All posts tagged: tutorial

Mentor Legion Painting Guide for the base colors

Painting the Mentor Legion Dreadnought Part 1

Published by Joe B

Ready to start painting your model but not sure how to begin? In todayâ€™s tutorial I will show you how to paint a Mentor Legion Dreadnought with plenty of tips and tricks that you can apply to your own models. This is part two of this six-part series for Dreadtober 2016. Last week I showed you my processes for building a custom model through kit bashing. In this post we do all the main colors, leaving the final details for another tutorial. The Mentors are a great chapter to teach a bunch of different colors as they have white (gloriously hard white!), dark green and red, and I even throw in some yellow to mark them as the second company. Add in the metallics, cabling, lenses, and later detail work I am pretty confident that there will something in here for you. Getting Started We left of last weekâ€™s tutorial with an assembled model ready for paint. So the first thing to do is give him a coat of primer. The primer does two things: …

Tutorial on building a custom model with bit bashing and scuplting

How to Build a Custom Model Through Kitbashing

Published by Joe B

Sometimes you are going for a unique look, other times you want to add new dynamism to a model. Either way, learning how to build a custom model through kitbashing is an excellent way to make something truly yours. For my examples, I use a Space Marine Dreadnought. They are boxy, unwieldy beasts of a model that are cool, but static looking. I want to fix that problem and show you how I took a Blood Angels Furioso Dreadnought and turned it into a charging Ironclad for my Mentor Legion. Making a Plan As with any project, itâ€™s important to have at least a rough idea of where you are going. It can change, reform, and flow as your build the model and get further inspiration. For this dreadnought, I had a Furioso model sitting in my bits box from the Baal campaign box set (really got it for the Tyranid models). I needed something to build and paint to create these tutorials for Dreadtober and thought it would fit the bill nicely. That and …

How to Paint Joe Diamond from Mansions of Madness

Painting Joe Diamond a Mansions of Madness Tutorial

Published by Joe B

Mansions of Madness provides a great mix characters to investigate the mysteries. Some are the intellectualsÂ to solve riddles, and others are like Joe Diamond. A classic Noir PI, he has his duster flapping and pistols ready. Unlike Noir, I wanted Joe to have some color – makes the game more fun in a way. So a red duster, yellow tie, and bright white hat and shirt fit the bill. All the paints used were from the Vallejo range. You can grab all the colors with either the Game Color Set or the Skintones Set. Shirt, Shoes, Hat Game Color Wolf Grey Game Color Sombre Grey Game Color Dead White Jacket, Pants Game Color Charred Brown Game Color Beastly Brown Duster Model Color Scarlett Red Game Color Tan Game Color Khaki Game Color Red Wash Tie, Hatband Game Color Gold Yellow Game Color Sun Yellow Skin Model Color Mahogany Brown Game Color Parasite Brown Game Color Brown Rose Model Color Dark Brown Wash Base Coats The first step was to paint all the base colors throughout …

Watch This: How to Paint Eyes with Kuro Cleanbrush Minis

Published by Joe B

They say eyes are the window to the soul, but probably only if you paint them straight. So learning how to paint eyes help make your faces look more believable and add character. With today’s Watch This, we haveÂ Kuro Cleanbrush Minis who shows off some nice tips. Sometimes it can be easier to watch someone show off a technique through a video than through pictures. So check out the video below and then I’ve got a cheat sheet underneath. How to Paint Eyes If you weren’t able to watch the video, I’ve summarized the main points below. The biggest takeaway: use the brush tip and clean your brush as the paint dries. General Tips Don’t use pure white for the eye, instead, choose an off-white Keep the paints thin so it doesn’t add texture to the eyes (use something like airbrush medium) Painting the eyes or the skin first is a matter of choice and how easy it would be to do one way or the other Don’t use a tiny brush (he used a …

Painting Guide for the Chthonians from Mansions of Madness

Chthonian Painting Tutorial for Mansions of Mansions

Published by Joe B

One of the scarier monsters of the game, the Chthonian are otherworldly monsters that appear from nowhere and swallow up the investigators. Â Below I’ve put together a painting guide on how painted these beasts. Chthonian Painting List When I painted the Chthonians, I was going for a contrast: ‘natural’ colors for the main skin and strong colors for the tentacles. With that, I’ve put together the paints used before for reference Game Color Sombre Grey Game Color Wolf Grey Game Color Dark Green Wash Game Color Royal Purple Game Color Charred Brown Game Color Tan Game Color Warlord Purple Game Color Squid Pink Model Color Basic Skintone Model Color Scarlett Red Game Color Black Painting the Chthonian Skin For the skin, I started with gray dry brushes followed up with green and purple washes. This helped to create something that looked almost natural. Base Colors As with all my models, I paint the main colors so I can get a Â sense of proportions between each block. The main body was done with Sombre Gray, the …

How to Paint Light Skin – Broken Paintbrush Tutorial

Published by Joe B

Painting skin, particularly faces can be a challenge for beginner painters. Or even those, like me, who have been painting for years but never ‘got’ how to paint flesh. To learn, I challenged myself to create a tutorial on how to paint light skin. Much of this came out of creating a painting tutorial for each of the Mansions of Madness models. I’ve already done the tutorial for the dark skin models, so now it’s only fair to do the same for the light shades of skin. Below you will see I took five bare heads and tried slightly different techniques on each. From fast and dirty dry brush to only using washes to trying to do something more ‘advanced.’ Paint List Below are the paints I used for all five faces.ost of the colors came from Vallejo’s Skin Colors Set that I would highly recommend picking up. Game Color Heavy Skintone Model Color Sunny Skintone Model Color Basic Skintone Games Workshop Reikland Fleshshade Game Color Flesh Wash Game Color Red Wash Model Color Brown …

