Hello everybody and welcome to another PMP end of month review. Why? What is the PMP? Well, that's our painters motivating painters our Facebook group where we focus on helping you take your next hobby step So as usual, we're gonna sit here for quite a while because yet again, we have another really big month And we're gonna I'm gonna review the miniatures that were submitted Give some feedback in a targeted way How the painters have asked for as always if you want to join us on your hobby journey You can look right down there in the description and there's a link to join it You must answer all of the questions if you do not answer all the questions, you won't get approved You won't get in answer all the questions. Okay, so That being said every month we open up a new event Specific to the month in question. So in this month is the May event You can find that within the painters motivating painters group under the events tab You can post your picture there We invite people to put to put one miniature that is completed finished project in there and Ask for targeted feedback. So please List what you'd like feedback on it's very helpful if you can bullet point that or call it out It helps a lot. I know people like to write a lot about what they're doing But keep in mind I have to read 80 to 100 of these and so when you write me a novel Doesn't help. I need to be able to see what you're asking for feedback on Quickness is the key folks So, you know be clear be targeted and that really helps me help you With the best information I can okay So for now, we're gonna keep on reviewing everyone. We'll see how much this keeps growing We're gonna hit a point where I can't review all of these and we'll have to see what we can do But for now, we're gonna keep on it. So without further ado, I Just want to say at the top. Thank you to everybody who submitted a lot of great stuff this month I'm really excited to go through this And we're gonna take a look at everything and give the feedback we can give So let's jump right into it. Okay, so up on the screen here. We have our first submission This is from Joel new to the group first time posting will welcome and once the feedback on his latest mini Started his came back to the hobby almost two years ago and He's only you know, it's not painting a lot of minis He's really trying to push himself with with everyone and so he's looking for display quality and wants some feedback Sure So here's what I'll say right now as it stands. I can tell that you're you have so we have a very GW influence style Nothing wrong with that My best advice for you when we're looking at sort of where I would push this So a couple things one your black highlights are too Flat in that they're just white to to black and they're too small in the volume We need to expand this out and go through an interference color black almost always has an interference color Oftentimes, it's going to be a deep turquoise or blue or something like that That's very common for a lot of these types of marines So you want to expand that volume here of like this highlight out and make sure it's nice and smooth I also your white looks a little chalky So you may want to think about adding something like a mixing your white with a gloss varnish that'll really help Smooth out that white. The other thing that jumps out of me here is on the face. The face is very monotone So adding more colors more tones in the face more reds more blues more yellows Browns like there's lots of different segments and sections of the face It's a really really important sort of area I'll have a video coming out about it Sometime in the next several weeks so you can always watch that I actually do a space marine head So I would recommend you check that out. I've talked about faces in a couple past Videos, but this is the first time I'm directly addressing like male space marine type heads But yeah, I would say like more red in the cheeks more blue down here If you guys, you know a beard stubble or on the back of his head Ray shaved his head or just brown tones to represent tan or red tones in the in the Temples and across the here and in the center of the the forehead, you know faces need a lot of color Those are the big things that jump out to me. Hope that helps you'll great stuff though I love that you're taking your time and really making these beautiful. It is a great work Next up ace so ace says just some overall feedback in general We're gonna improve with the overall composition and final details Sure So the biggest thing that jumped out to me when I looked at this ace was Just the sort of I like the weathering I think that looks really nice this sort of old death guard type scheme with the rusts and the scratches So I think that looks nice, but it doesn't carry through so we have some weathering and stuff on the White, but it doesn't really carry through to the copper and the green as much as I would like That is to say I don't see any really like vertigris or heavy rust on the metals And what you're telling me from the cream color is that this guy is really weathered and yet These other elements, I mean there's a little bit of vertigris like here and here here and here. It's it's very very minimal So I would really focus on you know, same with the weapon and stuff like that My next step for you would be if you're gonna do these kinds of nurglish figures where they're showing this heavy weathering and Wear and tear to go back and look at a lot of the videos I have on You know heavy weathering and think about how you'd integrate those same thing with like around the feet Integrating pigment and dirt and dust this guy clearly doesn't