Mike Cousins / Epic Duck Studios provides professional painting services for the discerning wargamer. More than that though, he also loves teaching other hobbyists! Watch this channel for painting, sculpting, and conversion tutorials, showcases of awesome minis, unboxing videos, and even the occasional game!
You can now catch Mike live every Weekday on Twitch! Visit twitch.tv/epicduckstudios
Thanks for this tutorial! It helped me a lot to paint a friend's gift! Basically I took advantage of the fact that the package also had Spider-Gwen and my plan is that Miles will be for my friend and Gwen will be for his girlfriend.
So first off this looks amazing, second off I'm curious if you've ever thought about doing this with something like a black 3.0, third I'm not sure doing this on a full army is actually any worse than paining a army with a lot of trim details on their armor though I absolutely cringe at the idea of needing to use black outlines to separate all of the trim from all of plates etc on a chaos model.
Black 3.0 is no more black than black ink - it relies on matteness over ffs surfaces to appear extra black, but the effect kind of falls apart on miniatures and it just reads like a dark grey paint tbh. I wasn't impressed with it for miniature work.
@@Epicduck I've seen someone use it for a terrain video that came out last Halloween, it worked really well there, but I'm not sure if they were brushing or spraying it on.
Bro, much respect. I'm into metal models, models of any kind really and I've always wanted to get into painting miniatures and just never pulled the trigger. You have some serious skills. That miniature looks like it was created on a computer. The definition and detail are f'n amazing. I would love to be able to learn how to achieve that final look. I have the entire series of Marvel United and Marvel United : X-Men expansions plus Multiverse will be coming soon, and I would love to paint all the miniatures. It's a bit daunting as there are soooo many, but they look so good painted. I know how difficult painting my models can be at times, and you just made that look effortless. Brilliant man. I could watch you paint all day. Damn man, can't say enough. How long have you been doing this?
I have a question on the black ink. Namely, why use ink for the outlines instead of just paint? What advantage does the ink have over using black paint?
Great question! You *can* use black paint, but black ink has a few advantages. Generally, it's more opaque and flows from the brush for a longer time - so when you're painting a lot of long lines or parallel hatch marks, you don't have to stop to reload the brush or try to get a second coat on a tiny little freehanded line. I also started using ink for this simply because it's what traditional comic artists use, so it made the experience a little more authentic. I've had a lot of students try using both inks and paints for this, and every single one has preferred the experience of using inks. Higgins Black Magic, Daler Rowney FW Black ink, liquitex carbon black, and even Speedball Super Black are all good choices.
@@Epicduck thanks for clarifying. Seemed counterintuitive to me because generally I know inks to be less opaque so I was wondering why you would use them :D maybe black is an odd one out then.
@@johndoe920 black ink is generally incredibly opaque. Artist inks (like Daler Rowney, etc) vary in how opaque they are due to the pigments involved - those with a Titanium White or black added tend to be more opaque while the pure colour pigments tend towards translucency. They're altogether different products from "game inks" some hobby paint makers create that are intentionally translucent because they're meant to be used as detailing washes.
@@Epicduck I use Schmincke inks but I gotta admit I never thought to try to actually use them like paints. I mostly make my own contrast style paints from them. So I wouldn't even know how opaque my black ink is :D guess I gotta try some time.
I love that you explain the reasons for placing hilights and black lines where you do. I don't play MCP (yet) so I'm looking at different models, but these videos are very educational for learning the techniques.
Thanks! I definitely prefer to explain *why* I'm painting something, instead of just treating it like a paint-by-numbers. I'm glad that's coming across.
Whatever my lgs has in stock when I need glue. Right now that's Citadel plastic glue. Previously it's been Mr. Hobby cement or Tamiya. I like MIG Expositor cement too - it's coloured so you can see what it's applied to easier.
After all the videos I watched of yours as well as the evolution of your comic style and mine; it’s still nice to see a “hot garbage” phase still come together at the end. 💀😆 still magic.
I haven't done an entire army, but Bowtie Painting Studios definitely has! Check him out on Instagram: instagram.com/bowtie_painting_studios/ He hasn't been active for a few months because they went and had a baby - but scroll through their feed and you'll find Orks and Custodes.
Nice work! I’m far too clumsy to try the black ink lines, but the colour scheme is excellent and really pops! I’m certainly going to give it a try but maybe with a darker blue for lowlights & shadows instead of ink.
That's definitely a possible way to go too! I keep the colours brighter because the black shadows can really tone the whole piece down - I'd maybe go a bit darker if I wasn't adding them.
Bear primer or bare primer? I've been working on painting large dice tower owlbears. This is just the thing I've needed. Most miniature painting videos I've found are Warhammer, which is fine. It's nice to explore other textures though.
For sure, nothing here is really specific to a single brand of paint. I mostly use P3 because I happen to like the product, but I use Vallejo, Monument, Citadel and a few other brands often too.
Such a big fan of this style! I'm curious, why do the black outlining step before applying colors, rather than outlining everything in black after painting it all?
I almost always do the colour first and then apply the black over it. Doing the black first followed by using translucent colours gives a very different finish. Different processes for different results, neither is right or wrong.
You're making insane progress!!! How do you get the motivation to paint so much? I've been stuck blocking in base colors on my guardsman for the last few months
