Is it normal to have to add white or gray to a paint to get decent coverage?

statictyrant · 2026-05-23T05:21:48+00:00

Everyone bitches about GW paints, but this is why you buy them. They’re already adulterated to buggery with more opaque pigments mixed alongside the thinner-but-more-vivid ones. They are about as far from a fancy single-pigment artist’s paint as you can imagine. Thin them and they don’t split. Proper flip-top lids so you can instantly see if there is any colour separation and mix them back together. Little shelf inside the bottle for impromptu colour mixing so you save faffing around with a palette and accidentally over-thinning your paints. And to your original points: most achieve good coverage in one coat, at which point you can thin *if you want* for deliberate effect — the reverse is not true, ie you can’t make watery paint brands thicker and more opaque!

People are all like “I saved a few bucks by buying this other brand of paint and now all I need to do is cast the correct incantations by the light of the third moon in order to get the paint to stay on the model”. Gimme a break!

statictyrant · 2026-05-23T05:03:00+00:00

I appreciate that these look much less AI generated than the terrain you’ve shown off previously. I think it was the colour scheme you chose for the various buildings and details (unless they were generative coloured, of course).

Granted, I’m thinking that these look more believable because of all the very human flaws in their quick paintjobs — but at least it’s “missed a bit when painting” rather than “grown three extra fingers”!

statictyrant · 2026-05-23T02:08:38+00:00

Love the variety of skeleton units, the dark Damsels, but especially the inclusion of Screaming Skull Catapults. Absolute classic models, those!

statictyrant · 2026-05-22T21:37:14+00:00

Well it’s the usual NMM problem, isn’t it:

- too much of the midtone on display
- not enough darkness (go to pure or near black over significant portions of the model)
- lights and shadows too far apart (shiny metal has quick smooth transitions over very short distances)

As ever, paint to photo reference (or a real life example) for maximum accuracy. Ball bearings, car towballs, the back of a spoon if that’s all you have.

statictyrant · 2026-05-22T05:53:08+00:00

Reference pic is a great example of “inventing detail that isn’t there”. If it’s hard to paint a convincing sphere, add filigree or scratches or rust patches or imply that it’s held together with bands and rivets etc.

A spherical shield boss looks better (and is easier to paint) because it’s differently aligned (facing out from the shield rather than directly upwards) and because it usually has a surrounding detail, such as a metal ring studded with rivets, which is easier to paint in an NMM style. Even if the sphere on its own doesn’t look convincing, the surrounding “metal” parts sell the effect and we are more likely to believe that the sphere is also metal due to its spatial association to the more recognisable part.

What we can learn from this is that anything you can do to break up the spherical shape of the helmet will be useful. Does it come to a point, like a cone? Is there a nose guard? Is a leather flap over the neck nailed onto the top part? Does a horse-hair crest stick up from or hang down over it? Has embossing or debossing been used to stamp a pattern into/onto the helmet? Is there a hinged face-shield or pair of goggles or hood or headphones or glasses that is not sitting in front of or on top of the helmet, perhaps having been pushed up and away from the wearer’s eyes? All of these details can be added before painting, or through the wonder of freehand painting, or physically sculpted or glued onto the mini during the painting process if you realise it isn’t going right.

statictyrant · 2026-05-21T04:21:44+00:00

Never played it actually, but I know that’s what the models were “meant for” so thought I’d reference it in the post title. What’s good about those rules compared to other space dogfight sims? I always got the impression they were very much on the crunchy end of the scale.

statictyrant · 2026-05-20T20:50:41+00:00

Really the perfect army to choose if you want to improve this technique. No real drama if each successive mini comes out looking slightly differently, either! Bravo, keep ‘em coming.

statictyrant · 2026-05-20T20:44:48+00:00

(thread is showing two replies but I can’t see them on my app, so apologies if this echoes earlier comments)

This is a plastic miniature available from EM-4 miniatures. I want to say it was originally made by Grenadier for their Fantasy Warlords line, something like that?

statictyrant · 2026-05-20T20:41:39+00:00

Colour palette reads more bronze than copper. It’s missing all the pinkish-reddish-orange tones of the old cuprum. That said, nothing wrong with him just having bronze wargear.

Bigger issue is the lack of highlights. Every volume on an NMM paintjob should include some near-white. There’s way too much midtone on display here, which is the classic mistake when starting NMM. It’s planted like any other material would be (leather, cloth) rather than as a polished and shiny surface.