clean himself up much So those kinds of elements are gonna really go far The other thing that pops out at me is the separation of elements is a little weak So I'll give you an easy example to know what I'm talking about Let's take this these copper elements against this green See how we don't have a really deep line separating these two in fact We got a little copper bleed here. We've got a little green bleed You want to have a really nice dark separation in between all of the elements So everything feels very separated same with like the plates Down here Some places there are like around the knee probably because that's an easy place We're sort of a wash to settle in but when we don't have a place like that We've got to go in and actually create those lines So that's my feedback for you on that one Okay, next up brian looking for some general feedback particularly on the modulation shading and the weathering Uh, he said it's really hard to blend metallics and that is true. It can be a real challenge So I don't know what metallics you're using brian Obviously, I recommend vallejo metal color and mixing it with which is this stuff just so we're all absolutely clear I don't mean air. I don't mean model. I mean this right here That mixes really well with regular matte paints or inks or stuff like that You can mix them directly in you can do them as glazes on top And I find it really helps and it will make these kinds of tasks like creating the type of shading You're trying to get here a little easier And I would say that yes the steel as it stands right now does feel a little flat Now the panel modulation and lighting on the rest of the miniature. I actually don't uh mind at all I think it looks rather nice. So the pink or the purple feel a lot better than the steel color Uh, so I think that's probably Where your challenge is going to be uh, I would go back and watch the shading true metallic metals revisited video that I did Uh and because that really shows how I actually will mix in matte paints to create, you know New metallics and new colored metallics, and I think that could really help Uh, because you can you can combine that with the traditional sort of glazing of inks When you're working with metal colors, it is a lot easier to wet blend them to bring them together So those kinds of things I think might help you out some as far as the damage and the weathering goes Uh, I think it's nice. The one thing that did jump out of me. Let's go back to a sort of front and side view here Um The scratches are kind of evenly distributed and often about the same size so there and there And there and there We want to see different types of scratching and denting So you got to really force your brain your brain wants things symmetrical It wants to make all these lines the same length You've got to like have some dots and then big groupings of dots and then a few tiny ones And then a long scratch and then a triple scratch and then a scratch for the big tear And you know like little tiny hashes like you've got to really force your brain to be random because human brains don't like to be random So that's the that's just one thing that popped out at me that you may want to think about Same with if you're in a weather this model up, uh, I would also weather out this The barbed wire and the the barricade here The reality is this stuff sits outside and it's exposed to the elements It's not made of stainless steel and most likely So there's a very high percentage chance that it's going to weather fast at the very least it would be brown and muddy Because it's not going to be bright steel. It's literally sitting in a bunch of mud And uh, like this guy looks beaten to all heck and back And I would expect this to have much the same feel to it. So there you go. Hope that helps, Brian Okay, next up, uh, allen with his abhorrent arch regions. Uh, and his question was about, uh, You know increasing the contrast on the skin How to keep it be pale flesh tones and stuff like that. So, yeah, I have a video on painting You know pale dead flesh where I touch on the purple type skin. So you'd want to go check that out But yes, I think you do need to increase the contrast here and the way we want to do that Is we want to introduce some more, uh, purple tones and deep magenta tones Into something like this if you go and look at what like this this figure one Overall in the ever chosen competition last year and I would go take a look at that He his was more of in a green tone, but it'll show you how he Defines the volumes of the muscle structures In that and the colors he chose and still gets a very dead look and you could do much the same here Because I do feel that tonal variation, especially in terms of Value of contrast is our biggest, uh, area for improvement. So, you know, glazing and volumetric definition of the muscle Structures is really I think what I would charge you to work on there, Alan That would be that would be my biggest item. He looks nice overall. I like your color composition We just need to infuse a little more of that in so hope that helps Okay, next up Apollo, uh with the uh with our figure from miniac here this wonderful wonderful, uh duchess So, uh, basically he's looking for feedback, uh on the skin and the non metallic metal and the color choices So composition wise, I think it's okay. I would bring a little as purple up top That's kind of one of the issues here You could also have it be this under part of her dress here And that would space it out rather nicely if this was purple and this was purple like this I think that would actually help balance the figure rather well You could also have like a purple