 Hello everybody and welcome to another PMP end of month review. Well what is the PMP, why that's painters, motivating painters, our Facebook group focused on helping you take your next step in the hobby. 2020 has come to a close and that means it's time for the last review of this style ever. Don't worry, these reviews are still going to happen, they're just going to be different in 2021. So I'm going to say this right up top so everybody who watches knows what's happening. From now on going forward it's not just going to be post whatever and I review everything because honestly these take a really long time and are pretty mentally draining but I do still like doing them and want to make sure I'm still able to give feedback to everybody. So the way we're going to do that in 2021 is we are going to, we're going to, every month there will be a focus for that particular month's submissions. So for example at one month it might be monsters, so you know monsters or large scale or something like that. So you can submit a finished project if it's of the type that that month is and will cycle through month after month for particular types of projects. Anything you submit that's not the right type of project and by the way I have ultimate you know, judging on that I'm just going to delete it out of the event okay. Like we won't review it, it's that easy. It doesn't mean anything personal offense, I do not mean any insults to anyone. If yours happens to get in it's because it wasn't the right, it doesn't happen to get in it's because it wasn't the right type of thing. This will allow me to go deeper with with individual explanations while still giving everyone over a chance, over the year a chance to submit things and really focus more on different types of projects and things like that that we might not normally get. So for example we might you know we're going to do a month where we focus completely on finished armies which is normally a really hard thing to review in a format like this where I've got maybe two minutes to talk about everybody's piece at most and usually you need to keep it shorter than that if I want to keep these less than like three hours long so that's the basic idea but if you want to join us in the PMP make it one of your New Year's resolutions you can find the link right down below join in you do have to answer all of the questions don't forget all questions all three must be answered or you don't get in okay so with that being said let's jump into the reviews and start giving some feedback so here we go start off with Mark Tan trying to push the level outside of my comfort zone what would you suggest I do to continue pushing the mini sure so what do we need to do well we do need to still push the contrast a little more it needs to come up in the in a more complete and total volumetric way that is to say your lower areas are still just as highlighted as your top areas we also need to focus on the different elements and make sure that they all have the same level of attention for example these bone bits on his back don't have the same level of tension as the armor which is you know I mean the armor is the main piece but if you're talking about display or competition level everything needs to have the same attention same with this guy he's holding like we have blends that aren't smooth over here we have lots of spots if you're going to include anything on the mini it all has to be done to the same level as well I would push things like rusty and crusty goodness on our on all of our different metallic pieces make sure you're working in oxidation on things like the copper in realistic ways as to how copper actually oxidizes deeper tones and blacks on the bones things like this pink tube these pink tubings they don't have the same level of contrast as everything else so that's the stuff that jumps out to me right away Mark I hope that helps all right next up Steve Dooley first time poster painting about two years now and look for general advice sure so Steve my basic advice he is going to be the same advice you're gonna hear me give a lot throughout these reviews which is we need to push the contrast basically everything on here doesn't have enough contrast whether we're talking about the gray armor itself the blue of the robes his skin which lacks the contrast of both value and hue the metallics the bone the shield and the sword and that's just being a newer painter newer painters are always afraid to push the contrast and don't know how to exactly push it in the right areas to reflect the surface lighting type so but my main challenge to you Steve going forward is going to be continue pushing your contrast of value I have lots of videos on it Travarion has what I consider to be a fantastic video on value contrast so check that out on his channel if you're not a follower there but specifically what I would focus on or something like this is things like the armor the armor needs to have you know volumetric highlighting and to remind everybody our scale we're gonna use a simple one through five scale traditional art uses a one through ten we use one through five to keep it simple one is the highest highlight five is the deepest shadow three is your midtone so two and four are half steps so basically the challenge here Steve is we've got a lot of three and basically that's it so we need to really start upping that contrast to bring more visual interest and direct the eye around the piece okay next up Thomas test model for his doc sure so well here's what I would say to you Thomas again I mean definitely more contrast now I don't know how many of these girls you intend to paint you know the average army can have 30 60 90 of these girls in various forms so you know I understand you might be wanting to keep it at a tabletop level I would still push the contrast on things like the blue boots and the skin the skin doesn't have enough reds pink tones magenta is that kind of thing and the blue is just very very same singularly colored all the way around so I would really focus on that even contrast of some level where that blue is getting darker it's going to make a big difference in helping the piece pop and stand out lights are brighter against darks so adding that contrast will really help so there you go that would be my number one piece of advice for you John basically with his first mind-stealer he used some oil paints and any input on the face the blending the shading sure so one of the things I would say to you John is that we're going to want to continue to pop that face up we do still need to push the contrast a little further I think it's good you you did use the oil paints in a nice way here so I enjoy that like the color the composition works fine for me I've got no issues with any of that I think that's a nice contrast there what I would say is continue pushing the contrast especially on things like the horns because they're going to frame the face and draw attention up here things like on the top of the spear anx's face we want the eye drawn right up there right now that's actually rather dark part of the model the face itself you've got a small t-line but that's even that's kind of muted beyond that think about volume metrics on the rest of the cat things like the top of the haunches the shoulders up here and up here should be significantly brighter than the lower area so you want to make sure you're taking not just the individual volumes of the muscle structure but the total volume of the miniature into account when doing that kind of lighting so there you go hope that helps John okay next up Niles this is a miniature from etherfield board game never heard of it sounds cool tried to go for more contrast that I normally have done here's the question I get the contrast mostly right and what should be the thing you should focus on yeah so the contrast feels pretty good your contrast of value is a very bright chaotic pretty crazy model so it's kind of hard to read color compositionally like the green that you've chosen doesn't really work with this blue and purple but to me the number one thing we need to work on is so I got two actual things I'll challenge you on it seems like you're in the right area of contrast so now the next step immediately after that is we've got to work on smoothing things out so work on glazing things like that to bring the colors together especially when you're working in blues and purples those are colors that when you go up into the higher highlights they have a high amount of opacity so transitions are really visible so you're going to need to glaze the edges and stuff like that to bring it back down and create smooth transitions that's the number one thing that jumps out at me across the entire model is we need to push that blending smoother the other thing I noticed is with the skin it's not just remember contrast isn't just about light it's also about hue so right now the the skin doesn't really like it has some very sharp unblended contrast but it also needs variation of hue so we need to see pink tones in there magenta tones purple tones stuff like that especially on female skin which should have these nice smooth soft supple transitions across it so that's going to be my advice for you of the next two things you want to work on there now all right next up Robin basically looking for the next skin tone review did he draw everything together so Robin we're definitely moving in a better direction here this guy is way better than last month and last month was already pretty darn good so yes I think we're absolutely moving in the right direction now you asked the question about should we start do we need to start talking about other colors yes yes we do I'll ignore that we're just focusing on the skin here I'm not going to talk about the rest of the model because that's your focus we've still got some areas of contrast we need to push up knuckles are a big one when you grip around something your knuckles white and out so we need to make sure the knuckles are catching some more highlights I think so I like the highlight on the shoulder the arm this arm is is really really well done you also want to think about some deeper shadows like maybe here in this area bringing it down it kind of in line under here this right here with what you've got under under the under the arm itself where he's casting a shadow there but I think we're in the right place now it's really just a question of glazing and smoothing it down Robin but this is your you're in the right place now as to include the inclusion of blues yeah a hundred percent blues and greens are the way you want to go when we're going like full on you know crazy competition level what you're going to push that in is blue is the shadows greens you can use as interesting alternate colors in the shadows to oppose the light if you look at for zeta paintings that's where you're going to really see green using a cool way he used it to create alien low tones often is what he was doing so he'll use it as a contrasting shadow color in the fours basically off light source so that that way and then they'll fade into blues just to create a weird sort of otherworldly setting you don't have to worry about something like green in most cases but blues are very useful because they are natural shadow colors right now I have a very blue shadow under my chin because I have a very warm light above me okay so stuff like that is where you're going to want to focus in on so hope that helps but great stuff Robin okay next up Julius all right so tried to do in some first non metallic gold how to improve sure so this is pretty good I see we followed some Juan Hidalgo here that's what it feels like or maybe some Darren Latham you know we've got that kind of thing going on what we need to push on is a little bit more of the low tones the fours to five's we've got a little too much yellow not enough of the brown red transition that happens in the low of gold especially here on the leg stuff like that so around here your shadow the shadow line is too thin that kind of thing so we just need to you know kind of smooth that down if you're going to do these little in the shadow reflection points that like Juan and Darren tend to do you want to focus on at the same time you there needs to be a careful glaze over top of them that makes them look kind of fuzzed because their light isn't still like ever a single shot it doesn't it isn't a drop of paint hitting something right it's still it's a bright off reflection of like a ground reflection or something hitting it it's a specular highlight that's that where the eye is seeing it but it still needs to have some fuzz to it because ultimately light is still going to diffuse when it hits the surface right the other thing I would say is on things like these