Warhammer Fantasy Battle Reporter Forum

I wonder what your best painting tip is? Because Iam a newbie so I could need some painting tip and tips in general.

Check out the "Show off your painted Warhammer models" part of the forum. There is a tutorial for speed painting dwarfs that should be very helpful.

my best tip? READ & TRY! Get on the net, find as much helpful articles as possible, and try that! And after you have tried it, try it again! And again!

Challenge yourself to be better, to learn new stuff, and don't hesitate to ASK or even copy from more experienced painter (as long as you use it as practice!).

Dont let it become overwhelming though. Take your time, I've painted several hundred models over the last year and I've still got a long way to go before I'll be anywhere near as good a painter as dims. Practice one technique until you are comfortable with it before moving to the next.

Start off by just trying to keep the paint where you want it. Keeping it "Inside the lines" as dims has put it will leave you with a result something like what is in the first picture. The beards have a little drybrushing, but the rest of it is just single colors, no shading, no drybrushing, no highlighting and no washes.



Once you are comfortable painting the solid colors, take a little time to try some washes/inks. Its a simple way to bring out a lot of detail. The following picture has some goblins that I hit with a wash (Goblin Green followed by a Green wash) Everything pictured was painted a solid color followed by a wash, no shading, drybrushing or highlighting.



Another simple way to add some detail to a model is to highlight some of the details on the model like I did with this spider. All I did with this was a black primer followed by tracing the details in red.



Drybrushing takes a bit more work, but the end result is well worth it. The following pictures are of a couple of models that I used some drybrushing and highlighting on. Start practicing your drybrushing on something simple like beards, hair, horse tails & manes, etc.






Take a little time to post pictures of your models on this site. Not only would we like to see your models, but we also have a great group of painters that will be more than happy to give you some constructive feedback to help you improve your painting.

Some good stuff already posted. My "tip" is practice being tidy. You'd be amazed how much better a paint job can look simply by keeping things tidy. This is something I really strive for with my models (once I get something finished that I feel OK posting it'll appear on the painting forum).

I going to try to post some pictures tomorrow.
I can hardly wait to hear your thoughts and tips.

I always start with the biggest area of paint, normally the lowest part. Paint it not worrying about getting other areas. Then I go and paint the detail in one section. Then do all the tiding up once in that area. Only tidying up is of the first colour I used normally.
Then go on to the next area.

Assuming you're talking about Brets in specific:

Brets are tough. For a newbie, its best to prime black, however, Brets can look best with white primer as that tends to come up with brigther colors- and the knights look best that way.

I've painted about 3K of Brets to tabletop quality, and I'm going to do a new set of the army after the new army book, models, and list comes out.

That said, here's what I've figured out so far:

Paint the horses before you assemble. They're a massive pain to pain the inner legs and (forgive me if I'm getting my middle ages terminology wrong Chason(the flappy cloth that hands down their flanks). Of course, having done that myself, and seeing how much of that inner horse area you can actually see on a regular basis.. eh. Tough to say its worth the cost of the paint, let alone the effort. And paint's cheap.

On the knights/horses combined. Plan out your color schemes for each knight in a unit ahead of time. Each knight should be somewhat unique. Obviously once you throw out the greens (green is a peasant color according to the fluff) that really leaves white, black, red, blue, and yellow.

With 5 colors, and a minimum of two colors per knight, you're going to double up color combos. Especially as certain color combos don't look good together.

First color is your "primary" color, the color that covers the majority of the model, second color is usually the field/accent color.

Black with yellow, white, and Red looks good. Blue is not good.

Blue looks good with red, white, and depending on shades, yellow.

Red looks good with white, and blue. Yellow and black, not so much, but passable.

Yellow... not so much as a primary color with a large ammount of accent area- however subtle red or black does look decent- see the Lord with Lance in the army book.

White. Black and Blue are the best accents. Red can be good, but its tough. Stay away from yellow.

Mostly, mix and match your shades as well.

Only Golden Yellow really works, the rest are too pale.

Skull White works well, the rest of the whites get too dirty/creamy for a gleaming knight of yore.

All the reds are realistically viable.

All the darker blues look pretty good. The paler blues can work, but are trickier to accent right to avoid making them too pale and washed out looking.

All of that is in reference to the normal paint range. Your mileage may vary with the shades in the foundation set. Many of them would probably do wonders, and I can't emphasize enough how much you'll want those paints if you prime black anyway. The pigment count in the foundation paints makes it much much much easier to prime black, then work back up to white on things like capes.

Another trick with Bretonians assembly line:

Frist, write down your paint plan, ESPECIALLY for your peasants. You'll be doing lots of blocks of peasantry, and not all at once.