streak in her hair or something like that Uh, you know, why not? She can she can have a color streak in her hair uh now as to the, uh Non-metallic effect. I think the non-metallic effect here is pretty strong. I like it. I like that the top ear blade is more Bright than the lower part. I think that looks fine So I think that sells for me I'd like to see a little more blue still integrated in the top if this is the ambient environment Which it's not by the way, you told me the ambient environment is brown But then didn't put any brown here, but we'll ignore that for the moment Uh, I you know if the ambient environment lighting environmental lighting is a cold light Then there'd still be a little bit of blue on top. So some of that in there would help that sell just a little stronger It's a bit too distinct right now. Like yes, they're facing in different directions, but they're not so different Um As to the skin. Yeah, I feel we do need some more soft tones in there Like where we when we look at at her skin, especially in the black and white Image, let's let's go back to that first black and white of her skin. Whoops. Here we go She She looks a bit tired because we've completely circled the eye Whereas oftentimes female eyes unless it's makeup will only come to like Out here or right in here at the center and the most of this will go into a more pink tone It won't be so dark The cheeks need to extend color out Again, my best advice for even for when you have Uh, sort of a dead vampire lady here and her skin is going to tend to be a little more pale Is you still want to bring in those pink those magenta tones and those soft purples In the appropriate area as part of what's challenging right now is she doesn't look as as um She's looking a bit tired, which she shouldn't she's meant to look angry Uh, or fearsome, but when you dark circle the whole eye, that's what you get the the sense of So softening those tones right underneath the eye and actually making it like a contrast of hue instead of Value would really help same with the color in the cheeks and then her lips like her lips not having a color makes her very male so, uh, like that's I you might not want to put her in full makeup, but You know females we generally associate with having pretty red lips and vampire females often have extremely like blood red lips When they're portrayed in in art because you know Blood drinking so I like having the lips well defined and the color in the cheeks. I think is really what's missing there So there you go. Hope that helps follow Okay, next up, uh, Jared bringing me a non-finished piece. Tisk Tisk Jared. I'll allow it this time no more in the future Uh, basically looking for feedback on everything heck of a list composition tonal variation textures what she do for the sword Uh, and then any or all thoughts. Okay, sure all right, so, um Uh, the I think the skin looks nice. It's bloated. You might want to think about I like the pink and the and the purple tones in there You may want to also think about including some um Lighter green tones here and there as well That could be a nice way to also push it up and make it more interesting the texture on stuff like the fingernails I think that sells I think the rusted stuff needs a little more stippling It's still it's moving through the right colors, but it's not splotching quite enough So a little more of that same with maybe a little more of the oxidation mixed in you've got a little of that But actually stippling some of that around I think would be very helpful Like there's little bits here If it's stippling some of the edges in it or even some of the raised areas just things that might oxidize You can use it either realistically or artistically as long as it's kind of broken up Uh The bone here needs a lot more tonal variation same with the bone all all of this all the horns this bone the horns They need a lot more They need to spread a lot more like you can see it when you look here This one's okay A lot of these are very samey Right, there's just nothing going on here and we should really feel the striations on this guy as they extend out Okay, whoop On the sword. I mean, I don't you didn't really give me a photo with it But I mean the general answer here is is it should be a Absolutely rusted hunk of rust, right? Which you should just go crazy on with stippling include some bright oranges You can mix in some regular Vertigree in there as well, even though it's not traditionally iron who cares It can just be an artistic fun thing if you watch how Darren Latham whose videos are still up right now how he did his His Blight lord or whatever the heck the guy was that weapon where he integrated that stuff I think that's a really good example of how to make a nervel ish Weapon, so I'd recommend you check that out. Hope that helps Jared Great stuff overall I think the skin right now is your straw your strength area by the way that variation is good. I like it a lot Okay, so Jamie a model for local painting competition approaching his best paint job Basically looking for a generic feedback that would be useful Yeah, sure. So I think this is a really nice piece. I like how you used the Oh, whatever this terrain piece is to create like a nice plinth I actually think that looks really good the rust and the weathering on the plinth itself I really like pushing a lot of orange tones and stippling in there That is quite choice You may want to get a really sharp thin line through the lightning Like I'll just give you some stuff that's dread that jumps out at me Some of the sharp thin lines of the lightning You need to like really get an ink mixed in there and really trace just