chest plates you always want to think about moving the shadow up and having a little bit of a secondary reflection there because whenever you're just going from straight light to straight dark it's always going to be boring on the rest of it you're covering this transition where it's going light dark light dark but on the chest plate we just have this one light transition having a secondary like moving the shadows up the the breastplate and then having a light source on the bottom is going to do a lot to increase that overall visual interest so there you go hope that helps Julius all right next up uh tassos uh basically asking about uh you know just kind of help and and sort of uh his contrast on the me so the picture's kind of far away so it's hard to tell too much and this is a very busy mini in general this is always like I've seen people post this before it's a really tough mini to review because he's going like this in this really weird position he's holding this goblin and it's just it's a difficult mini to to review I'll be honest with you so I'm gonna look at this one because it's kind of the best picture of the troll um my answer from what I can see so far is it feels like we need to push the contrast on the supplementary items some more and then probably work some actual color tones into the skin so more variation of hue in the skin addition of purple tones red tones to make the thing feel alive in some way especially in the fours and fives area and then also things like the bones need more light especially down here the ones hanging so those need a little more either texture or contrast or both uh but I feel like you're going a good direction make sure you're smoothing out your blends on things like that red thing sash whatever his tabard that he's wearing um yeah I'd say those would be my main piece of feedback for you like I said it's tough to get a good image of it because we're far away but I think that's about about the feedback I would give so uh more variation of hue especially on the skin look at working in some other colors and then make sure you're adding your contrast to all the elements of value all right Dan uh so this is a great model here uh basically uh just looking for feedback on this yeah so a lot of fun with the chimera colors here uh I like the armor I think the challenges with the armor we didn't push the contrast up high enough in the ones and twos uh I like the reds make sure if you're going to do that kind of texture of it like I understand what you're going for kind of a crushed satin texture the dots need to be smaller and uh much less visible like they have to be there but you almost need to feel like the impression of dots like dots called you a week ago and you suddenly remember that the dots called you a week ago that's kind of the level of dots um you like you can't see that much of visibility thing in satin right it's more it's more fine than that as to the armor itself keep pushing that contrast up it needs to like I understand it's not the steel that's on her shoulder but we still need to push that a little bit higher uh in some areas especially like we've got some white light catches but then we they're just very alone right so a little bit of a blend up into those and then still the white light catch because again light's going to diffuse when it hits an area so a little bit more push in that one two area going up to those those light catches and I think you'll be in a good place okay next up uh John Winslale uh tips on the skin and thoughts on the cloak sure so the skin is uh I've you know I comment on skin a lot it needs more contrast especially in the purple tones we also probably need to push the highlights more but there definitely needs more fives more deep shadows especially in things like under the head between the fingers down here where it connects to the wrists right like we've got a lot of deep shadows this guy would be casting that we're not capturing here so uh the addition of more variation of both hue and value together in things the like the uh something like a uh a black leather from scale 75 or you know some kind of deep purple red brown color anything in that general space will work okay uh the so that's kind of the main thing I would say on the skin there now on the cloak let's spin around to that um again it's good but we need to again respect the sort of volumetric nature of the cloak a little more light would be gathered up around the shoulders and the top a little more than on the bottom so there should be a flow to it as it goes down uh where this area is really the brightest we also want to go back and kind of smooth some of this some of our transitions here like here to here here to here are rather harsh we want to make sure those have a smooth transition unless there's a direct reason above it where there would be a hard cast shadow which in this case there wouldn't given how you've told me the light is hitting because you told me the light is coming in like this so this thing would not be casting a hard shadow down on it right if the fig was completely lit from this side I would buy a shadow line like this because this would be hanging over and casting it but you made this area up here really bright and told me the light is coming basically from a sort of this direction right so you always want to think about where you're placing that where your highlights are telling me the light is coming from and then how that's working with your your individual shading so hope that helps john all right next up newt looking for some feedback on the ogre conversion yeah sure so cool conversion I like this butcher let's go to this zoomed out image all your little tattoos are fun I enjoy those um I think what we need to do is really like the skin feels rough the paint feels rough to some way I'm not sure why so I think probably what I would recommend is is kind of working on controlling your paint a little more smoothing it down something's going wrong there might be with your primer layer I can't really tell but the paint feels dry and dusty is basically what I'm saying now uh I you know my my basic advice would be the same we need to keep pushing the contrast um you can kind of see it in this picture let's go back to the black and white I mean you can see there's just not enough of a run here of value it's pretty evident how much of just the standard kind of mid-grays we've got in this picture the face is an interesting exception I actually quite like the face you worked in a lot of red tones you have a lot of deeper shadows you have some higher highlights we need to carry that to some degree to the rest of the models right where we're pushing those highlights up and uh adding in things like red tones and pink tones and stuff like that and uh bringing down into some more natural volumetric shadows around the muscles so there you go Newt uh okay Scott uh peace entered in the competition was trying to paint this librarian with a color shift paint job for the armor how can I make the color shift effect more believable and make this a more competitive piece sure so I mean there's a lot to say here one don't do stuff like this in a competition piece so like there's I mean competition has its own sort of things you'll learn I my honest answer Scott is I wouldn't worry about competition yet we've got some other sort of fundamental things that we need to focus on so like and I don't mean that as any insult I just mean like that's what I'm reading here okay so because your number one challenge we need to work on is not doing something like color shifting like you're trying to do you're trying to run a marathon I need you to run a 5k first right and what we're not doing here is including contrast okay so like that's just number one baseline also I would avoid stuff like this like if you're gonna do a competition piece just so this is a general note about competition don't put giant things in front of your miniatures this isn't the model this is the model this is what matters right so like putting a big giant thing in front of your miniature that blocks off your vision and is really bright and really distracting and really not part of the piece doesn't help okay so that's number one compositionally we've got too many colors like there is red yellow orange blue green and purple in this mini that's the rainbow I don't need it all we gotta we gotta control that palette we gotta bring it down into into control right so the like when I look at this guy and I look at the back here like this black is just flat black the cloak is just basically brown the gold is just basically gold and you know like that's it like we all of this needs pushing of contrast long before we try like a really complicated manual color shift effect right so walk before you run is my point here work on the fundamentals and then things like how do I achieve a color shift you'll know because you'll have the fundamentals mastered and you'll understand like how the lighting conditions would shift colors and stuff like that and you'll be able to more easily paint that once you get that kind of experience under your belt so I don't mean I know it sounds harsh Scott but I don't mean it any harsh way I just I want to be straight with you right and me telling you like a bunch of stuff of how to do that is not going to be the help you need right now what we need is to work on our paint cleanliness our application and up our contrast and the smoothness of it right I would also get rid of whatever metallics these are just as a side note there they're I like that visible pigment is pretty bad um but yeah when I say things like paint cleanliness and smoothness of application you know see the like red and the paper on these books and things like that like we the gold isn't creating a smooth line around here there's just like little things like that that stuff gets noticed in competition like that no judge misses that if I can see it in two minutes they'll see it in two minutes so especially with the model in their hand okay so there you go uh all right Paul Holmes uh looking basically he's gone for a 1980 style vehicle and uh so you know he said he'll be push the contrast first of all there's almost no contrast on this vehicle Paul I like how you said you pushed it a little more but it's basically not present now that's fine I'm not going to beach up for it if what you're literally going for is recreating the 1980 style of of paint jobs there was no contrast on those minis okay so like fine and dandy if that's the goal then let's recreate that thing okay um like this red is pretty flat um now that being said it's fine like it's a great bright red it looks good what do we do then well one we need to probably smooth out these edges if you're going to do ed this kind of like speaking through edge highlighting it needs to be really sharp really thin and just have the slightest small fade of a second color black intermediate color ultra crisp edge highlight like it needs to be like a razor around there and all of these elements should have it all the panel lines all these little vents all everything right and they need to feel the same intensity uh so that would be my biggest advice for you I mean I think if you're going for that like intense 80s style like the cover of a white dwarf or something from me 1991 you nailed it like that's what this feels like right so I have no issue with any of that I'm not going to tell you to paint a different style paint the style that makes you happy uh but yeah that's that's what I would say then you got to go all the way with that style and really like pop those edges right get everything really clean it becomes that style was all about like hyper precise minimal contrast uh ultra technical painting right so that's what you got to get okay next up Dave uh so army of one orc bust basically uh you know asking about like uh why couldn't I get a one or two highlight and hair with oils and so on and so forth okay so let's talk this through a couple thoughts one oils are good don't do everything with oils like I don't do hair with oils hair works best with acrylic paints because hair is built of sharp thin lines right tool right job I know when we discover a new tool or you buy a new tool you're excited to use it for everything you know I don't grab a hammer and when I'm trying to put a screw in a wall I get a screwdriver because that's the right tool right same thing here hair works best with acrylic paint because you can control it a lot better if you wanted to set like initial values with oils quickly let it dry and then do all the acrylic work on top that's fine no issue you know easy breezy great fantastic now what are the things like the reason you couldn't do it is because oils kill one and two highlights on their initial