 Hello everybody and welcome to another end of month PMP review. Why what is the end of month PMP review? Well, that's when we get together And we look at our Facebook group the painters motivating painters Facebook group And we look at the March in this case March end of month review submissions We and we offer some feedback tailored to what the hobbyist has asked for so What is this basically it's pretty simple every month in the PMP we open up a new event review submissions for that month and we invite all of our hobbyists and artists and everybody who's in here to go head and submit one miniature if they'd like a completed project and Request specific items for feedback. So that's one thing. I'll say first no more than one per month second Do be specific when you're asking for feedback You know, I don't mind it if it's sort of general type of thing if you say like I'm looking for general improvement I don't it's always better when I can be directed But general improvements also is okay, of course And I'm gonna go through all of these submissions and offer my best feedback I can a lot of people included black and white photos. That's continuing to happen, which I love. Please keep doing that It's amazing It really helps show the contrast when I whenever I speak about contrast. It's very helpful Oftentimes, I will use shorthand. I'll direct you to a reference video. You can find that link down below In that reference video, you'll see where I go into deep dives on things like increasing contrast non-metallic shading on bone a whole a whole bunch of different stuff and The reason that I have that link to that video is because one I don't really want to repeat myself 8,000 times and two because there's a lot of submissions and I would like to get this done in some reasonable amount of time. I like doing this. It's a lot of fun But of course, I only have so much free time in the day So with that being said If you want to join us link is down below go ahead and click that you do have to answer all of the questions For us to let you in the group if you answer two of the questions, but don't answer the third You don't get approved. It's that easy. You must answer all of the questions. So With that out of the way Let's go ahead and get into this month and we begin with with Lele who's given us the The first Avenger captain ultramar and is looking for some Very basically areas to improve mentioned. It was the first shot at freehand So I looked over the miniature and I think the freehand is excellent. It's very well done very well captured very sharp I like that. I like the shield the most I think where you have opportunities to improve is in popping up the highlights and smoothing out the blends and cleaning And like sharpening your edge highlights. It's that's would really be simple So like we look here at the blends on the red that's kind of rough and we still have some gloss when you're using reds Make sure you matte them out. You don't want to be creating this, you know, sort of incorrect shine Down here where some of this is shiny and it shouldn't be I don't mean here I mean like here on the side, you see how I can see shine down in the shadow part That's gloss. That's what you don't want see this shine coming right here Where you have what's supposed to be a shadow is no longer a shadow That is a straight killer Like whenever you if you've looked at something and it just didn't feel right or it felt somehow plastic It's because there's light in the shadows. That's why you want to stay matte So the other thing I noticed is things like your edge highlights or are still pretty fat So we want to come back in with the mid-tone blue and sharpen that out Those would be my biggest pieces of advice that jumped out of me You know, it's same here with the leather thin down those lines It's just a lot of thinner sharpers look into flow improver adding an inks stuff like that and you'll see some better results Okay, next up we've got Rafael who has some questions about basically like zombie skin And wanting to do that so I would recommend Rafael that you go back and look at my how to do dead and pale flesh video because that's really going to sum up in much greater detail everything I want to talk about here and In effect. Yes, the skin is just too white. It's too monotone You have some soft purple down here But it doesn't comport enough to the volumes that we want to capture like there's too much of just again So the shorthand I'll use during this is one is your highest highlight two three four five is your deepest shadow Okay, we have way too much one like all of this is one one one One there's just there's no transition, right? We just go straight basically into five with very little movement in between So what you want to do is increase your tonal variation there, right? More purples greens are also a great addition can be a great transition color into the deep purple So you start with a white gray you go through a green gray or a green and then and then especially a brown green into the deep purple And that's how you can transition something that looks a lot more like zombie flesh Do go check out that video and I think it'll find you'll you'll find that to be very helpful So there you go. Hope that helps, but cool stuff All right next up Craig brings us his first project We return to the hobby just general feedback on our big old great unclean one our big gross boy He looks really nice general feedback one don't use cork unfinished on your base. It never it looks like cork It doesn't look like rocks It looks like you stuck four pieces of cork on the base with then and stuck some tuffs to it Wash your tuffs put stuff over, you know the like I talk a lot about basing Don't just use basic cork if you're gonna put down tuffs. You have to put down other material paint your tuffs like force wash into the tuffs stuff like that, right? And you know drive us the tuffs make them feel part of it use other texture on top of it All that kind of stuff now on to the great unclean one himself. He's nice I think he needs Again a little more variation. I like some of the reds you're using especially around the wounds and purples I think that looks good. I'd love to see the Volumes of his actual flesh pushed a little more He's kind of flat in his color, especially around this area and here like his face is roughly the same color as here as His pecs as the top of his belly as his arm like everything's all kind of very uniform So stretching that out pop the highlights up on the face a little more deepen the color around especially like the lips We want to draw attention up here to the face We can do that also with the horns by drawing in some thin more ivory colored lines Right down toward the base of the horn and then creating a nice deep shadow here on the where the flesh folds over on itself By creating more instances of cold to light or sorry of light to dark excuse me up top and Brightening this area of his head and deepening a shadow of his lips adding a little more poppy red here Poppy red draws the eye. That's why the the mouth belly is so Grabbed your attention if we had a similar poppy red up here Even in some parts of his mouth or something it would help draw the attention back up and that's really where I see the biggest challenge right now So yeah, that's my thought may also want to think about integrating some actual rust elements like orange and brown into the steel It looks nice. It looks worn and weathered. We could go a little farther add in some brown some oranges things like that So you go Craig. Hope that helps Okay, next up Callum just looking for feedback on color choices and Better look on the metal chain mail around the groin. Sure So, I mean, it's obviously very unusual to give go track a bright turquoise beard My basic answer to you is it's fine Like I have no issue with that But we don't have any other instance of that color anywhere on the mini and it's really intense and really strong I would desaturate it a little more pull down more into the shadows and and Desaturated by adding highlights as well So like more of the individual hairs need to be picked out in his Mohawk more down here deeper shadow up near the Or or either way you go highlight near the top or a deeper shadow here And then deeper shadows lining in between the beard I would also look at where else I could integrate the turquoise like say it could be the The magical trinket he's holding in his hand up here could could Could have some turquoise in it, right? We could hide some turquoise elements around in the base There could be a couple little turquoise things down there. They don't even have to be as bright When it comes to the belt, I mean, I think we just need to be a little cleaner there It looks really like we filled in the detail there, and I'm not sure how that happened But we want to make sure those like I've painted this guy So he has a lot of little individual segments We want to make sure those are nice and individually picked out cleanly, right? And I think that's probably what I would recommend overall is just you know a little more finish Across the whole thing like some of the blends are still fairly rough I see a lot of like texture in places stuff like that So you want to kind of smooth some of that out with some glazing things of that nature Compositions, I don't have a problem with the the big change to the green hair I think that can work fine You just want to make sure that you balance a bright color like that out around the figure So hope that helps Callum Okay, next up we've got Jared who's looking been paying for about seven months Work is rough. We want to take his models to the next level. Sure So my biggest advice for you here in looking through these photos Is we need to like I would direct you toward my how to shade true metallic metal video Most of this guy is true metallic metal that and it looks like we're using our washes really Sloppily like to be honest like I can see that I can see all the tide marks and signs of just you know applying washes pretty heavily Right, so we want to make sure we're really moving the brush around not letting any of that wash settle While they're still available for the next month and a half Go watch any of Darren Latham's videos and watch him apply washes in his videos Like if you watch how he painted his silver skulls That's a great example of how to properly use a wash The key is you want to hit the wash on your brush and then keep your brush moving like this at all times You don't just slop it on and go you always are keeping your brush moving You're spreading it out. You're getting in all the all the details. You're getting rid of any excess And you're making sure there's a thin layer. So that's number one number two Watch the shading true metallic like non-metallic metal videos because we need to control more of the light here a lot of this guy is gold and metal and I need to see you know more directed shadows through glazes of like the gloss washes and shades or inks Or something like that you can mix those with the the the metallic paint whatever you do And and take more control of those reflections that video will go into a lot deeper dive on it I would also warn you about being careful about using something like green in a composition like this Like it is the compliment you've used the complimentary color to red in a singular instance So the only thing you see on this miniature if you relax your eyes is that green lantern. That's it um You know, so if you're if you're again if you're going to use a color like that balance it Maybe his sword has a green glow. Maybe there's something green down on the base Maybe his eyes have a green glow. Maybe the comets have a green glow like I mean you could you know do whatever you like Whatever whatever makes sense to you And then finally I'd say just that your my advice would be work on your brush control your smoothness of application There are some spots I noticed in here where the paint wasn't quite as clean as it could be and how you want to apply it So do make sure that you're you know going back and doing that appropriate cleanup step Especially around things like the the wings and where you've got silver touching gold You want to have nice dark lines separating all of those and things like that so But overall really cool take uh, I dig him. I mean I like the the red and and sort of uh, white sort of candy cane color storm cast I think that's cool. I think that's a good take. I haven't seen that before Okay, uh, so Jason ho brings us a squad of obliterators And what he's specifically wondering is how he can make the lava effect more interesting Uh, so my basic advice is to well first go watch like the most recent lava video that I do It's a lot bigger lava on a base, but it'll still cover the the principles So one it shouldn't just be a thin line like this like lava should travel more It should it varies like it's a very hungry thing because it's chewing up and melting the earth around it So it should have some kind of variance in its in its flow pattern Uh, two is it needs to have more much more variance to where it's hot So like the sides here should be a deeper colder whole red Maybe you've got orange and then you've got a hot spot here that comes into up into yellow And then a tiny bit of like yellow white right here for the hottest burn And then back into an orange and deep red and then another close burn right here In other words places where the lava is like cresting and bursting through and is becoming It's super hottest form where it hasn't cooled at all By switching that out it'll feel a lot more It'll feel a lot more real and organic and like it's casting light out in the world And then similarly make your dry brushing on your rock match that so first of all I would take this dry brushing down into a more whole red color and only put like the orange glow Nearest to those spots that have that super bright highlight You also want to probably wheel it back a little bit And have more darker spots interspersed in because you can't strike a match without creating a shadow So like opposing all of these lights should be really deep dark black All those things will make it kind of feel a little more realistic. So Hope that helps Okay, uh Silas, uh asking what area should he focus on to push from tabletop standard to display So, I mean, okay, let's unpack this and he said I have the feeling the answer is going to be more contrast and tonal variation Ding ding Number one rule of these reviews if even you know it then you're right and that's exactly it like first of all We want to make sure we mat out everything Um, secondly, like the skin is very flat. I need more color more variation in that more tones CPS reds purples the whole deal more volume definition amongst the muscles Uh, when it comes to the pants and the jacket something like texture Showing in there like is that a jean jacket or some kind of material Then show me some hashing some stippling some something that captures the texture of that, right? And when you go to the black and white you really see The the the issue right like this is all gray Right, like we don't have any variation here beyond the light that's being cast There's a little bit here on this kind of edge So yes, just a lot more tonal variation in all these things the boots need You know need a lot more going on like texture and stuff like that When it comes to the base again, we just had some gray and we stuck a tough to it I need to go a lot farther than that, right? Like there's not much gray rock like that in the world because there is rain and dirt and things like that So I need colors and you know, show me some reds of some rust some browns of some dirt Some greens of some moss if you're going to stick a tuft in there Don't stick it right in front of the guy put it behind don't put don't block your own miniature and uh like just compositionally that's bad and to What is this yellow straw popping up out of an otherwise completely dead concrete? Right, so like again adding these tones and then washing the tough dry brushing the tough make it part of it I also would trim the tough like it shouldn't be that big That's a very big plant to be bursting out of you know, just a little bit of concrete It's kind of oversized like think about what you would be doing if you this would be like you walking down a concrete sidewalk And encountering a plant that comes up to