like a really fine line through some of it I think would be very helpful As to the The armor itself is good I feel like we could come to a little more high highlights in some places like really pop some edges Especially where the light's falling here Here Across on the top of the knee on this leg the bottom here in the foot Like just creating like a really nice column of light up that would be good The the leather grippy grip of the weapon is rather boring It's just kind of brown and then the darker parts in between Hitting the tops of each of those with some kind of highlight like actually making the individual Elements of that thing stand out. I think is a good way to go Some of the other elements need a little more A little more action like the skull Could probably use a little more smoothing that kind of stuff I think it's mostly just a refinement journey, especially on some of the small pieces Uh, so yeah, I mean, I think that's my feedback of the stuff that jumps out to me immediately The box around the weapon feels a bit flat So something like adding some more color variation a color shift, you know Like where it's coming down and getting lighter in value down here at the bottom the edges of these the rivets picked out Just making sure you're really hitting all that detail and really trying your best to bring that out I think is the biggest pieces that jump out at me So I hope that helps shamey All right, so let's keep going. So next up. We've got uh, cast me in who brings us this go trick Uh first real attempt at uh, non-metallic metal and looking for feedback on that Sure, so let's spin around to where we've got a good shot of that axe There we go. That's a nice one. So yeah, I mean, I think that overall we've definitely got the the right level of Contrast here cast me in which I think is great Uh, I think that you want to add some infuse some color into that right now. It feels very Black and white, which um is fine But you generally want to push it out a little farther You may want to think about also having like a small secondary Highlight you place the light in the middle, which I think is really good You might want to also have some other transition where it doesn't go full all the way back up to white But comes into like a mid-tone gray Maybe something like here and then back out generally if you have a couple variations across the metal It can feel a little stronger beyond that. I think your real goal here is just refinement So just smoothing out those blends and like I said earlier adding in a pop color where you've got Uh, some green or some blue or some green or or maybe even some orange or brown or something And they're reflecting from the um, you know the ambient light in the in the universe around him And I think that that's going to be a really big help but value wise you're on the right track. So now it's just refinement Okay Next up anthony bringing us, uh, his big old negosh big pop and negosh Uh, he says this is the best he can do currently. We'd love some guidance on what he can Improve and continue and focus on for the future Sure, so I'll tell you right now right away the thing that's going to jump out to me here Is we want to focus more on our tonal variation, especially in relation to value contrast So where it really pops out to me is in stuff Like the ghosts, uh, or the red of the cloak. By the way, the red itself I'm not really sure you need it or it works just as a slight note It's a very saturated red. It doesn't really It doesn't really jive with this scheme because you already have purple yellow green Right, and then the fact that we went to red. It's not really a A great quadratic scheme. It's also very out of balance red is near the bottom only Like this should be the center of the figure where my eyes are drawn But it's not going to be because red draws your eyes It's one of the strongest colors that draws your eyes and it's way down here at the bottom of this thing So if I just relax my eyes and like stare at nothing in particular The only thing I see is this and that's not what you want So variation where I would focus especially in the ghosts They need to be way desaturated same with the sword. So a lot more Value variation there getting a lot brighter Same probably with the bone having a lot more darker parts in that and then climbing up a lot higher Into sort of bright white for that bleached bone the purple. I think you have the right amount on It's where a little zoomed out, but I think that's probably the stronger area But really on the ghost is where I know is it the most I feel like Nagash would be stronger if his cape just ended in that same Desaturated purple that the rest of his armor is so it wasn't like shiny, but it just kind of came down into a light You know violet color and I think you that would feel a lot more coherent as a piece I think the red is really extra and isn't helping you any here So there you go, anthony. Hope that uh, hope that helps. That's where I that's where I take the piece next Okay, next up chris howell the knight of justice from infinity First real attempt at wet blending on the cloak look and some looking for some advice on how he can improve the sword effect So, uh, well done with the wet blending on the cloak. Now you got to go back and keep pushing it up So we need to go farther with the cloak Uh with the sword I don't know if we have a real shot that really shows me the sword here But I mean the sword doesn't I don't know what effect you're going for it doesn't Like I assume you're going for like a reflective thing Where it's like some kind of power effect with reflections, but it really we need to go back to