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Weekender XLBS: Chatting About Painting with Romain
March 16, 2014 by elromanozo
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Happy Sunday guys. @elromanozo that’s a mighty fine beard.
I hear you sport a superb beard yourself… Care to share pictures ? Mine will get the trim, however, as it starts to get in the way of food. As a Frenchman, I cannot allow that ! 😉
When your moustache is getting to that awesome length that you end up eating it with your food, you invest in some beard grooming products, for moustache control id recommend this http://www.thebrightonbeardcompany.co.uk/collections/new-products-1/products/jevington_jiggs_moustache_beard_wax keeps your tash out of your mouth.
Awesome ! Thanks !
Awesome stuff. Three thumbs up. I’d give it four thumbs up but that would be absurd. No-one has four thumbs. As well as blocking a dedicated space for painting, I find blocking out a specific time to paint also works well. If I try and paint ad hoc when I have time then I’m much less likely to do it.
A thousand minis? Ouch.
That’s nothing. Just ask an Ork player. lol
Just wanted to give my opinion on the issues of losing muscle memory. I took a bit of a break from my painting and found that when I returned to the hobby there was a learning curve. It took me a bit to regain my brush control. I also found that I had forgotten techniques I learned, lower my painting options in terms of methods to get certain effects. So i spent, like you Warren, some time going back through Romans videos, to remind myself. Fantastic videos, just as a side note, Roman reminds me of the American painter Bob Ross, lol. Good Luck gentleman, I’ll be lending my support as always.
I Hope i am wrong and I misunderstood, but I am perceiving a slight arrogance towards washes and… “beginner techniques” by Romain, which baffles me. Washes are not just for beginners and I firmly believe that good painters ignore or poo-poo such techniques at their own peril. I’ve experienced quite a few more than passable painters and most are always excited about new tools we can incorporate and use to achieve any desired effect. But as I said… I hope I misunderstood.
I hope I misunderstood
I think you have, remember I’m talking about washes for a very ‘brute force’ method of painting – or rather finishing a model.
The fact that washes are included in the upcoming Techniques Toolbox series, kinda suggests to me that their place has not been overlooked 🙂
I do not know how you could be so mistaken… washes and glazes are my favorite technique ! I do not despise anything, not even the quickshade… I even give advice on how to achieve better results with it.
I would never despise beginners… but I do, unabashedly, despise those who do not want to make the effort.
I am very glad I did misunderstand. Sometimes being wrong feels better than being right. 🙂 Thank you for taking the time to clarify, guys!
A friend of mine converted a computer desk into a paint station which helped his back when he was painting, I guess its because the table part is a good bit higher than the average dining room table.
I also find the clip on magnifiers help a lot, i still get eye strain but nowhere near as quickly as i did before.
Happy sunday and thanks for a great show guys! The painting set looks like a hobbyists dream. You are so right, if you ever been away from painting miniatures it is in some way hard to get in to it again. But it is like sports, only training gives you the practice and muscle, literally and in an abstract kind of sense. Hard to write this down, for example the guys over at massivevoodoo make a great job in inspiring people with the “happy painting spirit” and training all your painting-muscle.
Second and much important point is motivation: I found it really motivating to paint not alone, but with one or a bunch of friends just to motivate me. Showing my minis to them, discussing plans on expending my force or which mini is up next keeps me painting. Even if you’re a really slow painter as me, you get stuff done 🙂
Technique toolbox sounds like a great series. Seeing exactly what a single method looks like vs another is a fantastic idea. Plus it’s always a pleasure to watch Romain paint.
As someone who’s been out of the hobby for a couple of decades and is just getting back into it (through Flames of War and Dreadball), I found the conversation regarding muscle memory and having to relearn all the techniques very interesting. On the workstation side, an old computer desk is not a bad place to start as the keyboard drawer is good for keeping clutter out of the way.
Have a great deal of time for what Romain has to say, great guy.
As for washes, they are a great beginner tool but as Romain pointed out the more experienced painters refine the use of washes to create glaze effects.