application because it dirties the paint very naturally so you've got to go back in with second applications and smooth it down that's where the acrylics would come in now as to the orc skin itself uh we again definitely much more contrast of both value and Q you know when you're doing bust this is the first time I'm gonna say this but I'm gonna talk about it a lot because I know a lot of people posted their first busts so here it is everybody here's my thing I'm going to say it once when you paint busts you've got to paint until you're almost insane and then paint twice as much as that more detail more color more variation of hue more texture more more more more you cannot paint a bust with the same level you do a 28 mil miniature it does not work it does not sell humans have lots of details in the more you but or orcish female monsters in this case when you scale things up more of that will become visible like the hair I should be off start seeing individual texture very clearly because of the scale she's at like I would I would see individual hairs right the skin needs like reds and purples and tones like that mixed into it right uh the scarf the the scar she has like along here need to stand out and have like the little bits of healed you know pink uh inclusions into the skin underneath it that kind of thing right so that's the main stuff that jumps out at me if you're like oils kill ones and twos on your first pass that's why you can't do it all with just oils in one pass you have to paint with oils you let it dry then you come back in and you do the you do the next round of work either acrylics on top oils on top whatever the case okay all right next up uh bartas painted draknar mostly in oils and enables over acrylic base appreciate your feedback on the the flesh and the fresh blood effects all right sure uh my honest feedback for your bartas is I freaking love it the fresh blood effects look great I mean this is fantastic like I love the drips I think you nailed them you nailed them uh and I think the skin looks wonderful like this is great contrast of hue and color you could maybe mix in a little bit more in a few places of a slight red slight red like a deeper red uh I'm thinking like an Indian shadow from scale 75 or something you know that kind of tone uh but this is great I mean like I love we've got we've got a one through five clearly demarcated nice volumes good light lines his face is still drawing attention and this has been a long journey for you bartas and I think this is a real capstone piece uh he's fantastic very well done very very well done okay next up Apollo uh sometimes it's submitted primary chaplain uh general feel the piece if it's adequate for display and if the minis blended well with his base sure so I can answer the last question first which is yeah I think he's fine it's great he stands out from it while still feeling a part of it you did a good job you mix the pigment up in I got no problem with the the you know general piece so that works fine um as a display mini yeah I mean I think the number one thing that jumps out of me is probably the black armor still needs to push a little more contrast if we're going to go all the way all you know kind of all the way in and then the non metallic gold still isn't selling because I don't have enough to um I've got some bright one edges and stuff like that but I don't have enough to I don't have enough of that white yellow pushing up out of it uh that's where I think we we need to kind of push that up but this is a great piece um I really like the skin I like the value and hue contrast on the face I think that's really selling for me uh so yeah overall I really like the freehand templar logo or whatever on his on his um shoulder pad I think that really works so yeah I mean I think it's good I think keep pushing your contrast a little bit more on the armor and on and and then working with your gold actually this this strange lighting here actually makes it look a little better so maybe it was just a lighting issue but I still feel like we need a little more too in there but on the whole it's good I like the halo the iron halo more than I like this up here I think this is where we've got the opportunity for improvement more than back here this I think looks pretty good so there we go good stuff Apollo all right Duarte uh three different non-metallic attempts and which colors you usually make the skin feel more lifelike sure uh yeah so let's talk about the non-metallic uh it's um good on a thing of this size like bust non-metallics are hard because they have to really sell in a big way um the shield does not sell to me uh I'll say that like it doesn't feel bright enough it it feels like a comic book black and white rendering of metallics um the armor shoulder pads sell the most for me like going back to this guy um but we you know here's the trick when you're getting into reflective steel armor at this scale we can't just use black to white anymore that doesn't work at this scale okay steel when it's reflecting on a 28 mil miniature non-metallics you can kind of keep it in you know one gray tone spectrum and that's fine because we're losing some of the we can lose some of that I like if you're talking true display piece you still need to integrate colors but here this is bright enough shiny enough there should be reflections of the world around it at least in tone this piece you've told me there's a light reflection right here and it's right next to this bright blonde beard and yet there is no yellow pushed into here at all right or or sort of red tone or whatever that would push in from his skin that kind of stuff when you get this big non-metallic it's really complicated because you got to start thinking about all the different colors of the world and that's not even talking about environmental lighting I just mean like what's on the piece that would be reflecting right and those need to all become part of your composition so it there's areas where we need to get darker like you need more five in some places of really deep shadow but at the same time now we need the variation of hue integrated into non-metallics to actually sell that it's not just paint that to sell that it's really reflective metal at this scale now the skin looks pretty good what we need to integrate there is probably a higher highlights like we don't push the ones in twos up enough that's basically our issue a little more red than nose you've got good variation of hue for the most part you use a little bit more reds in various places around the ear in the ear under the eye on the bottom of the nose things like that but really what we suffer from here is a lack of true highlights especially when we get up to a big bust scale you know look at my head right now look at these lights this is a one and two okay these are bright reflections this guy doesn't have that right he needs to you need to capture all the way up to those really bright intense reflections because skin is oily it's satin so there you go all right next up Sean finish and throg basically also curious your feedback for the flesh tones and how they adding the red glazes and general feedback on anything you can work on sure okay so yeah I mean throg is a pretty messy model I'll say that he's kind of hard to paint well just because it's kind of an old fine cast model so I think he did a fine enough job dealing with a really tough model um yeah I think the reds are good I like the integration of them I definitely makes him feel alive I feel like we probably he's so busy it's really hard to review this guy the like gray needs smoothed out around his face whatever this beard situation is the uh the face uh or the skin sorry here where the last thing I was looking at the face is in his stomach which okay at any rate the um the skin on his body probably needs to come up to some some higher highlights in a few places the one of the problems is his face is kind of lost here so you want to make sure you're really making this the area of the most focus with the the best highlights drawing attention in uh and then probably that's I think you know that's what I would focus on I think the reds are working you could push it even a little farther maybe into some purple tones in some places especially in deep shadows so that's what I would say uh I'm glad you painted this guy I really like a lot of these fine cast models drive me bonkers with their the texture and stuff that's on them it's it's they're they're a tough paint I think you did an admirable job all right next up Sebastian uh general feedback and things to work on to achieve to a higher level of painting sure so Sebastian I took a look at this earlier uh it's uh I know you said some of the pictures were out of focus and whatever and that's that's fine I you still got enough good pictures in your for me to review it um the number one thing that I noticed was really stuff like contrast on your secondary elements so like the trees the wood the shears you know like we're not really pushing our contrast there on the rest of the things or separating the elements enough away and you can tell that when we go to the black and white picture right like this is all basically the same lit by only the light from your thing same with a lot of this down here like we're all in this singular gray tone right because because it's all just kind of brown we have to find ways to add texture to pop that to increase the contrast something like that to make him stand out okay is is my basic thought uh so other than that I would look at like how can we make horticulus himself on the top more interesting sorry we keep I keep going past the picture there there's there's one like horticulus could use for some more glazing and and volumetric shading on him probably pushing into like purples and greens to make him look more unnatural alien like and demonic also be careful when you're using a color pattern like that on a shell it's like this random super cartoony element and in otherwise like very earthy piece so it just stands out like the only thing I can look at is that yellow and blue gel nothing else in this piece is visible because you have like incredibly desaturated neutral tones over a whole piece and then you're just like bang and also bright yellow and blue bright yellow and blue bright yellow and blue and like that's all the piece screams right so you want to make sure you're taking that down you can you can have a yellow and blue shell if that's the sort of image you're trying to capture but then we really need to desaturate all those colors through the additions of shadows and highlights or you know bringing some brown tones into there in general like this shell should not be uniformly the same yellow here as is here as is here as is here right like that stuff needs to be volumetrically highlighted the same way so there you go okay next up necklace change of pace with some iron jaws for attempt at weathering battle damage and Vallejo metal colors sure uh I mean the Vallejo metal colors seem fine I don't really notice any issue with them seems okay uh as to weathering and battle damage uh yeah your your little thin scratches are looking okay uh some of your like your freehand is actually what I think I want to give you feedback on more than anything because if you're going to do freehand stuff like this of like the white over the red it needs to be crisp and clean first and then you scuff it like the red over your white doesn't work because you didn't make it opaque red so it doesn't look like a scratch which is what you're aiming at over the white like right here and here those aren't scratches those are just red paint on top I can tell because it's brighter here right this has to be the red that's over the white has to be the same red that's under the white okay so you have to get a really high opacity with those scratches so you use a darker color to initially scratch it in then you put the normal red over top um your your little white scratches all seem fine the battle damage I wouldn't put silver inside of it like I don't think that actually works or scuffed up armor doesn't turn silver on the inside this is sort of this persistent myth that I don't like it's not polished armor it's it would be enameled steel so it'd be quite dull if you scratch that off if you want to have one little thin line or something of silver where the blade edge immediately polished it through impact that's fine but what we need to focus on is a lot of smaller more controlled applications of tiny spots of chipping through so deep browns and stuff like that really really small in a stippling pattern having some of these white scratches turn into deeper scratches where you then run a line beside them is going to add a lot to it so my battle damage