formula on this one So what I mean by that is like if you're if you're trying to catch like a light reflection coming down the blade Then it's got to be broken up more. I need to expand those volumes a lot I need it to go like a light and then out to middle and then to dark and then to light again And you can you can paint it with vertical brush strokes over and over and then glaze and smooth it out So a little bit of that remains and that'll give you That'll give you a much better sense of actually having that reflection Go look at somebody like Sergio Calvo He does that type of effect all the time in his non-metallic And uh, and you know kind of try to just look at that. I mean he's one of the best painters in the world But uh, look at how he's using his light and varying it across the surface and that'll give you some ideas For kind of what you should be aiming toward for doing that. Okay Uh, all right next up uh, ewen leader of his uh His warrior unit his cast warriors. I love these new sculpts a little green stuff work on the mace And basically what he wanted to know is some feedback on the flaming weapon and the scheme in general Sure. So does the scheme in general work? Yes. I think 100 it does. I like it. It's very like I like the Gray blue and then the full blue for the boots. I actually think this is a great color scheme Uh, does the fire work? Uh, the sculpting works the fire has way too much Ferrari red in it. We're gonna we're gonna hit this again later at some point Um, like flame doesn't turn Ferrari red It doesn't turn red like red Fire is not this color. Okay When fire turns red, it's this color All right so the key is you The key is you don't want to be including that red. It should be Also less white.  So more of that kind of orangish color and desaturate your Your red into a red brown black like that whole red I showed you. Okay All right, but overall great scheme. I love it. I this is keep going man I'd love to see this this force built out these new warriors are just they're fantastic. There's so much fun to paint Okay, next up zack Uh, partially desaturated look, uh, he says I know his blends and glazes need improving Okay, uh, just wanting a better table ready quality. So let's review it like that Let's talk about this from table ready. Okay, so absolutely Um, yes, I here's what I will tell you the main thing I want you to work on is cleaning up your work and your control and uh getting your paint applied cleanly for example his foot here is not painted that's still stone Okay, uh, you know, we have a lot of places where paint is kind of crossing over to where it shouldn't be And we're still using a lot of dry brushing. I mean I can tell from the rough texture So one if you're going to use dry brushing, that's fine by yourself a set of soft makeup brushes off of amazon or from the dollar store for a couple bucks You won't get that effect It'll be a lot and and wipe a lot of paint off it like wipe a lot more and rely on more soft strokes from a soft brush And you'll actually get a really smooth effect from the dry brushing and two I do want you to work on a little more glazes and control as far as uh You know keeping your paint clean and separate and getting rid of that rough That rough texture where it doesn't belong that's coming from The the dry brushing so that's my best advice for you as I think where you could go next Okay, uh, so I do hope that uh I do hope that helps but uh, good luck. Uh, always love to see more more rats in the world Okay, uh Next up christian, uh I've been first time fan a long time poster thought I'd share one of these all-time favorite pieces I'm wondering if any general pointers sure, so I've painted this figure. So I know this one really well I love this little this is one of my favorite crews in malifaux Uh, yeah, so my general advice would be uh to pick out a little more of the individual detail And I I guess that I know how small this is Uh, but like elements of her dress should be different colors Like her bows on a little girl's dress would technically be a different color You know elements like that Bringing out a little more of the texture like and frill to the dress along the bottom I think would be helpful Uh, but those are all minimal. I like the hair. You could do a couple more thin lines Like really get in there and get some sharp thin lines, but I think it's it's fine Same with the bows and her hair. These are these are bows not hair.  Her skin is very flat It's very just skin colored.  That's why I love it Uh, but like again little girl's skin should be You know pink and and have these soft pink tones to it, especially around Her the area of her hand there as it goes up under the wrist and on the side of her Her arm there and stuff like that. That's where you want to be capturing some of those soft pink glazes So I think that's probably your your best, uh, opportunity So a little bit more variation in the composition and a little bit more of the hue variation on the skin Okay, ma ma bringing us his trample ma big old colossal squig proxy that he sculpted which is super cool Uh, basically he's looking for how to get better on painting giant beast skin Yeah, it's tough, especially with something like this So my best advice is you know, you said you mentioned you just got an airbrush My answer is come back to me After you're with your airbrush because it's going to completely change how you paint stuff like this I mean, it's just it's just gonna have a huge effect This guy is really textured and so it's somewhat Different like he has a little bit of what I call traditionally forged ruled skin Where it's super heavily textured.  