Blog Sensei's very first army

Alright, it finally happened. First, this is what I found under the Christmas tree:

The piece in the middle is a Skink Starpriest, to the right is a Saurus Eternity Warden.
Today I finished my frist Saurus Warrior.


I will probably paint my first regiment one by one so I can learn better. I also want to try out loads of different paint schemes.
Number 1 is definitely not perfect, I later saw that I missed some mold lines. My biggest mistake was glueing the shield on in the beginning, this way I couldn't reach half the figure. I also still need to figure out how to make better stone and maybe try even stronger highlights. (The light isn't great so some highlights are lost.)
Anyways, tell me what you think and what I could improve!

 

Nice presents!
Good start with the saurus... And learning by doing is a good way to get better...

 

Looking good (a damn sight better than MY first model ) All i would say is add some highlights to your shield and you already noticed the mold lines ( i still have issue with them)

 

Is that steg green on the base edge as it is a rather nice shade of green that sets off against your lighter scheme. Mold lines around claws seem to be especially prominent so make sure you are getting in on them. When you are putting together a model, make sure you identify the trouble areas come painting time before you glue it together. Cloaks, wings, shields, even the bases themselves (especially on smaller models) can obstruct access to areas later on so consider building them separately. I've found blu-tac invaluable in this stage, it lets you see roughly how things stick together without committing to a permanent seal and lets you position shields and shield arms to see how they interact with the rest of the model.

Painting up a bunch of shields together will also give a certain amount of unification to a force and they are bite sized paint jobs that you see results on with minimal effort.

Water down your metallics a bit and make sure you are dropping a layer of shade on them, they are looking a bit goopy especially around the pommel of the weapon and spikes just behind the head. grab something non-porous like an ice cream tub lid or even the blister pack your skink priest came in (scientific minds can argue with me about whether they are truly non-porous), scoop out 2 or 3 brush-fulls of the metallic you are going to use then dip your brush into a bit of clean water (not the one you are using to rinse off brushes) then mix it into the paint til it is slightly runnier, if you are getting air bubbles and the metallic starts looking a bit gritty then you have too much water but if they are a similar or slightly thinner consistency than your layer paints then you are in the right area.

The colour scheme is pretty good though I would suggest applying a bit of shade where the 2 colours meet to ease the transition a little from light blues to relatively light greens, else darken the greens a little and ease into more bolder highlights toward the spine, you can use shade like an anti-highlight by adding another layer more carefully to cracks and crevasses with a smaller brush to give you smooth transitions into darker tones. That said the actual painting of the green scales is spot on.

Good luck =D
-Nexi

 

Thanks for all the feedback, will definitely keep everything in mind for the next minis. I may just leave number 1 alone, just to see how I did on my first try
So highlights (sorry, the camera hides them a bit), mold lines and metallics are the most prominent issues to improve.

It is indeed Steg Scale Green, I thought it would fit my swampy base, would be a little more exciting than brown/black/grey but still not too big a highlight to overshadow the mini.

 

So my Warriors are coming along nicely, I try something new with every one of them. Here's what I got so far:

Today I also finished a WE Spellweaver for my girlfriend, I am really happy with it. The picture makes the eyes look weird, irl they look good I think.



The base says V I V I because that's my gf's nickname.

 

Awesome work on the Spellweaver! Hope your girlfriend was appreciative of all the time and work you put forth to paint such a great model.

 

Is this a color scheme selecting tool. Do you have a link to it?

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20060113...r/lizardmen/painting/paint_system/default.htm
There you go.

 

I really like the like the yellow stripes on the shields,
such a simple thing adds a lot of character.

 

Alright, it's been a while. Just yesterday I finished my Skink Starpriest, also got one unit of Stormcast Eternals Liberators done now. Still having problems with lighting in my photos though.

 

good man like you got that marble look on the banner. I'm really like you I like how you have them set up with your storm cast. I'm still struggling to think of what colors I want to go with for my stormcast either bright or dark I'm not entirely sure but I'm leaning towards of bright look for them.

 

Really nice! I like your style!
And I need to get my painting stuff from the attic...

 

I have seen both and it both works. I liked them shiny but just thought all gold was too much. Also the standard blue was too bright for me so I went for Steg Scale Green.

You should, now!

 

If you are still looking for a army wide color I would love to see more of those Black scales / Redish skin saurus with the cream white shield, he looks awesome and very original. Got a close up on him?

 

He is my Alpha so I made him a little special. For a whole army it could be too dark I'm afraid.

 

Cool alpha!

 

Very cool indeed, and I don't think it will be to dark as the red is most dominant with the gold mixed it would be an awesome sight!

 

Finally got around to painting again so here is my Saurus Eternity Warden:




Next I will paint a Witch Hunter for my dad, afterwards I still have a couple of Saurus Warriors, 5 Chameleon Skink and also 3 Stormcast Eternal Retributors ready to paint. I also finished 3 SE Prosecutors, if there is an interest I will share pictures of them too.