Using Different Paints and a Completed Project

This is an art piece of One Shot done by GrainGnome and hosted on DeviantArt. There's a lot of other fantastic work you can see by following this link: http://graingnome.deviantart.com/

I always struggle to find an appropriate opening image for my posts. Fortunately, I found this gorgeous representation of the model. I feel that we should pull reference and techniques from everywhere. For example, look at the use of a bright, small concentration of white to create an extreme contrast and compare that white to the off-white/cream-white of the fur.

Now, on to the content planned for today. I have been reading a lot about the "best paint" for painting miniatures. I believe that there is no "best paint." The different brands of paint are designed to do different things. We should take these strengths and use them, rather than creating binaries of "this is good and this is bad."

The miniature we have today is Soda Pop Miniature's One Shot and Fritz, from the Relic Knights line. My brother wanted me to paint this beautiful model for him for his birthday, which I am more than happy to do.

The model itself is great. I really feel that the casting material did not do the original sculpt justice, though. I'd have much preferred metal or resin. I hear that they are moving toward resin in the future, which I am looking forward to. There's a lot of shrinkage in several places, especially in the leg areas. The cannon has less detail than I'd like. I hope this is something that changes by the time I work on another one. Don't let my talk discourage you, though. The sculpts are fun and the miniatures are a blast to paint.

You'll notice the shrinkage that I spoke of in the pictures at the end. My brother didn't want them fixed, so I didn't fix them. If you get a model with some weird casting accidents, you can easily smooth it out with green stuff, milliput, or filler putty. I'll go over those in detail at some point in the future.

Well, what if I told you something similar, but less mind-blowing?

Here is what I have done: I painted the mech in Badger's Miniataire paints and created transitions with a few ghost tints. Details and freehand were done with Citadel paints. The cannon was also done in Citadel paints (I can never get metallics to show up right. I think it's time for a hardware upgrade).

Fritz, the little guy, was painted in Scale 75's Fantasy and Games paint.

One shot was painted solely with Citadel.

I used Vallejo Fluorescent colors for several bright areas, like Fritz's eyes.

Forgive my photo quality. My camera tends to make things grainy, so I'll be needing an upgrade soon. Have a look at these images and let me know if you guys have any questions or comments. I'd love to speak with you guys.

Just in case, click the photos to enlarge them.

Take care and keep painting!

-Matte