your knee out of the middle of the sidewalk right It wouldn't you like it's just you wouldn't see it it would get knocked down It would get trampled over it wouldn't grow to that height Especially with nothing else around right no other nature around which is what you've portrayed for me in this in this scene so uh A lot more tonal variation throughout additions of texture and kick that base up a notch for me and will be in a good place So but overall you've got good brush control your your applications clean I would also again recommend make sure you matte these things out Like you want control of the light and I see a lot of glossiness a lot of satin shine to this You don't want that in a finished project Some ak interactive ultra matte varnish will will help you there all right next up apollo Doing uh shrike and he said this is his ninth mini overall in his first attempt at the non-metallic metal So just like kind of what's that look like and overall? I think this is a really good job apollo like I think you're you're on to a good place here The non-metallic metal around the shoulder and stuff like that looks good. I like that the best I don't love the pop lights here on his legs. Those are a little stark Like those should be smoothed down Just slightly Uh like they're well, maybe a little more than slightly. They should probably use an interference color in there Like add a little more of that blue in there since you have a blue tone to your metal But it looks the the silver around here around the edges. I really like that the gun looks nice The backpack I think is where hold on I want to save this one. Let's go. Yeah, that's fine The backpack is where I see some opportunities for improvement We don't quite have the reflection there on the silver flippy flaps that he's got Again, each of these little spots should be capturing reflection. There should be a bright line here This should go up to a higher one Probably a little bit back here. That's where like the shoulder is the shoulder line looks Correct to me. This is the right amount of travel we've done here. The edges are well defined That's good here. I don't see the same thing Now when we come to the back and we have the orange Um, I like the orange in here the reflection needs to be softened a little You've you've encountered the classic challenge of osl where your reflections are basically the same intensity as your Light source a light doesn't cast an equal power light Like the the wall that the light is shining on is not as bright as the light bulb Right, so these glows need to be softer and a little bit smoother in their transition Like here is where it's the most noticeable to me because it just it you have like this orange and then it just dies It's a hard line osl doesn't work like that right like it doesn't It doesn't cast a light and then stop It it fades very slowly So like what you would want to do is there be no blue here, right other than maybe the deepest shadow This whole thing would get warmly lit So on the front and on a lot of the armor you're lighting it with cold light The back of this should be lit warmly because the the light source that's creating the reflective light effects is warm It's the it's his jets, right So like and it would be overwhelming the rest of these lights. There'd be no blue light here and stuff like that, right? Uh, so that's kind of the thing that jumps out at me. So there you go, apollo But I mean you're kicking butt for just starting out. So keep up the good work Okay, ben Working on his first bust and wondering if there's an obvious area that could be seen for improvement And then he had used verdaccio as the underpainting. I mean, yeah, so the answer is yes a lot more tonal variation like a lot Um When you're working on a bust you need to go until you think you're done Then you need to do that entire amount of work over again And then once you once you've pushed it to that level and you swear you can't do any more You need to do half as much again Okay, so like let me make this real for you The eyes have no color in them around them, right? Like I need more detail the top of the eye should have a shadow the bottom of the eye should have a red Touch the center part here should have more purple and red Like look at my eyes and the the shadows and stuff like that the coloration that's here The red the purple the veins these kinds of things they get captured, right? The bridge of the nose here should have color in it Right where this comes in under these lines the reinforcing that shadow up under here the lips more well defined You should be able to see cracks and lines in there because your lips have a lot of texture to them and reflect Uh under the cheeks. You want to see more rosiness into this area, right? I'm assuming you're just going for a sort of standard Caucasian tone and not like You know trying to do something else ears the same thing like I don't have any color here in the ears Where there's deep shadows There's lots of purples and reds and stuff like that in ears pushing the light into a particular color spectrum to set Where he is like the top of his head should be yellow if he's bald because he shaves his head and there's still hair there Then blue tones on the side or wherever there would be shaved hair, right? So there's just lots of opportunities to keep pushing right better definition of the volumes and a lot more infusion of tonal variation That's where I would recommend you go So, um Yeah, I mean, it's it's a great start. You got a nice You got a nice start here. These are good flesh tones You want to carry it off farther and my best advice is just look at people like just look at people's faces Look at art of you know people who've done portrait and and and busts in in classic art Right that kind of thing and and there you see if you really see don't just look but see You know stare at something like that for 10 minutes and you'll get a ton of inspiration for colors You can infuse into that Okay, uh next up Aaron Perkins, uh, I did the big old, uh, sort of five-headed dragon Tiamat like dragon and just looking for you know feedback on the on the base Did he feel it well enough? I'm gonna say no This guy's really big but not a lot of him touches the base And I do think we've got opportunities for improvement here on the base My best advice would be show me some more stuff in that sand. I think the rocks and the desert sand I think that all looks good and I understand that deserts generally fairly empty But you don't put emptiness in your thing So you don't need it like if you don't need the empty space you don't show it right in a diorama It has to be doing something So in this case, I would have skeleton skulls bones something that this like if this is where this dragon is Sort of staying or defending show me some dead bodies that he's killed Show me some treasure that he's taken like piles of treasure piled up You know gold that's spilled out into the sand or whatever like, you know something We could we could do a million different things scattered around there It looks like you're going for sort of a Sahara ish desert So it's not like there's going to be a lot of trees But you can still have a little scrub life and things like that there can still be little plants Little insects little things like that. So there's all sorts of opportunities I would shrink down that space though like with with a thing like this I would that square plinth I would have made it circular because those corners are doing nothing for you. They're just literally dead space Right shrink that down maybe a couple bodies here or there where they're like skeletons where it's Where the dragon has consumed somebody and I think that would be a much more compelling scene Because then the dragon's part of the nature that it's living on right It's you're telling an actual story as opposed to just the dragon happens to be sitting on some ruins in the desert So there you go All right, adrian looking for feedback on osl and paint job as a whole sure So and and you had mentioned you're trying to work toward competition level So, I mean one thing I'll say is that the osl isn't really working for me here There's not first of all as the flame in general. I need a lot more like orange And it's reflecting in some very strange ways like I don't Feel the the reflection here really Because again as I said like if this is lit if this is some bright light source that we really want to be osl Then it should be casting some kind of light that's reflecting over here on this side Right like these things should be showing this this bright gold and this bright silver This is reflective metal you're putting near a fire source It should have a glaze of some kind of orange everywhere with the highest light point the one that's catching that tone Right and it's really not so it's not much in the way of osl beyond like a little bit on the on the sword Where you've worked in some of the yellow and again This wouldn't give off yellowish light as much as it would cast like a soft orange glow right because fire Especially like active if you've sat there a campfire and it's dark It's orange light not yellow light Um at the same time his shadows on the other side like he's not in shadowed on the other side There's no reason that light would be catching I would actually much recommend to to work on like your sort of paint cleanliness This job looks quite rough still and i'm not sure what's causing that like a lot of the there's there seems to be a lot of like unintentional texture Especially on like the metal So i'm not sure if it's just like the metal paints that are getting used or what it is But it's tough for me to pin down from the pictures like it feels like there's a lot of texture here In this metal and i'm not sure if that's just a bad metal paint or if there's something else going on So uh my recommendation would be take a look at that. Are you using a primer? Get some vallejo metal color for your metal Uh, i'm not sure overall what could be behind that. Um I noticed this little like hash mark on the sword with the teeth If you're going to put something over true metal, you've got to make sure it's opaque paint Like i'm not sure what this is meant to be but they're not even triangles They're not opaque so like if it's meant to be A marking on a sword then it needs to be completely matte and opaque and show that it's like a paint over top If the metal paint showing through it doesn't It doesn't ring correct So paint cleanliness and control um, I wouldn't worry about osl really at this stage Focus on those kind of elements and smoothing that out Getting the job sharp and clean each of your areas well defined Dark lines between them and I think that's your best step you can do Then you then move to stuff like osl is where you're creating those volumes off of a different light source That would be my best advice So overall he looks good like I really like the blue I'd love to see you post something again next month adrian and I want to see it in like something with more Of the matte paint supplied because I think the metal paint you're using might be letting this guy down So show me something else that's just using the standard matte paints because what I like your blues and stuff You have here because what I can see of it looks really nice like the tabard and the the blue armor So I think you've got a good handle on that stuff I just I can't judge it too well from this and that might be the paint letting you down nothing to do with you Okay, so uh tom brings us uh this girl and some issues in non-metallic gold Yep, I mean tom I'll refer you back to the the source video and yes, I mean we just don't have gold here, right? We have yellow We don't go deep enough into shadow We don't have the individual elements well enough to find and we don't go high enough up into bright spots, right? Like let's just take the helmet as an easy example So one whenever you're doing light sources, we need to control the light right and make sure that we're Using a continual light source. So you've told me from this helmet that the light is reflecting from this direction, right? Meaning this part should be the highest highlight on there This should be the deepest shadow and this should fall into a secondary light again Each one of these little individual things should have a white edge on it where it's caught the light and reflected it Each of this crown should have a light where it goes into white There should be light white light here here and here where this caught reflected Here here and here on the edge of her cup here and down here On the sides of these glints right on her belt on her chain The the highest highlight should be here and then all of the normal highlighting you're doing should be tilted towards that as well Right like the light needs to be a complete and coherent story So like this side of her face should be the most highlighted and here and this side of her Pants and and you know the the the light here on her breast armor should be Lit here on this side and here on this side, right to match with this light source that we've set Like these highlights down here on the cloak This should be very much more in shadowed and we should have a brighter light here and much more of this should be lit Not these edges like there's no reason this edge is lit as opposed to this whole volume up here And this is more in shadow given the light source But so go back and watch the the non-metallic Either either obviously a couple videos I have on doing non-metallics or In the source video that's linked below. We need more Variation right we need to go farther on our value contrast up into one and down into five into darker shadows Okay, uh, sebastian, uh looking for this is this is the osl month by the way everything's it's osl Athon so every month it varies some months we get non-metallic some months we get osl I should just call this like general advice on non-metallic and osl because that So often is what it is Which I don't I don't begrudge anybody that they're they're two very challenging techniques So, uh at any rate the questions are here mainly, uh, You know about the the osl on the object, right? Uh, okay, so here's my ultimate feedback on this one much of the same. I've said so far I don't know what the red spots are. I don't get that. I don't understand why we just have random red spots here Is this just like splattered paint? I don't get what's going on there But moving aside from that there's too much white and not enough orange here and again The reflections are basically the same color as the uh as the the thing casting the light This and this are the same light Right, that's a problem like this needs to be a soft orange glow and then I need deeper shadows on the top The other thing a close-up to a light source will do is create like really deep shadows Right like look at how in shadow the bottom of my hand is because I have a really bright light on top Right notice all the creases and the wrinkles on my hand how deep the shadows get in there looking between my thumb right All of these rings around his Uh around his boots would have really deep dark shadows separating them Right, so what I would say is this needs to get knocked down into general orange This needs to get smoothed out more into like Uh, you could have some bright points of like a white yellow light. That's fine breaking through lava It needs to be extremely minimal and then quickly go out through yellow and into like a broad orange And then into a whole red if those are really your colors of of lava So that would be my recommendation for you and then as well if if that is his light if that's the primary light here Which uh is seems to be the story you're telling then the opposite sides of those would be very shadowed If you wanted to get super fancy Obviously you you'd have the lightsaber lit and this would be up here would be blue As well as this and then it'd be lit by the lava Compositionally and then I would literally just go look at the movie and see what they did and try your best to look at that for inspiration Okay, uh, so, uh, Hans is up bringing us the scaven arch warlock. Uh quick job for his son scaven army Uh looking for general feedback basic stuff contrast color It's a rough job. So sure. I mean, obviously, yes, you're right. You you should need to smooth it more So I'll just talk about color and composition Because I mean, I think