Superb video guys and looking forward to the new painting content.
I picked up a very cheap bureau from a charity shop which I’ve made into my painting station. It only cost 30 quid and had built in storage for paints, tools etc. The best thing once I’ve finished painting I can close it up and it’s tidy but keeps everything safe and quick to restart painting when I have more time. Great vid guys. Really looking forward to the 12 part paint series 🙂
For tank and other vehicle painting, the best way is to take a look at other aspects of model building and learn from them.
The guys who do plastic model kits (the airfix type) use clay based washes, I’ve used them from this guy and its great.
http://www.florymodels.co.uk/washes/
Added benefit of being entirely water soluble, so if you do not lokie th elook you can , literally, damp a bit of kitchen paper and wipe the whole lot of without any damage to the original paintwork.
Combine that with some rust coloured weathering powders and you can get some truly marvelous effects.
Looking forward to Romain’s videos, always enjoy them and as I said in the painting forum a while ago, although he cannot cover the massive range of subjects they do, I think his videos stand up against Painting Buddha and Miniature Mentor for quality and how much I’ve learned from them.
Great show again guys thanks.
Those Flory Models washes look very interesting! Just subscribed to their youtube channel and saw them in action, and they look really good! 🙂
I am honored to be compared to Painting Buddha andMiniature Mentor painters ! I feel I do not deserve the compliment, though… Although my videos have the indubitable advantage of being much more affordable ! 🙂
I’m looking forward to the techniques videos. Even if it’s a technique you’re already aware of, it’s good to see someone else use it to see if you can take ideas about how to use it more effectively.
For me painting and converting is what my hobby is mostly about. It takes real work and effort to become a good painter, but mostly it takes a but of nerve and not being afraid to take risks. When I first started as a kid, everything was base coat, wash then dry brush. They looked crap and continued to look crap for years. It was only when I realised that if I was ever going to get better I would have to try new things that my painting started to improve and every mistake and botched experiment was part of the learning process.
There was no internet when I was learning, but these days we have lots of help out there. I do like Romain’s laid back style of presenting and I’m sure his new technique videos will inspire people to take that leap to just try out new ideas. Can’t wait to see them.
Thanks for the praise ! Looks like you get exactly how making progress works !
Well that video was a real ” Double edged sword”. Romain inspires me to take up my paint brush and make inroads into my lead mountain but now I don’t want to start until I have watched his new series.
It’s a lovely day, so I’m going to grab my bow shoot sone arrows and mull over the dilemma.
I always enjoy talking to Romain and getting his feedback on my own miniatures. Although at one point we agreed that he can’t paint tanks and I can’t paint figures 😉 But I do learn and continue to learn a lot by seeing what he comes up with 😀
Ongoing kickstarter with 6 days to go for paint organisers:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/494651479/snake-eyes-supplies-laser-cut-wargaming-supplies-f?ref=live
If you want a carousel in the UK you could pay £75 here:
http://www.3vwargames.co.uk/paintier.htm
Personally I bought one of these…
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001WAKFHA/
Great to see Roman back in the studio. Really looking forward to his new series of techniques.
One thing I’m curious about is GW’s new paint method VS the more traditional type.
GW’s new setup is. Basecoat > Shade (the replacement for GW washes) > Main colour of models > layer 2 > highlight > (Sometimes) a glaze.
I’ve got to admit, I did the same thing as Warren for my Blood Ravens shoulderpads, with the sepia washes over them after I was done. It ended up looking good enough – well, for me at least.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/504500-Blood%20Ravens%202000pts%20B.html
GW’s “new” paint method is their traditional type. They were doing base, wash, and two-stage highlight back in the late-80’s. The difference not is they’ve configured their entire range towards painting that way.
Just wanted to say really looking forward to Technique toolbox, what great idea!