Good Reads 34 – Blood, Deff, Magnets, Slaughter, and Wolves

Published by Joe B

Too busy to keep up with all the hobby awesome over the last two weeks? Then check out this week’s Good Reads! I’ve found an awesome lineup including Greg’s amazing Deff Dread, planting blood and gore, and more awesome articles by fellow hobbyists. Blood and Acid Tutorial I shared The Fantasy Hammer’s Broodlord last time, but he returns with a great tutorial on adding gore and slime to your models. He makes it seem so easy, but with the right tools it probably is. Slaughtersmith CombiningÂ fantasy (or Age of Sigmar I guess) models into the 40k world can create some awesome characters. Thomas took the Slaughterpriest and created a custom Warpsmith for his army. Shows what you can do with spare bits and some guitar string. Magnetizing a Knight Mike has finished up his White Scars (only for the moment, I’m sure!) to build up a Knight Titan.Â But he wanted to do ALL the knight types… Solution: magnetize every bit of the Knight. He shows how with a ton of pictures so you can give …

Painting guide for the Mi-Go from Mansions of Madness

Painting the Mi-gos from Mansions of Madness

Published by Joe B

Back to another monster from Mansions of Madness. This week I have the Mi-Go models – odd looking fly/bat/mosquito creatures that like to eat brains. I went for an other-worldly look with pink and purple skin and blue carapace, and of course, blood. I used two main techniques on the Mi-Go: drybrush and wash. This allowed them to be done relatively quickly while still pulling out the details. Step 1: Base Colors After a white primer, I painted all the base colors to get a sense of where each would go. This has been particularly hard for the Mi-GoÂ as they were going to be pinks and blues – which can get a bit garish if not balanced well. Step 2: Dry Brush Electric Blue The first layer was doing the carapace. I chose to do dry brush from this model for two reasons: it would be quick, and it has lots of textures that work well with dry brushing. So grabbing my small dry brush, I applied a layer of Electric Blue over all the …

Watch This: Airbrush for Beginners

Published by Joe B

Complete newbie to using an airbrush? Yeah me too, I’ve used Games Workshop’s sad attempt at making one to base coat some models but dream of doing more with a nice brush. This week’s Watch This returns to Orc Painter Nerd and his great tutorial on using an airbrush for beginners. Double bonus for this week! This week’s Watch This is a two part video with the first going over the basics of how to use an airbrush and part two on using it to paint an actual model. So make sure to watch both videos and check out the notes. Watch This: Airbrush for Beginners by OrcPainterNerd Part 1: Airbrush Basics Highlights Not enough time to watch the full video or just like text notes? I’ve broken down OrcPainterNerd’s tips below for handy reference. Connect everything up before turning the compressor on Turn on compressor and adjust pressure (he is using 20PSI) Use thinned paint, smaller needle = more thinner needed Add airbrush paint to paint holder in airbrush, only a few drops needed …

Painting Tutorial for Mansions of Madness Cultists

Cultists – Painting Mansions of Madness

Published by Joe B

Ready for another Mansions of Madness painting tutorial? This week I have the Cultists adorned in their fancy robes. While these guys are nearly worthless by themselves in the game, they have a habit of sacrificing each other to turn into monsters – which is awesome! Painting the Cultists When I started painting the cultists, I decided to mix them up a bit. While this messes with the game’s concept of each character having slightly different abilities, it does make them more interesting to look at. So I split the six cultistsÂ models and painted half of the robes black with red trim and half red with black. They were then also divided into three different skin tones: light, ‘yellow’ and dark. I started with painting all the base colors to block in each area. You might notice I wasn’t too concerned about getting a perfect coverage on the robes as I will later add additional layers and washes. This is an excellent example of how to speed up some of your painting. Since I am …

Watch This: Painting White

Published by Joe B

If you struggle painting white on your models, check out this week’s Watch This video. Here we have Dave G. from Wargaming Tradecraft showing you his method of painting this notoriously difficultÂ color. So without further ado, check out Dave’s video but check out my notes below. Painting White Using Layers Steps for Painting White After watching the video myself I’ve put together my set of notes on his technique. I hope this cheat sheet can be useful as a handy reference to his video. First Dave gives a fantasticÂ set of tips for watering down paints: Add a blob of paint to your brush Dip only the tip of the brush (covered in the blob) into some water Mix them together on your palette This provides a nice mix without added too much water to the layers, something I often struggle with. He has some great pictures showing this as well so catch his full article. Moving into the layering white: (first few steps not shown in video) Spray white primer over the model Wash theÂ whole …

Painting Dark Skin Tutorial

Published by Joe B

So as I’ve been painting the Mansions of Madness set lately, I’ve decided to add some diversity to the set. About a third of the humans were painted to look African American (the others were light skin and yellow-brown skin tones). In doing so, I decided to put together a painting dark skin tutorial. I also have a light skin version availible as well. When I started, I looked for some other tutorials and found an interesting one on the CoolMiniOrNot forums where Chrispy looked at different ethnic groups and created a color paletteÂ for each. The Thing to notice about the color pallet is there is noÂ black in the skin, and it even gets up to a relatively pale color for the highlights. Even the pallet for the dark skinned Africans in his example are at mostÂ Black Brown color and still highlight up to the same pink/brown color. Alternatively, I found an article on Perry Miniatures where he painted up aÂ Sudanese warrior. Instead of going the light brown routes, he highlighted with additionsÂ Fortress Grey until …