you know the the answer to your question as far as getting that going One do matte things down said that as far as color goes and composition. Yeah, I think it's fine I don't think there's much issue with that um So setting aside sort of the roughness and the of that kind of thing my biggest advice would be um To make sure that with a quick job like this you well define the individual segments So again having like dark lines Separating everything is is a is a way to make even a rough paint job look a lot cleaner and more impactful when everything is really clearly separated Um, so like the in between the armor plates having nice dark lines I think the green and blue work fine Like you're you've got you effectively have a color triad here of orange green and blue Which is fine. That is an effective color triad Uh, the orange by the way is your copper copper's true color is orange Your steel's true color is blue. So that's just more blue Um, so, you know, that's a that's a perfectly valid split complementary color scheme And so I think you know composition wise. Yeah, that's fine Uh, the the little rocks and and warpstone pieces look good Uh, yeah, no issue for for a quick speed paint I think you're in the right area if you were obviously wanting to go farther You know add some more control and smoothness to everything Pop some of your highlights and and really I think shadows is the more thing you would you would take away from this But overall it's good, especially for a a quicker piece of work Okay, uh, next up marshal ross Uh, try it a little enomatallic black super bummed, uh, and just left broad highlights Uh, so I mean my basic feedback for you here is yes Your next step is to continue to push your tonal variation things are flat here. So Whether it's the hair or the skin his gray pauldron shoulder pad here By the way, I don't you mentioned like the space force backwards. I assure you that is not a thing. I would ever notice um The or or care about even the slightest, uh My my biggest challenge for you is yeah, we need you need to work on your blending and your contrast So again reference the source video down below It's it's your biggest challenge. You have lots of opportunities for it here in the orange In the skulls that are on him in the baby blue of his space wolf armor pad In the black and stuff like that. It's everything's still very flat So your definite next step on your journey is going to be working on blends and how to get that How to how to bring that that light in there I have lots of videos on blending. I would recommend you go back and watch achieving smooth blends I teach classes on it. It's on that same video If you watch that it'll hopefully set you on the right path and you can you can start getting some more Activity there. So but overall cool dude. I like him good stuff Okay, uh, so uh, Marco brings us a little bit of a diorama looking for feedback on the composition the various elements and uh And you know talking about that so Marco you said yourself in there, uh, you know Like you were scared to go for the highlights and add the contrast I mean, you knew that was a problem again Listen to your own brain One of the great secrets of painting is to just listen to your own brain when your mind tells you something doesn't look right And you think like wait does that not look right the answer is yes It doesn't look right like listen to what your brain is telling you right is the best advice I can give you So, um, and and that's when I look at her. That's the biggest challenge. She's very flat Right, like this is all red. This is just yellow. This is just black. This is just blue Right, like we need to way pop the tonal variation on her like in every way as well as clean up when you're doing this Like careful of using yellow and black next to each other. It has a bumblebee effect And it's you know, not really what I recommend We also have a few too many colors on her like she's kind of riotous We don't need that many colors like we can we can and that will go away by the way if you actually have um If you have more shades and contrast Because you will naturally desaturate your colors and so it'll be less just like here's a straight pop of red And here is a you know Here's a straight pop of green and here's a straight magenta and purple right So if we if we take those all down a notch like that It'll it'll really help with that uh with that work So that's what I would uh what I'd recommend definitely the contrast there now as to the composition of the scene Yeah, it's fine. It's a good layout. You could probably shrink the building just a little bit It doesn't need to be quite as large as it is Uh, so let's go back to the total scene, but this is a traditional composition That is to say figure left like this is a you can uh if you go look at the um Uh Several articles they get written about the different styles of composition You'll see that you're you're adhering to a pretty classic one here with the left side of the frame having it And then that like strong to one side light element on another with the mirror written on there I think that actually works pretty well Um, so yeah, there's nothing wrong with that composition. It's fine as far as general layout Your next step is definitely again contrast pushing that tonal variation up Okay, uh poncho just has some uh all his war bands he finished in march. There's a lot of them here Uh too many for me to give feedback on I'll I'll scroll through You didn't ask for any targeted feedback, but I'll scroll through them because they're they're really nice I think you did a good job. Uh, so it's awesome to see all of these beautiful completed war bands. This is great work Uh, if you've got questions about any of the future wins you do, you know Feel free to drop them in here and ask some some targeted questions But uh, really cool work poncho like I dig them man. You're you're you are super ready to go for underworlds I think you've got some fantastic looking war bands to hit the table Okay, uh, Dave brings us the ultramarine rhino razorback and he was he said he was trying to go for sort of like the deliberate kind of box art Style right and his two questions were how could he improve highlighting like a tron movie in the cartoony look or how could he approach painting it differently So, uh, he said feel free to criticize this piece as harshly as you see fit. Yeah, sure. So, um Like it is very much just the standard like gw Everything kind of in a mono color with the edge highlight style And I don't think there's anything wrong with that if if this is what you were going for Then your biggest challenge is just to thin down your edge highlights. That's it Right, like some of your edge highlights here and here in this kind of area are still very thick And then make sure your tracks have more depth to them So these need to be like more heavily washed and stuff like that your your, uh This thing on the front whatever this thing is called I don't remember but the thing that scrapes people out of the way more You know heavily like controlled with darker shades in there and this should have edge highlights as well that kind of thing So if that was the style you wanted to go with there you go like it's you just take that to the next level Um, same by the way with your scratches and stuff like you only you have a few scratches in here here and there So that's fine. Minimal is good. Uh, when you use this kind of stuff though Make sure you do keep the line underneath very thin like those need to be razor thin and some of your underlines are quite thick Now other things you could have done Sure. I mean a hundred other ways you can do vehicles There's all sorts of different methods of panel modulation and despite memes you'll see on the internet None of them are necessarily incorrect. You can do Uh center panel modulation you can do sort of traditional kind of zenithal where it goes to one edge or the other And all those are fine So you could bring like dark shadows up to the top of the panel and then highlight it more toward the bottom And have have the light carry through in those regards. I don't think there'd be anything wrong with that at all Um, you could uh You could have like much deeper contrast heavier weathering and do some streaking You know weathering and streaking is the other place you could go from a job like this So you can take a simple job This is this is a classic scale model thing, right where you often kind of go for a let's call it a more Straightforward paint job and then you use a lot of weathering and streaking and stuff like that So those are all tools available to you. Um, I think any of that's fine And I would recommend to experiment with some of those because I think ultimately it's going to look a lot more interesting Than this style like we're we're wandering into personal taste I think if this is your goal you've executed on it fine thin down your edge highlights go back with the blue and clean them up and and Jobs are good, right? If this is what you're aiming for If you want to try and experiment with those styles, which I think look much more visually compelling because contrast is king Then yeah, like go watch my panel modulation video and my weathering videos and streaking and stuff like that And like I have lots of videos on all that go watch those and and give those a shot Um, but I would say, you know, don't You you want to sort of pick one or the other for if you're going to do an army of it Okay, but I think it looks good. You you executed on what you wanted All right. Herog brings us uh first time as post on the monthly review Uh, and he's just kind of looking for general feedback Uh, so my general feedback for you here is largely again on Uh blending and purposeful texturing So like this is a good shot to sort of explore what I mean What we have here is a lot of edge highlighting and stuff like that all around the edges of things That's fine. If we're going to do that, uh, what I would recommend you toward is more of like a texture look So rather than just hitting the edges of these scales drag me down some sharp thin lines to actually create like scale texture That's what you generally want to see on something like that if you're not going to do that then Thin those lines down like make sure the edges are really sharp um, but we have a lot of space where it's very flat right like the The head piece here is like brown until it's cream and then it's black until it's you know green and so on and so forth Right, it's this dark color until it's the lighter color at the very edge I would also encourage you to look explore more tonal variation in the red around the monster what I mean by that is like This area here should be a deeper shadow than this on the top of his shoulder Like this part is directly exposed to light. This part is directly in shadow Right like the top of my arm is a very different color than the bottom of my arm and I'm wearing a red shirt Right like look at how pronounced that shadow is that same thing should be happening here Right, so the yellow that's underneath him should have a deeper Hue than the color that's up here, right? We should be going down into either a colder yellow or a brown or a rust color or something like that So that's what I would push on For this particular piece overall. I think it's nice. It's a good composition of colors I don't have anything wrong I like the the inclusion of like the very off Desaturated green with the red I think is a good choice that makes it very minimal You don't get the Christmas effect out of this because you're using that Like an incubi darkness or something like that. So I think that's that's a well-chosen color and I think it's That looks nice So there you go Okay Next up Kyle As usual tips and critiques Sure, like I read over your your process earlier Um, I mean, yeah, I think Kyle my my biggest feedback for you here would be much the same as what I've said so we've got a lot of opportunity here to to Work more controlled lighting into this So like because you're of the method you described where you're using a lot of contrast evenly We just have this flat color kind of everywhere like it's it's Deeper is always a single color up to light Right and what we want to do is take a little more control of it and add a little more color So like her skin is very singularly colored, right? Like I we have some glazes in there We need to go farther, especially in shadows Like where are the lights? Where are the shadows on her face under her arm down here? You know between her legs up under her torso like adding more variation there The skin is probably though is the area that we need the least work Like where I really see the opportunities and stuff like the hair the the hair is largely just Black with gray dry brushed over it, right? And what we want to do is create a light line like go back and look at that shrike That we saw earlier and you see how we had the light line like go Google a pantene hair color bottle and see how they create the halos of light That's the kind of thing we would expect to see right that kind of control Same with the gold and the light here. So we want to move away from this like Everything is shadowed where it's deep and then equally highlighted all the way around it, right? We want to move more to like a volume highlighting that kind of thing. So that would be my strong recommendation for you there, Kyle Okay Next up Farron brings us The slaughter priest he's looking for feedback on the flesh tone and metallics So, yeah, I mean my basic feedback on the metallics is you're going the right direction I see you trying to work the true metallic and a non-metallic style. That's good. Keep pushing Like the metallics still look really chunky So I I would ask what metallics you're using like if you're using gw metallics I would highly encourage you to stop using them and go get something like vallejo metal color If it's your primer that's giving you a chonkiness Then that's harder to deal with but like it makes it tougher to get a smooth look over it, right? It just looks naturally rough like you can see the texture in this Um, we don't want texture on smooth metal. We want texture when we want rust and stuff like that Like iron wouldn't have this visible texture at this scale, right? These would be that would be really massive bumps If we blew this guy up to you know, six and a half beats all Um, the flesh tone again much of what I've said before applies here. You've you've included a lot of reds That's good We need to do a better job of defining the volumes on this guy So really I need more five. We don't go into the deep enough shadows To really set the muscle structure apart Uh, no part of this guy gets in shadowed enough like to control the muscles I don't need it to go to black, but I need some subtle purples and stuff like that in there Really defining the individual Muscles on this dude, right? I would also uh say the same thing like when we have elements like this Make sure you've got nice dark separation between them and that's clean Like I can see some metal paint got where it shouldn't be there So just my answer is keep pushing you're you're doing a lot of the right things here Farron Like you've worked in a lot of red tones. You've got some nice high highlights We could probably push some of the highlights, especially up in the face a little more We want those to be, you know bright Okay, uh, I would also be careful how much satin is on him But keep pushing those shadows you need a lot more heavy four and five in the sky And then with the metals just keep working mixing the inks in and smoothing them out a little more And I think that'll that'll help you out there like you you go a little bit from like too dark to too much Not with the dark and that's just something that takes practice of mixing your inks in with your your regular metals And if you kind of keep working that and pushing that and kind of figuring out how you can You can push those around and glaze those and bring those together You'll get a nice smooth effect. So there you go. Hope that helps Okay, uh, matt brings us this uh, green glowing, uh, fellow, uh, and he mentions Uh, reanimator was the inspiration RIP steward gordon gone, but not forgotten great, uh, great director Uh, just a lot left us just recently sadly Uh, so I think this is is good. I like the green glow. I think it's working pretty well Uh, I think