 Hello everybody and welcome to another PMP end of month review. Well, what is the PMP? Why that's the painters motivating painters our Facebook group Dedicated to the miniature art hobby and helping you take your next step Regardless of where you at whether you're just starting out or whether you're a master It doesn't matter if you want to be part of a positive Community that's focused on all of us working together to create amazing Miniatures, this is the place for you. So what do we do here? Well once a month we get together and there's an event you can see it on the screen right now This is the January event you can find it under the events tab on the PMP page And we invite our users to submit one of their projects that they completed during the month and one and only one by the way can't submit multiple and offer some advice as to what they were going for or some discussion as to what they were going for and Discuss what they were looking for feedback on so I'm going to spend the next however much time it takes giving a little review and trying to answer the questions that people have here as to You know where they can take their own next step on their hobby journey If you'd like to join us We'd love to have you and you can look right down below in the description and wouldn't you know it? There's a link to join up as a note if you ask to join you must answer all of the questions all of them so just not some of them all of them There are only three questions if you don't answer all of them you don't get approved that is 100% I don't care there is no excuses or or anything if you want if you want in you answer all three It's that simple at any rate This is gonna be a good time as a brief note before we really get into it and get going There will be a video linked down below The beginning of which has me going through some actual miniatures and showing you deeper examples of what I'm gonna talk about So for example a lot of people this month had questions about things like NMM or achieving higher contrast on flat surfaces I talk about a lot of that stuff like higher contrast and NMM and bone and things like that in this video in extreme detail I did that so I don't have to repeat myself month after month after month But also because I like doing this but there are a lot of submissions and I only have so much time in the day So I need to make sure I'm moving through them in the most efficient way possible So I'm not doing this until next month when it's time to do it again But at any rate, let's get into it So remember links down below if you want to join and thank you in advance to everybody who submitted a lot of great Stuff this month this is gonna be the non-metallic month I'll tell you in advance like everybody's trying non-metallic metal And so I'm gonna go deep at the beginning and then after a while I'm just gonna say go back and see what I said before Okay, and or the reference video So let's get into it We begin with a piece from Daniel Rodriguez And basically he says he needs help on on the face and precisely more the mouth and Confirmation or advice is correct or correction on lighting the sword and the wings So let's look at the face. So the model is probably a bit Goofy, I'll just kind of say that like she has kind of a strange face The model is probably letting you down some a little bit That being said what you need is more Variation in the face like you have her doing the crying blood thing and that's making up for it But if we pull that away her face is lacking color here and Up in here on her forehead like you can see how much red there is in my forehead around here Inner cheeks things like that you've got a little bit of red here But it's rather abrupt and the shadow is deep you want to soften that you want to bring more in here under her mouth Like it, you know painting a face is about nuanced application of very thin filters But other than that, I mean, it's not a bad face I would say don't generally paint eyebrows unless they're not on there even on a figure this big like she's pretty big This is like a 54 mil figure. I think or something like that's or the size of her So I mean that's the dark oath and chieftain in the background so you can see she's quite large and It looks like the eyebrows might be modeled onto her But I would still be very careful with those you want them to be kind of light they they can be overwhelming Yeah, it looks like they're definitely modeled on there and again I think it's mostly the sculpt that's probably letting you down Now on the sword what I'll say is it's fine I one thing you want to avoid is having like the problem is you have it moving straight across that doesn't work Different planes of light are going to catch different aspects of light Right like my ring as I move it around if I change its angle Reflects differently. It's the same for the sword. So there are three planes on this sort of like on one side facing And so you generally want to have dark against light So like if this is your dark spot, which is fine I actually believe this middle plane the most then like in general We would want to put the dark bit here at the end of the sword or something and have like a lighter bit here to here You know like gray trending into white right here And then this shouldn't be dark if this is dark So like you know something like down here should be dark and then this should all be lighter Something like that you have to play around with it when it comes to swords with weird angles like this It's not really about figuring out how the light actually works It's just about trying to figure out what looks good to be completely honest Because who knows like the lighting can be all over the place There's no exact way that it's gonna be reflecting it between all the if something's really that high where it's like this chrome metal reflection It's there's there's no, you know, there's no exact one way to do it As far as the rest of stuff goes she is big and I'm not sure I love the Bone on the wings the wings themselves are fine They could be smoothed out a little bit as far as the highlighting goes but these like bone striations They're very flat and very brown and very kind of not interesting I feel like we need something more there when you go up larger in scale You need to like really add additional detail And I feel like that's the part of it that's letting you down I like your armor work, you know, there's probably needs to be more color in general in the skin more reds more purples that kind of thing but the But the the wings sort of the flatness of this Skeletal structure is really letting you down there, but overall cool submission All right next up Jared with a big tank and he says basically he feels like it's lacking the pop and He's trying to get the dirt to separate from the weathering. Yeah, so I Mean, I don't honestly know that you're lacking too much pop It feels pretty realistic like if you were trying to paint a realistic tank Like with under a realistic lighting scenario, I think this is fine Now one way you can make it pop is when you get to areas of rust and stuff like that You can add in a little more orange But you know on the whole I feel like you're actually probably in the right place here like this is a nice Well done tank one thing though when you do have these like decals on here Make sure that you have the dirt and grime and stuff and streaking and chips going over them Like there should be a couple of chips out of these or scratches through them Where the blue can be seen like the amount of dirt and streaking on this thing tells me that these would be scratched And have a lot and be a lot and like have streaks going over the top of them So like right here where I can see like worn away paint and stuff on these dark spots There should be scratches in this if it's if we're this worn then this should not be whole still If you wanted to go and really push the contrast up you certainly could it's a different sort of a question of whether You're going for like a historical scale modeling type or whether you're going for more like a game type model If it's a game type model Yeah, I would just push it up more and do things like pop the edges like catch the edges with a bright light blue before you Weather it that's kind of the key and it's the same on both of these by the way I mean this is clearly a much more historically based model But that's kind of the thought there the other thing on Trying to separate rust or something like that from dust is you just want to make sure they're different colors Like that is to say make the dirt It's driving through you know a darker brown or a deeper mud or something like that And then make the rust a different brown and have orange rust in it and just things like that I would say but but overall I don't think you have a lack of pop. I think this is a really nice job So yeah, I think it's I think you're good So great job. All right next up Bob bringing us His custodies So says first time doing proper edge highlighting painting power weapons using and painting custodies Being super simple and trying not to distract for the models. Okay, so let's take a look I mean these guys are an experiment in gold So Bob what I would say is we need to have still push the highlights up more like he still feels too flat The shadows aren't deep enough and the highlights aren't high enough. That's the basic challenge here So I mean contrast on the gold is still what we need because we need to when when you have a miniature That's like all one thing we have to define and separate the elements So I need like deeper darker colors and lines Especially in between things like the Akilah and the feathers and elements like that. You have some of it down here I need more of it like up here on the shoulder and things like that. So careful application of deep Sepia chestnut Purple inks stuff like that and then pushing more to the silver in the highlights actually on it Would be my advice now as to their little power halberd. Let's flip around to that I mean, I think it's fine You probably want to actually like one of the big problems is the the lights that's kind of in an interesting place Light is just more interesting if it's not just one fade that goes from dark to light Like if this was light here and here and then it went up to medium and down to darkest It would just like that become more visually interesting Because the more transitions like that you have the more visually compelling a model is Final thing I would say is the purples rather flat You probably want to pop that up some and make that a little more interesting. It's it's a very flat tone of purple But overall cool I mean like it depends on what you're going for here if you're going for like tabletop standard or something like that For an army you've nailed it. So it's no issue there at all. You're you're beyond that All right, Greg Lee Greg Greg Lee sure why not Uh, basically has a question about Not convinced at all that the sword and the scabbard's non-metallic is right same with the armor shadows and highlights Yeah, this is a tricky one because you it's sort of a very again. It's a very odd figure Um in an odd pose with like odd angles. So it's it's just going to be tough to highlight The part that I'm sold the most on honestly is something like the sword It needs to be smoother and we need to have like more control like it's very rough on the blending right now So you need to smooth that out But i'm pretty convinced about the highlights and shadows there The rest of the model to be honest doesn't feel like it's in non-metallic It just feels like it's in this sort of orangey tone And I think that's mainly because we don't pop highlights up high enough Contrast in non-metallic metal is all about going very very very High in contrast right And it's just other than like you look at the sword you look at this gold on the hilt and i'm like yep Okay, I've got some very dark there. I've got some very light there. We're running the gamut. I look at these big wing sections They don't have that Right and again when it comes to big flat spaces like this you these big kind of flat planes Making them non-metallic is is tough Because they are going to do a lot more than just have one plane of light honestly at that point They're going to get really complicated And be kind of weird to reflect Go look at like Aries when land at it or you know just the various example of the Aries miniature that's out there And you'll see what those big flat planes do they they have lots of light reflections moving vertically in them The one that convinces me the most is the helmet. I actually really like the helmet This light line sells to me the shadow next to it. I like that a lot I like the blue kick from the the chest That works like because here you went up high enough, right? The rest of them I don't have that layer of that level of of contrast and that's what's not selling me I like the tone don't be wrong. I don't think it's bad. I think it's fine It's just a sort of you know bronzy color dude Um, I just don't think he's hitting the nmm, but I think he still looks good. So, you know gems look really great those sell Uh, and the osl is nice and a soft gentle touch. So I actually like that quite a bit Okay, uh dwight bringing us some painted fire slayers Uh looking for uh advice on how to paint splotchy muddy feet. Yeah, sure So the first thing I'll say is with the skin be careful We just kind of with like washes that get have these hard lines between them. It's just something I noticed Some softer tones transitioning there like your four you go from like Two again, let's just set this up whenever I reference a number one is your highest highlight Two is the next tone down three is your mid tone four is your first shadow five is your deepest shadow That's a that's an indelicate and simplistic way of looking at lighting But I'm going to talk about it that way because it's the easiest way for us to just have a universal frame of reference Okay So you're going straight from like two to five on the edge there way too high of a jump now muddy feet Super easy. I mean you just literally take like some thin black ink or paint and just kind of stipple at their feet And then you take pigment brown pigment and you kind of stipple over it and above that And that's it there's nothing more to it and by the way having muddy feet your wife was very correct because uh anybody especially barefoot people Especially in dirty areas should always have some of the element they're walking in on their feet My boots aren't super clean and I'm not a warrior running across battlefields all day Right. I walk on pavement and sit in my house and my boots still aren't clean so Uh, what's one of the things that'll snap me out of a fig super fast when I'm judging a painting competition Is if I notice that the feet have no connection to the world And there's no dirt or dust or anything like that on there Um, so good instinct. Yeah, that's that's how you do it pretty simple