Grab a cuppa tea, this is a long reply lol! 😀
For me, not having a dedicated area to painting is what what deters me from getting back into it. I’ve recently bought, and built, a large painting tray from Hobby Zone, but knowing I’ll have to set up my paints and water and bits, and that it takes me a while to get into the flow of painting, puts me off too. I need to have several hours where I can just paint without worrying about the time and having to stop just when I’ve got somewhere and my ideas are working.
I think I become very “zoned in” to what I’m painting and as I take my time, I used to find that it would take me an hour to get into the swing of things where my paints are sorted out and I know what I’m doing.
@warzan and @lloyd Might remember at their Hobby Lab at Salute a couple of years ago, that I’d shown them a Viking I had painted up. Although I was sat there for at least three hours (lol) I had only managed to paint the shield properly, while the rest of him was nearly done, but rushed at the end as I had to leave. Well that was the last time I had another go at trying to get back into painting!
My weakness used to be that I’d spend too much time trying to paint basic troops up to the highest standard I could, instead of leaving that for the special characters. I didn’t like my minis looking what I thought looked like being half finished with just a couple of highlights. They had to look right, lol! I think part of that was following the ‘Eavy Metal guides and trying to highlight every edge (something I won’t be doing since I’ve come to prefer Forge World’s realistic, military scale model style of painting minis).
Since then I have been inspired to paint basic minis quickly, and have been looking for decent ways to do that, and I’ve now decided upon how I’ll tackle it. But the motivation eludes me, as I know I’ll have to set up an area outside the house to spray prime my minis, come back in to set up the painting tray, and hope I get somewhere before I have to pack everything away again.
Part of the problem is space, so like Lloyd, I’ll have to find some way of moving things about so that I can get to my paints right away like Romain, and paint whenever I feel like it.
The other part of the problem is that because I haven’t painted in a while and I’m trying out new ideas, I don’t want to mess it up! The fear of failure, lol!
I have 3 test minis and a squad (built a couple of years ago) to practice my desired colour scheme/method from the test minis, so I have things ready to go – but I’m still trying to find time where I know I’ll have no interruptions, nothing important to do, where I can start in the morning/afternoon and finish when I’m ready or get to a point when I’ve completed a stage of painting.
I read an article in White dwarf last year, where Mark Bedford, of Forge World, discussed his methods of painting minis and getting them finished in his busy schedule. His way (with the aid of an airbrush) was to start and finish whatever he’s painting in the same painting session, and to give himself deadlines to work to.
It’s something to try out, and although it may not be so successful for someone who’s coming back to painting minis after a long break, it’s something to aim for.
Painting comes to me naturally, as I’ve always painted and drawn things, but using the weathering pigments and oil washes will be new to me and something to get used to using.
I’ve read a about using them, and seen loads of videos, so that info is in my brain, but as @elromanozo said, you have to put it into practice.
Romain’s videos will be interesting to watch, as you’re never too old to learn new techniques, so I’m really going to look forward to watching the series. 🙂
Your story sounds very familiar. Like you I’m returning to painting miniatures after a very long break (20 years in my case). I have very limited space and tools to use I also have very little spare time, I literally managed to paint for a couple of hours this weekend for the first time in two weeks. I also spent a very long time looking at different miniatures before I could decide what I wanted to paint. Every time is nearly bought something I changed my mind as in danger of never getting round to buying anything at all.
The most important thing I realised is that I’m doing this for fun. I never want to feel like I should be doing something I’m just not in the mood to do. It’s not the most efficient or productive way to paint, but I am having so much fun doing it.
I still get times when I worry that I should be buying something else and time when I think everything I do is utter crap, but I just have to remind myself that whatever I do, as long as I had fun doing it, that was the whole point.
The 1000 miniature army challenge, should be Rorke’s Drift.
Orc’s Drift
thousand mini challenge the easy way do it in 10mm you can do it in 2 hours
Losing the mojo…
Hi Warren! Remember Ebbinghaus forgetting (and learning) curves! If you stay long enough at an activity and repeat it often the quicker you learn it and the longer it takes for you to forget (you forget less of what you learned).