this shot, let me see if we can find the shot. I liked that really kind of capture it Yeah, this is fine. We'll use this one. Um, what I would say is probably you want to look at again Where I think you have opportunity is in deepening some of your shadows more than it is creating some of your light So obviously we've got the green glow coming up from below I think the inner part of its cloak here is a little too strong compared to the rock Like if the light if it's below this guy I would also be careful with a rock that overhangs the base like this Like he'd probably be better just on like a regular base with Or maybe a smaller rock and then like an area of green glowing Goop or something that was clearly creating a source the source being completely off screen as it were Makes it a little tougher to read But this is probably a little too intense The edge up here should all be catching in some fair amount of like a little bit of this softer green Because you have it coming up here and lighting like the top of his hat and things like that So that's fine If it's going to make its way all the way up here, which I have no problem with Then it needs to also be hitting the edge of this cape all the way up Um, so for the most part I would actually work on creating again Like I said before deeper shadows to contrast it when you do osl a lot of people think of that as just casting the light It's not what osl is Osl is setting the color tone. It's just light. It's just light. It's just a very bright light Like if you stop thinking about osl like being the color you're trying to cast out on your miniature and just think of it Like it is a very bright and close light. So the brighter you get to a light Right The more it creates deep shadows Light side dark side, right strong deep shadows in the folds in my skin. That's what I mean, right? So around his belt and his buckles and things like that those should be really deep shadows around the sides of his waist Things like that cast into deeper shadow So really cool and absolute a plus for the reanimator reference. So well done Okay Darius bringing us the beautiful war kitty Feedback on the directional lighting tried to make her face a warm light looking for general feedback This was originally going to be a golden demon piece. So looking at from that perspective. Sure So thinking about it, I'll evaluate it as best I can from the point of view of a golden demon piece Just as a side note, the base is very boring. You should try to do some more with that See all the things I said previously bases don't matter as much for golden demon So I doubt you'd really get dinged on that but it is pretty boring as a base So just watch that with just having mud now as to directional lighting. Sure It's captured on the face actually quite well. I really like the face and the fur I think you did a nice job there Where we have a lot of opportunity here still is in the feet and the metal and This white fur So The and the horns this is directional lighting. Okay, cool. I'll buy that this side of the face is lit. Well captured. Well got it Okay, great. Why are the horns so monochromatic? Right like if the light is coming here then these horns like add a texture add something to those horns Where they have an actual texture that's getting caught in the light and is deeper in shadowed here Right. This side should be higher light I think the hair here captures it. Well, but like ostensibly what should happen is this should be well lit This should be in shadow. This should be in shadow here got caught the light good Tongue lit and then this part right here should be fairly well lit, right? And this should actually be traveling into shadow Same with the the white fur like back here on the tail This feels not at all done to the same level as the rest of the piece And like things like that they'll notice in golden demon like everything everything everything has to be done to The highest of levels everything every piece every inch every millimeter of it has to be taken to the highest level, right? So like more of the controlled sort of deep blue shading you have here needs to be here more of the individual lines of the fur picked out Um, the gold it looks kind of flat So again, I would look at working some some color and shadow and more variation to that again capturing the directional lighting And then finally on the feet we've got kind of this satin glossy shine to the feet That should be killed out and we want to take some more control of the feet again with the light clear darkness between the toenails and The feet themselves make sure those two elements are well separated And then show me the actual texture and striation or something like that of the toes Okay, so that would be my feedback for you evaluating it from like thinking You know at a high level display piece like something that was going to go in golden demon. So hope that helps Okay, next up john gallant taking on james waffles shaded base coat method Just looking for general feedback on the composition and feel the piece. So more osl I think it's a good take on it. So I have one like overall. I like the way you captured the green The ball is definitely the brightest part. So well done there The weapons look really nice like especially this weapon here. I think you captured really good now as to the sort of technique you you see it in This shot. This is perfect. Okay. This is what I want Okay, so same thing applies if you're going to do this. I need more shadow, right again like very very Overwhelmingly bright light casts deeper shadows. So this area around here should be in deeper shadow under his leg things like that But also when we're doing green glow like this, it needs to be smoother So if you watch how james builds up his lights, he always has these very smooth transitions where the the The light he starts with just like the whatever the tone is barely infused with that orange and then it builds up to that bright light, right? So same thing here like we drop from green to not green in the space of a An instant right and light doesn't act like that Light goes, you know, is a slow fade. So like these far away spaces should be Really light really soft just subtle infusions of green that fade to nothing and then into the normal colors And into shadow in fact on the opposite side Um, so composition. I feel like you're in it. You're in a good place We just we want to like smooth in that composition out. So it's a question of refinement more than anything. So But overall very cool. John. I dig it. We got a couple vermin lords this month. I'm excited about that Okay, andy, uh, this is a model. He was going to enter in resin beast So andy, I'm going to hold off on this reviewing this Uh, I I would like to give you feedback Here's what I'll offer to you andy because I don't know the status of resin beast and like here's the thing if I give you feedback Uh, then you're that you can't enter this ever and like there will be a resin beast next year But like if I give you feedback as one of the judges Then this piece is off the table forever. So here's what I would ask of you andy if you can put in the comments Uh, what you're You know that you're okay with that and that you won't enter this in resin beast Um, just hit me up in the comments and then I'll write you an email like I'm happy to do that I'm happy to give you the feedback if you're okay with that But I don't want to ruin this if you're like if you're going to keep asking for feedback And then and then enter it next year or something because it'll be back Um, you know the we will return with with conventions next year for sure Um, and you know, I don't want to stop you from entering something depending on that This is a big dragon and a big piece of work. So, um So comment down below and then I'm happy to email you. Okay, just and I'll if you say, yep This is never going to get entered. It's I'm done. I'll do something else for next year. Cool I'll give you feedback just like I would have as a judge. Okay Okay, uh, ryan king first submission planning a company of marines Uh, pushing, uh, he's pushing yourself to try first like, you know, a better painted army tabletop plus plus. Okay so, uh Yep feedback on the test piece. All right, if that's what we're aiming on If that's the level we're aiming for then one, I need things to be a lot cleaner. So More separation of the individual elements like this doesn't have any dark line in it This doesn't have any dark lines hard to separating it here underneath the knee pad Here in the the arm element stuff like that, right? Like you need very clear here on the backpack Like you need very clear dark lines separating all of this and a lot of these just don't go dark enough Right like they're they're a soft brown at best push that darker more contrast Uh Next up into just the contrast itself I know this particular thing you're going for is a more muted palette than say like imperial fists But you still want to have it be like there's just not enough contrast here. They're very flat yellow I would also look at separating out some more of the elements like separate the belt color to be different stuff like that, right? Um the The but there's just largely not enough like movement to shadow on the plates So if you go watch the imperial fist yellow video that I did that'll give you ideas of where you can set shadows and and up that contrast Again, I'm not asking you to copy that scheme because I know it's slightly different than what you're aiming for But it'll still give you the idea about where to set the color on the plates The final thing I'll mention like you can really see it here like this is all one color There's no contrast in this yellow right Um, so that's like the the black and white tells the whole story As it always does Uh, the final thing I'll say is if you're going to do this checkerboard pattern, you have to clean it up It looks really rough right now Um, and like you're doing a formal very distinct regular pattern Human brains are really well trained to pick out inconsistencies like that So make sure you go back in with your white paint your black paint and get those lines really smooth and the box is really even It takes a lot of time So, um But that's what you got to do if you want to paint a pattern like that. Okay I would also recommend just some more tonal variation on things like the gun I mean the gun's very flat again. So look at some kind of light transition going up and down that So there you go. Hope that helps Ryan Okay, Dan Lewis, uh first submission of the pmp and a first aos model in many years uh, so what he was looking for here is uh, just kind of general feedback and You know how to continue improving for his next project. Sure So the biggest thing I see is two things jump out at me You say the armor has more contrast in real life. I'll trust you but I'll tell you right now in this picture I don't feel it um If you look at like Darren's from the master class, it goes it has more contrast in it So I would continue pushing on the green. That's what I would say I I assume you follow it along with with Darren there and where it was kind of doing some of that work Say a second thing more contrast on the horns Those are still kind of flat go and look at like the the way he increased the striations and the brightness there To draw the attention inward. We need to go higher Um, lastly is the the wood paneling Uh, like this this wood stock here Um, I need more like stripes and striations. It's very flat wood But you can paint those in again thin lines of ivory and stuff like that to create that variation Both he does that and travarian does that as well in his take on this miniature So you could watch kind of either of their videos for sort of uh feedback on that. Okay And those are the three areas that really jump out at me Dan So hopefully that helps and uh, you can you can work on that kind of stuff and you know Just continue to pushing those contrasts. I think the skin looks great You did a great job there of capturing what? Uh, you know the the skin and the variation. I think that looks really nice. That's well executed Okay, uh, Daniel first post for the pmp here for critical feedback Uh, it was his project. He was using glazes comments on overall composition and general feedback and on the execution So it's good. I think some of the glazes are working. Um, my recommendation would be keep going So I need more tonal variation in things like the shadows You know like here his skin is still very monochromatic like I love the red in the nose I love the red in the ears and in the this part of his arm and stuff like that That looks really nice. So I think that's good. Um, we need to go farther, right? So push that skin more Give me some deeper shadows here, you know and bring me up to a higher highlight here that kind of thing Um when it comes to things like the texture again on his back Give me some more interesting shadows here or stuff like that, right when it comes to the mushrooms Um, you know, maybe some more patterns or stuff like that on there. I think would go really far Again, when you go to the black and white it tells the whole story, right? Like that's just one color basically of white And and so we want to see more more contrast in that in that flesh where we can see the light And that kind of thing right if I if I were to suddenly be in black and white Here you would see like a really bright light up here where it's reflecting and and where my eyebrows are and my nose And then you would see really deep shadows here and around here and stuff like that under my chin That's the kind of stuff you want to push to capture So I hope that helps but he looks great. So I love that you're exploring this. Uh, continue keep going. Uh, Keep pushing it Okay, uh next up phil kassie bringing us another, uh, another sphere ranks Uh, and don't ever feel embarrassed to share your work. So there's something you said in here phil that I really want to push back on hard There is no Nobody is at the end of their hobby journey So please do always share and and and get feedback the way we all grow together is by taking our next steps Okay, so don't ever feel bad. Some people are it might be more farther along on their hobby journey Some people might not be as far as you and that's always going to be true for every artist everywhere in the world period So never feel bad. Okay All right, so my basic advice here is Again much is what I've said, especially in the white fur. I just need to see variation So let's go look at the real cat because I think that's helpful Um, here's the the real kitty cat, right? So here's the real kitty cat under bright light Notice how much shadows are captured in him here and here See his pinky little ears, which you captured nicely there his pinky little nose. That's good But notice how much shadows get captured even in this very snowy white cat and he is he is very cute Uh, we don't have any of that here. This guy's a lot bigger And so like here on the muscle structure bringing some soft grays and some, you know, blue grays into that Would is very much what would happen there in that kind of highlighting, right? So bring those kind of soft shadows in and then give me some more individual texture on that by bringing in more Soft grays into some of the shapes and defining those volumes You can then come back with thin white lines Go watch my painting white hair video and you'll see how I build it up and it'll be You could use the exact same technique I use on like a sister of battle's head On this cat and it would it would make it look like reflective shiny white fur Uh, but overall I think that's that would be my main piece of feedback for you for now And what I would challenge you to work on same thing by the way with the horns You know, they feel very monochromatic. So, uh, you know some more control of them some more transition Where like maybe they're darker here to frame the head and they go to a light color You know more texture more control rather than just Bonewashed with sepia, right? We want it. We want to take better control of that go in clean that kind of stuff up Okay Next up alexander Recent commission he did for a client. Uh, and basically he's saying, you know, uh You know, what can he do to take it up to the next level? Uh, constructive criticism is welcome. So basically my answer is, uh, we need to sort of again It's the photos a little overshadowed but