Scale Help

I tried painting the scales on my Saurus Warriors the other day and... well it came out awful. I tried to dry brush it on but it didn't seem to work. I'm an extremely new painter, does anyone have any suggestions? I'm not looking at spending hours on each model at this point I just want to be able to paint them like a basic army.

 

If it didn't work then the brush probably wasn't dry enough.

Do you have any GW washes? they go a long way to make minimal work look great. My process is usually to base coat, wash, highlight, done.

 

I bought my paint at Michaels because GWS paints seemed pricey, I just bought the metal colors there.

So the brush needs to be completely dry and I just run it over the scales on the back, or do I focus on each scale. At first I thought my brush was TOO dry because the paint wasn't going very far before I had to redip.

I primed with white, then did 2 coats of watered down grey green. Now I'm trying purple for the scales and spikes.



Also on the spears what color should I use for the shaft? I did sort of a brown wash but it looks funky.


This is the lizard primary skin color.

http://admin.ki.com/images/GG2_GreenGrey2_zm.jpg

 

Thats your problem. Yes, michaels paint is cheaper, but you get what you pay for. Unfortunately, paint isn't paint isn't paint. Most people save the michaels paint for when they're doing terrain since micro level detail doesn't matter.

If the paint isn't going very far before you re-dip, but you're getting the results you want for that amount of time, then thats just how you have to roll. Better to re-dip a lot than to spear too much paint on and ruin your work.

Fluff wise, saurus weapons are made of obsidianite or something like that, which instead of just being a black shiney stone like obsidian, it's a night invulnerable space metal. So lots of people do black on the shafts. For the trim on the weapons people usually run with gold, which can either be gold gold, or a greenish gold since mayan gold had a lot of bronze in it. (Thanks n810) For the blade of the weapon you can either go with stone, gold, or the black space metal.

If you want to get fluffy with it, i'd paint skink javalins with the bronze gold. Romans used to use a maliable bronze metal for their javalins, the idea being that they would stick into shields, instead of easily releasing they would bend, now you have a javalin weighing down the guys arm and serious inconveniencing his ability to defend himself.

 

THanks for all the tips. I'll try and redo the scales tonight.

Where should I get paint? What brand? Is GWS paint really good? It seems pricey for coming in such tiny jars.

 

Also are there any blogs or sites for beginning painters?

 

I love Reaper paints, they come in dropper bottles so you have almost zero waste. You just need to buy some needles as well in order to clear out any clogs. Air gets trapped in the top of the bottle which dries that bit of paint and blocks it all the time. You'll be surprised how long the paint lasts, I haven't had to buy new paint in two years. Reaper also has a tri-color system, so they do the work for you in choosing a low, medium, and high tone. It works nicely.

I also use GW foundation paints, they have an extremely high pigment count so you can often base coat your model in a single pass. These are way too thick for air brushes though. The reason why you want to restrict your use of GW paint is because they have started to hate you as a consumer over the years. They used to have a cool little paint bucket that would snap open, but they got rid of the tiny peg so it no longer stays open for you and its a bitch to get to the paint. In addition, the bucket design is inferior to the dropper design, you waste so much paint by having the bucket open and everything starts air drying. It's a tragedy, so you really only want these for easy base coating.

In addition to foundation paints, their washes are awesome. I haven't tried any other companies washes because these are very well reviewed and I haven't needed to try anything else yet. Badab black, devlan mud, then either the blue, green, or the purple ones, are good starter points for your lizards. For starting cheap, either get the purple, green, or blue, then either devlan mud or gryphon sepia, depending on how dark you want it to be. Use the mud on your gold and wood, and the color on your lizards.

Primer is also important, most people around here use army painter primer. Lizards are bright so you probably want to get white primer. I used to use cheap primer because I thought it was too expensive, then a friend said, "you're only going to prime once, might as well do it right." so I bit the bullet on it. That being said, some people still prefer http://www.homedepot.com/Paint-Spray-Paint/h_d1/N-apz5Z5yc1v/R-202246266/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053
It goes on thin, is all but idiot proof, and looks great. However, the paint might have a different tooth to it than normal primer. End results look the same, but it might take more coats of your color to get an even finish.

So yeah:
white primer $10
a couple triads of paint - $16.86 (rough amazon price)
A few GW (Black, white, maybe a base coat like space wolf grey or something) $10-15
army painter brushes - $8 on amazon for a starter set

It's not so bad. Just be sure you put some thought in what colors you want your lizards to be ahead of time, don't do what I did and buy shittons of color cause you thought they look cool and then not end up using them most of the time.

http://www.amazon.com/Masters-Brush-Cleaner-Preserver-Oz/dp/B001TNR7VM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317070452&sr=8-1

You're also going to want some brush cleaner, go to youtube for a video on how to use it. I ignored this stuff at first but brushes turn to shit quickly and it's because you get paint drying all the way up near the ferrule which pushes the bristles out and makes it crap. This stuff is cheap and vastly extends the life of your brush. In addition, if you look at the "customers also bought," they have some package deals with klaminski sable brushes, these are the finest brushes you can buy as far as the 40k master painting community goes. They are water color brushes and hold really well. However, they are made from fox fur, and the harvesting practice, i'm told, are inhumane. As such, I stick to army painter synthetic brushes and you can see what they do in my signature.