Sisters of Battle Squad 1 - Feel free to help a noob!

Hello everyone,

I decided that since we have some awesome painters here, I might as well expose my noobish works for critique and review. My painting history: I'm still very much the noob, having painted 1 vostroyan guardsman, 1 fantasy figure (chick with two swords from war crow I think), and a 10 man dark eldar warrior squad (which I hated...very simple paint job, I just didn't know what to do with it). Oh, and a horribly painted marine several years ago when I didn't know about acrylics, or good paint brushes, or priming.

So I decided to go ahead and make my very first self-painted 40k army (most of my 40k armies in the past have been painted by others, so much did I fear my own suckage). After a couple of months of weekend work (I'm a slooooow painter), I have my first squad ready. Note that I stuck pretty close to the codex colors as a guide.

First off, the squad:



The heavy flamer, including my first use of green stuff. I was tempting to really do object source lighting...but I was too afraid. When I mastered the basics better. Though I did do slight touches of yellow for a *slight* light effect, but you can't really tell much:



Sister superior:



Melta gunner:


Melta gunner, different angle:



Lastly, comparison shot of the 3 different skin tones I'm playing with: fair, medium, dark:




Some things I noticed:
- HORRIBLE priming, a lot of clumping in areas...I did all of my priming on a hot, humid day. Now I know better. Still. Sadness.
- Messy highlighting.
- Faces could be better.
- Need to practice/learn blending.
- Need better photography to show shadowing/highlighting better.

Any help, tips, comments, etc are greatly appreciated!

I think they look great for being some of your first models!One thing I would do is to ink the metals and the face and then highlight with the original color over it.It will add lots of depth to everything.

Warlord Solskritt wrote:I think they look great for being some of your first models!One thing I would do is to ink the metals and the face and then highlight with the original color over it.It will add lots of depth to everything.

You know, I did that with the robes, but I wasn't sure what colors to use for the metals and, worst of all, the skin. What do you recommend?

Vycem wrote:

Warlord Solskritt wrote:I think they look great for being some of your first models!One thing I would do is to ink the metals and the face and then highlight with the original color over it.It will add lots of depth to everything.

You know, I did that with the robes, but I wasn't sure what colors to use for the metals and, worst of all, the skin. What do you recommend?

I'm not sure actually 'cause GW got rid of their old inks which I still use.I think ogryn flesh wash for the skin and you'll want a brownish ink for the gold and a black ink for the metal.

I second JC's suggestion of inks.

I'd also suggest thinning down your paints and applying 2-3 thin layers instead of one thick layer, especially with crappy colors like red, bone and white, which are very see-through.

Thanks for the tips!

I'm definitely trying the inks/washes, as well as the layering. I've been trying to thin my layers but so far I haven't found the perfect ratio. I was actually going for see-through with the hair though, since I wanted the gray underneath to show - otherwise it looked like a white helmet to me, heh.

Does anyone have any really good tips for the eyes? I find those to be really hard right now, and resort to using a pin tipped with black.

I was looking at your bases and was wondering if you use only one shade of brown over a chaos black base? I try several shades of brown with a final light dry brush of bleached bone to highlight the rouch texture. makes it look more to scale in my opinion and looks good.

For eyes my best piece of advice is a steady hand and a really fine brush. reaper makes great small brushes that Sunshine has in stock. Also remember that an Ardcote touch to the eyes or anything liquid looking or moving really makes them stand out against your flatter colors.

Human eyes are tough (I paint mostly orcs). You can fill out the eye with a 50-50 mix of chaos black and scorched brown, then draw a thin line of white, and a single dot of black for the pupil.

If that proves too hard, you can just paint them black and come back to them when you feel more confident.

Michaelharmon wrote:I was looking at your bases and was wondering if you use only one shade of brown over a chaos black base? I try several shades of brown with a final light dry brush of bleached bone to highlight the rouch texture. makes it look more to scale in my opinion and looks good.

For eyes my best piece of advice is a steady hand and a really fine brush. reaper makes great small brushes that Sunshine has in stock. Also remember that an Ardcote touch to the eyes or anything liquid looking or moving really makes them stand out against your flatter colors.

Hmm, actually I use two brown shades over the black, but I didn't think of using a highlight of bleached bone...will definitely try that!

And I'll try to pick up that brush ASAP.

Thank you very much for the tips!

Diosamblet wrote:Human eyes are tough (I paint mostly orcs). You can fill out the eye with a 50-50 mix of chaos black and scorched brown, then draw a thin line of white, and a single dot of black for the pupil.

If that proves too hard, you can just paint them black and come back to them when you feel more confident.

Hmm, I actually did white followed by black, I'll try reversing it and trying what you suggest, see if I can pull it off.

When you drybrush the base, don't go straight to bleached bone. Keep adding bleached bone to the base color. You can try a final drybrush of bleached bone, but it has to be very light; make sure 99% of the paint is rubbed off on a tissue paper.

sisters of battle! looking good for a noob. listen to Harmon he is a good painter, try highlighting chaos black with lines of Grey. Faces look good, IDK about the gold guns, alittle too bling for me. keep painting, you will get better naturally.

Well I think they are pretty damn good painting there matey.