Uh overexposed but we need to clean up the individual elements. I'll give you some examples the This is poorly defined here between the gray of his hand and the red of this the lines in between the red The highlights that are on the red the individual elements of the the stuff coming out of here like brighter edges And sharper definition of the individual elements That would be my main thing like these really need to be well defined elements. You can see it in the arrows Right. We need darker lines separating the individual arrows and the sheaths and the feathers stuff like that The other thing I noticed is that we run into the traditional challenge of of gray here where we have extremely stark Lines in between the in between the the highlight colors So I would highly say, you know work on smoothing those blending those together coming back with those glazes And really bringing those two colors together You don't want the and then and then having another highlight color on top, by the way You kind of have two colors there like black and then gray, right? So you want to be taking that up to a sort of higher level You want to both control the higher volume and smooth the blend out Again, something like my achieving smooth lens video might help But that would ultimately be my recommendation final thought is with blood Uh, like I know they wanted a bloody base, but that's not really how blood works So go and check out my blood spatter video here This kind of just looks like red frosting got all over everything because it's too bright red like blood isn't that color Even fresh blood blood oxidizes in a couple minutes and turns deeper darker colors Um when it soaks into things and staying things it becomes really dark. So, uh, You know, you can always google blood stains. That's a fun way to get on a watch list somehow, but Uh, but you'll see that like blood doesn't have this super bright pattern Even if it's on like a white wall, it almost doesn't look that reflectively Ferrari red like you've got it here, right? So that would be my kind of final thought go back and check out the blood splatter video I did and that'll really probably help Okay, all right, but very cool stuff. I hope to see some more from you in the future Okay, so let's keep going All right, so next up, uh, kes brings us a second airbrush project, uh, and basically there's sort of two questions here edge highlights on panels Very thin, but how do you decide on the thickness and two blue sl on true metallic? So first of all, I think the edge highlights here are correct. I think they should be pretty thin I don't think like how do you decide how thick they should be? They should generally be very thin is sort of the answer Uh, I don't think you've got a problem with them here. I think they're probably fine Now if we go to the shot that shows us the the blue glow Yeah, I mean it's hard because you have a very bright blue, right? So what you want to do is take that blue down and make it a little darker use a soft ink And apply some gentle glazes of it over the top. That's really how you get that that effect to be a little bit softer Um, overall, I don't think this is bad. I think it's fine, especially for sort of the big piece of terrain like this Um, but yes, you want it to be a really soft, uh Thin glaze that just barely shows the the blue reflecting over there And if you use a slightly deeper color of ink and let the natural highlight from the gold shine through You'll actually see a better result. So there you go. Hope that helps Okay Next up Caleb iron warriors warlord Uh, just looking for general feedback on how I can improve on how you can improve or get better. So my biggest, uh, recommendation for you here Caleb would be on mainly just paint paint cleanliness So there's lots of areas where we don't have the elements well separated like here in between his cape And these elements like you can see some of this is up on here and stuff like that. So we want it to be Uh, you want to make sure your elements are really well separated And then of course, you know, again same with the gold between the skulls You want a nice dark line between all that again having real Strong separation of the various elements will go a long way Toward defining things better And then the other piece is just something that I've said a lot which is you know increasing the tonal variation Especially the value contrast on the piece Things like the gloves are a very single flat color. The robe is a very single flat color The skull is a very single flat color right all this kind of stuff. So just continuing to push that up I think is your your main mission there. So hope that helps Okay jc Uh, this is a duel. Uh, and the idea was to play with osl Uh, sure Well, first of all your choice on Larissa there is is interesting seems familiar to me somehow So it looks nice Uh, and then we've got against the uh, the o-grade here. So let's dig into the individual pictures First of all, I like the lava effect. This captures a lot of what I'm talking about with the orange glow I think for the most part, it's well implemented looking at the o-grade There are some places where I feel like we can do go a little farther So like why is his beard which is which would theoretically be quite satin and oily not catching any of the orange light Like that feels like a missed opportunity there Um, same with probably the edge of his hoof because it's very bright white and it's pushing right up against the edge It feels like there should be a little bit of orange up here Kind of on this this area here. I mean getting all these things exactly correct is always tough, right? Um on the blades where you've got the reflections going my recommendation would be you were following I assume probably the the tutorial that I did on the on the blade Um, make sure those are a little smoother into how you're capturing out some of the blends are a little rough So I would just focus on that part of it as much as anything and then Directionally, I think on her it feels a little better But again, we've still got some missing parts like the knee isn't reflecting Light that I would expect it to be reflecting Um up under here on the side of the the rubber bit that kind of thing Like there's just a couple points where I feel like we'd want to push that Uh a little farther on those reflections Um, the one thing that didn't quite make sense to me was this orange here right in the center of his torso I'm not sure why this is so Brightly highlighted like I don't get this being all orange Is it meant to be like an orange gem glowing on him or something? I I didn't get what was going on here. So maybe you can tell me in the comments That was the part that really kind of stuck out to me The uh as like I didn't get this big splotch of orange right here It feels like this should be directly lit the same way where there's kind of like some sides and then deeper shadows which you Which you captured well here on the cloak where this side is capturing the light very nicely on the edges and is is Good, you know, uh, you can't cast a light without creating a shadow So everything I've said about osl is very well executed here Where I like the the nice deep shadows I would smooth this shadow out a little bit our lines on the shadow are a little bit stark Um, I understand that like you're trying to capture the fold shadow That's cool. You can have it be there. I'd still smooth it a little more You don't want even a strong shadow doesn't have quite that hard of a line Right. So just like I get what you're going for just I would I would soften that edge just a little bit But overall, this is a really cool duel. I dig it. Um, I love that she's saying bring it on to him And it looks like he's marching right up to her. So uh, very cool stuff Okay Next up mark, uh The cliched first attempt at non-metallic metal pretty sure the feedback will be more tonal variation You got it. Again, listen to your own brain, right? If your brain is telling you something you are correct In all respects, right? So and again like on the marine himself We need the darker lines separating everything what we're really lacking on the marine is any four and five This guy is all one two three. There's no deep shadows on him whatsoever Right. So we really need to work shadows into this guy to make that stuff pop Like when you look at this image, this gives this gives the game way right here, right? Like it's just Yep, that's all gray, right? Got a slight amount here on the legs, but that's about it All right, and it's just like so much of this is just a very flat color Um, I think the execution on the shoulder here on this stripe looks nice drill out your gun barrel He thought I was going to miss it. I was not always drill your gun barrels And uh and and keep pushing up the contrast on those metals We you know make sure the edges are nice and sharp Like here this part is well executed on this part of the barrel I like this light line here and here and under here But why don't I have a similar light line on the edge of the barrel here? And then on the you know, if you drill out the edge, why not there, right? So just those kinds of elements making sure those all have the same light catches and pops So but yes, you were correct mark. You guessed it It is in fact more tonal variations specifically you need more shadow more fours and fives Okay, uh, Daniel again first try at OSL. What do you think you can improve and then the scenery? So sure, uh, although we'll do the scenery first because that one's pretty easy Scenery is good. Looks great. Looks like a nice natural forest base Looks fantastic. Um, I would have a little more browns and stuff on this rock This rock sitting in the midst of a bunch of mud and green grass would not be this starkly gray But other than that looks great big it now as to the green Same thing I've said many times if you're going to cast a glow then somewhere there's a shadow So these uh, like the edges of these let's flip our, uh, Where's the image there we go this one? I'm showing okay The edges of these should be much darker in between the wraps and the the light edge So there should be dark lines in between the wraps and the light edge should be catching some of this green His hand is pointing towards these wraps if it's casting a glow The very edges of these should be capturing and reflecting some very soft subtle green All the way down to probably like his forearm to like here, right? Um So that's kind of my my feedback for you there on those two elements. Um I think the hand execution looks nice. I like how the bright spot's right in the center I would again still say push some deeper shadows around Where his hand is creased if you know if something's glowing Right here. I have no way to to represent that but if something's glowing right here Any crease in his hand is going to be really well shadowed Right, so make sure you drop a little more shade into there that'll make the bright parts seem brighter Okay, uh next up timothy, uh wanted some advice on doing some osl with a brush Yes, I do have videos on osl So I would for everybody I do recommend you go back and watch the osl video that I did I cover all of this in agonizing detail So I would very much recommend you go back and watch that now as to osl on this guy, uh Honestly, I don't see it. I'm not sure what's glowing nothing's glowing right now at the moment Is my honest answer to you like if you're going to have some glow off kind of it's assumingly coming off the fires And I really don't see it like it's not maybe the image isn't capturing it But like if if we're going to do osl on this guy then these the top of his head would be capturing orange glow from here Or this this area of the fur would be well lit from the from the light here And this area of his skull would be very deeply in shadow because it's at the It's at the convex point of these two lights, right? So this would be very dark in here And this part of his of his vest would be more brightly lit and this part on this side would be very deeply shadowed, right? So everything i've said before I also see opportunities here where we can define the elements more strongly Like the gloves and stuff like that. So, you know standard speech about tonal variation applying there. Okay But yeah, so I would say go back and watch the osl video and that'll probably explain more what i'm talking about Okay, uh jeffrey bryant, uh So says, you know, basically sort of two things he's breaking down here, which is uh, the yellow not having enough tonal variation You are correct. It does not And then the and the steel made him realize that yeah, I mean Agree completely as to the color and composition like I don't really have a problem with the brown stripes I'm not sure what's going on with them. I don't know why like they need to be cleaned up I'm fine with the brown stripes. They just need to be clean and sharp because they don't look like They don't look like clear painted on Decorations at this point. Um, so that would be sort of one thought that immediately springs to my mind Yes, the yellow needs to come down a lot So and and have a lot more pops to it and and be more volumetric in how that shading is happening So for example, this area of yellow should ostensibly be the brightest and this should have very bright highlights here and here And have a lot of white worked in especially on these like sharp edges And then down here between his legs and on the under curvature of this these armor plates We should have more into a rust color or if you want a cold shadow into like a An integration of like a blue black right for a shadow, uh yellow things like that, right? Um, the other thing I noticed is you'll what when you're doing the non-metallic on the steel Do you make you want to sort of smooth some of that some of those blends looked a little bit? Rough so you want to go for that? Um, and then when you're, uh The scratches and stuff again, same thing I said earlier like make sure your White underline is a little more white yellow and very very thin So I mean your initial instinct Jeff was correct. I don't have a problem with the green thing on his shoulder It's pretty minimal honestly Um, and if it's the actual symbol for the house. I think that's fine I think you may want to like scratch that up a little bit So it's kind of there, you know, maybe go with a slightly dimmer green So it's not quite so nuclear But all in all it's pretty minimal and there are other bright spots on the sky like the sword and things things like that All in all the execution on the non-metallic steel and the sword those look really good I'm like I said, we can smooth some of the blending, but that's just refinement and cleanup. That's no big deal Um, I think that execution is really strong. I think you're right that the yellow is the weakest part And yeah, it's just it needs to be brought down some so, yeah Okay Michael basically working on his titan here for adeptus titanicus and looking for feedback on the base so Cool. Yeah, not a problem. I think this is a great base. I love the tree I love how it sets the scale him stepping in the water. It's wonderful I only have one like this is a really really wonderful little scene you did for this guy. I dig it Um, my only feedback for you on this base is one thing Which is the big tree should be painted more same with these fallen pieces of of flock here So like this this sort of clump foliage needs more paint and color and variation to it Uh, just take like a deep dark ink You know like a dark green ink mix it with some black or some brown Start shoving it in the shadow parts of it and then just dry brush the top of it with a little more like a Yellow green or something like that boom jobs are good and you're done You've got it painted and it has a lot more variation But overall, this is a really cool dude. Love the color scheme looks really nice. Yeah, take it And the the base look great Okay, Liam, uh, basically he's just looking for feedback like where does he go from here? Okay, sure So my answer is going to be the same as what a lot of I've said so far is What's missing here is is a lot of variation on this guy I know you're going for that kind of like dark salamanders green. So you don't want it to pop up too bright I'm okay with that. We could still go a little brighter in some elements. I think your fire effects are on Point Those look great. I think some of the green could