All posts tagged: tips

Today’s Tip: Editing with GIMP

Published by Joe B

Ok so you have a descent camera, a light box, and nice looking models you want to share with world. Now what? Well for me I spend a few minutes to edit each picture before posting it online. My program of choice: This is an open source (and free) version of Photoshop that can do way more than I will ever need but it does the things I do need very well. For this tutorial I will go over cropping and white balance. Cropping There may be ways to take the perfect picture so that you don’t need to crop out the extra white space but I find that if I zoom in to the point the model fills the screen the depth of field is too narrow and much of the model is blurry. Below is a pre-cropped image from my light box from my recently finished terminator squad. This is an easy fix in GIMP: click on the rectangular select tool and drag it so it roughly contains your model. Now there should …

How to Paint Iron Warriors

How to Paint Iron Warriors a Painting Tutorial and Guide

Published by Joe B

The Iron Warriors were my first 40k army. I picked them in part because they had a simple painting guide int he 3rd edition Codex. Both my painting skills, as well as the hobby, have changed since then. But here is my updated guide to how to paint Iron Warriors. I’ve broken down how I paint Iron Warriors in six detailed sections on the specific parts of the model. How to Paint Iron Warriors Part 1: The Metals Following on my step-by-step paint guides for my Sorcerer and Fabius Bile I figured it was time to do one for the bread and butter of my army: the Iron Warrior. I’ve broken this down into multiple parts to give more detail in each step. So first up is the metals. This is the prominent feature of any Iron Warrior: iron/silver armor and gold trim. It is also the messiest stage which is why I always do it first. Step 1: Primer I always prime my Iron Warriors black. If anyone has tried to paint metallic over …

Painting Tip: The Eraser Brush

Published by Joe B

Whenever I’m painting I always have two brushes out: the one I’m using and one to erase. The need for the second brush arises because I don’t like to do touch up painting and my hands shake a bit. To solve both of these problems I have a second, clean brush always on hand that I can quickly wet and “erase” any spots of paint I put on the wrong spot.

Painting in hot weather, any tips?

Published by Joe B

This week it is in the upper 90s here in the PNW and I know there are much hotter places in the world, but it hardly ever reach the 80s here in Seattle, let-alone the upper 90s. Because of this my apartment isn’t set up with air conditioning. This means two things hobby-wise: I’m staying up much later since I can’t sleep and am able to get more painting done, and my paint dries out faster than normal. When doing the washes this is actually a benefit as I can paint the next coat not long after painting the first. The problem though is when putting some paint down on my pallet, I am adding water between each model to keep it liquid. This is causing me to struggle keeping a good paint-to-water mix so my question is this to my fellow hobbyist in the warm/dry climates: what do you add to your paint to keep it from drying out quickly?

Paint a little, often

Published by Joe B

So this morning I finished one more base color on 5 of my traitor guard. I was a bit intimidated by the fact that I have 50+ guardsmen to paint and I don’t often get hour stretches to paint. My solution: paint a little, often. Such as this morning, I had 10 extra minutes before having to leave for work, so I grabbed my brush and painted the boots, belts and any other dark gray part on 5 more guys. Sure I have 10 more in this platoon to paint that same gray on, but it is 5 less I have to do later. Painting a little, often also will help keep my painting skills up. Its been a few months since I did any painting, and I can tell. I’m a little less steady, not as good at mixing the right water to paint ratio, and generally slower. I have plenty of projects to paint, so even when I get new projects in the mail (the sentinels are next) I will continue to paint …