Hope that helps All right next up uh samuel uh first attempt at freehand and uh Yeah, so basically that spent a lot of time on color selection trying to add Uh cereal to make the model look interesting and stand out from a normal trooper. Okay So let's take a look. I mean, I think this guy's quite good by the way I I had I looked at most of these in advance. So a quick note on the lightning on a power sword like this Um, I don't love the orange and I don't love the The single gradient going up and down It's the problem is the orange doesn't work compositionally your I know you did this orange as well But this is so much more desaturated and so much more minimal Like at a distance all you can see is this freaking sword right So You want to be careful with that like if that sword was just in blue It would be this piece would snap into focus. So that's a minor note Um, you know your your gold's in the non metallics. I'll sell and honestly looking at the freehand I think it's great. Um, I think your your stuff up here is good. I don't know what it thinks It's finding there. That's funny. It thinks it found a human face um These little like chevrons look good the akila looks great. I yeah, I mean I think this is all wonderful man, especially across the surface um Yeah, I I really honestly don't see much of an issue with it. It's crisp. It's clean It sells I like it. I think it's great. So like judged on the freehand. I think you did a wonderful job. Well done okay So connor, uh Basically looking for advice on the color choice lighting placement, etc on the non metallic metal So honestly, I think you're it's decent. We need to think Non metallic isn't just about a single gradient Okay So like go watch Look up kujo's video if I I'll I'll write myself a note here and I'll put it in the description Because this is the only video worth referencing. Um I have to make myself a note. Okay, so Non metallic isn't a single gradient. There's reflected light And so you see it most on on spherical objects Okay, but uh, it's not just there So this shield would also be in the same position. So you have your light catch here It would move to darkness. It should move back to one two three four five four three Okay, is how we should be going here and same on the the globe of the Excuse me of the knee where We start at one go around and then I should have Some of that light underneath there Excuse me So at any rate, um, that's just a thing to think about now as far as your actual light placement goes if we discount that element Uh, I think you're in a pretty good place. You want to watch out. You're using a little too much pure white I would go to something like an ivory or pale sand or ice yellow You know something like that It's just a little too stark in the contrast area um, also you want to make sure that you're kind of capturing A little more of the near One so we kind of jump straight from one to three. What's missing here are the high twos Like you don't have enough not quite white but very bright Gold highlights so a little bit more of that mixed in and shrinking that white volume down Is really what's gonna sell it But overall it's good. I mean, this is your first attempt at it. You said and I you know, I think this looks very nice Um, so I think you're definitely going down a great road. It's just a matter of pushing it farther As a side note the thing that sells the least is the scale mail Because there it doesn't go bright enough. Again, the contrast isn't high enough on there. So Uh Other final thought is on the lightning whenever you're putting pure white over a thing like you did with this lightning It needs to be first of all, I wouldn't use pure white I'd use something gray or near it first and then if you want to do the white you can do it over top of it Because I can still see the blue through some of this So never ever ever just try to go straight to pure white ever in any circumstance Always do some intermediate color first All right, uh So tim rois, uh, again first attempt at nmm. Well, what can you work on? Uh Would tinting potentially have been a technique to enhance this many and give it more realistic light Uh, I want to enter some competitions this year. What could we do? Sure more nmm. Okay It's it's going to be a thing this month folks settle in Uh, yeah, the thing that sells here is the steel the Other metal doesn't work. I don't know what the other metal is supposed to be I don't know if that's just the effect you were going for like you wanted it to be that brown And it's not supposed to be sort of this brown orange and it's not supposed to be non-metallic if that's the case I'm fine with it. It's not non-metallic I don't think it looks bad. I think it looks perfectly fine But it's not non-metallic Uh the steel yes filtering would have been a great way to go Namely filtering in a color between your two and your four Right, it's it's very stark and gray right now having like a blue tone in there or something like that Would have would have done a lot blue tone brown tone red tone Anything like that sure I think the ax sells well. I enjoy that. I think that looks really nice I like that you have this very bright highlight here and resisted the urge to go to the same down here You could pop this up a little more, but it's good. You grew your controlled See previous statement about reflected lighting that's going to be in effect again We don't have the reflected lighting on and if you're looking at competition Then the answer is a lot more time What I mean by that is like these edge lines on things need to be thinner the blends need to be smoother It's if you're going to paint for yourself for an army You can do a thing once if you're going to paint for competition You need to repeat a thing three times every time you do it So like it just it needs to and you're constantly getting thinner and thinner and thinner every time To just really make sure you're nailing it and that the glazes are smooth and that every transition is perfect and stuff like that But overall, yeah, I think that's I think you have the right ideas Uh, I'd love if you watch this tim to know what what were you going for with the this darker color that isn't the steel I think the gray steel works, but again. Yes a filter color will do absolute wonders in there All right. Jamie foster Uh, basically again looking for some advice for competition. Just general feedback. Sure So the major issue here is we don't have enough tonal variation in the miniature And I mean that in the skin especially Human skin is fascinating. It's interesting. It's very this is an old man Old people's skin is generally some of the most fun stuff to paint There's lots of coloration on there. His skin is very wrinkly and very hangy So he should have reds and purples and You know all sorts of interesting things going on you can go all sorts of crazy like he could have sort of You know vane showing he could have Liver spot type of things he could you know just all freckles all over the place just that level And if you if you're wanting to to paint something like this for competition That's the kind of place you want to take it because you want it It's not just about painting well the competition Everybody at a competition paints well Right you have to do something to stand apart and make the judge be interested in what they discovered when they get close To your piece the thing that works the best here for me is his robe that I really like Your tonal variation on that is fantastic It's a really interesting color choice. It balances well. It's muted and desaturated. That's excellent You could pop it up even a little more by it with a little more texture, but I like where it's at It's good The skin is where I need to see more work. Yeah more reds more tones more purples more detail Like this area of his neck is basically the same color as is the front of his chest I need more than that Right Uh, so that's kind of my thought there hair looks good. I do like the red and the cheeks. I think that's fine Uh, but yeah more variation That would be my biggest answer Especially when it comes to flesh tones All right, uh, kenny, uh painting for a couple years now. He's looking for tabletop quality Thank you. By the way, everybody who's including the black and whites. That's great If you're including those I want you to look at them first And say do you have enough contrast because many of these I've seen in here I look at them and it's pretty prima facie obvious that there's not enough So if you're taking the picture you should see it too Uh, but well, let's take a look at this guy. So Face he says facially, you know, but just basically looking at, um Be great if we could get some thoughts advice around skin tones and brightening up his palette I think your palette's plenty bright. You don't need to brighten your palette anymore Yeah, I mean your faces are just a matter of like I've described more. It's it's working in subtle tones I will tell you the honest answer Go look at human faces like in makeup and of different kinds. Just like go go look at the real world Barring that go spend time on like putty and paint and look how they do faces So, you know reference the real world first and then the um, and then the thing next Uh The art next but the I think that that we do need a little more Uh color in the skin basically like when we look at this one, it's very flat There's no red. There's no tones in her face human beings have a lot of red a lot of purples A lot of blues and things like that in their in their face Yellows like the traditional human face is especially well for males is yellow red blue and for women is is yellow Red red And then yellow again. Okay um So like women have a more t red area on their face um The So that's the kind of thing you want to be thinking about when you're thinking about color tones And and then on the whole I would say, you know, my challenge for you would be I understand you want to be at tabletop I have no issue with that. I dig that Know who you are paint to what makes you happy. I'm down with that 100 percent Uh, I would say if you're looking for a challenge like what can be your next steps It's it's tonal variation. It's just popping out things like that purple more And getting and like things like this yellow is very flat So having different tones in there. I think is where you'd want to go like when we look at the picture This is all basically the same color all that so that would kind of be my challenge for you And then hopefully that helps you with the faces as well All right Jack Williams painter for tabletop again, cool. And but he tried some tattoos. Love it. That's the best way to go How can you improve the tattoos for next time? Sure. It's glazes of the actual skin tone over top So this is a big dead zombie giant He didn't get these tattoos yesterday But that's what it looks like because they're all really bright really stark against the skin, right? Uh, when you tattoos fade over time I would suspect that a tattoo on a dead raised Femur zombie giant are especially worn and whether it's since his skin has gone to rot So you need glazes of the original tone Over the top If that makes sense take that green ish skin tone that you've got And give me some glazes of that mix a little bit of your actual skin tone with the black when you're doing it too But still do the glaze over top. That's basically what you're missing there Do that and it'll snap into place in a big way All right Zab uh with his first bust and I'm glad to hear The that I was in your head because with bust the answer is spend as much time as you think you possibly can before you go insane And then spend twice as much time as that okay so, uh This is good. I like a lot of what's going on here texture on the cloth good Uh, the bone I think looks really nice Uh, the gold coins and stuff that he wears his sort of armor plates I think those look good really nice rich gold that separates them The feathers are a little flat. They're too much of this Variation like it goes from from very bright to very dark and there's no Vertical visual confusion here What I'd love to see is some of these edges trace some red down occasionally to have this not be so Completely even like I understand there's an environmental shadow, but is it that perfect? right So that kind of thing See earlier comment about reflected light like there should be a small reflected light down here Uh, and then the edges on this silver if they're if it's this shiny and reflective the edges need to pop out more Because they would be catching light Um But yeah, overall this is really great stuff, man. I I like this bust a lot I think this is a cool bust this like skeletal roman legionaire. It's a really neat bust Uh, yeah, I dig this so that that would those would be my main pieces of advice for you But overall great work Juan Francisco Gonzalez Hidalgo the coolest name in the pmp Bringing us an experiment again looking for feedback on the non-metallic metal This is good because you have the reflected shadows So for people that I was like if you want to see what I was talking about earlier Let's look at this left arm of this guy. See how we have a main light here and a secondary light here Exactly what I'm talking about perfect nailed it great Um, we can do a little more of that in some places, but you know, it's not like every shadow needs to have reflected lights But especially it's usually spheres and cylinders that are especially prone to this Right like other flat surfaces triangular surfaces don't as much but Check out the kujo video down below if you want I mean, it's it is the best video ever on this sort of thing He explains it in such a succinct and perfect way with visual aids It's something I've never made a video about because I just don't know how I would top what he did When when the perfect thing's already been done you just You let the master go So, uh, that's kind of my thought there. I think this is great honestly one I have about zero issues with this Now if you want to know how would I take it to the next level the answer is pop colors and secondary lighting So the reflections here are placed. They're great. The problem is it's all purple to white. There's no ambient environment in it So having a Pop color in between your two and three where there's a little bit of blue reflected light or something like that A subtle filter glaze over that That would be the next level stuff. Um, go look at david soper's work If you want to see a good example He like look at his gut rot spume is what I generally reference people to because it's one of the greatest Examples of sort of pop color I've ever seen Uh, but that's that would be my main piece of feedback for you But overall this is great stuff man. I love them Uh, okay, uh fat joe. Hey, I like the name uh first series attempt at uh heavy weathering on space marine armor just looking to get some criticism sure Thinner sharper paint some of these lines are correct. I like this one down here I like this they're