come up slightly But where we really have the opportunity is in the other elements the gold looks really good I dig that the black is what's letting you down This the the shoulder pad and the backpack are really really flat Same with the scales of his salamander cloak, right? Like this is the chance where we can add a lot of detail into this guy So getting the edges of the salamander scales nice and highlighted and popped and making sure those are all individual elements Having the black have some kind of actual travel Um and more defined edges and stuff like that because you've gone for a more edge highlighting scheme Cool, no problem with that. But if you're going to do that, then we need to do the same thing in the black Right and we need to make sure that has a nice nice solid pop to it as well Right. Um, I love the addition of the dust on the feet. I think that's absolutely fantastic It looks like he's walking in this landscape. I think that's really good Um, so I think you could bring a little bit of the green up still a little higher around the face Um, because that's where we're trying to draw the attention to away from the eyes So like here on the top of the head and maybe here on the tops of the the armor plate that surrounds his his head piece Um, I think that could you could do that the edge highlights could come a little brighter Like if you want to stick to edge highlights, then pop the edges up a little more on the top Go into a little more strong escorpina green there on the very tops of those edges where those light catches are Work a little more texture into the leathers catch those edges Give me some some tonal variation in the black and you've got an a plus piece there So I think uh, but uh overall it looks right excellent excellent work on the eyes and the fire I think that captures that salamander really really well Okay, uh next up robert, uh any feedback would be nice, especially when you realize uh compared to the color image So we're going to start on the image Okay Here's the image So we're all going to look at this together for a moment. What color is is is is the skin of these elves? Go ahead and answer All right, your answer was probably purple or magenta or something like that and that is a correct enough statement However, when we look closer, we see that in fact, they have warm highlights. It's yellow white light. They're lit in Right and their shadows are cold. They have blue Black color shadows, right the day fade is so going into like a deeper purple So we're going from a bright yellow and through a magenta peachy color into a regular More traditional purple and then into a deep purple violet and then into a blue black, right Okay, so now let's look at the image We don't we don't have that here, right? So so like My my first piece of advice to be if that's the image you're going for use those colors Right now my real feedback. Let's go to the black and white Is we don't have enough tonal variation on the skin Again, look at the image. Look at how different this part of her face is in highlight Compared to this part of like her her breast or this part of his chest Or this side of his face or this area on her torso or her arm Like these are massive shifts in lighting, right Here we just don't have that Here it's very very singularly toned Right, so my best advice is when you when you use a reference image really look at that image see it And Pick those elements that you want use those colors and travel that journey that that goes on Right, so, you know create that same thing where if you want the light coming from a different direction Then this side should be a yellow white light coming into those pinks and purples into a deep shadow here Maybe some blues and stuff worked into the cheeks along with a deeper purple magenta Same with the curve of her breast, you know Have that light here on the top of the musculature and deeper shadows underneath Bringing this down into a deeper blue black violet here with just maybe a slight Weaker highlight here on top of the leg that kind of thing So that's what I would say. I think he captured the green of the hair quite nicely I like that. I like the gem on the top of the staff. So I think that all looks fine But uh, there you go, robert. That would be my feedback for you. I hope that helps Okay, chad says basically he's been practicing using glazes for shadows and some and smoothing out dry brushing Curious how well as you manage those and some feedback on the composition. Sure So I think you're doing a good job. It is smoothing out and now we need to work on again like more controlling That variation. So again, when we rely on just the dry brushing and that kind of thing what we get is these These non volumetric highlights where it's just Whatever's closer to the top is brighter and whatever's deeper is shadowed, but that's not how light actually works, right? So like where can we go farther? We can take more control of the light, right? So we can keep working the glazes to like here on this lower part of the leg to have it in more depth Here on the lower part here up in here under the arm of the the beast, right having this go into a deeper color So keep working more tones in there, right? We're traveling and we're smoothing out that dry brush, which is good Now we've got to keep pushing that shadow Right, we've got to keep pushing those highlights. So again keep pushing that contrast up If you go watch the linked video down below You'll see what I'm talking about when I make a direct comparison between two scaven One that looks more like where you're at here And has some tonal variation like it's good. You've got some contrast You're not flat, which is great. And then how we travel to take the next step over that. Okay all right Next up, uh Evan on the dread and his basic question was around the use of the pigment. I feel like it's a bit too much How do you manipulate it for the best results? So I don't know it's heavy I'm not going to lie like you definitely went heavy But if it's a real dusty environment, which by the way, I wouldn't use this like green flock if this is going to be the story Like make this a mostly martian base, right or something like that where it's much more red earth The only reason it feels out of place is because you've got green grassy earth like how did his feet get this? Pigminy this dusty given he's walking around in something that's ostensibly largely green grass here A lot of the base is made up of right So that's that's the disconnect now. How do I manipulate it? I get a very dry Old brush and I slap some pigment on and then I take a bigger Uh, a bigger soft dry brush something like this and I just Work it off and that leaves more of the pigment down in the recesses and really smooths it away Um, and then once you're happy where it is, then you can you know, put a drop of alcohol or fixer or whatever you want to do on there Um So yeah, overall, I would say it is heavy. It's not wrong. It's fine if he's in a super dusty environment That feels about right. Um, he's just not at the moment So make the basing aligned to what you've done with the feet and I think you'll be in a better place Or wipe away more of the pigment go one of the two directions, but that's that's where you're seeing the disconnect All right, Jonas, uh, been painting for a year and a half and he's just kind of you know This is first unit and he's looking for you know more feedback. Sure So and I love the black and white of this because it's going to tell the whole story Okay, so the What I love is the variation on the brown cloaks looks really nice If you want to pop those up more add texturing to them I have lots of video I have a couple videos not a lot But I have a couple videos on texturing leather and then you can you can go just look at real leather You know anywhere just google like old saddle leather and you'll see a lot of stuff like that where you can add It's just slashes dashes and dots. That's all it is Just you know very thin lines and dots and stuff like that around no big deal Now where we see the issue is not with their cloaks and stuff like that I think the metals and the cloaks those look fine where we have the issue is with things like the plasma guns They're very flat and you can see it in this image like plasma should be the brightest thing on here Right, it should really be popping. It's this bright glowing plasma and it's just a very flat blue Right So if I were going to pick one thing to have you work on for sort of the color scheme of this army It would be really popping out your accent colors because you're using so many neutrals here, which is cool I like I love the orange brown cloaks. I think they look really great look like due to or like the desert Squad for the adeptus mechanicus. I think that's fantastic Um, you just want to make sure that those other elements that are actually introducing a hue have a nice like bright pop to them So look at how you do plasma weapons I have a video on that darin latham has a video on that go look that up and that should set you in the right direction there But overall looks cool. Good stuff Okay, uh, dave kenenberg, uh, bringing us this uh, this particular says a thing howling griffons. That's there. I said in the comments Uh, I hope I give feedback on the consistency of the highlighting and shading of the yellow and reds and uh, the non-metallic areas Sure So the non-metallic needs to go higher. We don't have our one here. We don't have quite enough bright pops You have you have a good run of color. We just need to get up to the highest high and a couple more bright light spots But that's more successful. It looks nice Where we really have an opportunity is in the yellow and red. They are very very flat See most previous things I've said in this video already About yellow and red space, right? The individual lines need to be well defined darker panel lines separating them Uh, and then more shadow like we just we're way off on the tonal variation here I need a lot. So go watch that if you want to do the yellow half of two face here You can uh, you can go watch the imperial fist video and then I also have several videos on shading and highlighting red And getting more out of that. But yeah, just I need much deeper Contrast it shouldn't be at the same level of your non-metallic. I don't want it to be that poppy But we need something here. It's way too subtle and soft at the moment And what's really killing it is the panels and not being well separated Even just adding nice dark lines separating all the panels would change this entire paint scheme So even if you didn't want to work with a lot of like soft glazes and deeper shadows I'm okay with that. You could and it would look a lot better But even if you didn't want to do that Just dark panel lines will take this up a huge notch. So that would be my biggest piece of next step advice for you But uh, hope that helps Okay, next up Dave feedback mostly on color choice and highlights directing the eye around the model. Sure Uh, so let's go to this bright piece because he said is that this center thing too bright and off color? Yes, yes, it is Again, your brain told you it was and then you went to me and asked the question that you already knew the answer to Because if your brain, this is the hardest thing to do It took me so long to learn this if your brain tells you something is wrong Listen to your brain. It's correct Your subconscious mind has like 200 000 times the processing power of your conscious mind That's it's telling you. Yes, something is wrong here. And then your conscious mind is like, well, maybe it's okay Maybe i'm fine. It's not don't listen to it. Your conscious mind's a liar Uh now so like it's it's in this tabard This should just be the same sort of mossy green yellow that the rest of this guy is if this was the if this Was this color? You're golden so that's number one Um because the ghosts are so desaturated blue white They're not drawing any attention in any big way and they're already in a color triangle around the guy's face So your placement on them is actually well chosen because they create a perfect nice triangle around the area of the model We want to pay attention to Compositionally, I also like the way you set him up the center of the torso and the head are very bright Great fantastic. Perfect. Yes my eye like if I cover that that thing and and look at this My eye goes exactly where it should it's great moves around perfectly So, yeah, I mean, I think you're in a really good place. The wood looks old looks dry. It looks like a very evil sort of tree man It's fantastic good texturing good weathering through all that stuff. They like yeah, it's nice Uh, so I think that's really good. You might want to also work a little deeper shadows into around the skull To really make the skull pop. It'll make the bright brighter if under here. We have some even deeper shadows So there you go, Dave cool stuff, man. I like that conversion Okay, jake english Uh feedback on the kingdom death model. Uh, namely her hair and the copper non-metallic metal Uh, sure And then sort of skin if we have some time so the skin is coming along I see it's not you're you're definitely doing some work. I can see the additions of the reds Take that even farther, but you're definitely moving the right direction there. So that's looking good We what we really do on the skin is a little more five and a lot more one Right, we don't pop the highlights up enough on the skin. That's the biggest issue like look at my skin I have a lot of really bright spots where my head is all oily And it's catching this light and my knuckles really like look at how my knuckles reflect the light right stuff like that That kind of stuff is where you want to really pop those highlights, right? Now the copper non-metallic doesn't really work for me and the issue is in all cases you go from like one No two no three four five We need we need more mid-tone in there. So go back and watch the Uh copper non-metallic metal metal video that I did and you'll see how you work in those mid-tones We need more like yellow orange light catching in there to make it look like copper Now as to the hair Yes, I think that's in a good place like you can really it really stands out super stark that you have no mid-tones in the In this image, right where it's just like super bright and then Way down to the darker colors one four five Right Now as to the hair, I think that's more successful Let me tell you the the secret though to hair is not just creating that halo of light. That's good You got you got that and we want to smooth out the edge of it a little more But we also need the dark lines in between it So you want to take some of this blue And we want to run these dark lines down here and then where where it's blue hair You want to take some of the deeper purple black and create lines in between that So you get that full real spectrum of how the hair is moving, right? So you've got a good halo of light, but now we need to separate those elements with those darker lines Hopefully that makes sense So yeah, uh, but overall definitely making progress love the skin love where you're going with the hair It's definitely going in the right direction. Just create some more separation there and you'll be in a nice place Okay, uh, david is asking, uh, how to make things pop a bit more Uh, and improve how chris the details are Yeah, I mean some of this is just again, like I've said many times creating a little more dark line separation between things Uh, the again the basing elements are kind of in the way Be careful when you put like don't put basing junk in front of your miniatures And if you do have it on the base paint it right again, this is just like clump foilage. It's been stuck on here It doesn't look it doesn't look real because everything else is painted and this isn't right That's so pop is also a matter of having the basing elements pop as well But so if I was you I would just trim these trees down You don't need them these don't need to be here or at least this one doesn't need to be here You could use this one off the side. That's actually fine composition because it creates a nice line here But this little branch is is extraneous It's just getting in the way of actually viewing your miniature Now as far as actual cleanup goes, you know when I look at stuff like the feathers More sharp lines. So go look at how I do the detailed feathers