My problem also…
Fernando
Looking forward to the painting videos. I’m not the best painter and tend to use the same technique when painting different scale minis so 15mm 28mm etc. is there a one style fits all or does scale dictate the technique you would use?
Off to paint now. I have just based a full unit of bane thralls using my air brushing technique. Now to use my dry brushing technique. Looking forward to those painting tip tutorials.
Think I’m inspired to get my Teraton Dreadball team painted up now.
Great episode and as previously mentioned a Most Magnificent Beard @elromanozo
If you want to get an idea what 1000 minis looks like, there have been a couple of times GW have put together an Ultrasmurfs chapter and featured it in the old White Dwarf. As I recall every GW store was given a squad/vehicle to paint up for the showcase.
Maybe BoW could do a similar thing with its legion of viewers – a single Spartan sent out to everyone to be painted up and sent back for the glorious Studio 1 exhibit 😀
Romain is always great to watch; Subtle and funny! Can’t wait for the further painting adventures!
Awww, thanks ! 🙂
Like a lot who have commented I’m new back after a 20+ year hiatus to my mini painting ability (or lack thereof). I am over 40 (there I’ve admitted it) and I have found a magnifying light to be an absolute godsend; I use it for every stage except priming and it’s brilliant. The one thing I was surprised at was that I had no problem with the brush tip awareness, if anything I am worse at knowing where the brush is if I don’t use it as I have fully adapted. I might even give the glasses a go (believe me @Warsan, you quickly get used to wearing things on your head).
I’ve missed Romain 😀 So glad he is back, can’t wait for the painting videos 😀
Happy Sunday !
A great pleasure to see Romain on air again ^_^
An interesting idea to make different paint tech on same model. Can’t wait to see it 😉
Thanks for this XLBS, and hope to see Romain again on Paris ! (last time, I was teaching some DreadBall and DeadZone to many people).
The thing about the Army Painter dip is that it’s really supposed to be the entire third (and perhaps even fourth) part of the painting process, meaning that you prime and block in the base colours and leave the dip to do the rest. What I find is that if I apply a wash by hand, I can never just use *one* wash.. each colour ends up with an appropriately selected shade of wash and not only does this increase the length of time it takes to work through this stage, it also produces (in my amateurish hands) a very inconsistent look because the is no common ‘tone’ to the shadows.
So IMHO this ‘one and done’ approach with the dip does a great job of desaturating the base colours and it helps to give your army a very unified look once you’ve given it a blast of the anti-shine spray.
..and yet, I find the Quickshade to be a bit like Dwarf bread. No mini ever went unshaded when there was Quickshade to avoid. You only had to look at it for a moment, and instantly you could think of dozens of other ways to shade and highlight your models.
Maybe I’ll use it more once I stop painting character models!
Excellent stuff, great to see Romain! First BoW video I’ve watched in ages, looking forward to the new stuff.
Really enjoyed that chat looking forward to the new content. Romain tutorials seem to me at least to be very clear and easy to learn from. I bought a DVD recently on offer and to be honest it wasn’t a touch on the bow tutorials and far more expensive. Back stage maybe a monthly payment but you get a hell of a bang for your buck
Bought one of these racks from Games and Gears, got it, broke it by being a clumsy oaf, warned people on their FB page not to pick it up by JUST one side of the corner, it will break (not badly, just had to glue it!). They sent me an email thanking me for the adivce for people and the good feedback and sent me another aswell free of charge! I love the two racks, It’s £25 for one, or £45 for 2. They each hold 96 AV Vallejo Paints/80 P3 Paints/72 GW Citadel Paints/80 Badgers Minitaire Paints! And its good old plastic instead of laser cut wood! I got mine on preorder last year, but they are releasing them this year at some point!
http://www.gamesandgears.co.uk/hobbygearspaintracksingleset.aspx#sthash.Re4YebcQ.dpbs
Thanks for the tips on wash. I think I have some old 1/100 and 1/144 WWII AFVs that could benefit from that “Painting ER” idea.