varied in size good But it needs to be thinner and more intense paint because like some of this black Doesn't look as dark as it should and that's because it didn't go on and cover deep enough Same with some of the reflections. They should probably be a little more blue white instead of this white But i'm okay with it, but thinner is really the answer Uh, you also want to avoid vertical lines like this because they really jar people out of it You have to then pick a side the light is coming from and it's not It's not the same Because and here's how I know like you you you pick the wrong side Because down here on this knee you told me it's from here Right There's several places where you're highlighting those side, but up here on the shoulder. It's coming from here So like if the light was this direction Then this side should technically be catching it right So just avoid like straight lines where it's vertical vis-a-vis the figure So that way you can more easily kind of lay out a consistent thing But other than that like Thinner up the lines now If you can't get your paint thin enough because you don't have the white ink or the flow Improver or a sharp enough brush or the control or whatever. That's okay. That's no big deal What you then need to do is just come back in with the blue you set your brush right there and you just push against that white ever so carefully ever so carefully Just baby step And then that'll that'll let you then thin that line out It's actually one of the great cheats one of the great cheats of drawing super hyper thin lines It's just not drawing thin lines. It's just painting over the other part of the line So there you go. Hope that helps but overall like I like your placement It's good feeder weathered heavily Things like elbows like the joints that he'd be knocking against top of him's weathered less Yeah, I like all that. I feel like you you know compositional wise. That's all good We just need some more saturated paint That really like kind of actually catches and makes what it is Shrink down some of these scratches a little bit and some of the lines and you're good to go Okay, next up. Uh, Nako uh honest opinion as his first attempt at what do you call a competition piece? And you'd like to know if that's standard. Um, yeah, man I think this absolutely is so I looked at this beforehand and this piece is pretty great We'll go to this one because it's a nice close-up. We're kind of all around The non-metal on the reflections great. We've got nice secondary reflections there. I dig that The eyes are probably your biggest challenge. I'm not sure what's going on there They feel like too much of the miniature is the eye I think I don't feel like his eyes are actually that big on the mini So I don't know but either way The the nature of them being raised up off of the bottom Like you can get your pupils raised Up off the bottom of your so there's iris underneath but not that much Not that perfectly round like if you had a thin thing of white because he's kind of leaning his head down I'd be okay with it. But that's too much That was the thing that popped out to me the most also the gold non-metallic up here doesn't reflect enough. It's the like This is this on the shoulder pad is fantastic same with like his axe hilt roundy things But then when you you nailed those then when you came to the flat surface of the the squared off um The squared off axe we didn't take it as high on the contrast The only other thing that pops out to me is if you want to make sure we smooth some of our blends down a little Like from here, they look good. But when I get up to here Uh, this is still Rough So just be careful with stuff like that make sure the glazes are together and in place But you're definitely in the right area for a good competition piece here Um, I think this is a really nice piece the axe. I think is standout I think it looks wonderful skin has a lot of really nice tones in it Absolutely dig the the intense reds and purples. So that's looking good Paint is cleanly applied reflections are in good places. So yeah, overall, I think this is this is really great work, man Okay, uh Kartik first time submitting basically he wants to He's doing this death watch color scheme He wants to add some more blue for the highlights feedback on the color scheme edge highlights freehand chapter marks. Okay, so The blue doesn't look like edge highlights. It's too thick And it's too much of a jump Instantaneously like we go way too high So I would direct you to darin latham has a great video on doing space marines with edge highlighting in blue Um, I did a video recently on painting black. I would direct you to that video Um, those are the kind of things you want to look at because we're just we're jumping like way too far here And suddenly and there's just no transition The colors are also all far too saturated Like I mean this is this right here shows what I mean like this is just instant black to gray There's no tonal variation across the marine and it just jumps straight to this line I have a video on edge highlighting. I would go watch that again. I have multiple videos on edge highlighting actually Um, so go watch those it'll show you how to get those sharp thin edges and how if you don't How to correct them But when you're going for this kind of thing because you want there to be blue It needs to be very subtle and it needs to build up in very careful Very careful layers up to it. Uh, it's it's far too stark here and too thick It just looks like he literally has blue Something blue glowing around the edge of it When we're when we're and and the other thing that's really being Dangerous here, and it's probably the chapter is we have like intense red intense red intense red intense green intense blue too many colors Like that's too many primary colors that are all highly saturated The that color combination does not work well. I get to television color Um, so something there needs to be desaturated or removed and honestly my answer here would be the the blue If I had to keep the red because the color scheme the thing you don't need is the blue So you can still use blue as a filter, but it needs to be way more weaker and way more desaturated Way more like gray blue Then you'll just have basically the red green and the black and we'll have much less of a problem So check out those videos, and I hope that helps Uh, james denny bringing us his first non gw miniature Uh, yeah, this guy. This is the wraith. It's a it's a good mini Uh, yeah, I mean, I think he looks really good texturing looks nice Uh, I think I might want to zoom in on him here a little. We're kind of far away Is he gonna let me? Nope, it's not gonna let me it's just making that bigger Just making the little window bigger Uh, at any rate, so I'd love a I'd love a close-up like I'm gonna be one of the people who's leaning into my camera now Yeah, I think a little more visual interest on like the sword this guy's in a really big scale So I think my biggest challenge for you would be things like more detail Especially in some of the weathering a little more pitting Color working just some different interests like that sort of super rusted Give me some some sort of oxidized color corrosion. I know it's not appropriate, but who cares? It's just visual interest on the sword right like this is where kind of art needs to win over over Realism because it's a giant floating wraith creature. All right, so We left some part of reality behind a little while ago In the way that you did work it in on the armor where I see these sorts of you know more green tones there Um, but yeah a little more color in the shadows the deep shadows the armor I think would help on the weathering pushing into like a blue or a green tone Especially good with undead as it feels kind of otherworldly The big cloak could probably use some more something. It's good texture. I like that a lot. It's still very samey Maybe a little more color transition Maybe a little dirt and things like that around the bottom just to show it because I mean he's just dragging it along the ground Like a ghost boy So I think something like that's probably what I would I would look at but it's a really good many I mean you did a great job with it. I like the color very desaturated. It feels very dead. It's good stuff All right, Matthew looking for some advice on the overall miniature White is very difficult to apply smoothly. So Yes, correct. The answer here is more tonal variation, Matt. It's it's pretty simple Uh, that is to say like it's the hardest thing in painting, but the answer is simple So go watch the reference video. That's number one But again more more tones more color in the skin reds purples things like that The answer to why it's hard to paint white if you really want to paint something white go look at my how to paint smooth white video That'll help you out But also just don't paint this much white Like there's too much white here White is a visually uninteresting color. It's very boring It doesn't communicate anything to the viewer and it's generally uninteresting to look at So You want to make sure that if you're doing something like this that you have more Greys and those greys should have a color and the white should have a tone In other words, it should be a slightly blue white and most of the figure most of the at least 50% of your white Space should be not white should be gray blue or gray green or whatever like it doesn't matter You can use any color white purple looks really nice if you want like a satin effect But just something like that. That's basically my my feedback for you there. Okay All right, I hope that helps matt Okay, uh tomas first entry for a local painting competition basically just looking for more help on what he can do And to push the model farther and tips for large flat surfaces So sure, I mean with large flat surfaces. I would direct you to like my Sort of any of the how to paint base coats fast video because that's gonna help you out But I mean the answer here is yes more smooth tonal variation across the mini Um in general the mini is kind of flat So let's go back to this black and white. This is all the same This is all the same This is all the same Right All the individual pieces are the same tone throughout Black and white makes this super clear like the sword is the same. I can tell the distinction between the pieces But there's just almost no variation across the individual Uh elements of the piece here and the biggest offender is probably the space brain armor itself Like this needs more shadow tones and more sort of pop and things like that to it The chipping and weathering is fine. I don't have any issue with that It's a bit evenly distributed You want to be very wary of that like this guy has a lot of the same size roughly chips on him So when you're doing this kind of thing, uh, you want to avoid the like 30 chips of all tiny size like he was in a sleet storm You know or like he was in a hail storm. He got hit by tiny rocks of roughly the same size You know, you want them to be more organic. You want some that are a lot smaller You want a couple that are larger That kind of thing But go watch like the how to paint fast base coats video. I've got a couple of that But that's the answer. This should be much deeper up here Should be introducing some like if we're going to go you went warm here. So let's go cold at the base So bring me down some purple some blue purple In there same into these shadows bring me into a blue purple in the shadow And then take me to a yellow, you know, high highlight at the high color, right? But just more tonal variation throughout same with the metals talk a lot about you can go watch the reference video True metallics need that same pop as non-metallics. So we need a more careful application of Inks and colors to push it farther right now. The metals very flat And we need to take that up. So that would be my advice for you Hope that helps and good luck. I mean it's a very good figure Uh, so I think you actually and there's a new I think this is like methistan, right? This is this old version So now there's a new version of him. I guess so there you go with something to try on I don't know for sure. It's him because I don't know 40k special characters very well But hopefully it's him. All right, daniel, uh, hello everyone. Happy new year first post here Uh ogre basically he's happy with the leathers but not the skin or the metals. Yeah, sure See previous statements. I've made on skin More contrast more tonal variation. I need reds. I need purples Brown tones stuff like that. Like we really want to introduce a lot more colors in here Um, also a note just like general paint cleanliness is a challenge here Uh, what I mean by that is like this line of his arm You can see where the painting stuff is kind of not as clean as it could be Uh, other final note is separate your elements like here We have a leather glove and then leather straps over top these should be separate in some way So I can tell they're two different materials um the and then Before you apply the metals this guy needs a good coat of matte varnish We have a lot of paint here. That's quite glossy. I'm not talking about the metallics I just mean the normal paint and that really just throws off the effect, right? You want to make sure that your paints are are much more leaning toward the matte side They can be a little bit satin, but these are far too shiny Okay, so my best advice is a lot more tonal variation on the skin If you go watch the reference video I linked you'll see exactly what I'm talking about Uh, and then map that out and hopefully that'll help you out there Uh, cool figure though. I dig it. I have no idea. This is from it's a really neat ogre dude Okay, cast me and bringing us the latest from his army Uh, so I've I've given lots of past commentary to cast me and no I think you're pretty fine on the color balance here. The green is obviously very intense You may want to think when you've got big pieces like this where they're way up on giant rocks About bringing a little bit of that green up top So like maybe this guy has two little glowing green eyes that are the same green as this Maybe the moon has a big glowing green eye. That's the same color as this Just having a little of that also placed in full brightness up top Could help balance out the overall composition. So that would be my thought but these dudes are cool The effect sells good glow All right ash, uh morelock from chimera took me a while to use this to get better Uh, only been painting a year and a half, but don't go easy on you Okay As you wish so first things first, uh, when you're asking questions about non-metallic metal Take a photo where you actually can see most of the non-metallic metal in it Like I don't have a picture here where I can see the sword And I can't really see anything that's going on here with the non-metallic except for the side of this bracer and this knee pad So there you go pictures also a little overexposed