skill & Technique: Extremely low. I rarely even bother with shades, (only when it is necessary to achieve the right colour generally) so most of my models are at base coat only, and not particularly accurate at that. But even if I’m frowned upon for it, I still don’t care. I’m happy with how they are, and I lack the patience and will to learn the more advanced techniques. And as much as anything, these paints are expensive. It’s all very well having these amazingly painted models, but if it requires twenty different paints for each one, it’s not going to happen. One day I may well try to start adding all these extras, but right now I’d rather have my whole army painted at an ok level than one or two models painted exquisitely.

Rules/taste: Not really many other than the fact that I like to use some of the more obscure colour schemes from the Battletome instead of just the box art or make up my own (Fangs of Sotek for Seraphon, Celestial Vindicators for Stormcasts, Olwyr Alfrostun for Beastclaws etc). It gives you some ready made lore (enough for confirmed existence but often still little enough to pretty much have free reign), provides a nice painting reference, and it gives an opportunity to see some of these armies in the flesh. I find most people tend to use the box art or make up their own, which is completely fine but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s nice to see what the army would look like amassed, instead of just the solitary model you usually get. However, the upside of that is that it means chances are, you may well be the only person to have that particular army, so you get the nice confirmation that you are already in the lore, but because there is nobody to contest you, you get to decide what this army is like!

Gimmicks: The only one I probably have is with my bases. All my models are based to be on the beach, with half in the sea and half of them on the sand. I still have a bit of a way to go to finish it all, and I’m still looking for some ice effects paint to do the same with my Beastclaws, but when it is done, it should look pretty impressive when amassed and is already doing so with what stuff I have finished.

 

[Acrocanth]

Palette: Expanding, I keep trying to learn new ways to make colours and effects, that said blue-greens, and magenta come up a lot but I don't feel stuck in those colours. I think we all find certain paints or colours we love though.

Skills:Just dabbleing in some of the more advanced skills, been working on weathering lately and I sometimes take a crack at some subtle lighting off glowing objects. Mostly if you watch the warhammer tv vids that's the level I'm working at or trying to work beyond.

Techniques: Base, shade, layer, layer? , layer? Don't airbrush.. yet maybe someday. Spent time working on my edge highlights, and blends. Drybrush sometimes for the right project. Need to reassemble a wet pallet gave that up a couple years back. Sometimes I paint straight from the pot O_O. Been doing a lot more lahmia media to my shades lately to get some more subtle effects.

Rules: I usually have a clean look to my models but it depends I found doing nurgle freeing. I usually have some strong theme or idea going into a project which means things sometimes languish while I work on getting a good feel for how I want to do them (see most of my lizards atm). Lately I've used some home decor pallets for inspiration for my tidecaller a more beach house pallet and an autumn pallet for my cultists. Going into a project I have a plan anyway.

Gimmicks: Always paint my eyes, always trying to break things up with contrasting colours, sometimes going to far on things when i should have left them subtle.

 

[Crowsfoot]

Palette : Purple and Yellow are my go too colours, I will use Green and Brown alot as well.

Skill : Wet blends, freehand, stippling, weathering, but I want to push on to the next level.

Technique : Usually base, shade and drybrush but this is going to be changing as my focus is now on enjoying painting rather than painting for painting sake.

Rules/taste : 5 colour limit as a general rule.


Gimmicks : Has to be grass tufts on bases, I always have to get at least one on a base.

 

[Darklaw]

Palette : I really enjoy using blues, in all its shades. Everything from Turqoise to Midnight blue is fair game. I like sandy browns and gold too, so at least one of those three colors will tend to be somewhere on anything I paint.

Skill : Aside from the basics, I have gotten fairly accomplished at wetblending. I just usually reserve it for powerweapons, or those miniatures I really want to stand out. I also feel like I'm pretty good at painting gems, and things that reflect light in general. I am not certain if that technique has a name. I'm trying to improve on my glazing.

Technique : I nearly always start from a dark base, but it depends on where I want the end result to be. My skinks, for instance, are started from a white base. I tend to use an airbrush to lay down the initial color on a miniature - It saves time, and basecoating is just not a very interesting proces. I am starting to try and employ more glazing techniques in my painting, and so far I'm really enjoying the results of it.

Rules/taste : I like my miniatures neat, and I try to avoid drybrushing like the plague. Outside of a few places where I feel it works (Mostly rocks...), I don't enjoy the look of it. Aside from that, I try to make sure that every color consists of at least three colors. Preferably more, where applicable.

Gimmicks : I can't stand the thought of weathering my models. I prefer a clean and cartoony look. I also try to make sure the base really adds to the model, and isn't just a flat platform of color. I feel the base can really help with telling the story of the mini, so it's almost as important as the mini itself.

 

[GuaDan]

I think after a year or so back into the hobby I can be satisfied with my skills.
I like my models bright and light, with soft transitions building most of it and final crisp higlights which vie a nice 'framing'.
I go for diluted colours, shades and glazes a lot.
I still have trouble dealing with very small details.

 

[pendrake]

Palette : colors I will use any of them. No favorites. I suppose there are some I rarely use. Those will have names like lavender, fuschia, chartreuse, ...anything you’d expect of a cheap plastic Easter Egg. Also, I have never used “Drow Nipple Pink”, which is a color of a real product. True story.

Skill : I have a pretty good grasp of what I will end up with if I mix paints. But otherwise I often feel I am getting worse rather than better.

Technique : Start from a dark, mid-grey or white base? Any of those.
Millions of layers? Nope.
Highlighting? Attempts have happened
Wet blending? Yes.
Airbrushing? Nope.
Stippled grass and terrain F/x? Yes.

Rules/taste : I once did a small army that looks entirely acid-washed. If that counts.

Gimmicks : I don’t understand this category as described... “grammar” is inapplicable to painting. I don’t overthink it. The originating Author’s thought process about gimmicks is alien to me.