and chipping video will be of good help to you there all right next up Jason uh illuminator seizes eras whatever this guy's name is feedback on the non-metallic metal and the blood funnel specifically how can I make it look real do I need to yes you do you ask anytime you think wait do I need to do these things almost always the answer is yes that you're subconscious telling you that's the right answer you had the right answer you didn't need me you were just trying to get me to let you off the hook I'm not gonna your brain was correct trust your instincts now on the non-metallic so I assume you mean like the the weapon and stuff um yeah it's fine I have no issue with it looks good uh you know probably working on smoothing some of the blends out like here to here or stuff like that but for the most part it looks good uh I don't really have any issue with that the that weapon effect I think it looks fine but yes as to like this effect you'd want first of all you want actual blood down here so like we should be starting with real blood color like literally get out blood for the blood gutter and turn this a deep magenta with some pink highlights and then lay some blood for the blood god over it and then have it be slowly transmitting up like this needs to if the pink to magenta to purple the blue transition needs to like pull up the arc here some okay hope that helps all right Rowan with the pumpkin night I like this guy I've painted this guy uh feedback on the osl on the base and the gradients on the armor uh I realize now if you're painting purple probably wasn't the best choice for it uh sure so yeah um I do agree that the purple was the right choice it honestly would work a lot better as just an earthen base like just earth would work out better because then the green sword would stand out like he feels like he's standing on some alien world I don't know where the why the ground is purple so it's just this weird other element that does need to be there the osl on the pumpkin part with pumpkin head pumpkin head is gonna get you looks mostly fine uh the osl on the ground is way too strong uh because like this is so osl is only as bright as the environment it's placed in okay so if this guy is in fact making that much of the ground glow with a glowy sword then we are at nighttime and the rest of his armor does not tell me that he does not have deep shadows he does not have that kind of stuff he does not have nighttime washed out colors right where the only thing lighting it is that um so like with the armor I mean you'd have to dig way back to see the pumpkin I did paint it so I can't even tell you that but I mean you know with the armor we need more volumetric highlights I mean that's the that's the honest answer the osl on the ground would look better if it was thinner and more subtle it would actually be more impactful and the armor needs more volumetric highlights more contrast we're not pushing it enough in those various lights um and if we're going for like a nighttime osl cast type of thing then we need to shrink those volumetric highlights have them fed by the osl in tone in a more green tone on the highlights and then deepen the shadows a lot more fours a lot more fives okay next up tim uh solitaire for blackstone fortress only going for tabletop standard uh and he didn't have matte varnish because it's hard to find matte varnish in the current world I understand that it is actually uh one of those weird things uh so no issue there uh Tim I'll all yes you know you need to matte varnish it yes you do you're correct look for tabletop standard if that's what you're going for I think it's fine um you know you could smooth down some of these transitions with a couple glazes over the top and I think that would honestly be my one thing I would tell you to do uh you know add a little more interest to the base throw down some like pigment powder or something like that takes five seconds uh don't just put a rock on a you know on a blank base like that's boring like put some dirt down there like make it truly tabletop ready like give me a real basing scheme this little cracked thing I like I understand what you're trying to do you cut a little piece of plastic already trying to do cracks I don't know what it is it doesn't work is my short answer so like just just give me something it's a rock make it on something place him in somewhere and you're good to go but you know tabletop wise I think he's fine okay all right next up Abel uh with his Goliath leader for Necromunda really tried to push the contrast and let the colors pop okay so uh yeah I mean this is obviously the older Goliath you're definitely using bright colors in that way I think the color composition mostly works I think what I would tell you is we need to smooth and like we need still need to work on our value contrast you have some nice deep shadows in here we need to push those more need more fours and fives and the transitions between three four and five to be smoother like this is rough right here and here um so we just need to really smooth on on getting those the deep parts of those muscle structures uh shadowed down it's especially true in the face where the face is kind of flat so again more more variation of hue on the face red tones blue tones around his lower jowls and cheeks or something you know popping up the highlights here maybe a little more this might be bright enough but then certainly bringing this area down more in shadow right like if you look at my face right now look at how much of this side is cast in shadow right I'm going to direct above light see all this blue tone in here here here right really reinforcing and bringing that contrast to the four that would be my advice for you all right uh Cyril do you think painting a space marine army without using any metallic paints is something achievable yeah sure it's I mean it's crazy it's going to take you a while if you're really legitimately trying to do like non-metallic or something I I wouldn't do it and it's honestly probably won't look as good in most places you would display it because I there's a reason I paint armies and true metallic metal they just look better when you take them to a tournament or something because the lighting in there is crap and doesn't look good for non-metallics uh so okay so yeah bases look good good jungle bases uh paint job looks pretty nice like it's a good clean application of the thing um I like the low tones you're using for the yellow I think we need a little more one uh in some places like pop up a little more the highlights especially around the top of the models we need to get a little brighter in the future um maybe in some of the up kicking stuff there's just a few areas where we need to bring the highlights up a tad bit more but yeah for the most part it's nice the issue is with your non-metallic it's just not bright enough in some things like the some of the elements of the gun that are meant to be metal aren't popped up enough you need more one and two like working with non-metallic on this scale to really sell it is tough that's why I wouldn't do an army for it I mean again if you want to do it and if you can do it it's awesome it looks amazing but you've got to put in the time so just make sure you know the commitment you're in for before you get into it but overall I think it looks good okay next up Gabriel uh first post eager for feedback on competition and the approaches here on non-metallic uh going for more impressionistic taste uh so again your picture's kind of far away but I understand what you mean by impressionistic because you're using more colors to render it that's fine you still need to push the contrast of value up because that's ultimately what sells non-metallic metal is its brightness like it still has to come up to that one and two and that's kind of what's lacking from things like the thing that uh sill stands on so you want to make sure that you've got that nice and bright especially even if you're just popping things like the edges up more or those individual light catches and then kind of you know smooth those down I I I have no issue with the color I think the color usage looks great so going in this kind of impressionistic blue I think is fun I think that really works but then you've got to continue pushing that up that's my main piece of feedback for you like it still has to come to the same we still have to cover the same value spectrum right but we can we can do that anything we can do it in any set of colors and have it read appropriately but it still has to run the gamut of value contrast okay next up Jeff Phillips feedback on your night lords terminators proper midnight blue uh any additional feedback you have on the blue would be correct uh the tips on the deactivated um uh like eye lenses is yeah I think just darkening them is fine um yeah I think the blue works I think it really does I think your main uh thing here should just be working on smoothing the contrast out that's I think it's fine I think it fits I have no issue with that I think their eye glow looks nice um you know especially as an army piece I think this is good you know if you were going to go if this were to all be for display or something I'd have different advice but as you're clearly working on an army probably a whole army of these dudes I think it's really good just work on smoothing out your blend some and I think you're in a good place uh as to the magenta plasma effect it's fine you just want to make sure you trace that nice line of pink white around the edge of the what the the casing that holds the plasma coils to really sort of sell the glow effect there needs to be like a slight dark line and then it needs to trace the the light around the edge so it looks like it's glowing and that'll sell the effect there you go hope that helps Jeff all right uh gurgly uh pinion the highlights and shadows and the storm cast eternal's armor also about the shadow and highlight colors and of course overall as a color scheme interesting yeah so I took a look at these guys beforehand I really love it I think this works I think the blue is really successful the red infusions and reflections on the piece is exactly what I was talking about earlier it works for me that sells for me I like it I like the inclusion of the magenta into the blue I like the sort of yellow tone the icis yellow tone you're using for your highlights I think that's selling for me I think these guys are great the only part of this that doesn't quite sell for me is the gold it feels like it needs to be richer and warmer given what you're going for here in the lighting scheme uh like the gold feels a little too cold given the highlight um so I understand you're going for cold shadows but a little bit more of an inclusion of a slight ochre and also popping the highlights on the gold a little higher ironically if we can spin around where is she at no yeah her her shield has the right elements in it like right along here this feels correct on this one and then you're missing it on the top line so this part is what feels right to me basically duplicate whatever you did right here over into the rest of the gold and I think you're absolutely in a great place the only thing I noticed was some of their weapons some of the lights are a little harsh as far as like kind of they need to be smooth but overall I think these are great man the highlights look good it looks like he's under a universal lighting color your secondary reflections are aces this this is fantastic work so really good stuff I dig it okay so continuing on uh all right next up john hybs uh first bust and done a lot on first two first freehand stippling and so other uh yeah so first of all everything I said earlier john still continues to this bust like again when we're doing bust it's it's more of everything so we need a lot more like tonal variation variation of value contrast like you the whole deal like her skin you know a woman's face in this kind of scale I should see a lot more colors a lot more things going on if you're going for war paint which is I suspect what this is it needs to be basically not this because that looks clearly like a paint mark right excuse me and so what we need here is like you you have to like kind of stipple roughly the war paintings have a drier look to it needs to feel like it's sitting on top of the skin with texture especially at a bust scale you would see the texture things like the hair more color in the in the skin more color like a lot of stuff like the feathers wouldn't be rough like this we need to like work on our paint control as far as like making sure the right colors end up in the right places like we've got the brown of the the hair here on the back of the ear you know all that kind of stuff john so my best recommendation