and bright So we want to kind of bring that in a little bit like it feels like the light doesn't have a cover on it So watch out for that now. What do we need to do here? Uh The non-metallic on the sword vaguely looks like it has the right amount of shading in it. It's hard to tell But yeah, I mean It's really hard also bring me in on the model more like this is a lot of wasted space here in this frame If I'm going to judge it. I don't need all this or all this Bring me in tighter so I can see it um, so feedback Uh much more tonal variation on the skin like a lot more see everything I've said previously Muscle structure needs reds needs blues needs lots of stuff like that go watch the video where I painted painted ruddy dwarf skin if you want to see a good example of that Because that's kind of what this guy should look he's a barbarian he's out there. He's in the snow whatever He's out in nature. If you want to be feel cold, that's fine You don't have to keep him super ruddy, but like he still needs it when people are in cold their their skin gets much more pink so That's like right away right there you go uh The leather and the elements need more separation. His hair just looks blue I don't know what we were going for maybe you were going for blue hair, but it's very close to the steel color And you want to avoid that kind of thing he if you you know if you're going for black We just need to glaze in a lot more black and bring that down Tattoo glaze over the top same thing as I told for the tattoos previously With a leather strap across the belt make sure that if his skin's going to be very bright and light Make the belt very deep and dark. So we have a good separation of dark to light elements there Uh, yeah, so that's kind of what I would recommend But uh, there you go. I hope that helps ash cool piece overall All right scott gibson Uh Doesn't ask for any specific feedback. So I'll just kind of give some quick stuff as always when you're posting Please ask for specific feedback. It's a big help The biggest thing I notice scott is we want to make sure we're focusing on our paint cleanliness here We've got some places where the the paint isn't as clean Make sure our lines are nice and separated things like that I would also say the same thing I said previously like this black is very glossy So is the red, you know, all these like a lot of these elements are really glossy So like before I did the metals I would matte this guy out and then go back in with the metals Same thing I talked about before with the metals. They need a little more tonal variation a little more Uh, actual shape of the color to them same with the black. It's rather flat So if you're kind of going for like a tabletop is super cool, but I would definitely kill all the shine out of that black. It's just it's very distracting when everything's super glossy like that Uh, so make that flat and place some highlights in there and I think you're in the right place Uh Yeah, that that would be my main piece of feedback. Good dirty boots I like it. Well done Okay, Chad Ashton, uh starting night haunt and this color scheme decided to go with concerns of classic how to shade and highlight black Uh, it's just a troop. Should you do more etc? Like what's the what's tabletop? Okay, so could this be tabletop? Yes, fine Absolutely. Here are the things I would do though if I was going to stick with this tabletop one is I would definitely make sure the Chainmail is much more popped out and metallic and rusted or something like make it more visually interesting. It just it's the same color as this Boring like we did this with an airbrush real quick You have an airbrush so we can pop up the top a little more and here's how I would do it Keeping in mind you're trying to paint, you know, you're going to paint a hundred ghosts I would take a soft makeup brush I would get a light gray color or something like that with a little bit of other hue in it Let's call it a gray blue That'll contrast with what very nicely against the red Take a soft makeup brush get a little bit of that paint. I would lightly dry brush the top of him lightly Okay, then I would take just enough to catch all these nice ridges and edges and highlights Again, I'm thinking like how do I make this go as fast as possible? I do this before I did any of the chainmail To be one of my first steps Then I would take something like a panes gray And I would do a very thin glaze of it in my airbrush And I would just glaze over the top of all that one or two times to snap that together Super quick process won't take long at all It will make these guys pop a lot lot more and separate those elements So that would be my best advice for you if you want to like pop it up It's still stay in a you know, uh, I hey I have to paint 120 ghosts or whatever And I don't feel like losing my sanity. So that would be my best advice for you there All right, uh, laly with a very big, uh, diorama looking for basically just kind of You know What's the diorama? I'll focus more on composition with this because I think that's what you're going for My biggest issue with the composition of the piece is everybody's very close together Like I like the general verticality of it But there is a lot of people in a small space here like let's Let's go back to this picture because it's going to really sell what I'm talking about I can't see the dead guy on the floor here Right and I can't see this guy behind this main dude here So like I don't this guy just looks like he's floating on a sword and I can't see what's holding him in the air So compositions dioramas are meant to be viewed So you want to think about your viewing angles and they have to have these logical sort of viewing angles in addition to a story So compositionally generally you've got a couple different structures You can go with the most common being either like a bifurcated or a triangular composition or something like that If you want to read a full article on this the illustrated figure mentor issue one has a fantastic article from chris surry about that And it's he's a master of composition. So that's the first thing I'd say like you wanted this piece this figure to be central That's fine. Then just get rid of this other guy back it Like we're too busy For what we're trying to do for the amount of space we have if we want to tell this much of a story Then I need more horizontal or something so this guy can be because I should be able to look from the front and see All the figures at play basically right um So that's kind of the first thing that I noticed that jumped out of me now as far as like a lot of the painting and stuff goes It's fine. It's very bright saturated colors I would desaturate a lot of that like the blue on a lot of these cultists are like super blue The green is super green the red is super red Like where you were playing in a lot of just the the rainbow color space here I would bring a lot of these way down Especially on the cultists because they're not the figure of this piece as you said that the thing you care about here is Like the thing you you you want you're wanting to tell a story about isn't the cascultists, right? It's it's the two main guys. It's the guy of top and cipher And so if that's the focus point of our story, they should have the brightest most intense colors That's a shorthand trick to get people to pay attention But like when I look at the bottom cipher is the most boring figure because he has the least color on him These guys bright blue Jeans are just like drawing all of my attention to it. I can't see anything else, right? If these guys were in very muted colors Very they should be their cascultists who live in like an underhype or something right there They should be dirty and they shouldn't be in like poppin poppin colors So take them down Spread the figures apart or reduce them. So we're only so we're telling a concise story that I can see what's happening here and Think a lot about your viewing angles of like when I'm looking from this this or this in other words like 30 degrees dead on or 30 degrees to the other side to 30 left center or 30, right What am I seeing and am I still seeing the narrative? Okay So that would be my my main feedback for you. I've got a video on on diorama composition as well So you may want to give that a watch that will help all right, so Let's keep going scott stirer Watching a lot of darin latham an angel girl does videos decide to follow darin's advice by getting better by painting space brains. Cool So basically he was looking for some feedback on what he can improve technique wise Uh, all that kind of stuff. Sure. So let's take a look got some good photos here So I think the biggest thing is we move too much into the orange spectrum kind of in general If you watch darin do the same color scheme He then brings it back together with reds with some glazing at the end Some very thin red filters over this would really help a lot to bring it in line I think that's the biggest challenge that we have here Um, I think your your color tones look nice. Space brains are a good thing to paint. They're very fun Watch them rotate. Oh It's amazing You know, your contrast is nice over the red. That's not going to go away with a slight red glaze So I think that's good the akila on his chest and that kind of stuff I think those are a bit harsh as far as like these blue things go again, see earlier comments about reflected lighting, but When we're doing this kind of non-metallic, we want this to be a little bit smoother like you're You're jumping up a whole lot here from five to one real fast and there's not quite the distance I'd want to see in between it. So That's kind of my main thoughts there. Hope that helps but overall it's cool and you're right there I mean painting primaris is a darn good way to practice some thin red glazes will kind of snap everything back into place Okay, uh, Matthew young, uh, you're not a daylight you have until the end of the month It's just the event. We you can't set a facebook event for more than two weeks So you're good. Uh, okay, so let's take a look at gromberdell here Some of the things I said earlier about skin tone apply both to the goblin and to gromberdell He doesn't have that much skin, but his arm and like his face. We need more red tones more purple tones The part that is the strangest to me is like the beard being all that gray white when it's clearly metal So i'm not sure about that. I like the gold. I think that looks real nice We could smooth it out some it's it's a little rough in sort of the blends Uh, and I think that's true for a lot of the piece like my main piece of feedback for you would actually be just More applications of glazing to kind of smooth everything out But overall, I think it's a good piece It's just that i'm not sure the the beard works if you were that feels like it should probably be just in a non-metallic metal gray to kind of match it up Uh, but then that in the skin I think those are your your main challenges for you there, but overall he's a cool piece It was a it was a cool holiday fig this year. It's always neat that they do those every year All right mark tan Uh And yes, he says he knows the sword is too large and boy are you right like I love oversized weapons But this is pushing it even by my standards Um, yeah, sure. So how do we draw attention to the face? Okay, so as it is right now the face is very boring like let's let's just all together cover up the sword and The answer is we want a little more color there You want you can use a pop color there a little more so A nice thing give me a zoom in on the face. This is about the closest we've got so we'll use this um This is brighter, which is good and it's tough on it on a mini like this. That's very desaturated But you know one of your answers could be Have this skull that's above him pop out a little more use a little more red Your eyes will tend to follow red So you could use a little more intense red in both his eyes and the gem and like something on the skull Like a big bright war paint marking on the skull or something could could help Uh composition wise. Yeah, I mean avoid this One of the things that often happens when you you didn't have to tell me this was kitbashed Uh, but my advice is avoid this thing We're like I get it. He's a jump pack troop So he's kind of like in the air but avoid two legs kind of being at the same height and standing sideways on a rock Like this where you can you'd be better. Literally just moving him over the center If he was in the center of this and just kind of standing on the rock. He would feel a lot better uh That's like the way he's is he landing is he jumping off either way It wouldn't make sense for his one foot to be kind of out here It in in this position if his leg was like way up in sort of a captain morgan pose if it was like completely bent back So he was clearly doing like the the captain marvel leap like go look at the captain marvel fig from marvel crisis protocol Because she's she's one foot leaping off something But her other leg is like completely bent back Right, his foot is down like he's wanting to step on something and there's nothing there like you expect him to just go The next second when he lands, right? Um, so that's kind of we could also draw attention to the face by darkening Around the face so have more deep shadows with this Gold right here, which the gold in general needs a lot more contrast like a lot more tonal variation and uh And then that by by darkening the area around it You'll help show off the pop light of the face So there you go. I hope that helps mark Okay, Ian, uh Big step for me. Love to get some feedback really tried to mess with stifling in a big way Um, tried for some higher contrast and a lot of combos very new to non-metallic metal. Okay So one of my I like this piece. I do. I think the color choices are really cool here Um, obviously you've used like this bright purple magenta and and this bright green So you knew I was going to be a fan My biggest problem is honestly the red it that saturated orange red doesn't work there Especially not with such a large color that should probably be something else like a magenta would work But an orange red will not It's just too much of a too large area. That's the same color In addition the bright green on the bone being the same as the sword is odd Like is her sword made of the same stuff as her bone structure? I generally don't mind. I'm pretty guilty of hiding colors like that around minis in the same places as well So but you want to avoid being something so radically different like I'll often make the hair color The same is like those wing striations Yeah, sure. It's the same demon. They're made of the same stuff. But like the weapon is clearly a distinct piece If it was going to be me, I would honestly make these horns the same I mean, this is bone And you told me her bone is green And then you fell back on the same thing and you just made the bone here bone color and the bone here bone color