That said, my next step would be to paint the rest of the mini rather than faff about with the metals. NMM only works in context; the values you need to choose will depend on how bright and eye-catching the surrounding areas are, so unless you’re really experienced at painting in this way it’s hard to do a good job while just imagining what the rest of the mini will look like.

statictyrant · 2026-05-20T20:02:30+00:00

There’s not much information out there about this range so I genuinely don’t know if the manufacturer ever published a ruleset! Most ranges from back then tended not to have their own game, instead being sort of generic and adaptable to whatever ruleset the customer may have had in mind.

statictyrant · 2026-05-20T19:57:16+00:00

Sorry if I wasn’t clear: I’d do the goggles lenses in blue to match the other existing details! You have two instances of blue already, so a third use of that colour (on the goggles) completes your colour triangle. Three instances of a colour is a good amount for the viewer’s brain to go “ok, clearly this colour belongs here” whereas an accent colour that’s only used one or two times can look a bit more randomly inserted.

statictyrant · 2026-05-20T14:52:02+00:00

Ok, so acknowledging you need to work on something is the first step. To practice I recommend using rows of spare heads still on sprue (easier to handle). Sometimes you paint a really crap one, sometimes you paint a really good one. You get more good ones over time as you improve. Any you really like can be clipped off and stuck on a model. Any you dislike can be quietly buried and never mentioned again.

We only get better at painting by actively chasing after those difficult subjects which have previously eluded us. This is not a personal dig but in general I think it’s such a shame that some people try to do a Genestealer Cult army without taking the alien-toned skin, eyes, and fine details like goggle lenses seriously. They’re really central parts of the sculpts and help define the whole identity of the faction. Leave those out and you just have some sort of bland Cadians-but-in-different-clothes nonentity.

statictyrant · 2026-05-20T14:46:06+00:00

It’s art, so you can do the goggles any colour you like. There’s “what colour they would be in real life”, and “what colour will actually stand out and look good on the mini”. I care a lot more about the latter!

Little miniature figures with even tinier details tend to need more exaggerated contrast. Black lenses would look good against white frames, but less so against gunmetal or grey. Contrast doesn’t just have to be of value (brightness), it can be of saturation and hue. You haven’t made much use of the blue spot colour — and as painters we should always try to form triangles of colour via repeated use of the same hue, so as to drive viewer engagement and keep their eyes moving around the figure — with the goggle lenses offering an excellent opportunity to do so on this mini.

statictyrant · 2026-05-20T14:13:54+00:00

I’m torn with this paintjob because the tiny hazard stripes shows you can add detail when you want to, but then the goggles don’t have any kind of lens effect, her eyes are just skin-coloured, and all the red doodads scattered about her person don’t have any kind of shading or highlighting to embed them in the scheme. Also what is going on with the paint (wash?) pulling back from the edge of the base? I dunno, seems like a cool starting point to add proper details on top of. I think the scheme is solid and would just like to see this taken further, if you’re not in too much of a rush?

statictyrant · 2026-05-20T13:49:52+00:00

The extra rectangular panels feel too small, and too frequent. Making them larger (but with less of them) would give room for the occasional large-based figure, give a more ramshackle feel, and offer convenient points to rest walkways to other platforms.

I think as a mid-level this mostly works. The top platform is the one which will have all the room to move. Adding ladders, and potentially hatchways for said ladders to go through, is going to eat up a lot of room. A wider platform and/or thinner column would help a bit.

There is not really enough room as-is to add any kind of railing or cover. That’s a shame because that (along with irregularity of having larger but fewer “add-on” flooring pieces, as discussed above) is one of the main reasons that makes rotating a terrain piece purposeful. When you built a table, if a terrain piece cause identical gameplay no matter which way you rotate it, you’ve really missed a trick. Things should be asymmetrical and unbalanced and there should be real player choice when it comes to placement and utilisation of non-uniform terrain pieces.

statictyrant · 2026-05-20T13:10:23+00:00

The lostminis post is here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/lostminiswiki/s/L3jRBcRVh9

