Ok just completed a few units. These are my first ever painted models so any feedback, both positive and negative would be great. Feelings wont be hurt as my expectations are very low :lol:

They're good :D

No reason to have low expectations of you :P

A criticism is that there is no subtlety to the shading on the metal or bone areas. The metal is a little too flat, perhaps an extra coat of brown or black wash over the metallic areas would be good. Alternatively, swap the silver for gold to get some more contrast.

The bones look a little like they've been 'black lined' (basically drawing in the shaded areas with a felt tip pen: often done on tau to get a manga effect). It doesn't look bad, but I'd be curious to know how you did it: the shaded bits need to blend better with the white bits.

But these are minor niggles for individual troopers. An army painted to this level would be gread.

That's some very neat painting for sure, doesn't look at all messy. As Swordsalot said though, it does look a little flat. White highlights on the bone, mostly on the skull and around the major joints, would look rather spiffy, but you'd have to handpaint these rather than drybrush. In my experience, drybrushed skellies just end up looking shoddy!

Black wash for the metal and blue wash for the shields, and then a highlight of the appropriate base colour should also look pretty nice. Just make sure to mix wash with some water to lessen the intensity of the colour.

Minor gripe for me is that the shield edge looks a little unpainted - I don't know if this was intentional to try to look weathered, but to me it looks like unpainted plastic!

Good work overall though, much better than the first models I ever painted.

Cheers,
DLJ

Nicely done, Duke. For a beginner, it's quite good. It's better than I do: I'm a lazy painter.

Put some sand to their bases. And perhaps a few bones at the feet of your skeletons, to make the ground look like a graveyard. You must surely have a lot of spare bones...


I'm happy to see someone who isn't affected by the "bloody blade syndrome".

Wow great feedback! Thanks guys!

Here's a little background of what I did. Most of the following was done while I was visiting my dad out in TX.

Everything was sprayed with white undercoats. Most of the skellies had black ink washed in the shaded areas (I stress most) Attempted to dry-brush bleached bone on the bones but I usually got the technical error where one would go "OOOOH!! Too much! EEEE. ARRGGG Darn!" as I watched my washed black ink disappear under the bleach bone paint. I then redid the shading with the washed black ink on most of the units. They didn't turn out too bad. The detailing of the axe man and the archer were completed at his place with his paints.

When I got back in Florida I mistakenly picked up Chaos Black instead of the Black Ink, thus probably how I go the "black line" effect Swordsalot mentioned if he was referring to the arms of the standards bearer.

As far as the shield edges I was merely attempting to "Stay in the lines" :lol:

I want to do a rusted color edging on the blades, any suggestions?

I'm a tad bit nervous on doing the wash, but I do want to avoid the flat look.

Thanks for the highlight suggestions, at least where I should highlight.

One thing I was thinking of as I get to them on the calvary and chariots is to take some cotton balls, break them up, spray paint them a sandy color and place them on the bases behind the hoofs and wheels to stimulate the effect of dust being kicked up. I'm hoping it will turn out nicely. Will get pics up of those as I get to them.

I really like the teeth and the whole banner. That really impressed me. I have such a hard time with the banner..... (will post pics sooner or later) I am wondering what color you used for the wood in your models i used something called "earth brown" its not a GW color and it looks a little boring in my opinion. I am really curious about the teeth. I really like how you did not do the standard "pick them out with skull white approach" i am very curious about how you got that rotted teeth effect.

That banner was difficult. I had a Boltgun Metal trim on it and completely covered it with the blue or gold.

The teeth I did a black ink wash and dry brushed bleached bone on top.

As for the wood I had some different paints.

I used "Leather" from testors (I think thats the brand) on the axe handle and bow. I did those in TX.

I used "Brown" on the banner pole from testors. I first used dark flesh from GW but I didnt like how that turned out (though I think its looking good for the musican)

With my kids in the philipines for the next few months I have a permanent painting station on my kitchen table so hopefully I can churn out a few units before then.

Those skellies are drybrushed? How on earth did you get it to look so neat? Whenever I drybrushed my skellies, the bone came out looking really really streaky, to the point that it looked awful. Very frustrating!

Cheers,
DLJ

More of a half-a$$ dry brushing. I would paint areas that didn't have much shading such as the skulls or the thighs and as the brush had less paint went a little lighter everywhere else. Like I mentioned earlier, I did have to redo some of the shading with a very thin brush with the black ink wash. Overall not too bad. Will be getting plenty of time to paint this weekend. Hope to have some new pics up for you all early next week.