Like you were going the right direction and then you pulled back and you fell back on habits of making things the same color So I would make the horns green and this piece green Turn this magenta and I would have the sword just be like a very subtle blue kind of power type of sword thing And I think you'd be good to go that would that would honestly help a lot Like a very faded blue gray not as much as the hilt but just like so a little more intense But you know like a traditional power sword and it would kind of fade against these really intense greens and stuff like that So that's kind of my main piece of advice for you there When you're color balancing like this you want to make sure you're working in these tones and the red just the orange red just It doesn't work But overall I think you did a good job like texture cells skin tone cells Bright color cells. It's great all that hit where it should Ed all right bringing us a big keeper of secrets Oh, you don't need to sell me on this one my friend one of my obviously one of my favorite models of all time Many of the decade. This is really nice paint is really clean. She's bright The biggest thing we need to do is again on the skin Just more tonal variation across the mini snap a picture of this turn it black and white You'll see you it's very flat as far as the the various colors go So, you know, she has a demon. She has this demonic skin Work in some reds some stuff like that in her skin to make her feel a little bit more alive Especially in your four your three four five area So up under her arm up toward the top where you're already shadowing. We need a color there as well Uh, the purple looks good the blue like this this sort of powder blue Uh, I don't have a problem with I think that's fine I honestly think that part is the best part. I think it works really well Uh, the purple could use maybe a few still darker areas where we're pushing down Uh, the sword is what I said earlier see comments at the beginning of this video about the sword But when you have a three-plane sword, which is what this is The shadows don't fall like that. They don't like it's not a block and a block and a block Each one needs to vary and you need to be alternating light and dark to kind of Vary across the surface, but she looks nice. Gold looks good Claws look good. I mean like everything's smooth. So I have no issue with any of that But that would be my best advice for you All right call, uh bringing us a big old catechrose Uh new colors like the fluorescent green for the gems in the blade So just kind of looking for general feedback. Um, my biggest advice is I I like a fluorescent green. This blade is way too much of a good thing Way too much like let's do an experiment. Let your eyes relax Don't focus on anything in particular Just kind of let your eyes go go relaxed where you're not focusing anything. What's the only color you see It's this And this is the focus of the piece not this Right, we want to be looking at catechrose in all his glory So my honest answer is this needs to be way desaturated down Most of this blade should be normal and if you want to use this fluorescent green It should be like the edge color or just to the tip or your your one on the non-metallic highlight blend or Something like that Right, you've got it scattered around Which is cool like in most of the other places on this on this diorama on this fig You're using it in a very reserved way Uh, that's how I like it. This is too much of a good thing. It's the main thing that jumps out of me. So There you go. Hope that helps Tristan gray, uh bringing us his first unit, uh for for his cities of sigmar army Uh Basically tried a few first excited for some feedback realistic flames dark skin tones and building up bases. Sure So let's talk about all that So the skin tones are good. They're darker. They still need more color When you're working in darker skin tones deep reds magenta's purples You can still use some glazes of an orange tone in there to kind of show where the light's reflecting You use that between like your two and your three That kind of thing I I dig the heck out of this this army you're making by the way. Obviously these are converted from Um From clan escher girls in necromunda, which you don't have to sell me on that. I'm I'm all in for that, buddy uh So that would be my advice on the skin tone On the blue some of those Highlights feel really really stark. So you want to smooth those out with some glazes And then on the bases. Yeah, I like the chunky bases and building out some of them You end up with some kind of weird positioning So like the one girl in the back Right as we're looking at it. Um this girl right here. She seems a little catty wampus Given the angle of approach there, but uh, but other than that, I think they're good I think we just want to see more with the basing. They're on like this rocky ground But it's all very samey colored and there's nothing else going on like are there plants in this place? Are there skulls? Are there detritus? Is there other kinds of rocks? Are there? Little you know little anythings around like all the stuff that would be scattered in nature little tiny scrubs and And uh that kind of thing So just make sure you you take it all the way home Uh as to the fire like what she's got here in her hand Uh, it's good. I'd I'd take that orange a little farther like I'd bring it down just slightly Little more subtle orange little more subtle whole red So not any real red. No Ferrari red. No real red. We keep that out of our fires. That's just no no no no no We don't use that but like a little more we jump from like yellow to black in a really short space We need to pull down that orange more and then pull down that that red black a little more So that's my thoughts there Tristan All right, Andy Walker, uh brings us the bus trying out some non-metallic looking for feedback on that As I said, this is non-metallic month Um, I love this bust. It's creepy as all getouts pretty fantastic Um, yeah, I think as far as the non-metallic goes it sells the best for me here across the chest Because the light line is placed right in the middle And it reflects well the chin also looks nice where it's catching it Where I have the biggest problem is like here on the back with these pieces these Don't look as convincing because again the highlights are pushed to the edges So see the previous sort of discussion about that Um, that would be my main sort of thought for you is that you want to make sure you're We're kind of taking all those highlights up unless you don't want that stuff to be metal If the like shoulders and these back pieces aren't really intended to be metal Then that's fine. And if this is really all that's meant to be steel Then I think it sells. So it's just a question of what your your intention is Uh, and and obviously that's Harder for me to just read without knowing But if we're going to do that if you're going to have this be a separate material Then I would introduce a slightly different color tone to show me it's a different material because right now they're both blue gray black kind of color palettes And I don't it just looks like this one didn't get highlighted as much Uh, so that that would be my thought there for you Andy, but uh, yeah cool bust man dig it Uh tim, uh his demon troll thing. How can you improve the metal? Uh, should you bring more colors into the mini? Okay, so let's take a look Uh First of all, do we need more colors? No, I think we're just fine on that What we do need is more tonal variation across the skin Um, that's what you're lacking like his main skin, especially in a lot of places It's good on the hands, but it needs to be smoothed out like you're jumping from dark blue to stark white I highlighting blue is difficult go back and watch the I recently published a video on exploring colors blue Go watch that you'll see how you can use glazes to bring those tones into line, but still have a lot of variation uh Now as to the metal Um, it's got a lot of variation in it, but it's no longer smooth like we went we went to stark with these transitions There still needs to be some metal in there. It just looks like literally it's burnt like it's scarred I still need to see gold tones. So go and watch some of the like non-metallic gold videos. I did Most useful here. You might want to look at something like, um The the most recent video I did on exploring non-metallic colors like revisiting non-metallic colors in true metallic metals Um, that deals on like a copper-ish gold color and you'll see how I'm using the matte paints in there Um, finally, you like there's just too much of especially the back piece that just isn't gold Right and so that's that's where it's not selling. I think the helmet works the best of the face mask or whatever it is Works the best of all of it. So there you go. Hope that helps dim Okay, howard kyle, uh last advice was to push the shadow on the highlights. So how do we do this time? uh, okay, so We have a one and a two and a five We have no three four here, right like you brought your highlights up But notice how quickly we go from like white to brown white to brown We've got to smooth out those transitions. This one really shows it, right? So Yes, you have a one and a five you've got to your contrast points Now we've got to bring it back together So I need subtle glazes of that gray going into that brown to smooth that transition out and bring it Back into coherency. Okay. So that's my best advice for you there. Hope that helps howard Lee ascroft really happy with how this turned out. I was going to chip all the edges, but I love the color so much The yellow lights need more work. Okay, so Uh, yeah, I mean, it's an orc-y vehicle. I would chip it man. It's gonna look better with some damage um Yeah, I mean on it. I think it's good. It's very bright It feels very airbrushed the things like the Um Doing the weathering over top and chipping things would honestly help it I think the colors fine the panel modulations fine. It's just very kind of Boring because it's a I don't mean that in a rude way. I just mean like it is a big vehicle That basically is all one color And you didn't give me a lot of separated elements there Um, this is probably too much yellow on something that feels like it should just be steel Like I'd love to see more just basic Steel and stuff in there to kind of flatten out some of those colors Uh, again too much of a good thing, but yeah chips scratches rust streaks Especially on orc-y vehicles especially on something that's just basically a big round flat traffic cone It'll help a lot to break that up. It's not going to ruin the color. It will make the color look better Because right now the problem is the color ends up being too much of a good thing It's just all that color whereas if there's lots of breakups to it in variation The stuff that's there will pop more against those chips and scratches and things like that So there you go. Lee. I hope that helps All right, chris larson Uh, this chapter master of his space wolf successors Uh, you know did his edge highlighting um And so basically, you know what what does and doesn't work So I had taken a look at this guy before And the answer is yes, it's it's tonal variation. So like I'm cool with the edge highlights, but the armor itself is so big and basically flat A lot of the elements here are the same color Um, like so much of this guy is that same thing and the yellow is just like a big flat yellow cape Right. I need more variation in those tones the yellow Um, you know needs more subtle rust tones And colors like that in it light rust and rust are great ways to shade Uh, yellow Again, so just more more something there to break that up Same with the armor itself the edge highlights look good. They're nice and thin in most cases They look real real good, but they're very subtle and when it comes to something like that I need more I need more separation of panels darker lines between You know, probably a few brighter edges even like, you know, it's a very uniform edge highlight The stuff that's up here should have brighter edges than the stuff that's down here at his feet You can't see where my hands are right now, but as we go down, right? um And then just finally on the face like if you're going to put white on the eyes like actually put in pupils His face needs the most work Because like again see previous comments about like color in the face and having stuff near his hair, especially here Um down by his face and having more color around his eyes and having defined pupils That alone would do a huge amount of work here Because right now he just it's very stark to have these like white eyeballs and no shade around it Like look how dark My eyes are showing right now Part of that's because I'm lit from above, but so is he Right look at how dark the ring around my eyes are right That's the kind of thing you're trying to you need to capture there. That's what'll make the eyes and the face sell So I hope that helps chris All right, uh jan basically, uh Basically, he was you know asked to paint it in heavy metal scheme. Look over some general feedback and tips sure Uh, so my honest answer here is going to be pretty straightforward More so this is a big piece. It's a centerpiece. I need more the green is very flat I need more of those edges picked out You can do that with a dry brush and then lots of glazes over the top That will you can go very far with that So more of that variation and all the rough texture on this guy The bones don't have enough striation and transition in there You can go watch the the video below that will tell you a lot about I cover like bone transition and stuff like that in the video so you can go there Um, the orc himself is probably the best part, but again more on his face Like let's let's go to this one where we can see him a little clearer Um, I like the pink addition to the nose and the lips solid there I'd love to see some even deeper shadows and some brighter highlights. We need to especially the highlights I need to pop up this area of his face a little more Uh, and as to the yellow armor some chips some scratches things like you've got these big rivets These would have these would be scratched. These would look like metal colors You know, these would have rust lines around them shadows stuff like that So just more variation in that kind of space He feels a little flat right now. And so that tonal variation will is what you need to make him Pop out a little more especially if you want to get into sort of weathering and damage and stuff like that That will really help. So there you go. I hope that helps, but it's cool scheme I mean, you definitely executed on the box art style very well and he certainly captures those colors All right, Kyle, uh critique away first at this style and it's been a while since I posted. Okay Sure again Help me out by saying what you're looking for but okay Simplest answer is smoothness. I need a lot more smoothness your transitions