You've got some in here pop that out a little more go in a second time get those kind of elements strong Strong dark lines as well creating the feather lines isn't just bright lines It's also adding some dark lines Where the feather texture is in there same with the lines in between the feathers like here We've got this bright spot coming up here this feather and this one look really nice because you've got these nice deep separations Here where you don't have those and the yellow has sort of spilled over into here It doesn't look as good right those kind of clear definitions of light and shadow Finally on the skin. That's really your biggest opportunity. So, you know see everything else I've said in this video more tonal variation the skin more additions of like reds Browns you can go watch my recent how to paint pale skin video how to paint ruddy skin video Lots of choices in there. I've done a lot of videos on skin I'll keep doing more because there's lots different variations to skin tone And you want to make sure you get that real sweep of color in there. Okay All right Uh next up, uh, einrich first diorama just looking for general diorama feedback especially on colors and composition Sure. So overall he was trying to go sort of the light to the dark. Um So I think one of the problems here is we kind of have everything all mixed up So like it's not well defined enough is the issue like we've got a lot of different things mixing together Let me see if I can get to a shot. This is good enough We need more clear definition of the various elements Uh, so like having the the lava here have the black in it Doesn't work and the dog isn't then the actual main part of the image like just relax your eyes And look at the side of it. That's that that's the the the chaos side. What do you see? I just see the lava. I barely noticed there's a dog there Right when I look at the other side I I almost can't see the orc because there's so much other green and blue Right So that's the challenge you've got here. We can do the eye test with it You know, which is better number one number two Um, you want to make sure that when you're doing a diorama your figures are the focal point And you have to do that through making sure they have the most contrast and highlights and bright colors and the attention is drawn to them So like with your nature side here, we've got a lot of other things They're fighting for attention lots of these bright turquoise plants and butterflies and things like that It's hard to honestly pick the orc out. He almost looks like he's camouflaged in there because the blue On the side of his face, right? So we need him to be Uh more intense more bright and more heavily contrasted And then you can kind of let the rest fall away. You can use deeper shadows toward the edge of the of a diorama That's sort of an eye trick, right? When you get to the edge of a diorama, you can have the Contrast weaken so that because so you can have a contrast of contrast You know, that sounds really funny. We're we're next level now Meta contrast one of the things of a diorama composition is often when you get to the edges of it It can fuzz it can become less clear the contrast can weaken So that all the strength of it is drawing your eye toward the center Traditional canvas painters will use this trick a lot The elements they want you to focus on will be quite well defined and in the middle And as you travel to the exterior parts of the painting, it'll be very weak Right, that's that's you'll see a lot a lot a lot of like classic paintings from the old masters use that kind of trick Same thing here with the dog Like if this if the dog is meant to stand out the lava should be way weakened down and the dog should be much Brighter and brought up. So he's more part of the focus of the the the scene, right? So there you go, Heinrich. Hope that helps Okay Cole bringing us a vermin lordy painted a while back was trying to focus on strong shadows of small bits of osl to catch the eye Yeah So, uh, overall, I think this is really nice. I think you did it mostly achieve your goal I like a lot of the strong shadows. The flesh blending here is nice I like the deep purple tones and red tones in the flesh. The face looks pretty bright It's great draws a lot of the attention up there And here when you look at the flesh like this part of the leg and the arm shows it off really nicely You can see these deep shadows in here coming up to this high highlight here This is what I'm talking about when I say like variation on the flesh Now where I don't see it as much as in some of the armor and the tabard down here I think we could afford to push the contrast a little more there Same with the horns because they are this annoying shape like when you look at them They're very uniformly white like this white is the same as this white So I think bringing the whole tone down in the center of the horns here around his head Would help the face even become more of a focal point The final thing I'll say is the metal is rather flat. We just kind of have traditionally like washed metal It's kind of boring So again like push your contrast if you're going to go to that kind of great contrast And I love the very minimal osl effects well executed here If you're going to go to that, you know work out look at the like true metallic metal highlighted in a non-metallic Metal fashion videos I've got and you know really like this glaive is a major part of interesting Interesting part of his composition, you know, make sure we get the working on him as well Okay, so robin uh bringing us this the bird boy from the Corvus Cabal Uh looking for feedback on color composition where he can focus is to take his next steps and any other elements So the first thing I noticed here on composition is that we're out of balance on the elements He's very bright. He's very colorful, which is fine. He's kind of zingy. So I get that Um, my issue is with the magenta. Actually, I don't the turquoise doesn't bother me at all You've balanced the turquoise perfectly well his beak these two feathers and these two areas here great It's a wonderful x balance across the mini a plus Uh the magenta is the problem You have this huge shocks of magenta and then it doesn't have really anywhere else like this little piece In the middle isn't enough what I would have done with the magenta is taken this first layer of fur and just follow the same pattern You already did right like like you have a feather pattern here. You established we go yellow to orange to magenta to blue Cool, great. I love this pattern. Let's do it here too, right? It should be yellow to orange to magenta to blue like just follow the rule that you already created Right and repeat these when you create two signifiers like that and you put them in balance continue Just keep doing the same thing, right Beyond that, uh, my your other feedback would just be again Same thing. I've said many times more tonal variation more hashes in the feathers more breaking them out The blue looks very flat so more variation there You can really see it when we look at this image like that blue and the leather and stuff like that is all very very very flat Right. It's one color. So You know when you take a black and white and everything just looks the same color That's your sign So there you go. Hope that helps buddy, but I love this color scheme I think it's great. I think the turquoise works like you're a riot of colors here But you actually kept them all really nicely in balance. I think there's that's your major weak spot So change that around you got a you got a strong scheme Okay, uh Joni with his trader guard project, uh, you know, just he said not to get your super high level of fun banging them out Sure. So a couple of general things I noticed from looking at this guy earlier Um, it the paint job is really rough. It feels like we're relying a lot on like dry brushing and stuff like that Um, and I noticed like some mold lines in places where there could still be cleanup My basic advice would be To just clean up the the paint job. I understand you want him to look dirty So I don't mean that like you can have him look dirty But clean up the elements of the paint job So like don't just stop with a dry brushing step apply some soft glazes to there You know stuff like that even if it's only one or two just to smooth it out Um, and then I think you're in a good place overall I understand you're just basically going for like a quicker tabletop thing Um, I would be wary on the base. I don't love the basing scheme We're just like a bunch of soft mud give me a couple more simple elements in there Even a couple simple elements in the base can really elevate a paint job up a lot But when it comes to like the horse don't rely on things like a dry brush last because that just makes him look Like he has this really rough texture like he's made of stone And I don't think this is a stone horse Like I get the sense that it's an undead cast infused sort of demonically powered horse Cool, give me some some of that texture same with like the wood Same with some of these other pieces where it feels like the dry brush was the last step And we're not and it just looks rough So yeah, that's my main feedback Okay Ian biggest non-metallic to date. Love to see what needs work. Sure. So, uh, I think that looking at the non-metallic The steel here works well for me. I like it. I enjoy that the gold doesn't have enough four Uh like three and four you have your one of your white lines and those are relatively well defined your Two in the yellow and into the sort of three looks okay Where we have the problem is we I have no four. I just go straight to like your deepest shadows of black Right, so I'm missing those those soft shades that are the lower three and four That really helps set the tones and the directionality of the lighting It's very like even and I don't get a sense of the light direction At all from him, right? So what I need is more of those soft browns creating the actual subtle reflections and the transitions Between this deep black you're using of the cold gold and up into it You can use a black brown And stuff like that you can use a cold brown if you want the gold to stay cold like it is here. That's fine Just I need something like that because right now it's way too stark and it doesn't really feel like non-metallic gold It just feels like yellow like really highlighted yellow You don't have that problem here with the steel because you go you give me a lot of nice grays Right, which I like so there you go Okay, uh adam, uh just looking for uh Sort of pointers on how to improve and feathers and animals again sure So I do have a video on detailed feathers. I would recommend you go watch that That's a first place to start talks about adding texture when it comes to this stuff again Some soft shades and glazes of different colors in there like some very soft tones of pinks And natural organic colors in there can really help especially with animal skin tones to make them feel more realistic But on the whole I think this looks really nice Like I think you did a good job of creating some good contrast and picking out the individual elements when we look here The animal has some nice shade and variation to him. So I think that works. Okay Um, you know the feathers look nice We could create some harder lines and you know sort of deeper shadows near the base of it And that's what I'd recommend. But when I look at the animal skin here, I see some nice bright white I see some nice deep dark grays that looks good where we've got the opportunity for improvement Honestly that I notice isn't the fur and the animal. I think that looks nice. I think it's mostly on the metal The the the metal looks rather flat the gold needs some more soft shades and introductions of additional Uh tones and variation there. I think that's actually your spot for improvement I think the sort of bald eagle-like scheme we've done here on the griff charger. It looks good Again, the only place where I noticed it's lacking is in the tail. So let's go back to the black and white Up here. I see lots of nice shadows down here. I really don't Right. So more soft subtle shadows than tracing those individual fur elements out and really separating the individual lines of it I think would be a good way to go. So I hope that helps adam Uh, scots are just made it in time painting a sentinel Uh, which you converted and tried to incorporate a lot of techniques Uh, just basically looking for feedback on how the scene is perceived and the work on the materials Uh, yeah, so weathering wise. I actually really like this. This guy looks rough like he is Out in the You know in the thick of it. Um, I don't mind the extra like I'm not sure about plants growing up on him That's a little strange But I like the texturing and the weathering in this case because it looks like you're going for like really old beaten You know, this guy's got dirt and mud and crust on him. So I think that's good I like the faded symbols and stuff like that. I think that all works good the Rusty stacks and things like that. I'm just I'm really not sure on the plants growing on him That's a little tough for me. If he's like active and walking around It feels like that would mostly be knocked off pretty fast. So maybe a little bit of moss But yeah, my biggest problem. This guy is the this this like fruit roll-up We have that's extending from this missile This would look so much cooler if we cut this off and just put to attach the missile to this fire Like this would look a like 10 times better because this just looks like a a piece of Laffy taffy or something like this is I don't know what this is. It looks like blown glass It does not look like a fire streak coming out of this if if if this fire was removed here to here And then the base of this missile was stuck here I would be digging the living heck out of this because I love this back here I would map this out. By the way, some of this black is a little glossy But I love the effect you're going for here with like the heat amongst the smoke Yeah, that that kicks that that that that that's good It's this like jelly roll in the middle that's not working for me Uh, so yeah, just a thought there, but yeah, whether he all see looks good He looks like he's out in the wilderness looks like he's rough like this guy's on a long campaign Probably a deep, uh, you know heavy extreme whether it's been it's been suffering and yeah, I think he captured that well Okay, uh Tim uh asking basically like he's going for this sort of ectoplasmic ghostly chaos warrior And you know looking for kind of feedback on what do we think of the the build? And uh, is it too boring? So my my unfortunate answer for you here is yes, it is too boring Like it looks like a concept army where it's just you know, it's like super fast Um, if you're I don't mind the little ectoplasmic streams you did out of the the hot glue It actually kind of looks okay. It's kind of dig it actually as a scheme I think that's kind of nice the dripping goo. I don't mind at all Do make sure they're smoothed out like where it does where it works is when you have them really nicely integrated into the piece Where it doesn't work is like here where I can just see that it's clearly something you stuck on there, right? Now what needs to happen? Say it with me It's more tonal variation and it's more pop, right? I I need more deeper greens in in something like this could be a recess shadow like here Because he's a ghost you could have the deeper parts of him Just be deeper shadowed and the edge is more more upper light We don't have to follow you don't follow a normal veteran volumetric highlighting because he's a ghost He's made of ghost stuff I would also put dark lines around the red make sure that like if you're gonna do if you want Glowing eyes, I have a video on glowing eyes Go watch that the key to a good glowing eye is the dark circle around it But I would add a lot more like pop of sort of a white Lighter color up here around the top of the miniature So our attention is drawn up toward the the center, right? We need more variation across the piece in some way If it was me I would shove some deeper shadows into the lower areas of a slightly deeper green And I would pop the top part up a lot more and I would dark line around the the eyes So there you go, Tim. Hope that helps. It's a cool concept. I dig it. I've never