You've got the right idea. You're trying to vary your your hues your colors Push that a little farther on the values like his under part of his body here Is basically the same purple as here, you know, this should be darker This should be lighter still think in terms of your volumetric highlights as always And when it comes to things like his big toe claws again, think about things like striations and bringing those down Uh, but you're about to go on a very fun journey And it's going to make these kinds of big monsters a whole different ball game So, uh, I'll be interested to see your first monster you do post the airbrush and let's talk then and we'll see what we can do All right, so let's keep going All right, next up. We've got Pete, uh, who Brings us a big old Archeon, uh, he said this is the very edge of what he can do Uh, but he says he doesn't think the lit gateway really sells the osl didn't quite make it across Like he intended any critique or aspect as well, but especially on the osl sure So, uh, yeah, I mean let's take a look here. I'll first of all cool conversion of turning sort of the big beastie into into everything here Uh, with our, you know, that Looks pretty nice. Uh, I like the base. I like the integration of the gate Cool cool head conversion. So like conceptually this is a really really neat unique piece Now, I mean as to the glow Yeah, it's pretty weak, but then you I think that's actually appropriate because the rest of the piece is lit Very strongly. So you have a lot of bright light everywhere else around the piece It wouldn't make sense that this glow would be that super powerful. So let's actually kind of get up to this one I think what we need is a little more soft blue glazes of like this color one of the keys of the osl remember is that the The light it casts is not as bright as the light itself and in the case of something that's blue white It's going to cast like a soft Light blue. So this deeper blue color you have here like glazing that here And having more of a shadow down here on this side So it goes like light on the edge You can have a little white light catch on this very hard corner And then have a little soft blue glaze going down to something very dark And then again blue and then again you'd pull dark onto this side Like this sort of the pillar should be darker because you can't just make light without making shadows right And then you'd want to cast a little more of that soft blue out on the things like the trees And it's certainly be reflecting out in this water down here very strongly because that's a mirror surface Same with everything else. So just a lot more of that soft blue blazing is I think where you want to be Now beyond that I think where you want to go is as per usual with stuff like skin I like all your conversions. I think that's nice I think the wings look really good as far as the the variation goes I think some of this these elements here could be a little more clean and defined in the individual volumes So like some of the arm muscles and the neck muscles and stuff like that Kind of shaping those a little more is where you'd probably want to go But overall really cool piece very very cool conversion with the the giant head kit there All right, uh samuel with his goliath gang additions and he says he's looking at a new skin palette Uh, yeah, I think these look really nice. They have this wonderful like really great sort of And I don't mean this in a negative way like cartoon vibe to them I just mean that to mean they're extremely bright and powerful and potent. I think most of the colors are in great balance Uh, which is what makes it which is what makes it work. So I think that's really nice Uh, as far as the skin goes, I think it's good. I can see a little bit of the hints of the red in there I think there's probably some areas where we could have a few deeper shadows Maybe going into almost like a black leather or a purple where it's adjoining to gear or Machinations so what I mean by that is it'll really come out and sort of this picture Feels like there's a real dark line here that needs to be smoothed out But like where it's going into their gloves or their backpack or really hidden like these parts of the skin That's really really hidden. I think we could darken a little more where there's actual like cybernetics that are you know that have an uh That meet and merge with the skin I was trying to get the proper word for it and I couldn't find it Uh, those kinds of areas I think where's where we could see some more bruising almost that kind of a color if you think of like a purple bruise But on the whole I really like these guys I think they look great lots of uh attention to individual detail the bases look wonderful I think this is pretty fantastic work and uh everything sings everything's well defined The colors and stuff are all sharp. Uh, there's like nice dark lines between everything. So yeah, I really like it Great stuff, Samuel beautiful, uh additions to the crew Okay, next up spencer with his uh his uh Looking for color and composition feedback on his converted star priest Uh, sure. Hey, it's funny. I use this same model for my star priest. That's really it's hilarious Um, yeah, I mean my answer is overall he's so so let's go back to his comment real quick here first thought out model tried uh tying in the blues from the model into the base Also the reds and the eyes feathers and the snake. Okay So at any rate when I look at this this is actually a pretty still monochromatic model Um, I do like how you passed around. This is a good black and white by the way It actually does show that you're you're capturing some good shadows that