to you is you got to do a lot more like we've got to take this a lot lot farther for a bust same with the eyes like eyes eyes on bust mean everything she's got these big huge eyes they're not just circles of color right so we got to go go a lot farther okay rich still new to painting minis this is the first time trying oils and free hand just looking for some overall feedback sure so again same feedback I I'm you're new so the normal feedback is probably going to apply which is more contrast and indeed it does on the hair on the skin on the shield on the metals on the horns just I mean all around we need more contrast of value and on the skin push your contrast of hue as well I like these great the shield and did this cool little nergal free hand thing I think that works I think that's fine if you're going to scratch away at it like it needs to be the free hand needs to be really sharp and defined and have a really sharp clean edge and then you chip into it with the turquoise color again if you're going to do free hand that you wear away it has to be perfect free hand first then you chip away at it after okay so it's a much more complicated thing to do damaged free hand than normal free hand but yeah there you go that's my general thoughts on I hope that helps rich okay next up Carl's critique and commentary on color composition on this old guy yeah I think for the most part it works the one piece that doesn't work is the big yellow banner that's what doesn't fly here because there's just no I mean like I understand you're using some yellow highlights in the green but it really doesn't sell with the rest of the model and all my attention is just like I can only see this yellow banner if this banner had just been in magenta like the rest of him I would be perfectly happy and I'd have no issues if the banner had been like a deep purple or green like the dragon or you know whatever like a neutral tone like you know a deeper ivory or something yep that would all be fine that would all be in balance that's the only compositional note that really jumps out of me so there you go hope that helps okay uh James Hall uh no I don't think we've ever had gaslands uh that's fine uh I don't know what more one and two means well hopefully you do now James if you're watching this one is the highest highlight five is the deepest shadow three is the mid-tone two is the half step between four two and four the half step between so if I say you need more one you mean you need more more of the brightest tone now uh general advice specifically how to make brass and bronze look different um sure I mean in the end they don't need to look that different is honestly the answer I mean one has more of a red tone to it one has more of a uh a brown tone to it but you know with a vehicle like this especially with what it is I would focus on some things like oxidation and you can push like more oxidation of a certain color into one of them so bronze tends to have more black oxidation uh whereas bronze will oxidize uh very quickly into your sort of green type of stuff um so they they're both going to turn the same in the end if you leave them out forever but um you can use elements like that to separate them uh overall it's cool car I don't not much feedback I would generally have for it uh I feel like we would probably push some of the contrast on the body of the car itself but it's a super neat uh you know conversion and grieving of the mini so yeah I dig it okay next up Alberto uh some advice to continue improving in this last work yeah sure so the first thing that jumped out of me Alberto is that your contrast is placed in in parts that aren't serving the overall mini so like this should be the focus but this ultra bright highlight up here on the top of these back robes are doing you a disservice because this draws all the attention up here like you've created a line that's going up here so these should be softened and toned down um and then they should be very bright around here that might not necessarily make sense with the lighting like but it it will draw the attention in here so like a just a glaze of blue over top effectively we get too bright right here I would also focus on smoothing down some of these like I talked about earlier with the blue blue is a tough color to do because it often has a lot of different um it the highlight colors have a lot of opacity and so become difficult and show you know your your layer lines really strongly uh that and I would just create more volumetric highlighting with your magenta purple pink color here it's uh two universally in the same color you have this like ultra high contrast on the blue and then it's much lower on the purple or pink I would also map the whole thing out that's one thing I would say maybe I mean like I know you've got regular metallics um but like the all these colors need to be matted out the pink is way too shiny uh just like general reflections not of your highlights but of the reflection so that would be my feedback for you hope that helps uh Florian uh wanting to sort of do a version of Juan Hidalgo's plague marine uh general feedback on the mini and how you can improve yourself further also what color tone should you use for the larger cloth sections um the kind of color using here's fine a sort of uh desaturated purple tone will generally do serve you just fine as to what we need to do here I guess what it's our old friend more contrast um so please don't play a drinking game with that you'll all be dead by the time we get to the end of the review uh but yeah it's it's just more contrast again deeper brown greens in the shadow tones pushing up some of our highlights more especially around the upper part of the mini tops the shoulder pads the tank on his back the upper part of his chest you know things like that as well as getting out the edges but the most important thing I noticed on this is we don't have enough separation of the elements so we need more hard dark lines separating things like the the gold of the edge of the shoulder pads from the shoulder pad itself the you know the iconography on the shoulders like the elements need to be separated with occlusion shadows right so we need to be making sure that those are nice and deep dark shadows on all of the different separating elements uh that's the that's the number one thing that actually jumped out of me so hope that helps okay next up uh matthew's uh finished this model today took some time uh what would I take from it as a competition uh model so yeah okay so as a competition model we need to the the base is letting you down some like you need more uh interesting stuff going on down there a little bit just especially like with some more painted elements as far as popping contrast and things that but that's minor I like you worked all the green tones in I have like for the most part that's fine but I would but the base is kind of boring is overall I would say like it's fine uh now as to the the element itself again contrast is really going to be key here the various elements of the green don't have the same contrast of as the blue yet they seem to be the same material so like that's going to be a thing that's going to jump out at me when I'm judging very strongly right away same with the big gun he's wielding again there's no contrast along the sides of the gun or stuff like that um the blue has a pretty decent variation uh I don't mind that I feel like we need to clean up the edges like when you're all the edges need to be picked out and clean have small light lines and things like that especially on the tops the upward facing edges specifically is where I'm really talking about those need to be really clean really thin really sharp some of these are a little too chunky so you want to make sure you're going back and cleaning those up uh turning around to to these images I'm not like the yellow I don't know if you were going like what the metallic effect or what you're doing there I honestly don't mind it uh I'm just not sure what it is and that would challenge a judge like a judge needs to be able to identify what I'm looking at I'm not sure what material we're going for there so that might be judged negatively the missile caps are boring we need to do something with those those are just like literally white puff balls it looks like he's going to shoot ping pong balls out of me so we want to do something with those more contrast detail lines freehand something to bring it up and probably by the way that's what I'd say for the miniature itself like overall you can paint really nicely but that doesn't make your entry necessarily win a competition right competition entries have to have something it's not just the trick to competitions is you not just have to paint as good as you can but you also then have to do something really interesting to stand apart so you've got to go it's it's not just like be a really great technical painter and then you win painting competitions you have to also have this element that separates your work right something you're saying you're doing you make the judges stand up and go okay that's interesting right so that could be freehand elements it could be you know compositional things damage something that really gets their attention and that's what's lacking here right there's nothing that super draws me in that makes me think this is this is something that stands apart that could be other freehand elements towels insignia it's just things like that that i'm going to go oh that's cool i need to be able to see it from 10 feet away and it needs to catch my interest i need to look at it from a foot away and it has my attention and then i need to look from an inch away and it surprises me right and that's ultimately the the recipe for a competition and at the one inch test i'm not seeing the stuff here that's really exciting me so there you go okay next up daniel um so just asking so first of all the base is fine yes uh and then so i'll just i'll answer that question straight away i actually don't mind the base all i think it looks rather nice um and then so talking about the varnish okay so get rid of this varnish do not gloss your minis like this i it's fine if you want to protect them this should be matte the problem with having super gloss varnish is that it creates things like this this is a light in a shadow right all these lights are just universal and they don't work with the highlighting pattern you already created when you're doing highlighting you're taking control of the light gloss doesn't care what you did it's going to do whatever it wants okay and it's just going to reflect as i turn the mini around i get lights in shadows and reflections where they shouldn't be and all sorts of weird things bouncing off it does not work okay at this scale because the gloss reflects light as per a one inch mini you're highlighting reflects light as per a eight foot tall tiranid bug those two things do not work at the same time okay so don't do it it doesn't look good it ruins good paint jobs just i cannot hit this harder okay matte this out you can play with occasionally having like satin textures and things there can be value to having satin texture of things there can be value to having gloss in very particular elements um there are ways to use gloss in in painting but they are few and far between so the general rule should just be things look better in matte so that's my honest feedback for you i hope that helps i do really like the red color you achieved here by the way like i think your actual painting you did especially on the skin is aces i dig it i wish it was matt i'd like it a lot more so there's my honest feedback for you okay next up michael uh big lot of rescued stuff um yeah i mean this is tough to give feedback on for a whole army uh because i suspect you're going for you know a big tabletop army you're converting and orcs have just a ton of figs so i kind of scrolled through this and i think you did a good job of resuscitating them they they look overall nice like if your goal here is tabletop quality michael i think you're you're very successful so that's my honest answer cool stuff okay uh alan uh feedback on the dwarf uh where could you improve overall yeah so um this dwarf is interesting uh the the things that jumped out of me um i i like a lot of your color composition i think that's nice one of the biggest things we need to do is first of all these pictures like way overexposed and lighted um like you can tell from when we go to the black and white like look at how much actual just pure white we have there that's just too much direct light on this mini um so we need to diffuse that light more i can tell you've got like two lights because i can see the two shadows maybe put like a paper towel over them or