ImAShakiraholic wrote:sisters of battle! looking good for a noob. listen to Harmon he is a good painter, try highlighting chaos black with lines of Grey. Faces look good, IDK about the gold guns, alittle too bling for me. keep painting, you will get better naturally.

Hmm, grey..I have a white dwarf that recommended grey, but the codex said a blue/white mix, and since I was trying to reproduce the codex...I think I'll try doing a test grey model and see which I prefer.

As for the guns, yeah, to be honest the thing is I was having a really hard time highlighting/shading a pure metal bolter, so it looked kinda blah. So in order to cover up my own painting inadequacies, I went with more paint just to give the eye something to look at.

Thanks for all the tips!

Diosamblet wrote:When you drybrush the base, don't go straight to bleached bone. Keep adding bleached bone to the base color. You can try a final drybrush of bleached bone, but it has to be very light; make sure 99% of the paint is rubbed off on a tissue paper.

I was actually mixing two browns, is it better to stick to one brown and keep layering lighter then?

scurrdi wrote:Well I think they are pretty damn good painting there matey.

Thanks, as long as my first self-painted army looks decent on the tabletop I'll be happy...until the next one, which I hope will make it look ugly in its awesomeness, and so on and so forth. I just hope I do get better and also faster! That squad alone took something like 6 Sundays to complete.

Takes me just as long so don't feel bad. My ten man Squad of Space Marines took over two and a half weeks with roughly two hours a day dedicated to it for most of those days.

All boils down to how much attention to detail you want and how much repetition painting you can deal with at a time. Like right now I'm in total inspiration and paint mode for the upcoming tournaments and what have you so I'm trying to make a unique land raider and then move on to my excorcist tank for sisters of battle and theen a penetint engine and finally my baneblade for the sister's of battle. I'll call her "Iron Maiden" with the hellhamer varient and try and make her customizable for the standard bane blade as well.

Just keep it up and trust me you will only get better through painting and trying things that work for you. I was looking at my first model, predator annhilator tank, and I am so ready to do another so I can see the difference between me then and me now.

Oh.... on layering don't feel you have to go lighter with dirt. Mix it up as dirt will be of variying shades do to the foot traffic churning the battle field. Also try drybrushing the hair lightly next time to leave a dark recess that will highlight individual hairs.

Mike Harmon: the leader at paint

I would beg to differ.....Although I don't sing Javi's praises for much else.....His work is simply incredible. I don't take anything from Mike Harmon...his work is tremendous, But I think Javi has the edge.

I don't think I've seen Javi's work. Does he have anything uploaded here or at the Dragon's forums?

Diosamblet wrote:I don't think I've seen Javi's work. Does he have anything uploaded here or at the Dragon's forums?

He's painted several things that I know of. Caesar (Dark Angel) Has a chaplain that he painted. Bill (Rokassan) has a lot of pieces Javi has completed. Perhaps if we ask Abaddon to post some of his work, he would oblige.

What do you say Javi?

YES ! please OH GURU OF THE BRUSH ! honor us with your art work !

Michaelharmon wrote:Takes me just as long so don't feel bad. My ten man Squad of Space Marines took over two and a half weeks with roughly two hours a day dedicated to it for most of those days.

All boils down to how much attention to detail you want and how much repetition painting you can deal with at a time. Like right now I'm in total inspiration and paint mode for the upcoming tournaments and what have you so I'm trying to make a unique land raider and then move on to my excorcist tank for sisters of battle and theen a penetint engine and finally my baneblade for the sister's of battle. I'll call her "Iron Maiden" with the hellhamer varient and try and make her customizable for the standard bane blade as well.

Just keep it up and trust me you will only get better through painting and trying things that work for you. I was looking at my first model, predator annhilator tank, and I am so ready to do another so I can see the difference between me then and me now.

Oh.... on layering don't feel you have to go lighter with dirt. Mix it up as dirt will be of variying shades do to the foot traffic churning the battle field. Also try drybrushing the hair lightly next time to leave a dark recess that will highlight individual hairs.

Thanks for the tips! And I'm impressed, I wish I could muster 2 hours a night, that'd be awesome progress.

I can't wait to see the Hellhammer! Do you have any tips for magnetizing a baneblade?

And you know, I'd love to see a comparison piece of your first model and a current version of it

Hey, if Mr. Javi wants to share, I'd love to see his stuff. Anything to learn from and admire!

I've heard of this Jarvi but havne't seen any of his work. As I consider myself medium level at best I'm always up for seeing someone elses stuff and improving my own techniques.

As for magnetizing bitz for your baneblade here are a few very simple rules. rare earth magnets are your friend. Find the appropriate sized drill bit to the diameter of the magnets you will be utilizing and ensure when you place magnets in these holes that they, 1: Line up and 2: are polarized to attract.... Long story there.

Just be prepared to go very shallow on your drilling as most areas you want to drill have thin plastic to begin with so you may go through but don't lose heart as you can simply glue the magnet in and paint it to match and youget a fairly even effect.

I'm currently working to line up my Land raider weapon platform to be magnetized but since I am using forgeworld extra armor I have more room to play with so I'll post pics on the build as that goes along.

Lastly. I do have some pics of my first models close after completion. At the time I thought they where good. Now.... I see how I would have done things differently I'll post something in the painting section.