here are really really really stark I need more glazes and soft lines to bring that together like this is way too stark Okay, so just kind of across the mini that would be that's the number one thing that jumps out at me Um beyond that like composition wise, it's fine when it comes to plasma You want a little bit deeper colors and you want to pop up the plasma a little more The metal is also flat and doesn't have the the tonal variation we need so some soft applications of our inks and stuff like that Will really help in selling that effect. So but the main thing I would want to ask you to work on is just some some subtle More transparent glazes and layers to help bring those those highlights together. That's my best advice, Kyle Hope that helps And welcome back. We're glad to have you Uh here ryan brings us uh, uh, yeah pronounce michael Okay, I did it right great. Okay Um focused on practicing, uh glazing correctly highlighting the face and ears looking for feedback on those Uh, but anything is appreciated Yeah, so I think this is good. I think we need a little more color into his general like General face like his nose the top of his lip the brow ridges These need more higher highlights and we need more subtle tones down here Like I need to create those shadow colors of those reds or something like that where he's got tones under his face So the answer is sadly more glazing But working in those tones easing the transition between the pink around his eyes Into the green of his face basically paint him like an orc Right where those colors need to be subtle and softly transitioned Same with the the inner part of his ears Those feel like those should go into a slightly deeper color Be glazing in some deeper purples and stuff like that and that'll really help, but I mean he's super cute Uh, so I mean, I think overall you you captured his likeness quite well Um, but those would be my main pieces of advice for you. Hey, it even knows that that's a face Whose name is it? Why it's baby yoda, of course. Everybody knows that You can see what I'm talking about here like see how the eyes just look white That I mean the contrast photo tells you everything you need Right, like we need more subtle shadows here Need more subtle shadows here. This needs to smooth more. This needs higher highlight here here here here here here here Here here, right There you go Okay Uh Johnny, uh first proper model of the year, uh, just like some general insight into what you think works and what could use improvement Uh, yeah, sure big old mortarian Okay, so What works what doesn't well the wings don't work. I don't mind the feathered wings I think those are fine But they don't work because they're too big flat in the same color Like this guy is a riot of different colors going on and then I get to the wings and it's just like gray The least interesting of colors and so much of it Um, you know, I need tones in there So I don't mind the feathered wings as opposed to like the bug wings normally has. I think that's actually a cool take Um, but I need to see more just variation in those wings in general You can keep them gray if you want to I'd rather see more of a hue to them, but if they're going to stay in gray Then I would want to see them branch out a lot more like subtle shadows here going to higher highlights on the edge Um, same with the purple tone of the cloth by the way Um, let's get over to to the main shot. There you go This will be nice the purple tone of the cloth is again too flat needs more the same The rusting and the weathering I think was fine. He's very dirty. I like the white color armor But I think you've actually sort of cracked that nut pretty well Uh, I feel like that's on the right page Uh, the purple at the end of the gun isn't working. I assume you're going for like a heat Like a heated metal thing. It's too much sudden purple Uh, the heavy rust looks really nice. Your weathering is on point I would still separate these elements a little more a lot of this stuff really comes together That happens a lot when you do heavy weathering. We still need to have the elements separated strongly So go and look at like Richard Gray's model. It's he's heavily weathered it But the elements are still very distinct where I'm really seeing that as things like these You know these little balls and stuff like that that he carries around Versus him like this is all kind of the same color not the purple robe But all of this is just kind of the same color And I'd love to see that have more differences in oxidation and weathering like use the way different things weather To separate the differences in The piece the final note is the little blood slicks down here in the base don't really work Because they're so eyes are naturally drawn to red Okay, so when we look here Like just again, let your eyes relax. Don't focus on anything. What do you see? I see two bright spots are red We didn't need the little blood spatter down there. It can just be melty goopy dudes And then we don't have it if you're going to have that kind of red then it needs to be up here around his face Your eye human eyes track the color red It's just a thing So that when you use a sudden bright intense red You're going to snap people's eyes to that location So that's my main thoughts for you All right Jewels with a tour garadon Uh tour i'll tell you right now. We got to get sorry jewel. That's the guy. I'm talking like I'm not talking to him Very hard for me to say I need a better picture Like if we're going to do something like this like please set up a place to take the picture Give me non desaturated light. It's overexposed. I can't give feedback when i'm dealing with a picture like this Sorry, um, like I just I need it closer. I need even lighting Stuff like that From here the best thing I can say is it probably looks like it doesn't have enough tonal variation in the yellow But that's hard to tell because that could be overexposure Right, so give me a good photo and we'll we'll go from there Okay, matt o bryan, uh Looking for some feedback on the avatar raspy tina from malifaux particularly snow ice effects First time doing them and the skin is that's something i'm trying to prove one at the moment. Okay so, uh, yeah the So only everything needs more. That's the basic answer Um, I have a video on painting ice. I would go look at that the short answer is it doesn't really look like ice uh, it's two Just one color like we can see it here in the contrast photo right and please keep including these people This is amazing. I mean it tells a little story ice needs this layered effect to it And so you generally want to have like a deep blue to kind of kind of show the depth In what would be normal shadows and it should come up to these thin streaking white lines at the edge Like and it's lots of layers of paint stacked over top of each other to create the illusion of depth Right and then finally these very thin white dusty lines of the cracks in the ice So I need just basically more transition She herself i'm okay with the hair being like super fake red if that's what you're aiming for that's fine enough um But she herself needs to be more Uh pale and skin because she's obviously cold. She's in the ice. I mean that's kind of the thing that's going on there but More just kind of controlled variation of her skin so that she sets apart in some way From the mini I mean she already does because she's very warm versus the very cold ice column fine I have no issue with that but like more pale highlights to kind of bring her out and pop her she's not Really drawing my attention in a way. She would if the skin was more brightly highlighted Although the red does do a good job of getting her there So like the fake red is actually a very good trick as I just mentioned red draws the eye of having it get in there So that's kind of my basic thought So hopefully that idea of like stacked ice matters You can watch the video that I did but the key is just making those layers sit on top where you like have dark blue in the shades Coming up to this light blue. Basically we need to get into more Of those tones like more of the blue Slash deep blue color up into the white. We don't have enough of a variation here Okay, uh dan Herrera with some untamed beasts interesting your thoughts on the color balance on the texture's bone for her skin. Sure Okay, so the answer is More tonal variation. I mean I could just direct you right back to that video Like the skin does not have enough. I need more in the shadows more in the highlights Even with dark skin purples Magenta's oranges in the shadows use like a traditional Caucasian flesh to create subtle but soft highlights Um, sort of an African skin will highlight up into that kind of a color Uh at its highest points of highlights the bone needs more you can watch the reference video It's too like a the bone is basically just washed and then kind of there and layered back up I need more actual transition there where the bone is deeper and has more colors to it more Transition to it throughout like these big spikes and these big horns. This should be very dark here going up to very high here Same with the metals there the most sort of egregiously not uh Have this kind of color transition. Um, so Much much much more on that lots of deeper shadows and things like that that jumps out at me By far the most So, yeah, I mean right now we've got good sort of base tones But we really lack in contrast. So a lot more tonal variation Go watch the attached video and that will help you out a great deal Okay Adrienne first time posting here looking for feedback on my tmm's light placement Trying to follow kujo's nmm theory video. Hey a second time. That's been referenced Also, you say not to varnish metallics been in a model like this. What would be the most suitable? Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't varnish it. I'll say that much for sure Uh, yeah, so let's take a look So we're dealing in some tmm here and we've used like inks and stuff like that to shade the planes Uh, and this is a great color like we can see how we can see these nice deep shadows running up into here Uh on the flat sides. I think we missed an opportunity Like this should be a shadow up top here vertical planes when placed against the light Are slightly darker on the top. Look at my hand. Like I'm slightly holding it against the light But see how it's darker here than it is here Like that's this area should be slightly darker The only other thing than that I'd say is I mean an all silver vehicle is kind of tough because it's not Super visually interesting So you might want to think about like light glazes of colors like a very weak blue or something like that Could go a long way to just kind of kick some visual interest in the kind of three through five shadow area um And then edges just edge highlights to have With this steel you want to pop out the edges So like you need to go around with silver and trace every freaking edge on this model Which is a lengthy proposal on something like this that is just all sharp angles But every panel and every edge should be traced with like probably some kind of relatively bright-ish silver or You know aluminum or white metal or pale burnt metal or something like that Um, so that's my basic feedback, but yeah as to interpretation. I really like the wings I really like the main uh hole like the cockpit. I think I think you executed on that well So that that sells for me that works. I dig that Uh and as to varnish, I just wouldn't varnish it. I mean it's Once the metals are done jobs are good and you're you're done. That's it Metal paints are tough the pigment is Usually depending on what you're using the pigment is either aluminum or mica if it's aluminum. It's quite tough Because it's it's metal Uh, patrick davis. All right also first time posting here We'd love some general feedback and specific feedback on weathering and blending the smoke and also bait Uh, so sorry. Blah blah blah blah specific feedback on weathering And blending on the smoke and also the basing. Okay Cool, let's take a look Uh, so we need to get to so this is a great photo. We'll start here Um, I think the wings look really good. They're very eye-catching. It's an interesting butterfly pattern Uh, you're my butterfly. Uh, so no that looks good. I have no issue with that Uh blending on smoke. I have a video all about blending on smoke. Go watch that I mean it's wet blending. That's the key like you just you got to wet blend the heck out of it, right? Uh, so but that's my main piece of advice Some of your wings by the way are still quite shiny and it I'm not sure if that's necessarily what we want to go for You may want to mat those down a little bit Just something that catches because they'll catch weird reflections Now on him and his face Uh So what did you ask about the eyes? How to make the eyes look like they're dead Oh, like the box art has them. Oh, sure So the answer is they need to have dark circles around them and then be bright gray The reason they don't look anything like anything right now is because you don't have enough depth Like take the pupils and irises out of my eye And I will look dead with the eye of very dark shadows around my eyes all the time Like I have especially deep ones because I didn't sleep well last night So, uh, if you remove this from my eye Like the iris and the pupil all look dead real fast. That's all it is. It's just gray But the key that makes that work is not the eyeball. It's what's around it Making this a very deep dead purple where it's obviously like it's sunken in That's the key to selling that effect Okay So that would kind of be my advice there You can also like More separation of kind of the elements to see previous mortarian that I commented on and that would also probably be a good thing here All right, yosef, uh having a little bit of a height is from painting yet again I don't know how many specific points to the addressing rather just some general advice. Oh, sure. Okay So let's look at our big dragon here Um Scales look good. So my basic advice is we need to heed lighting more So let's look at him from this. Thank you everybody who's doing the black and white keep it up more black and white photos This is great because this will tell the exact story. I want to tell This guy is very hunched. He's like he's in this very weird position but yet You've evenly distributed light all around him like the top of his arm here is the set has the same highlights on these scales As this stuff. This is just as bright as this What we need more is more universal control of the lighting So when you have a model like this that's very broken up with these things The first thing you want to do is think about it like erase the texture from your mind Just how would he be lit? If that was all one smooth surface Then go in and create the the detail beneath that right So like the shoulder here upper part of his leg shoulder and here and this part of his arm shall be like mega bright Whereas under