Thanks, will do!

you mean new technique or different way of painting. basicly any brush stroke is intentional. where is your mini?

@@bopo900 I mean ask ninjon, I believe he's seen my mini's on discord before, or maybe you should just come see what I do instead now, if you live in england why don't you come to my gallery opening up in two months from now. Also brush strokes aren't all intentional, people start off just doing what they think works, intentional brushstrokes outside of being an absolute pedant about this stuff... is where you paint a brushstroke with the intention to direct the eyes to a point, or to add stylistic flair, etc I love miniature painting, I really do, but this medium of art is about the most held back one out there, too many bad actors and preditory crap with restrictive rules for competitions. Reminder that this is a format where at golden daemon one person won with a mini they painted over a single day, beating people who spent a year. If you do come to my gallery showcase I'd be more than happy to show you some of the healthy practices and ideas I learnt moving away from mini painting and onto acrylic and oil paintings on canvas.

​@@nameisbad I do not live in England to see your gallery, but I would be delighted to hear what you have learned moving from minis to canvas painting.

@@SeerIbarelyknowher Pretty much every miniature painting brand is using cheap pigments some that are won at auctions, the more inconsistent paints are because of that, their lack of detailing what's in them really showcases that they don't care about the consumer, there was I believe one brand that started listing their pigmentation, but generally speaking everything we buy in this hobby is either rebranded stuff sold for higher (like some brushes like artis opus stuff), or really expensive poor to medium quality stuff. Since I came back I've been using my professional grade (which isn't as expensive as you'd think from that term) heavy bodied acrylics as well as oil paints to paint with, using the stylistic ideas from normal paintings and applying them to my mini's, it's a very fun thing to do. I also don't really use many paints, as you can save money in a way I wish I knew before by just mixing ten different paints. This has the advantage of generally causing the scheme to naturally use mother colors to fit together. Mother color in fact is a concept that will improve most painters paint jobs tremendously but alas it's all just people repeating the 100th how to paint fast bs. Truth of the matter is you don't want to paint fast, that's the way to hating painting, if you need a fast army you have many ways you already know how to do to get that out, but the majority of people who buy these models don't even play. With color mixing, you have to learn a little color theory, that might seem a bit of a pain but on the other hand it's something super beneficial. There is other things like how some colors are red shade or green shade, this is relevant to mixing, opactiy of paints is why painting certain things is hard also, for example the more toxic cadmium (there is now a really good fake version of that) is expensive because it is opaque. One thing I find problematic with painting mini's for competitions is everything is expected to be done a certain way, or some things are more successfull than others, you have very little space to make your own style show and be expressive with it. A silly example is, if I wanted to paint my mini's in the style of vincent van gogh then why couldn't I? nothing says I can't but I know that some people would frown upon it, entering it into a competition I know it would deduct from my score because to paint in the style of vvg I'd have to break some of the "rules" of mini painting. So much of learning painting and developing your own style has been meeting people and exploring yourself, to then showcase a fragile honesty within to what you like. In the mini painting realm, too many people teaching aren't actually that great, make mistakes in their knowledge or are just repetitive, caring less about the peoples growth as painters and more about the algorythm and getting views, so much stuff is copy cat, repeated etc, and a lot of people don't know the history of mini painting, like painting with oils might seem like a new method but it's actually how mini's were originally painted before acrylic became popular. I'd recommend vince venturela as your main go to to learn, as he's the only one who really seems to care about the teaching part. For stylistic stuff and trying different things, to some painters who have scratched interesting ideas outside of others norms, try: 52 miniatures (he's done stuff like using liquid texture paint to paint with to great results in a very unique style of texture on mini's amongst other things, he showcases not to think like others but think of things from his own brand new perspective), Miniac is another good one, you can see his struggle with trying to find his own voice in it all, and ninjon has surprised me at times. Outside that, skip almost everyone else and go straight to watching bust painters with no commentary like sergio calvo miniatures i think it was, who you can just learn from him doing, or MarcoFrisoniNJM who paints in oils if you want to see that differences. The point here is too many are told what they should do, be interested in, to rush, etc when in truth any good teacher will teach you to try different things, to think for yourself, to understand the fundamentals of the tools and medium you are using etc Like for example did you know the surface of gloss is flat and the surface of matte is rough? therefore if you wanted to paint say a car without priming over the transparent window you can just prime it with a matte varnish spray? Lots of knowledge we once had in this hobby is lost or dying away because these so called youtubers are too busy pretending to be teachers but are just repeating the same crap each of them are saying, multiple times, just for trying to get views.

@@nameisbad That's a lot of information, but luckily I am already familiar with essentially all of it so I could follow fairly well! In fact, I've personally met and talked with every painter you've mentioned except 52 Minis though I have watched some of his content. His video on lighting was particularly good imo. You're correct on pretty much every account, and I think it could be expanded even further by looking into artists such as Alfonso Giraldes "Banshee" and Roman Lappat. What you are describing about mini competitions and style seem to align a lot with their #fucksmoothness and #happypainting movements which are essientially the same thing. Banshee in particular talks about the importance of knowing what is in your paints and having control with heavy body acrylics with intense pigmentation and inks. Though as far as painting quickly goes, I think speed is great if you can get a result you are happy with. I would agree that the obsession with speed painting in the medium is fairly unhealthy overall, but as a commission painter I cannot deny the practical value it has as well. 😅 I appreciate you sharing and expanding your perspective though I'm not sure many would be receptive to it via text.

i've been finding with more use on them that I will stir the bottom of the bottle thoroughly with a spare piece of brass rod (because a lot seems to settle at the bottom) then just pour ever so gently into one of my metal ramakens, then I can just pour any excess back into the bottle.

Low hanging fruit I know, but genuinely happy to see some updated kroot sculpts!

Pretty much, and it's why I love it as it's a much smoother finish to the sometimes chalky results I can get from drybrushing!

You could use gamsol. There is zero smell from gamsol. Also, don't lick your brushes anyway. The pigments used in paint cause cancer, like cadmium.

It is one thing I wish I tried in retrospect to the video, they do come out a lot thicker than the ak washes I'm used to like rust streaks and streaking grime!

Good question! Enamels tend to dry a lot more matte whilst I've found oils to come out with a faint satin finish, working process-wise they're very similar, so for example on vehicles you might want that subtle satin finish I'd say oils would be the way to go, but on skin where you'd want your shadows to be matte then enamels would be the way to go!

Enamels are matte and wayyyyy stronger. You can make oils matte by using a lot of thinner but that means rinsing out the oil, which is what binds the oil together and sticks it to the miniature. Matte oil paint is weak paint, mostly.

although I only have painted a few models with streaking grime, I'd like to add that my experience with oil washes is that I strip off the acrylic undercoats with oil washes, whereas it seems like emanel washes somehow protect the acrylics from being stripped. perhaps its something about the acrylics getting rehydrated or something with oil, but I've had much better results with streaking grime.

​@dot0verdrive, really? My experience with white spirits has been the inverse. There's no effect on acrylics, and I get more of a satin finish. Maybe it depends on what I use.

I've had the same thought, plan is to dip the nozzle of the ichor of the damned dropper into some mineral spirits and see if it loosens it up enough first, the rest came out with a bit of effort while I was trying it out.

Cheers mate! Once the Bloodthirster is finished I've got the other two greater daemons ready to paint and hopefully get them together in a diorama!