Dipping is great for fast painting large armies. I actually glue my 28 minis on the head of a nail when im painting them. So i have a handle to hold them. When im ready to dip, I just hold the nail, dip them into the quick shade and then put it into a drilling machine. Then i put it head on into an empty pringles can and spin it, so the excess dip flies off. Great success with it, but don’t be afraid, you need quite high rotational speed to get the dip flying.
Lloyd, Spiders legs aren’t nasal hairs. They’re pubes from a particularly unruly bush that stick out the side of a pair of knickers. If you’re spiders legs are going grey, please refrain from telling us.
In other news, I cannot wait to see the new painting videos
One thing that stops me painting for long periods of time is that my back gets quite sore.
I think I need a way to elevate my work area so that i can sit up straighter and rest my elbows on something…. but more than that, i need to do something about lighting, because my work lamp currently illuminates my figures from the side rather than from above and thus i often need to bend forward to see them properly.
As for motivation… I’ve honestly found that the best way of motivating myself is twofold… firstly, I sign up for tournaments and leagues and whatnot, and typically these require fully painted armies. This gives a deadline and pressure and this helps break through the laziness wall.
The second thing that works for me is… I have a youtube channel where I do battle reports, and frankly unpainted models look like pants on those videos, to the point where I find myself building forces with as few unpainted models as possible, and try to paint stuff just to use them.
I’m looking forward to the painting shows. They sound very good, both ER and the basic techniques. That should motivate me to paint more, since like most, I collect and build quite a lot of models, dream up armies and colour schemes even more, but I don’t sit down to adtually paint often enough.
For my projects I usually set up a foldable table next to my desk. It’s a semi-permanent solution since I don’t have that much space. It usually stays for a while, until I finish the project or have to pack it up to make room for something else. And when I’m working on something I usually use my time ‘inverted’ to what Warren described; dedicating my time to building/painting and occasionally checking email or doing some computer work.
@Warren, does your 1000 miniatures project require a 28mm scale? Because if it doesn’t you might want to look at 10mm models for that epic warhorde feel. At that size models become quite quick to paint in large batches. And it can still look awesome when set up on the gaming table.
This is one of the best videos you’ve ever done, bags of content and great sneak peaks for the future, well done.
Sitting up straight causes(forces?) you to relax your shoulders, which in turn reduce jitter and shake. regular relaxed breathing also helps as well as keeping the material and hands on the table.
nevermind 😛 romain covered it, acrylic flow-aid would get the same effect as a dip in the right concentrations (in contrast to glaze or ink with a medium). also sealing your minis prevent lead rot.
As a new member of BS I am just catching up with all these vid’s very interesting..
One question… why when Warren says he was looking forward to being inspired by the 300 film, and its commented that its all Naval and quickly dismissed? Naval wargaming is just as much fun as land based stuff 🙂 Besides Ancient Naval Warfare was effectively fought like land battles on floating platforms.
oh and 6mm for the 1000 mini challenge – go on I dare you….
Not dismissed, we’re just not setup for it yet 🙂
the beauty of Naval Wargaming is that you don’t actually need much scenery so wont take much to set up…:-)
Great video and looking forward to the whole series as I love Romain’s tutorials.
When talking about “surfactant” Romain is talking about the different surface tension of the solvent used in the product. Water based products (such as GW washes) have a higher surface tension than those based on turpentine, thinners or other solvents which is why they do not pool as readily. Think of slightly over-filling a glass of water – you get the bulge of water (meniscus) on the top of the glass which is due to the surface tension. If you were to try the same with turpentine or paint thinner it will simply run over the lip of the glass as the surface tension is not as high (don’t go putting turps into drinking glasses though, that’s a recipe for a trip to hospital).
Over the past few years I’ve learned a lot from Romain’s videos and I always look forward to seeing more of them. It was however, a really fun treat to see him share screen time with some of the other BoW folks and show off his humour! 🙂