part of his shoulder under part of here bottom part of his leg here under part of his arm quite dark Right. So that's the first thing that that pops out at me Uh on the metal. I think we're probably not as bad. Yeah, I think the metal's probably fine. There's some good variation in there Yeah, I think that's okay. The wings seem a little flat You know, there's a lot of texture in there. So probably just picking that out more what I think be good I think the metal was executed well. So yeah, there's my general feedback Hope that helps sir All right Damian the first time posting not done the base yet looking for some general feedback and where to go to improve from here Uh, sure. So okay Uh smoothness, that's probably your basic thing That purple is way too bright for your osl way way way way way too bright Bring that way back down with green glazes Cast light is not as strong as the light source. This is the light source. This is just as bright Like I'm looking at this. These are the exact same brightness. In fact I'll prove it Right This is just as white as this So that needs to tamp way down So that's number one The other thing I would recommend is just kind of smoothing it out like you can see where a lot of the blends are very rough so You know deeper shadows like we started our mid green. We don't really have a five in this I need a deeper green shadow So more five more deep shadow more glazes to smooth everything out And I think that's basically where you want to go. That would be my challenge for you for where to go for your next steps Tattoo on the side of the head looks cool Following Darren there and uh, I love it. That's well executed. Well done there great job Okay Up here first time posting a little bit of context trying to get contrast for it Mostly looking for general advice on what to work on for improvement and feedback on the supposed to be black clothes Sure. So the clothes are too flat. That's number one Um, I just did a video on painting black So go and watch that and that will help but basically we need more Sort of sharper highlights more contrast going into like gray tones and stuff like that in a small volume So a small amount of space you have 50 60 of the area just being black and then you need to transition up to something That's like mid gray lightish gray probably with a little bit of hue in it Um, sorry. What was your other question? Oh, just general advice. Yeah, there you go. Okay So that would be my main thing Um Beyond that, I mean, he's a really simple fig the flame go watch my how to paint fire video That little black tip doesn't work for me like we need to transition there If that's what you're going to do and then with the leather More variation in brown and more scuffing and texture to it Leathers really fun because you can just like do little slashes and scratches and hashes and dots and stipples and all that stuff And then you glaze it over with a brown and boom you got leather. It's a magical substance It's one of the easiest things to texture. So that would be my advice there for you But I welcome glad to have you along on the journey All right Maroc Need some help or finding this not sure where to start or how to go about it. I feel like it's a good starting point It means you're fine. I'm not sure if that means going back with glazes or just boost the contrast by actually adding in black Or boosted by adding more white or all of them Okay, so let's let's zoom out and kind of take this piece in So he's got this nice glowing piece and it's it's casting up to here Um My honest answer maroc Is you're in a very good place here. This is one of the better you've been playing around a lot with like these cast lights And this is one of the better interpretations of it I think what we need to do Is wheel back with some light glazes of like a subtle green So you do a really nice job down here on the rock Of transitioning really well and this is the color i'm talking about like right in here and here But on him, it's not really present. We go right into this very bright color now My perception is you're trying to capture like a light colored fur But still it's going to cast a dimmer light than that Um, so I think some subtle. I don't think it needs to go brighter. I think this is all fine I think what we need is in kind of this area I need more of this kind of subtle green going on Especially in here in the shadows of his face like the shadow the shadows that are still in light Okay, so that's kind of I think the refinement we need there Now as to the actual, you know, you can't strike a match without casting a shadow Hard to tell but I think you're shadowed enough Um, I need to see it in person to really tell like we're getting into the area here where it's like OSLs are really really tough effect to judge over just a picture alone But I think your shadows are deep enough like this really sells to me of a guy in basic darkness except for that lip from below I think you're basically there really like the sword. That's looking nice Um, but yeah, I think it's just more of this refinement color more of this kind of area green very subtly glazed in across the The guy and I think you've got a winner Okay, uh Senior Dan I'm gonna call it Dark Angel's Apostle. What can you add or remove to remove to improve the model more? Sure Uh, so our black is a little better here, but again, we could pop a little farther See previous comments about black Make sure we're very careful and clean with our paint job going back and cleaning it up Like the gold here is where it doesn't belong so we want to make sure that's nice and in place Um The green fire I have no problem with that that's good good dusty feet Um, if we're going to do this texture on the cloak, which is fine Uh go all in Uh more highlighting on the shoulder his backpack like this is still very flat I need more highlight up here on the top here here Watch the most recent video I did about uh texture like this sort of this thing you're going for on cloth You need to carry that way out. I would expect to see that down here and down here and down here as well So that would be my basic thoughts for you of of what you could do Yeah, this guy's better. This is a better implementation of the texture because you carried it farther I'd still go a little farther watch the video to refine, but this is a much better take on it right here So there you go. Hope that helps Okay, uh Jean Jean John Simon will cut was a go for that really like the back of the miniature It looks good from one to three feet I really despise the front the many and I don't know what to do to improve it Is the red too bright bad nmm and tmm not clean enough color mix contrast highlights What do we need? Okay so Back of the mini looks good. Uh, I agree and so let's look at the front of the mini So The answer is a couple different things here probably like there's just a lot more So look at the back the colors are much more unified and balanced, right? It's not so riotous of color There's a single blue. It's highly desaturated because the top of the cloak and then there's red Now let's look at the front Riot of color Blue red blue red blue red, you know, just like all over the place and it's all bouncing through this highly saturated color Well, we need is more deeper shadows in the red You know tone some of this red down with a deep purple or a brown or a black or something like that We can go to any color go watch my exploring colors red video and you'll see kind of the different shading options But I think that's what's throwing you off. It's so riotous in its colors and there's so much brightness going on that it's just causing kind of A painful situation for the eye where it doesn't know where to go or where to move and you're bouncing around too much Higher highlights and deeper shadows. So again up here on the chest like I would pop this out here And shadow this in here a lot more The more we bring those shadows into the red, I think the more in line this piece will feel So that's kind of my honest advice for you also make sure we like your pupil isn't covering the space The eye iris and pupil isn't big enough. That needs to be a little bigger Darker line under the eye to kind of capture that. It's a small space. I understand but that would be my basic thought there All right Dave Painted mollock in a sketch base way trying to convey texture any advice on how to help with that as well as color choice would be awesome Yeah, sure. Let's take a look. Um Yeah, I mean, I think the sketch is fine Honestly, I think my eye is mostly drawn to his face right now Um, the one thing you could do to draw more attention to his face. So let's talk about lines. This is a good way to look at it The big nose Does that do the same color to the ends of his ears? That will really help a lot If he had a little bit of this pinky pink in the ends of his ears That would do a big deal other thing you would do take this orange yellow transition You put on the mushrooms up top put them down here on the mushrooms growing on his chest Then we've got a light Then we have a singular color line that I meant to follow one It balances the colors better because it takes this and puts it down here to That creates a uniform line of composition across the manager and honestly it would zero in our attention right here So that's kind of my main thought on what I attack a little more pink in the ears Um, you could pop the highlight up here a little bit or deepen the shadows around the side of his head Again, you can either create more light or create more shadow, which will make the light seem brighter So maybe like some soft glazes of a darker purple tone here That would match well too with what you did for the gums, but pinky ears Make those earrings actually metal. Those look like they're blue Make them something that's different if you're just going for a quick sketch then make them black or or something like that Like give them a black glaze that way they appear like a grayish And then uh these mushrooms being the same as this and that should help a lot All right, thomas spite Uh, so, uh thomas says, uh Tried to push his limit particularly the nmm Uh, as far as it could go my main problem is unsure if the light reflections are placed correctly What do you think? Uh, thank you. I'm jumping soon to competition. So yeah, okay great Uh, okay, so we've talked about nmm a lot in this video. Um, I would again reference you to kujos But for the most part, uh, the only one that doesn't strike me is this Plate here the light should be on the bottom of a flat surface light bounces along the bottom and captures here I just think probably here is actually the right place for the light given there's a slight curvature And then this should be a little darker and this should be quite dark Um, the rest of the stuff all probably sells Good contrast like that's great. You look at this picture. Look at how much that's how striking that is wonderful We're definitely capturing our contrast there Um, most of this looks good I don't think cipher's a great fig for competition. Honestly, he's a little busy and kind of He's kind of closed. You can't really see the miniature like he's secret So like everything's kind of in and you want to miniature that's generally a little more open A big part of him is also just a big dirty cloth Which like Covering your excellent Paying job in a big dirty rag is not generally the best way to grab attention Um, it's not you doing that. I'm just saying like that's the nature of cipher the miniature He's he is himself covered in this big dirty rag because he's like, you know, he's a stealthy dude So that's cool. It just makes him tough as a competition pig Um, but on the whole I mean, I think that's good. I think you're definitely pushing toward the right line I think painting a miniature specifically for competition and going to one is the best way to get ready for competition Because you will get feedback from judges and they'll hopefully understand exactly what to do But I think you're in a good place here the weathering on the cloaks looks good I think mainly what I would convey to you is a little more smoothness across a couple things Some of these lines like on the shoulder aren't as smooth as they could be This one looks really nice. This one looks really nice So just you know working most of painting for competition is just continuing to smooth things out just nice subtle soft glazes But your contrast looks great color placement is great. Pain is super clean Um, the sword hill is really flat. I would note like if I was a judge, I would notice that sword hill is really flat immediately Like this should have deeper shadows in between and colors underneath and highlights on the top like all that kind of stuff But overall, I think this is great, man. I think this is a really good interpretation of cipher I really like this. I think you're non-metallic. That's cute. Well, are there a few places where the light should maybe be slightly different? Maybe but for the most part, I think it works. I think it's mainly the smoothness. So yeah, well done I think it looks good, man all right, so next up we've got andrew Johnson who uh is Uh, basically he says he's never posted before well, welcome and it's about his 10th painted mini That's wonderful Uh, well, welcome to the welcome to the party. We're super glad to have you on your hobby journey um So Basically just looking for sort of some general cnc Um, let me say for your like, you know, basically second completely finished mini and you're doing like water effects and stuff Yeah, I think it's fine Uh, I think one of the things you want to be careful of is Uh, with like the big eyes with things like this So my my general feedback is you're going to want to work on your brush control and smoothing out your colors Looks like we had a dry brush just kind of a final step So glaze after that that way that goes back down if you when you're going to do eyes like this Make sure they have like actual dark separation points They need to be very clean when you're sort of painting something on like that It needs to it it feels too sort of cartoonish Because we're just jumping these colors and I don't have like actual lines of separation between them So you need to create this sort of not only just a line but also the shadow to it This is like an eyeball is a very complicated thing and the ball itself has shade That's around both sides So kind of capture that in there like start with a and the way to do that, by the way It would be you started with like a an orange or a rust color or something like that Then you do a thinner yellow on top of that in but not covering all of your rust And have a nice dark like do a dark brown And cover everything with kind of the outside with this orange rust and then kind of yellow in the middle Then I'll give you that transition and that would help a lot. So but there you go Welcome man. It's a great piece for like your second painted mini. So welcome. Hope to see a lot more from