something like that just to kind of weaken them down but things need to work on the gold isn't quite selling for me more yellow tone and more one so more three and one is actually the areas that we need uh more smoothing of the three into the five uh the um and then the beard is very boring and flat it's all just kind of this uniform color if i was going to pick one thing on this mini other than just like smoothing your blends which is and sort of applying your paint cleanly like it feels like we need to get some more water into the paint and apply a couple more layers of things because some of this is rough um adding more gray tones black tones uh things like that into the beard while still having it white and really picking out the lighting of how the beard would reflect light is the number one thing that jumps out of me alan so there you go hope that helps all right next up kis uh raythor the start of an eldar detachment does the free hand suggest a ghostly face and separation of elements um yes it does i actually quite love the free hand i think it looks super cool man that is a great effect and i think you absolutely nailed it now as to the separation of elements i think we need to work a little more on that some of these especially the purple areas are very flat um that's fine i push the contrast on some of them especially these upper shoulder pads like these these leg areas have much more highlighting than the top parts i really love the face dude i think it super works it's creepy as i'll get out and i dig it um but as to like separation of elements we need some more dark lines and stuff like that separating these various elements and if you're not want to if you don't want to go in black line it just some soft subtle shadows glazed in here into the various elements separating it i think we could keep pushing that and that would really help but overall this looks great it's a fantastic start to a to a force i love the colors love the composition love the free hand face effect i think it sells a thousand percent and it's like it's an absolute triumph so well done okay iven uh outside of glazing on some of the non-metallic metal what could be done of these guys to solidify them as a competition entry sure so yeah i mean definitely refinement and that's going to be my overall answer by the way is refinement um like they look good but we're gonna i'm gonna do it through the lens of this guy because this guy will really summarize kind of what i was looking for so let's talk about this guy in terms of if i was a judge in competition so things like the lines that your battle damage doesn't look realistic like it's the white underneath wouldn't be the color of the underside of the scratch it would be a brighter uh highlighted orange yellow um these scratches are too consistent like in their size and then they're they're very oddly placed like they're not telling me an organic story they just feel like these very simple scratches that are happening around they feel like paint the white line need the light line needs to be thinner the scratches need to vary in width they need to have some kind of different thing going on like the claw here on the leg works okay for me some of these scratches on the bottom like that's way too much white that's way too much stuff like that the edge highlights need to be thinner more sharper more refined and that's what i would say like again it's refined refined refined the gun needs to be smooth the edges on this silver on the top need to be sharper and then smooth down uh like we have a fat edges on we have fat edges on a lot of this mini we need to we need to thin those edges up they need to be like a razor blade kiss to the edge right if we're talking about competition uh so that's like it's it's all in refinement Ivan you're doing a nice job here we've got good contrast in the reds now we need to put in the extra hours of work like the you spend the an equal amount of time on competition pieces in the last 10 of your work because it's all refinement like the difference in competition is i'll spend 20 hours on a guy and then i need to spend another 30 hours refining the detail and making sure everything's perfect right that's that's the competition time frame so we got to extend that out and make sure we refine all that stuff there you go hope that helps all right guy a slightly modified hive tyrant the biggest mini you've ever attempted how to continue to improve what you need to work on uh so have we made the large areas interesting the wings more the skin no the skin is very flat very samey i mean you can see it when we go to this image like that's all one color that's it right there's no variation of hue no variation of value it's quite boring so the skin is uh is is what's failing here the blue wings sure i like the light i like the catch on them we get a little more texture and stuff like that to the wings but it's really the skin way more variation of tone and value in the skin is my biggest piece of feedback for you so there you go okay next up uh antonio uh tried to push the contrast and texture more on this mini also have some tips on blending uh tmm sure so i mean blending true metallic metal is tough you've got to kind of you know work it very carefully oftentimes a stippling technique will be the way to go um we do need to refine the blending on here i like the contrast on the wheels but we need to push that up more the big rubber of the wheels themselves don't feel like they have enough contrast on them so that's what i would say like they need texture contrast more than anything where we see scrapes and scratches and highlights on the upper sides of the especially the tread uh on the guy itself um he seems fine uh like he has the most contrast and i i think that's good but his the problem is we've got too much dark and it doesn't smooth into it so like this this line going down the center of him this should not all be five right that needs to smooth out like you you're look at a human being there's not a dark line down the center of their chest right there's there's we have to connect like the upper part of the muscles here and the upper part of the muscles here like it's not just about having this dividing line your your blend on the muscle groupings they still have to connect right it's like the top here the top here so like these should be on the sides of the muscles it should be one of the abs and then maybe like a two three and so your three is acting as your shadow in the middle part of the muscles right whereas on the lower underside of the muscle that's where we get the five right so it's the full volumetric of what's going on hope that helps okay joshua uh paint this banshee as if she had been burnt at the stake white dress and night conditions with a red light from underneath and also showing damage from smoke and flames okay so we tried 62 different things at once like my number one thing is probably didn't need all of that that's number one now okay so that's like this picture is going to work out that's not what's going on here okay like don't try to set your lighting tonight don't try to do this like let's focus on a couple things at a time okay now but if we wanted to go that direction again we're trying to like you are literally trying to do a decathlon when what we need here is to run a good race okay so all right let's let's get into it um so the red light from underneath i don't know what the red light from underneath it she should have an orange yellow light from underneath specifically yellow because it's fire um near fire goes very yellow as it diffuses farther away there's a squaring principle that slowly diffuses it and makes it feel more ochre to orange okay now um so when we if we're talking about fire down here on the base that's lighting her up then i i have a video on doing burnt texture right on doing a burnt texture and what you want to effectively do there is you're stippling in from like an uh the edges need to still be ember so there's going to be sort of a bright yellow into orange embers into a deep red brown black and then into black and char and that needs to take up the most of it right and as far as the dress goes so white at night turns light blue right because it's lit by the moon so that would be your highlight color where it's still white it would be this soft white blue that then transitions into the black of where it's been burnt and if you're going to have an orange light from below then we've got two light sources the diffuse overwhelming light source of the moon and the under shade of intensity and closer but weaker of the fire right because a single fire is not more powerful than the moon but it's more intense and close so it needs to go like soft orange light into the main shadow right the deepest shadow up then into the soft blue and then white where it white blue where it's catching the high highlight it's a really really complicated lighting scheme like you have picked the almost most complicated thing you could pick here whereas it feels like what we need to work on is probably like paint refinement getting things clean like her hair and stuff like that i'm seeing there's a lot of like chunky layers and stuff like that we want to work on smooth brush control things like that right so again walk before you run before you do a decathlon focus on things like keeping the elements separate you're different you know getting your paint applied carefully and cleanly that kind of stuff is what i would really be focusing on getting you know smooth blends and then let's go for like the most complicated lighting structure in history so again not trying to be rude i don't want to be mean it's not the goal i just want to give you the straight story and say like sometimes we're you know we gotta there there are better things you could be doing than trying to sell all that but i i hope i explained how you would sell all that if you were interested if you want to give another try that's fine my fear is you're pushing out of your learning zone and into a zone where it's going to be tougher so uh that's the challenge we always want to be in that learning zone where we're where we're pushing ourselves and challenging ourselves but not putting ourselves in like the fear zone where we where we're not sure how to attack what we're doing at all okay uh adrian uh tried out some more tmm especially with gold uh okay yeah so uh overall cool piece uh the heat feels a little too hot we probably need to wheel that barrel heat back just a little like it needs to there's too much yellow it needs to go into more orange red a little quicker and those transitions need to be a little smoother as to the gold keep pushing the contrast on it that's again our metals still feel pretty flat here so i keep pushing the glazing in of colors into the gold we need to take more control of the light and the reflections that's where i feel like we're missing some opportunity so like right now your matte blue has far more contrast than your metallic gold okay so just as a point of reference i hope that helps okay uh next up all right edwin this is very nice but this is like a novel uh so first ever attempted animal fur and that's where you're looking to receive feedback which i like now i want to start by saying this is a super cool conversion uh so like i super dig this so uh what a what a fantastic conversion of this whole christmas sleigh um okay so i want to get in on the deer here uh nope nope nope need to go back go back to yeah i what i really need if that's if you're mainly looking for a shot of the deer i need a good shot of the deer okay not that i don't find your process of how you convert it interesting because it is but let's talk about it from here so the the answer is no we're not really selling the fur of them because they're still a furred creature you've got sculpted fur of their mane but then we also have fur here we need to respect there needs to be more contrast and more volumetric lighting the best video i've seen on this is honestly done by call to paint um they did it recently and he did one with his wolf i think he kind of created a pretty seminal video on it right there so i would go watch that call to paint video where he's painting a wolf but there needs to be more volumetric highlighting on the muscle structure of the of the reindeer itself with hyper thin lines and scratches of these fur and then on the mane itself right then we need to have the overall volumetric highlighting expressed like right now it isn't we don't have thin lines i don't see the fur i don't see shading i don't see that so like we need to be picking out and really it's just a matter of like very sharp very thin lines being done thousands and thousands of times uh that's where you go with animal fur so um overall