thought of using hot glue like that That's honestly really cool Okay, uh grizzik Xandria as your bolt Any advice on painting the magic cast effect in her hand and uh You know something like that. So just kind of general feedback from there. Sure So the magic on her hand my my best advice is go look at Gareth Nichols and the most recent one he did of her that will give you everything you need like really see how he painted her See how he caught the light like your center of your palm is good See how he caught the light on the edge of every ridge of the finger and then deep into the shadow Here, right? If you look really look at his his example of it He has a blog obviously and but if you just search like gareth nichols for this figure You'll you'll find it. He did it pretty recently like in the last month or two And it looks great And you'll see like really really really look Notice the deep shadows here in between the lines. Notice that he catches the light on the edges all that kind of stuff Now beyond that I think your your move is going to be Again to just keep pushing the the tonal variation because We go to the black and white A lot of this is still very flat, right? It's good. We're making progress. We definitely have some better control of the light I think we need to keep making that step more tones in the skin more tones in the gold in the blue and in the red So I there's definitely progress here. I can see it But I think I would I would challenge you to keep pushing that contrast up higher. Okay Okay, uh, benjamin, uh big mordheim chapel, which is pretty cool Uh Yeah, that's fine. Sometimes when you upload the pictures it down great, but that's all right We can still see what we need. So my only feedback all these I really like this I love the green. I love the earth. I like the the variation of stone You've got a lot of different interesting colors I think we could work some browns in somewhere here and there and the way I would do that is in streaking So the only thing I don't notice here when I looked around on a big building like this Is I don't really see much in the way of streaks And that's what I think I find Missing for me here. There's some on like the metal bits But I didn't see much in the way of streaks on the stone And maybe it's just hidden or maybe that did get lost in the photo quality So if there are some very subtle streaks, I apologize for that Um, but my my recommendation is, you know, big vertical structures like this that have all these places to capture water Just oftentimes get these really defined streaks on them, especially when they're in ruin and not being clean Um, so my really strong recommendation we think about weathering streaking. You could use Regular acrylic paint. You can use washes to make it. You can use streaking grime You can use a hundred different products on the market And I think that's your biggest chance because that'll let you work some like nice brown tones in And really like off of these potted plants and out of here and down from these cracks on the rock and where where water would naturally gather That's the biggest thing I noticed, but this is a super cool piece of terrain. It's like almost proto sort of Notre Dame Uh, so I dig it All right. This is the same one. I think it just got posted twice Uh, tibio, uh bringing us this beautiful beautiful bust says he got a silver And you know kind of looking at what he could do for gold So I I spent a lot of time looking at this one tibio because this is a really great piece And I think ultimately what I would say is there's a couple things that jumped out at me So one the reflection of the magenta, which I love the magenta face mask Locks the eye right there with the bright blue around it. Mm Molto bene My biggest issue is this is a little too harsh on the edges of it I feel like this needs to be a little softer It shouldn't be reflecting as strongly and ending as suddenly like the reflection on this feels like it would be a little more Loose, right? It's just because you're you're trying to capture the reflection and highly reflective steel of this mask And uh, I think it would just feel a little more subtle than that be a little more warped The other thing I noticed was with the skin like the skin side of it feels like it could use a little more Especially in the four and five areas some of the deeper tones don't feel quite there Like I need to feel a little more like the hand to seem to capture it well, especially at the palm here but like around this This muscle structure here and here it really feels like it's lacking some additional definition that could be added Um just some deeper shadows The only other thing that really jumped out at me was just the edging on the metal Like some of the metal doesn't quite have the bright edges that I would expect Like a lot of this feels like it should be capturing a little more light and should be stronger And like the light catches Should be a little more well refined like The edges here on the arm should be a little stronger and then like a few light catches where there's actually like a white Pure white dot of light because it feels like what you're showing me here is something that's very almost chrome And it's reflectiveness right because it's catching the blue and the magenta and the colors around it Which I dig I love that I love that you're integrating those colors in but then if that's the case then where it's just reflecting pure light It should have like some real Pops like what's on my forehead right here? Right, my forehead is not as shiny as that metal and yet I've got this like obnoxiously bright light So yeah, that was my thought awesome piece though, man. This looks great. I really love your take on this guy Okay, next up thomas uh submission for local painting competition. Uh moving on the next project might come back later What's the main thing I should focus on when I do that when he gets back? Yeah, sure So my answer here is going to be the skin I I looked over these guys. I love the hair. I think the non metallic could use a little bit more of your mid tone It kind of does jump again from like bright into very dark So maybe a couple glazes of like a soft yellow or ochre or something like that But that's minimal stuff the biggest opportunity we have is on the skin the skin feels very flat So again more like look at the pale skin video. I just did and Look at how I work in the subtle pink tones and purple tones and stuff like that I think that's your biggest opportunity, but I think these guys are awesome. This is a really cool color scheme Really nice take on the greens and yellows. These guys have pop pop pop. I like the weapons Yeah, I think it's really good. So I think my main feedback for you is just on the skin It's the only part that kind of lets me down. So There you go, but overall thomas these guys look really cool. What a what a great warband So, uh, we can only hope that we get an entire Army of these guys sometime in the next couple years. I'm excited I would love to see a whole army of these like satyrs and centaurs and stuff. I think that'd be sweet as all get out Okay, Andrew, uh, we'll try to see if this will work. Andrew, uh, we'll open your your thing in your tab there. There we go Um, so Andrew was just kind of posted up and said, you know, get it in for review Again, do try to ask for some general feedback My biggest things that jump out at me are what I would recommend is again We want to matte this stuff out way too much satin and gloss shine to these paints So make sure you matte it down because you're getting inappropriate reflections where we don't want them And then I would work on really well defining the individual lines So you're sort of like paint cleanliness and separating the elements Cleanly like here where there's a black line under it. I can still see it Like I want to I would go back with skin a little more Here on the jacket something like having this line more defined with a shadow more highlights Again, sort of more tonal variation across the thing is what I would recommend Uh, but yeah, there you go. That's kind of my my thoughts for you Andrew that those would be my main challenges for you matte everything out as you go forward and then keep pushing that contrast up Okay Reinhardt last minute post and uh, basically looking for general critiques. It would be a way to improve this army going forward So, yeah, I looked over these guys. Um, I think that the the red on the feet looks really nice Uh, I don't have any issue with that. It's some of this is a little caked on heavy I'd wheel it back on like this guy the first guy was good Um on the yellow it feels a little green, which I don't think you're going for in some of these where you went over black So be careful of what you put your yellow over You want to warm that up first because black is actually made from very dark blue when you put yellow over it It turns green. I think the dreadnought's the best take. Um, I like him. I like the shading on him I think this guy Where's he at here our captain here Um, I think we need to work on on the On the forms of the space marines. I think you want to work on creating some more Soft shadows, so it's not like you've got some areas with real deep shadows. I'm okay with that I think what we ultimately need is a little more like fours and and deep threes. That's what we're missing here Um, this guy captures it better because you have a nicer transition here on the bigger shapes, which I think works well Um, I like the battle damage. I think that looks really cool Um, but I mean overall looks like you basically got your army. So I don't know it looks really good to me Um, I think my if I was going to recommend anything It would just be the addition of a little bit more soft like light rust color That kind of four color into some of the shading of the yellow But overall very cool stuff, man. I dig I dig this army and I love seeing I love seeing the imperial fists, uh, you know uh The imperial fist the last wall of defense the guardians of sacred terra absolutely Okay Uh, so uh sang bringing us some non-metallic with the con still a work in progress Which I should improve to make it look more metallic. So here's my biggest question for you. What on this is non-metallic? That sounds like a weird question, but I honestly don't know what you're capturing in non-metallic It's not the like if this is gold we definitely are not anywhere near there if it's the steel Again, we need to go way farther. Now if you're just asking about the white the white doesn't really feel non-metallic but Since we've been following this road for a long time saying this is the best you've done this white I've been watching these white scars for a while from you. This is it You nailed it on the white this time. I've been talking about more and more subtle grays and shadows in there You did it. This is it. This is perfect do this This is fantastic capturing of the subtle shadows in the white scar white That I love I love love love and I've been watching you go down this road in this journey The only thing I'm not sure of is what's the non-metallic. I don't I don't get it I don't see what here is supposed to be non-metallic like I see the base tones For non-metallic like the gray and the ochre, but I don't actually see anything that looks non-metallic So hit me up in the comments saying and tell me what I'm missing here So but the white looks Great. So if that's what you're talking about, then yes, you nailed it So if what you met by the non-metallic was just trying to capture the true reflections of the white, then yes You did it. You got there Uh, Jim Phillips any uh, cnc on our boy here would be good. Uh, sure. So let's go to this piece because this is the good picture of him Um Again, so I think my my basic feedback for you here is especially with a nergal guy like this Stronger definition of elements in between the pieces. So for example, let's look at his rebreather in this part of his armor Better lines and darker lines separating these individual elements like here in between the rebreather around the point That kind of thing or this vox whatever it is. I don't know what a piece is supposed to be But you know, whatever this thing is here, right? Um, I like the shading on the armor I think that works we could go a little bit farther on some of the other pieces like the the arms You go a little bit farther for this up toward the light a little more light a little more shadow That could be stretched a little more. I think we could have a little more brown tones in here You have some straight jump to rust, but I don't really see any of the The pitting and pockmarking of just some additional browns The rust up here on the scythe looks fine. I don't have an issue with that I think that actually looks rather organic and good For the the general volumetric sort of rust of it I would still make sure when you have these pits get darker colors into those pits stuff like that. Okay Uh, yeah here on this one, so I don't know if these are maybe one is a work in progress and this one's done I'm not sure this looks like you got the darker in here. So this is what I was talking about We could still push a little farther get some vertigree and stuff like that in there You'll have to tell me gem like I'm not sure what's the final pick and what's not when you submit these Try to be targeted and try to make sure I've got the final picks and so I know exactly what to look for I like this. I'd still love to see some more subtle browns in here in places Right like around these bolts and cracks like where rust is kind of leaking out or where the The enamel has gotten away and we've got some weathered and streaking in there that kind of stuff I like the orange. This coming out of here looks good. Give me a little more of the browns Okay last piece of the month with bartas some pale skinned ungore raiders Tried using deliberate brushstrokes to create interesting texture on the flesh. Does it work? I think the answer is yes, especially on ungores. So this is a nice take on them It's very sort of painterly take on them using these deliberately done brushstrokes Honestly, yes, I think it works Especially on something like an ungore raider where it's a tiny dude You got to paint a ton of these guys, you know, you're gonna do 80 of these dudes or whatever I think this looks good Nice deep shadows good pinks and purples and dark colors in here Yeah, I think this is successful, man I like on the thing you've asked me to evaluate on say maybe a little more of it in the hands Is where we could use some more effort, but other than that looks great. I think you nailed it Well done So that brings us to the end of the month folks. So there you go Thank you very much to everybody who submitted a lot of awesome stuff this month beautiful beautiful work As I said reference videos down below. Thank you very much for people who submitted I look forward to seeing what everybody brings next month This is always great. I love doing this. So thank you all for the chance to I'm honored And feel count myself very lucky to be able to review everybody's work and offer this feedback Thank you so much to everybody who submits. It's an act of bravery and an act of of learning to do so So I I have nothing but the highest regard for those folks who submit critique is the best way we grow And we are we always need critique to keep growing. So thank you to everyone. Remember the links down below Do feel free to click that if you want to I love doing this, but my feedback in the pmp is minimal This group has grown massive and I love it. Let's keep this a positive hobby focused community So if you see somebody post and you like it post say, hey, I love that I love this thing you did if you see something offer that positive feedback Especially in the world we live in right now and the way things are We're all doing a lot of you know, hobbying or trying to we're trying to find our bright spots and what's you know Some some ostensibly very rough times. So do please Take that moment out of your day to to brighten somebody else's to really Offer that thing when something strikes you it can make a huge difference in someone's day and can help them advance the next level If they ask a question answer it always be positive always be taking your next step on your hobby journey So thank you very much everybody. I really appreciate it. And as always We'll see you next time