you Tom Thorpe Welcome painted up this guy good old chaos warrior And First time trying loaded brush blending on the shield look over some pointers on getting it smoother I mean the answer is you don't stop with the loaded brush Blending methods are just that they're blending methods. They're not finishers The end of most any blending road is glazing So I think the shield's fine. I mean the answer is more tonal variation here, right? So when we look at that cloak flat, right that the black and white tells all it does not you It doesn't lie the helmet flat, right? So this is good like this is a good first step with the the Uh The loaded brush then we go in with glazes and we smooth it out and that's basically all you need to do Uh, so that's my basic advice and then create those same shadows in the rest of his armor You know on the sides of his helmet here and here pop this highlight up here Um and here under his face like on this t-line of his his mask face On his kneecap things like that. But yeah, cool model. So there you go. That would be my main advice But I always dig me chaos warriors bring on more buddy All right, Dan Reese Basically, this was his week. So we've got our lord of I'm going to say blights. Why not? Uh entry for his local gw painting competition tomorrow. Oh, well, that's Probably today as you're as this goes up Um several areas. I'm not happy with most of the base internals planned water effects I'm trying to improve the overall technique and contrast Trouble glazing light colors when pushing the contrast in the skin and armor I also stress with italics, especially blending dark and light as well as keeping them smooth Sure. So the answer is don't glaze light colors. That's the easiest answer Paint them rather strongly and then glaze the mid tones and other colors down. That's the short answer. So Apply your one and two And then glaze down That's the answer Great great all over shot. I like that Yes, the base didn't turn out exactly great. Like I agree with that. That's that's not wonderful. Um But overall on the mini itself, uh, I think your metallics again just more soft and subtle inks Um, the and and work in a little more other rust colors up on here things like his his shoulder blade and stuff like that The and we do just need more contrast on the skin and honestly the highlight I think is fine You could go with this as the high color We just need to have more of the deeper tones more three But a lot more four and five Sort of suddenly worked in there. I think would really help But overall this is good. Like it's a nice interpretation of it. The wood could use a little more texture So watch out for stuff like that Um, and then just more smoother control with your metallics The answer is get yourself a say a good set of inks like a vallejo game ink set And then that can be your soft glaze in your metallics makes working with the metallics and shading them and stuff a lot easier So that's kind of my best advice for you. Hope that helps, but this is great and best of luck, man I think this is I think this is a very strong piece. Oh the maggots should be popped out a little more They're kind of like a little more highlights on some of the ends of the big maggots Phrases I hate saying for a hundred. Okay, ryan mcdonald, uh, only a couple months into the hobby Uh, appreciate all advice main Points I would love and put on is the gold non-metallic metal color choices, etc All the rage this month is the non-metallic metal So, uh, let's get to this shot because that's what's gonna let me talk about the nmm Um, yeah, so I need more deeper tones on a lot of this like his face mask and stuff like that um Like there's too much yellow is sort of the short answer Non-metallic is a complicated thing if you're planning on doing this across the whole army I mean god bless you if this is just because you wanted to try one thing Cool. Yeah, no issue. Good man way to push yourself and I like it Uh, but yeah, there's basically just too much yellow and not enough bright tone We need like this has probably enough shadow this piece right here But this one doesn't these don't stuff like that right and then in general you want more more red tones Like that's what we're really missing here the warmth. It feels kind of dead because Some soft like red brown glazes or even red like um, darin leatham's a big fan of the old blood letter glaze Mixed with a little bit of lamentors yellow and then softly glazed into the metal But I need more warm brown tones What we're missing here is something in that mid red warm brown That's the middle color. We're really lacking And then as far as that looks like your edges are picked out and are nice and clean So I don't mind any of that On the dino we need to pop the tonal variation on both the dino and the guy on top a little more They're a little flat see previous thing I said about about like sort of scaled creatures like this area is just as bright as this area It should not be this shoulder is very exposed to like this is very in shadowed Top of the tail is the same color as the bottom of the tail treat it as one volume and then go from there Light dry brushing over the scales is a great way to do it before you then glaze that purple over Then every edge gets picked out for free super easy early step to do and it's a fast easy trick Same for back here same for here So those would be my main pieces of advice for you. So hope that helps All right, Brandon first of his mall tribes Uh focused mainly on the rhinox for on the tusks somewhat happy with the tusk would like to get a little more color variants Um for the fur I use black leather Uh Okay Looking for any general feedback and hints on how to improve your fur game Sure, let's take a look man Uh Okay So yes the bow needs to go farther like And with stuff like this you can just take it way way way down like let's go back to the black and white Oh, sorry Let's go back to the black and white like we're just Why does it that's so funny this it thinks this is a face The two little eyes in the mouth Been going a while Um, yeah, I mean more more contrast is the answer there like that just needs to go farther Like more browns going into just go into pure black like almost at the very end Um, but yeah deep brown blacks and stuff like that Now I think the fur is honestly good. It's just more clumpage So if you go back and watch the video, you'll see I talk about like adjusting it I see that and stuff like on his face. There's not enough There's not enough of the dark tone in here. This is the part. I like the best The clumpage here looks nice, but we covered too much as we built up the layers So sometimes you need to go back in and kind of build in your soft shadows To like reinstate some of the clumpage and I think that would be the main thing I would push for you here Um, but always glad to see a scrap launcher hit the table launch that scrap But yeah, hopefully that helps Also, don't change tones like this so fast over a breakpoint like metal have the brown come up here When this happens, it makes the pieces feel very Unconnected and weird like it's literally two separate things Bring this brown all the way up to here Never change drastically under a thing you can't see so there you go okay Rednecks, uh, just squeaking in the last minute with the forest riders tried out several things here First set of ebay rescued models worked on this is the first time I tried to add color to my black non-metallic metal armor In a while the most overt I've been with it also attempting to push color in your TMM Beyond that I was slightly concerned about the color composition with the leader and his bird Bird is the word and yes, I agree. So blue red green. We have to stop this pox of saturated red saturated green saturated blue. This is like the third time it's happened this month. It doesn't work It's not a good color combo. Um, one of those has to be desaturated and it's probably not the parrot um Because you know like just it would be fine If he also had red and greens on him and you just had like Baby touches of slight blue and if the blue in the guy was way popped up Right. So if he was more like a macaw or something with like lots of those color transitions on him I think it's macaw. I don't know birds very well But I think it's that like other tropical birds that have a lot of color variation Who have red and green and you just had like light touches of that blue. I would be okay with it and it would work Um, the armor keep pushing you're starting to push push farther We can we can take that up another we need to go more notches on that As it stands right now. Let's look at the let's look at the black and white on this guy Okay This has more contrast than your metal armor cloth is reflecting brighter than Somewhat shiny metal Okay That again the black and white doesn't lie Um when it comes to the metals by the way, they're very much too silver Like I need more steel color and shadow color in there more control and more dark lines Separating the various elements. So get into that deep black and really separate those elements of the mini Okay The cloak I don't like you have these bright colors. I think the fur works fine. Yeah, there you go. Um, although I'm not sure why We have like this jump into this much lighter color here It feels like this like that the change feels very abrupt and I'm not sure what's going on there It could just be the nature of the picture Um, so yeah, that would be my main piece of advice like honestly with the I if it was me I would kill the The green out kind of completely Um or or desaturate that green way way way way way down If you had a bunch more black in that green and it was just like a real subtle black green I think we'd be better off But then we need to bring the red down and that's another thing like you don't you have the red up top Not sure about the red gun honestly like you're trying to balance the color But the answer here was the bird probably and then this being red And then with the the shoulder pad also red Or or make the shoulder pad blue And something like that like just the color balance is off, right So that's kind of my main thought there It works better here where we don't have the bright blue macaw certainly But the bright sort of pink gun is still very The color doesn't work because it doesn't have enough doesn't have enough variance in it The red of the gun itself is very flat. It's all just this sort of pink color It would work better if it was like a rich magenta that had like a lot of tones And was desaturated because of heavy shadows and somewhat heavy highlights, right? Like it has these depressions and runes in there in this area those should be much darker So just like more contrast in there you can clearly do the contrast because your green is spot on On that so just kind of take that same thing and go in there That's my thoughts Okay Shakey says he needs help with glazing and the gold. Well, you already know what you need. Um, yeah I mean go you're right. That's the main thing here like tonal variation glazing in the dark We need darker blues darker purples in the magenta and deeper colors in the gold. I mean that is the answer You're absolutely right. It's just more tonal variation is really the answer Go watch the how to glaze video again and that will really help you out. I think Because that's really the problem. Our colors are too flat And glazing in those deeper shadows into the metallics into the blue into the red That will all very much help this model pop out more But it's really just tonal variation go watch the reference video You'll see what that looks like to in the thing and then you can watch how to glaze and that'll That'll get you in the right place All right, finally Jensen Uh, first big miniature, uh, tried out a lot of new techniques on this one Uh, I'd like to have some feedback on color choice Contrast improvement and execution of the paint job. Sure Okay, so color theory wise, I think you're fine. I don't I don't have any problem with any of the color theory Bones have a good striation although I need some darker dark down here at the bottom So like I like the cream to the brown, but it's very that's it It's like those two colors like this it'd be great if I had a darker deeper black brown here at the base of it Um The scales are picked out we could pick out farther and I'd love to see more variation of your light to shadow So more like apply some more washes to get some color down here Some more shadow here some more shadow here Pop this up a little higher this up a little higher By the way, this can all be done with just like soft glaze kind of washes And or glazes or glaze washes like it's kind of you can you can this guy is just about going back and forth Like when I painted my mall crusher It was just colors back and forth and over and over and I just kept Pulling pulling pulling the colors apart and then bringing them back together and pulling them apart and bringing them back together Until I was really happy with the stretch um The wings need to be cleaned. That's big major thing like these were washed and just kind of like left and they look messy We need to get back to our paintbrush and get some of this stuff cleaned up a little here That's the part that really jumps out at me Um, other than that, it's just tonal variation across the skin. So deep in down some of those shadows Let's bring in some more of those shadow colors. Um, You know get get yourself like a panes gray would be a great shadow color here And just really bring that in also be careful with stuff like this like this giant mold line this guy has um, you know that You want to make sure you try to get that stuff cleaned up But I mean the black and white doesn't lie as always you can see what i'm talking about that He's all kind of this flat gray across the skin. We need deeper shadows and higher highlights more contrast more tonal variation. So There you go. That brings us to the end of the month. So, uh Thank you very much everybody who submitted Very much appreciated great work this month everyone Absolutely fantastic pieces. Um, if you want to join us on your hobby journey Link is down in the description. Check that out. We'd love to have you along no matter where you are But as always I very much appreciate you for submitting. Thank you to everybody who's in the comments Answering other people's questions in the pmp. This is a positive hobby focus community and that's done not through me It's done through all of you So when you see somebody post something you think is awesome, give them a comment Give them a like tell them how why you think it's awesome If somebody has a question and you know the answer pop up that answer for them, right? Like that's the kind of stuff that can make someone's day that can help someone out That's what this community is built on so please keep that up And as always I very much appreciate you watching this one. I appreciate everybody submitting Thank you to everybody in the pmp. We'll see you next time