we need more of that like that detail to pick all that out and more contrast of value over the whole thing okay next up justin uh 15th ever miniature how do we keep improving toward tabletop sure so um yeah cool cool tier in it um my honest answer is going to be much what you would expect which is continuing to push our contrast and volumetric lighting like the white looks pretty rough because it's just kind of washed and messy like we want to make sure we go in and clean that stuff up push our highlights in the areas where they should be your texturing pattern here is really interesting but again we still need to respect the lighting with it so like not every these things are all at different angles and should have different colors so if we're going to go for this pattern it still needs some kind of universal environmental lighting that disrespecting the overall volumes so what i would work on is continue to push your contrast and how that respects volumetric lighting that's what you want to push toward even basic shading and highlighting can push a long way to make a tabletop element really stand out but cool patterning i think it's a really neat execution of this model so yeah good stuff okay next up uh demos sure why not uh yesterday's work sure uh generally we want to ask for feedback i'm glad you finished this thing how can i help um yeah i mean the answer is not near enough contrast need more separation of elements need a lot more black lines between highlights on it um the eyeglow doesn't work because we don't have the dark line around and the bright needs to be inside this should be softer the edge can have that high hit but then everything else needs to be a softer glow same with here around the central piece you have to have like i if you go watch my glowing eyes video that'll take you through that so just a lot more separation of elements contrast and your the osl glow doesn't really sell because we're not respecting the like one is the brightest point that is the thing that glows two is the glow around it three is an occlusion shadow where the elements separate and then a soft two of a glaze of that color that is dimmer sort of than the original too so there you go uh michael all right first 75 millimeter uh many you completed can i get some feedback on the skin and overall composition uh gift and plan poorly so ran out of time to add texture and things like coats or pants yeah i mean that's definitely the answer like when i looked at this the mini is too flat like overall the mini is too flat everything i've said when you're in busts or 75 mil see all previous comments i've made here more more more you know you're missing the texture but at the same time the skin doesn't have enough tonal variation enough contrast we need to push up that contrast you know this guy's out he's in the sun he's sweating he's on the deck of a ship so he'd have the satin highlights of specular reflections from skin the golden stuff needs to have deeper reflections in it all that kind of stuff so more contrast more elements more texture you you knew what it was before you even came to me so that's my honest feedback for you with the skin i need more elements of tone like blues around the chin reds things like that more yellow into the upper highlights same with the hair it needs to have more of a satin reflection that kind of thing okay uh poncho uh largest model i've ever painted um yeah he's a good tabletop archaeon so i looked at this guy earlier i mean my answer is going to be the same as most of everything i've said for most of this video except with archaeon we can go a little more detailed which is to say more contrast on things like their heads his body the wings the armor itself all that stuff it's just more more more more contrast right just because he's really big and it takes a long time but like that's what we ultimately need like all the black is pretty flat black the skin and the bird is pretty flat you know the birds beak is more or less flat the feathers are more or less flat the white is kind of flat all that kind of stuff so just again pushing our contrast way up and then also having detail things like um you know really working in things like texture and the wings in a strong way and stuff like that i'm pushing the contrast on the slayer of kings so it really stands out and is an interesting piece all those kinds of things poncho is what i'd recommend for you doing big pieces of stuff they take a long time is a very nice looking archaeon i think you did a nice clean job on him he'll look great on the tabletop that's where you want to go if you want to go to the next step okay uh jasper tardy questions basically he was you're aiming for tabletop quality wanted to create a pseudo usl effect for the brightest part of the trogoth is their nose uh does the effect read as intended and how could i improve the effect for larger centipedes trogoths um no it doesn't work because it just looks like it literally looks like he's wearing zinc oxide like he's somebody like he's a lifeguard at the beach because it's too strong of a contrast just suddenly standing there now as to tabletop quality things like more basic contrast and picking out of like these ropes versus the wood versus the stone is something i would do like i know you're trying to stay simple but i mean again this is all just one big mess of basically the same color like that gray does not stand out from that brown in any way nor does it stand out from the wood so just stuff like that if you're if you're trying to get a stood out face then you just want to push your highlights up there don't don't go to this hard white just take the area of the ridges here in the top of his forehead and his mouth and his cheeks and the back of these his jawbone and his nose and really just push and pop those highlights above where you're going and that's it add a little pink tone or red tone or something like that in a couple soft glazes that'll help draw more attention to it because eyes are drawn to red naturally so even if you have just some soft pink glazes and then some high highlights you'll draw the attention to the face okay next up alan thomas uh with his reviews uh yeah absolutely like i alan i love how far you've come it's absolutely fantastic uh what's the one thing i really need to drive directed practice toward here um yeah sure so we're we're doing some really great stuff here alan i've watched this growth this progression over time in your work and it's just it's fantastic i mean i really really love it buddy i've watched it come um with the black armor i mean like just the journey here from that to this is just amazing and i'm absolutely in love with it man now uh the black armor we need to smooth out some of the blending uh and continue pushing some of the volumetric highlighting it's we still don't have quite enough light there and the transition between the gray and the black is still a little rough um on the iron halo we don't quite have enough of the yellow tone like you do in the shield i think the shield is more successful we still need to smooth the blend up between the white and other things it's always the hardest part i hate it but here we are uh but other than that i think that's what i would kind of focus on this is looking really really good so i think you're doing absolutely fantastic alan i hope see some stuff in the various uh types of reviews next year from you i love to see this journey and i've been very happy to go on it with you buddy okay uh arian here's the third model so far forward to the review sure um it's it's contrast so i i'm not sure what's going on here with this element of it like that looks still primed i guess i'm trying to like i'm trying to see what i don't know if the work is finished is my question like what are we is this not a finished picture probably not maybe that is yeah it's for finished models orland so my answer though is going to be more contrast refine the elements smooth things out panel lining a lot of the things i've already said here right so um you can probably draw advice from all that stuff uh with your third miniature your real goal is just working on getting your paint applied clean and thin and like paint cleanliness is the number one thing like here's a spot where you didn't get the red here's about where we got the gold onto here just stuff like that's what you want to be refining i wouldn't worry too much about feedback on your third miniature like just keep working on getting paint applied and you can go from there okay gabriel uh struggling with skin lately any advice on what i'm doing wrong is appreciated uh it's because we don't have enough contrast like that's it's that's just it we need to we need to soften the like the face has a lot of different light areas again really look at my face compared to his face right look at the different lights the tones the reds the blues all these different areas of contrast right that are happening like look at my face look at me now so you know i mean like that's what what's going on here we're not popping up enough ones we don't have enough three fours and fives we don't have enough hue like we just need more variation of tone and value in the skin simple answer i like that's a lot of thing what i've talked about go back and look at that uh corn or not corn sorry that untamed beast model from earlier that's the best example i've seen this month that's exactly what i'm talking about okay uh i'm not even going to try on that name uh last project for the year osl from blue light to yellow gold i mean you just have to kind of cast it it should be a sharp reflection with white light with just a soft blue next to it but generally you don't want to like blue light on a true metallics is always really tough the number one thing i noticed here is a lot of these lights are happening in a really chunky way they your your osl effect isn't really selling because it's too chunky and too strong and what i mean by that is we'll flip around to this picture this is going to be the easiest way to say to say it so this is this blue light from his eye and you're meant to be casting all of this the trick is that's way too intense way too intense this thing is a spotlight right and like again the rules of like cast glow is they need to be weaker than the source of the light here these are just as intense and bright as the source if not brighter softer like you can gather around edges with us with a very thin edge highlight maybe on a corner or something but then the rest should be the soft blue transition of a glaze and just so light because blue wouldn't show up really well on red anyways like it's not a highly reflective color to the blue spectrum so it's just it's showing way too strongly so we need to wheel that back and just the infusion of blue in this light tone passed over it in a soft glaze that would be my biggest recommendation for you there okay next up ryan easterling uh feedback on the blend from the skin to the rocky parts and if the bases need more work um i think you could do a little bit more work on the bases just by kind of popping up some more highlights like even just a directional dry brush where you draw some light toward the front or something or scatter some red pigment around or green pigment around those kinds of things would do some work i mean again and those are all just like i'm trying to keep you in like the five second task area um how does the transition between the skin tone and the and the the rockiness work yeah fine i've got no issue with it i i looked at these guys earlier i think it's good going for a tabletop kind of trauma thing i think you're fine uh the skin i think works great really nice color contrast i think it's fine so at a tabletop level i think you're in the right place i mean again if you're gonna try to push beyond that then the rule of more contrast comes in and kicks in here more contrast of value okay uh submission for this month uh try to paint as neat and clean as possible uh hey sang uh boy is this a hyper clean guy you aren't kidding um like look at the precision um so i understand you're not going you're going for a more heavy metal like evenly thing with mostly speaking an edge highlight here because i know what you're kind of aiming at so that's how i'll give you feedback i still think we could do with some soft glazing and color control around some of these large flats um it feels like the the deep blue color is still just a little too uniform even like on the heavy metal boxes they'll you know when they're in there when they're sort of in their groove they still do some soft shading and so i think just a little bit of soft contrast especially on things like the gun the blacks and the blue the deeper blue color would really work a long way here the