posted by roman, jarhead, kong



Aloa to another painting jam full of questions and my gorilla blablaburb!

____________________________________________________________________

Kenny asks via mail:

"On a different note, after viewing your "Ugly strings" tutorial, I've been meaning to find a project to apply such disgusting, goopy, "eew don't touch me" technique; and now I have!
If you have some time, it will be greatly appreciated if you could take a look at my re-mastered Venom plastic kit, from the Marvel Universe and the application of your stringy technique. Any comments or criticism will be appreciated to further my skills."

 You can find the kit here and here!

My answer:

C'mon Kenny? - That looks just awesome. A damn cool rework on a Marvel Toy. This catches the character perfectly! I do not know what else to say :)

If, and only if i have to search for something i have to admit that this search is only coming to an end where i would say "Ouh you could do more definition at his teeth!" - that's it - a great redo and overall a big BAM BAM athmsphere that catches this Marvel character very nice! Maybe a photo in front of a brighter background could make more of the dark slime available for the eyes (i would go with a dark grey or medium grey). Ok, now that's it... like it a lot!

______________________________________________________________________

Rogland asks via CMON:

"First of all, you are one of my favorite painters, i have been painting for 9 months and i struggle and struggle, do you use layering all the time? i works nice for smooth surfaces but sometimes ( specialy if i use GW Foundatin paint) its like you see the pigments like small doots when i try to lay another color on top of another,even if they are close in colors, why is that??? hope you can help me."

My answer:

Thx! 9 Months, now that is a short period, don't you ever get swallowed by the time you struggle. The time you struggle is the time you learn the most. As your question ain't easy to answer i do try my best now. I use all sorts of techniques while painting, for example layering, glazing, drybrushing, etc. - there isn't one technique i would prefer as they all have their use for different effects. Layering should be a good starting technique as you get a feeling for bringing colours up to a figure, highlighting, moving your brush and of course struggle. Don't you worry about struggle - this is the challenge to master, finding out your way to minimize your time of struggle and that needs time. Painting, wether technique you use is always like a muscle and needs to be trained to grow in size. Your pigment problem might exactly come from the Foundation paints. These colours have way more pigments in their mix as the usual Citadel colour. They have been made to fast cover an area and that's what they are for. I would not recommand using them for applying several layers as their high pigment content brings such unsmooth places. My tip would be using a Foundation colour as the base colour and then work with more or less water thinned usual Colours to do your layers. I hope that helps somehow...

_________________________________________________________________________________

Arthurreimer asks via CMON:

"Im exciting of your Crixus mini and want ask you about blue color. Just want to color my Crimson Fists army i this blue."

I have no idea, at least it feels like. Robot colour analysis mode activated: I guess it was a Regal blue with a tip of chaos black and a tip of Enchanted blue in it. Highlighted with the addition of Bleached Bone or maybe Ice blue and then Bleached bone but not to the max of white. Darkened down into the shadows with the basic mix and some additional black in it to darken the hue of the tone. I hope this helps.


__________________________________________________________________________________

 Solid_Smurf asks via email:

"Recently, I've jumped on your paint for japan campaign.  I'll put some links on the end of this e-mail, and would love some feedback on what you think of my first display miniature.  Its still WIP, but anything is helpful."

We are talking about this WIP:


My answer:
Glad that you jump into the Japan boat with your miniature - i am really looking forward to link up your auction. I am sorry that i won't find the time to do a big text answer, but i try to give you some short feedback and a brainstorm about the miniature:


I overall like your colour choices very much. I think the legs are still too bright. Try to paint him with more use of unreal light, best is to train with zenithal lightning. I try to explain it that way. The colour brightness and hue on his upper torso is damn cool. It is bright there to get the focus, there is no focus to the upper area at the moment because the legs have the same hue and brightness. Try to figure out your main colour, the colour you want that armour to be in the end. Now take this colour and mix it dark and mix it bright, so you can go into lights and shadows. The lower legs should be in your main colour but a dark version of it as it lays in more shadow according to zenithal lightning. I hope this is understandable somehow. I did a little fast sketch on what i mean...



__________________________________________________________________________________

Juan Tan asks via email:

"I've e-mailed you before and you've been very gracious enough to answer them. I hope you'll find time in your busy schedule to enlighten me again.

I've recently been having primer issues or more precisely with the surface finish of my primer. Due to age I've had to resort to using an optivisor-type magnifier just so I can see where my brush tip is going. I've been noticing recently that my primer has been rougher than I remembered. Now I know that to solve this I have to determine how rough should the surface finish be when primed. To give you an idea after basecoating my minis usually look like they have goosebumps (gänsehaut, is this correct translation?) all over. I have revised my priming procedure and I have been able to make it smoother so now the gänsehaut are smaller but they are still there. I have been a fan of your work and I have always been amazed on how smooth the finish of your minis are, I guess my question is was the smoothness of the finish from the primer or the basecoat?

I've read online that primers have "tooth" or something that the paint can grab hold of. Does this mean that they are literally rough?

Oh, btw, I know that I can spend more time with the preparation of the minis but I do sand them and polish as much of the surface as I can with ultrafine steel wool and I have still observed the surface roughness on the smoothest surface.

Your opinion would be greatly appreciated."

My answer:

Due the 2 component priming of black followed by white the surface will get rougher, not much but a little bit - that's normal. Using black primer only and white primer only, both will stay even. When you hit the black with the white primer afterwards, 2 component priming - the white will do the roughness. This roughness hepls when you paint with thin glazes from the start on and it will fade away after several layers of glazes. If you don't want that effect but enjoy the comfort of 2K Priming you now have 2 options: Prime black and exactly during it is wet prime your white - it will dry together and make the surface more even. The other option is do a creamy main layer of colour on your normal 2k Priming and paint away the roughness with one layer - that is what i do wet in wet but i not yet found words to explain what i am doing exactly and i am to stupid to do a video tutorial ... hope i could have helped and by the way i am not doing too much work in preparation of the models - i do a fair amount but i don't get mad on it... easy going, your problem comes from the priming.

_________________________________________________________________________________

That's it so far... Ho! Ho! Ho!

Keep on happy painting!
Best Regards
Roman