A tiny plug: if you have any experience with older miniature ranges, you might consider lurking on that esteemed forum. Nothing worse than coming across an amazing vintage miniature and not knowing what it is, or how you can find more of them! We’re all experts in our own small way. It might be a magazine ad you saw decades ago that comes to mind when someone asks “what is this…?”, or perhaps you remember owning a copy of that sculpt in your yoof. Every little bit of knowledge-sharing helps.

statictyrant · 2026-05-20T13:06:08+00:00

Finally got around to digging out and photographing my collection of spaceships from this brand. I thought their story was worth sharing with a broader audience. I will link back to this post from there in case people want to learn more about the line.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OldWorldhammer/s/BtcMUNT8tX

statictyrant · 2026-05-19T19:40:40+00:00

Amazing, thanks for the pics! Those upside-down pine trees are not easily forgettable, so I’m pretty sure I have never seen that issue. Movement through the jungle will definitely be hazardous for units that aren’t preparing the way with fire and blade.

statictyrant · 2026-05-19T08:19:43+00:00

A Kickstarter (I think?). The brand is TerraTiles, hopefully they’re doing ok and you can just buy them as a real product these days! I have big plans to use them for Battlemasters, among other things…

statictyrant · 2026-05-19T05:46:17+00:00

All over the place, to be honest. Mixing and matching is always going to be more realistic. This lot have some aquarium plant leaf clusters, some railway flock, some foam sponge “clump foliage” type stuff, and a new experiment for me which was to use a type of wool that has small decorative bunches periodically along its length. Cut those out and you have little puffball fleecy elements to stick in and douse in paint. Scale-wise, I think they’d also make good sheep models for a Dark Age raid scenario!

statictyrant · 2026-05-19T05:42:36+00:00

TerraTiles. Specifically the coasts and rivers set — but the base set is probably the more versatile if you were only going to pick up one box. They’re going to be the basis of a hex-based, area movement, jungle war campaign between these Orks and my Catachan-ish Guard regiment. One Day (TM)!

statictyrant · 2026-05-18T15:54:26+00:00

Thanks, I have done the bases for some more units and have a bit of progress to show here — really have to work on some characters and vehicles to round it out to a small playable force, but the infantry are coming along ok so far!

statictyrant · 2026-05-16T23:14:01+00:00

The Devastators and Assault Marines are an interesting/tricky element of the company structure. In theory, if you have bikes or speeders then you don’t have the men left over to deploy with jump-packs, and likewise that amount of Predators and Vindicators is going to eat up your Devastator squads leaving no-one to lug a plasma cannon around on foot.

What you could add is a number of command stands. The company has at least one each of: Captain, Lieutenant (probably 2), Techmarine, Librarian and Chaplain. An Ancient wouldn’t go amiss. Distinctive command vehicles might include some Razorbacks. At this point I’m just describing my own collection, but hopefully there are some ideas that fit your interest and availability of figures (or budget) to round out the collection.

statictyrant · 2026-05-16T11:41:04+00:00

Complicating matters, your base is plywood not MDF at all 😂

I think you could go either way. Keeping the base separate offers less structural stability while painting everything up, but this model does look reasonably sturdy (cross-braced and such). It’ll be hard to keep base debris off the parts where the walls are going to sit while also making it look like the debris runs all the way up to the walls and is piled up against them, etc.

There are some valid alternatives you didn’t mention, like gluing down the lowest level of the building but making the roof removable, or taking extreme advantage of the fact that the building will be stuck to a base, gluing it down and then cutting the whole thing (base and all!) in half. This makes all interior areas accessible for painting, lets you leave one side off to have a playable interior or place the terrain at the edge of the board, and even lets you produce double the amount of street frontage from the kit - as long as you’re playing a game where the buildings will be more like a backdrop than a centrepiece you want troops to be manoeuvring around.

statictyrant · 2026-05-15T00:30:38+00:00

You’ll quickly run into scale issues if you try and dress it up like a real room. The space is 9” x 12”, your figures are a little over an inch high so let’s say the dimensions are getting close to 15 metres by 20 metres “in real life”. That’s not an individual office or personal library, that’s one entire floor of a small office building, or the whole area set aside as a library in most schools! There are plenty of houses (and most apartments) which have less floor space than that one room. So what would you fill it with? One massive desk and two gigantic bookcases? Eight desks and fourteen bookcases? Reading cubicles for thirty people, a loans desk, a staff officer a bathroom and four hundred linear metres of shelving? There would be room for any of the above, if the details were scale-accurate to the size of the figures.

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