green cells for me love it nice bright light nice dark ring around it glowing eye a plus i i dig it okay next up austin several new techniques techniques feedback and what you're done true metallic volumetric highlighting overall color composition sure uh overall color composition works great love it no issues at all now uh volumetric highlighting need to keep pushing this is the image i wanted to go to we need to keep pushing um it's good it's like you're you're getting somewhere really solid we just need to keep pushing especially where the overall volume so like a lot of these top areas especially around her claws her horns the head these masks on top the tops of her breasts and like things like that those need to be popped up a little higher and then we need to bring the lighting and so the deeper shading especially here on like the areas of where the the you know her leg is sort of totally turned away from the light you can see even when i turn my hand look at how deep that shadow becomes right here right and like i'm this is not an overtly lit room right like notice that difference how the shadow still gathers at the top but look how instantly that really falls into like really deep shadow i'm five degrees off of center there right that's all you have to go to get those really deep shadows so that's the kind of thing i would say but yeah looks a great looking piece keep pushing but yeah really cool work i really like the color choice composition is honestly really great i think you're you're like the orange and magenta and purples and then the blue pop i think that really works i dig that a lot okay leon first time posting uh so uh is this a black legion or a guy in blue armor yeah sure so yeah this is black legion man i think this overall works like i think you're probably going for a high tabletop standard here and because you've got the just kind of the way i'm reading it and i think it overall works um you know if i were going to keep pushing it i would tell you to push up the the to keep pushing the contrast on the armor a little farther and smooth it out just a little more but honestly i think you've done a great job here uh the skin honestly could use a little more contrast and don't forget to put your light line around the edge of the gun or again like i mentioned earlier around the edge of the plasma cartridge uh cast onto here but this is great work i like your i like the way you've captured the lights here doesn't read as blue at all completely reads as black remember it's 50 percent rule that 50 percent of your surface is black the surface is black okay so there you go all right next up uh benjamin uh tried to work on light composition while trying too much not spend too much time but still reach a display quality well those two things don't go together you spend all the time that's display or competition means that time is no longer a factor only the end result matters but i get what you're saying um overall this guy's good really love the face the expression you did draw a lot of attention here which i like um i think the nice highlights around the red work i would like to see a little more detail picked out down here all of the front of the bike kind of falls into a little bit of sameness um whereas this area here really works for me like the rust pigmenting uh we could work a little more pink tones into some parts of the face especially around the lips and the nose but uh overall this guy's really great man i think you did a really nice job here i like your highlighting i like the uh burn on the gun careful with his line whatever this situation is right here on the gun that kind of looks a little weird and chunky but overall nice and then on the skull i would pop up just a couple little more areas on the skull to make it stand out but that's part of the overall like the front of this thing is a little boring um it just needs like a few few areas popped out just a little maybe a little more contrast not so it's competing with this but just so it's still got some visual interest to it uh love the broken road love the base this is a great piece ben i think you really did a fantastic job here so yeah really really enjoyed this one okay next up john uh thanks for all you do feedback on this october model reserve composition and color choices yeah they're fine i mean i don't want to give you a too simple of an answer but i think they're fine it's kind of an old model and it's a little weird and the you know things like the textures are strange and that uses that old green stuff modeled for which just looks terrible um but yeah i mean color composition wise yeah you're fine he's a christmas orc you've got red and green but you added enough shadows and stuff like that to the the red it's fine i there's not honestly a lot of colors on this guy um there's red yellow and green which is generally fine so yeah no issues compositions fine okay ryan johnson uh so uh basically um uh overall critique and advice is welcome sure um i like the axe uh i think the white armor is nice so you need to soften your transition into your shadow color so again between the four and five we need to soften that color down make sure it's a nice smooth transition in there and uh and make sure that works and then as far as you you mentioned the uh what did we mention the freehand on the suds here that works for me i have no issue with that and the snow looks good nice you have a nice mix of chunk and powder which is really good i think the axe is my favorite part i feel like some of the the other steel metals could have a little more um defined contrast and light on them that keeps them up with the the axe to keep pace but uh yeah same with the gold needs a little more pop a little more shadow a little more inclusion of like umber tone sepia tone stuff like that maybe a chestnut color those kinds of things but overall cool model i dig it all right jim norfolk uh 12 mini and first bust project so i've already commented a lot on busts and jim the same thing is going to apply here um this feels painted very much like we would 28 mil now i like the pink tones yet in the cheeks i want to talk about things i like that you did which is i like the pink tones here in the cheek um and in the neck i think that's really good but overall we need to go a lot farther we need to go 200 farther more on the skin more details more more details around the eyes more uh color and stuff around the base the cheek this line up here in her head needs to be more deeply shadowed the light and transition down here needs to be stronger the hair needs more individual stranding like we're there you're you're getting along okay like you're pushing yourself and i like it keep going okay i keep working in that texture of the skin that color to the skin push that that uh contrast of hue farther okay and really show me some of the detail here like on the edges of the skin on her neck those should have like some higher highlights the around the edges where it's kind of torn open right and the uh the eyes need a little more variation in what's going on inside them because they're so big like i should be able to see some of the the detail of what's going on with the eyes the hair itself needs a little more panting pro v kind of controlled color here or whatever you know where the the highlights are a little more directed but i like the tones overall you really nailed blonde hair which i like i see a lot of people go way too yellow this is a great execution on blonde hair so i think you did very well there i do want to call that out and i like the soft tones just keep going but you're on a good road for your 12th mini overall you're i mean this is absolutely great just keep pushing all right next up nick uh first attempt at painting entirely with oils uh so just looking for feedback overall color choices skin and the non-metallic metal yeah so i'll be honest with you it's it's kind of boring overall so just number one thing um fill your gaps like these gaps are egregious um so like please make sure those are better put together because i mean that is just like on his foot i mean those are those stand out a lot it it just it's that's not great i would add a color for the mohawk i understand you're going kind of off this monotone thing but it just looks like it's not painted that's my honest answer if you want to stay in this scheme then we need to draw a lot of thin white lines up in that hair and have it go to white and flyaways and stuff like that at the top the non-metallic i think is okay it needs more like you have all your colors but we really need to smooth it out and take better control of light we'll use this area here's just an example there should be a broader highlight here because that's upward facing these are reflected lights they should be smoother and there should be more two like we're really missing a lot of two in this whole composition as far as the light goes we're really jumping like from one we have minimal three and then we go right to four or five uh so that's kind of what jumped out of me as to the skin again more variation of hue and value this is really what's going to show it off i don't have any red tones brown tones sepia tones purple tones magenta tones all the things we should have to make skin feel alive and a little more realistic so that's the kind of stuff i'd want to see there okay james looking for general feedback on this thoughts and the effect the direction with the wraith bone and the soul stone um yeah man i think this looks great i think the wraith bone looks incredible i think the soul stones look really good honestly i think this is a fantastic piece i'm not sure i have a huge amount of feedback for you on this is my honest answer like i kind of zipped around the sky earlier uh i like how the blue light underneath is or the turquoise light i should say is like really strong since that's deeply in shadow volumetrically it seems strong i think this is an absolute fantastic piece i love what you did with the soul stones i mean i think this thing rocks man i don't have much feedback to give you i think for what you're trying to execute and what your goals were here i think it's a plus uh if you want some minor note your uh canopy what should be made of glass needs a light catch up top here on the top of the shadow parts much like you have with the gems like you've captured a light catch with your gems but we don't have any light catch in the glass it's the same concept as to how light's hitting in the dark part and then filtering through a translucent substance to come out at the bottom but we don't have the light catch in the glass minor note looks great though man and that is really good okay jeff uh basically painting at your maximum level of ability plateaued i'm very interested in feedback on what would help me improve yeah so overall what i've noticed here is what we need to so we we need to work on sort of smoothing things out a little bit especially working with all your colors understanding some of the moon looks kind of rough things like that we do need to still push the contrast like the red of the mushroom doesn't have contrast these red don't have the wood needs more texture so like here's the jeff i'm going to tell you the two things i want you to really work on okay one tonal variation variation of hue the goblin needs a little more contrast what he really needs is color there's no pink in his nose in his ears in his lips that kind of thing like working other hues in okay and then texture things like the wood the mushroom having texture that identifies the element as what it is like the wood looks very flat the metal looks very flat all these things look flat so you want to work in that texture those would be the two things i would challenge you at with deliberate practice to keep pushing yourself so there you go with that that brings us to the end of the last pmp full review do check the new event and if you're working on a project that will fit feel free to submit uh to that new event is up each event will have the rules of what type of model you're allowed to enter don't forget if you're going if you enter something that's not on that list i will just delete it out of the event that's what's going to happen don't be surprised i warned you in advance uh but there you go hope that all helps thank you to everybody who submitted 2020 has been a rough year it's so been so amazing to see all these incredible creations all the beautiful work all this has done is we've pulled together as a community and create and continue to create incredible art and i want to thank everybody who submitted over this year and i'm looking forward to a 2021 where i get to see uh so many awesome pieces and give so much great feedback so thank you all and we'll see you next year