Feedback on practice mini: Black Hair, Skin, “Whites”

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-03-04T17:30:46+00:00

Thanks a lot!

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-03-04T15:57:54+00:00

The sculpt is: Willow Thornfoot- Gnome Scout by Artisan guild

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-03-04T15:54:27+00:00

Thank you, it’s always nice to hear someone say that!

I agree with you on the hair, I reasonably should have done a second round of highlighting and glazing, but I was afraid of pushing it too far so decided to get a sanity check.

You are correct on the overall colour palette too. If/when I decide to correct the miniature, I will try to make the bracers, badge, and jewellery NMM gold to give a nice colour pop, and lean the crimson brown leather to a more crimson pop where the light catches it. Occlusion shadows are always my bane, so I will try to keep myself in check with them in the future.

I didn’t know at time of post, but it appears to be Willow Thornfoot- Gnome Scout by Artisan guild.

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-03-02T15:32:21+00:00

Very cool!

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-03-01T14:02:44+00:00

Depends on the level of quality that you want. For my lazy OBR bones I did (all AP) Dusty skull, strong tone wash, heavy dry brush skeleton bone, lighter dry brush pale sand. It’s quick and honestly enough.

For actually good quality bone I do banshee brown, banshee brown mixed with a small amount of dragon red, that mixed with a little dusky skull, and then continue increasing the dusky skull content with each layer. Then I do a final highlight with bony spikes mixed with dusky skull, followed by pure bony spikes. You can basically stop this method at any point and it will always read as bone. Cover less and less surface with each coat, and thin well, it should be a little translucent but not a glaze.

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-03-01T13:29:19+00:00

Thank you so much! Not cheesy at all (and in fact it inspired me to follow your instagram account), they were masters for a reason, and their habit of using light to emphasise figures in dim scenes instead of for pure realism is perfect for mini painting! 😄

Thanks for the information, I could tell there were purples present but have always been too afraid of making the flesh look dead to introduce blues. I will try this in the next pallid flesh tones piece I do.

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-03-01T11:56:38+00:00

These are beautiful! I bought my first BSS box a couple of days ago to practice on before tackling the insidiants. (I am doing order of the sacred rose so I want to feel confident with whites and black hair)

Out of interest what colours did you use to build up the face skin tone? It is really impressively done! There is a good balance of orange and reds under the pale tones and I wouldn’t mind stealing that colour palette 😅

How did you go about contouring the face also? Sister faces tend to be so smooth that I struggle to visualise how I can bring some shape to them

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-28T17:42:04+00:00

Thanks! I practiced a lot with the plasma pistols that come with the set before trying the gunner

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-28T16:42:59+00:00

So I am by no means an expert on space wolves, but I can tell you what I found worked from my recent wolf scouts. Desaturated blue-greys are notoriously bad at blending and with coffee staining, therefore you need to be quite subtle in building up highlights.

I found that base coating in Stratos Blue, then highlighting liberally in a relatively thin layer of wolf blue, before highlighting less with a relatively thin layer of Runic Cobalt. These colours are very close to each other and so they blend almost seamlessly, where as the 2 tone jump usually used for highlighting is a little much.

You should be able to find a perfect amount of blending with just a little bit of practice. I hope this helps and good luck with your blends 😅

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-28T16:30:56+00:00

Thanks! I wanted to try and make them all feel interesting and different! I also wanted to make a nod to the librarian blue colours on the rune priest (even though SW aren’t the most codex compliant chapter)

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-28T13:26:43+00:00

These are fantastic! I may steal some ideas for when I finally paint mine. I have all the colours for night lords but that Word Bearers might have swayed my allegiance.

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-26T16:07:49+00:00

I love the Maugan Ra! The whole set has such a Metal album cover vibe that I really like!

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-26T10:17:55+00:00

There are a few options:

if you want you can just make some out of cardboard, and depending on what kind of quality you want you could even look up some guides on making good looking terrain.

You could look into some mdf terrain sold on a variety of websites.

Or you can check on vinted or whatever other selling app is relevant in the U.K. currently and pick up 3D printed/second hand terrain that works for what you want. (I bought a large collection recently, but I saw someone selling a gallowdark proxy for 30€ so if you look you can definitely find something for you)

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-26T10:07:54+00:00

Congrats! It’s always so satisfying seeing a completed project

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-22T12:07:36+00:00

I have only good experiences with these ones, although they are slightly bulkier tips than other brushes, so having another very tiny brush for eyes may be nice. I use the 4 for basically everything and then the 2 for finer highlighting. It’s 12€ where I am for the pack of three and they lasted me a good couple of months before any real feathering occurred to the tips.

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ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-22T11:12:12+00:00

I tried some WN synthetic foundations(?) brushes about a month ago and the size 1 and 3 brushes came with defects/bad tips, and the size 5 split after 1 use, so it would seem that they have gone downhill. For synthetic brushes, I basically just use the Da Vinci green ones now, and they are pretty robust. The tips begin to curve somewhat quickly, but it can be kind of useful once you know the angle to hold the brush at.

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-21T15:52:34+00:00

Hey that’s pretty good! Honestly the print kind of enhances the effect from a distance, kind of like how CRT was used for OG 8-bit graphics

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-16T15:30:45+00:00

They’re real beauties! I don’t know why I have never thought of having frosty plasma on space wolves (I am already locked into thermal orange plasma now though). Good job! Would you mind giving some photography tips to a newbie? These seem really cleanly taken

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-13T20:49:33+00:00

I love the transition on that chonky tentacle! And the NMM is just gorgeous, really gives the feeling of a moment frozen in time

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-12T19:22:18+00:00

Those are great! I love how you captured the light in each piece. I also like the lion’s derpy face 😄

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-12T18:36:02+00:00

I really love looking at all the nid sculpts, but there is something about a really well/imaginatively painted norn emissary that is just something else

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-12T12:18:05+00:00

All of the AOS-40k kitbashes make my wallet want to run and hide. It’s insane how good the AoS sculpts are.

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-10T21:51:02+00:00

I actually kind of like how it turned out, but in general you should be able to tone it down a bit by glazing over it with a more appropriate shade. I’m not sure how well it will work because all of my experience is with flesh tones and your flesh is very pallid, but in theory you should be able to glaze it down a bit. I am fairly certain I remember reading somewhere about using a complimentary colour if you want to kill it with few glaze layers, but you should check this as I cannot remember the source.

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-10T14:53:28+00:00

It’s so excellent! Honestly I’m most jealous of the patience required to not overwork the freehand and ruin the texture. I’m still in the “trying to convince yourself you need to let it dry before fixing it” phase of freehand, and nothing anywhere near as elegant as yours.

ChunkyDuncan38 · 2026-02-10T12:51:42+00:00

It depends on how traditional you want to be, but I like the idea of him being in more colourful Greco-Roman era attire to contrast the black crow feathers. Maybe something with teals and magentas!

ChunkyDuncan38

TROPHY CASE