I usually do between 3 and 9 knight R&F models. (Rank and File)

First I'll paint horse hair/fur. Basecoat the horses- some white, some brown, some black. Don't bother with the barding for now. Just basecoat the unassembled furry parts. Next, take your knight, and one complete set of horse parts(see my assorted tips for which horse parts). Pick your color scheme, and do the barding such that you can assemble the horse- then do so, assemble the horses, and start painting that entire knight model, start to finish. If you prime white, you can either basecoat armor black, or I've found the new wash is pretty good.. paint whatever armor color ya want, wash it black, then drybrush over and it comes out decent as long as you're careful and thorough. If you're in a rush and don't care as much about perfect, prime black.

Once you do a unit of knights- you're going to be sick of knights. So work on a box of peasants. The peasants are hugely customizable. Don't. I think you get 12 models that are all duplicatable... i.e. 3 groups of 4 that can be exactly the same, and 4 "command optional" models- two friar tuck type bodies, and two Sergeant At Arms types. Make as many of them the same as you can so you can assembly line them. These guys are the opposite painting style as the knights. I'd easily prime these guys black. Use your greens and browns. Drab is king. Khaki, graveyard, etc. Make these guys really matchaccentuate the basing color you're planning on using for the sand/dirt.

The place to give your peasantry their pop is to customize their bases. I think Bret Peasants have the single greatest assortment of bits in any kit ever put out by GW. In fact, if GW were to release a pure bits kit, they still wouldn't put out as many meaningless yet visually interesting bits as are in the peasant kit. Dogs, birds, lunch boxes, what have you. Its all in there. Assembly line your peasants, paint up some bits on pins, then pin it to your peasants then hit them with finishing touches.

Switch back and forth between a unit of knights, and a unit of peasants- or half and half, half and half etc. Whatever size block you can chew through without throwing a model through a wall. The best thing about painting brets is that they have two painting styles to use. If you need to feel like you got something done, you can churn through some peasants. If you need to really bust out a gorgeous model, you can do a knight/character unit.

Other assorted tips:

The BSB. Its a pain. I have a truly love-hate relationship with that model. Its a 20 pound banner 8 feet above a 4 oz plastic horse. My first tip is: Magnetize your models. Brets already really benefit from the modular movement trays (75 by 150 isn't a standard size) So either buy 75/150 from GF9 or buy the modular trays from GW. I like the modular ones better, though they're more work, obviously. However, once you get them, you can take the rubberized steel from GF9 and slip that inside your tray. Do NOT use the Magnetic bases from GF9. They're strong enough for the plastic knights, but not even close for your metal ones. Instead green stuff the bottoms of normal GW cavalry bases, and while the putty is still "wet" insert some rare earth magnets. I don't have my magnets at work with me, but I use the "big" ones I bought before I knew they were too big for any other model. I suggest using a green stuff filler so you have more surface area for the glue to be stronger than the magnet. You may not have to, but I'm cautious.

My second piece of advice on the BSB. Buy a couple or a few. Use extra arms from Grail Knight boxes. Whatever you want, so you get an extra arm or two. Clip off that stupid, lame, flimsy, limp-noodle banner pole and drill out his hand. Replace it with Brass rod. In the first place, brass rod is stiffer. In the second, you now control how high that fricken banner goes. Try and keep it about the same height as your knight lances that are pointing up, instead of "couched". Once you fix the banner pole, and magnetize that sucker, I love love love the BSB model. He's just plain gorgeous with all that raised detail on the banner.

On the subject of horses. There are something like 4 horse bodies- they'll have numbers inside, 1, 2, 3, and 4 or so. Meh. who cares. I don't bother noticing more than left and right halves. Heads are important though. Heads are beyond vital. There's ONE horse head that's a front rank head. The rest are back rank or front rank. In other words, plan your units, and match the horse heads, to command and character models. The reaching horse head is front rank. They go to combat characters first. If you have any left, next give them to champions. After that, my advice is to try trading them, or if you're stuck with them, the preferred order is Banner bearers, then musicians- as I tend to displace musicians then standard bearers in that order. And a smart Bret player will not have three characters, or two + champion in a single unit. That means someone more important than a rank and file is in danger to the bolt thrower- Also means at most you'll displace a musician to the second rank in most units.

If any of this sparks any other questions, let me know.

Wow excellent post Brett,so slay me if I'm wrong but could alot of your color helping advice also work for Space Marines?(Not going to be a problem for me going for a nice drab green.)

Somewhat. Bright = prime white, darker/richer prime black. I'd almost always prime marines black though... just too much recessed detail designed to be over/dry brushed.

Good post Brett. Karma 4u!