you worked into your metals And on stuff like the bone um shows that we've got some good skin definition on the muscle But that we could go maybe a little farther, but I think that's a really nice capture um Yeah, you know the sort of purple magenta here of the feathers and these kinds of elements are Are well balanced. I don't really see much in the way of of issue As far as your color balance or your composition goes I think it all looks pretty great. Um, the feathers have a nice contrast. You can see in the black and white So I think that looks good When it comes to like drawing attention to the head I'll tell you how what I found because since I use this same model Let's go back to this initial picture here. By the way, I love all the black and whites. Well done, spencer Really makes it nice What I did is I found it was helpful to just run a bright shadow up here on both sides of the side of the head And really push this up to a near silver And then push some bright shadows here Uh where the crest is going up Like shadow this at the top and then a bright silver line on the top and make this part in the center Or it's more of a gentle slope and it has those runes to pop all those out in a more of a silver You could also by the way, cheat and just make one of these runes red or make some of these triangles red And that would help balance out the eyes and red draws the eye and it would draw more attention up there Uh, so that's the only thing that really pops out at me. Uh on the little basil bone, uh Pick scythe thing here I think you might also want to look at maybe popping that up a little more at its highest I like that was the only thing that really stuck out to me is having like The top part of it not going quite bright enough if it's meant to be bone But everything else I think looks really nice. So, uh, well done, spencer Okay, next up, uh, eugen, uh Looking for a focus of critique on the skin and its color Uh, and then the liquid in the bottles. Sure So let's go over here. Uh, yeah, I think the skin and its color is actually rather nice We could have a little higher highlight in some pieces of the face where you integrate in a little more Maybe like, um A sunny skin tone or something for some of these highlights Uh, by the way, if this is meant to be a true hole in the face I would actually just deepen it and blacken it out Which I assume it is because that's a big hole in your skull right there It's not actually meant to have a back in it. I think that's just a limitation of the sculpt So you'd want to fake the hole basically a little stronger But I think the skin works it could be smoothed in some places Where we can see kind of hard transition lines, but I think it's actually a really nice Contrast there because your skin is very The blue part is very cold to the warm yellow highlight And I think that works well with the brown and in contrast against that rather rather nicely rather smartly So I don't I don't have any issue with any of that. I think that's uh, I think that's pretty great I thought my main targets for you would be uh, oh, yes, they'll talk about the liquid in the bottles too Um Would be just to focus on you know, sort of refining and blending Now the liquid in the bottle. I think that looks fantastic. I think that's a highlight of the piece for me, honestly Uh, I think you like you you nailed it. It's sitting Feels like it's sitting at the angle of gravity like obviously it should always be the the line of the liquid should always be Parallel to the ground right because that's what's happening Uh, it feels like that is and I love the inclusion of the green and the little touches into the upper part of the bottle To make it feel like that the yellow has the nice transition with the white at the top and the little bubbles Yeah, I mean, I think you nailed it. I think it looks like a freaking great liquid in a bottle like very very very well done So I really enjoyed that Okay, next up uh able with a horticulus, uh, no specific events just looking for like, uh You know our feedback just looking for kind of, uh, any way to improve Sure, so the number one thing that jumps out to me is something you're gonna you've heard me say a lot already But it is just more tonal variation, especially, uh contrast On of value, uh, the skin is very samey all the way across We don't have a lot of definition of the individual elements Same with the shell like we can go darker some of this area down here Under the shell should be darker than say some of these upper areas like this blue and this blue is the same blue And that doesn't feel like that should be true Right same with horticulus himself a lot of the colors and elements on him Like having some deeper shadows you're working in kind of a sickly ochre here So bringing in some brown green tones would be a great way to create And define some of the volumes in his musculature And in the general shapes on him On the worm here, maybe some deeper magentas or purples or something like that could could help you carry a long way there So those are my initial thoughts for you all right Excuse me. I'm very sorry everybody Next up james wilson Uh, just looking for feedback. Uh, sure So the number one piece of feedback I have for you james when I look at this piece Has to do with the the non-metallic gold. It's too cold and flat So we're going to talk about our value definition here being one through five as I often do in these videos One being the highest highlight five being the deepest shadow because that's just sort of the easiest way to conceptualize it Your non-metallic gold is all Three at the highest and then four or five We don't have enough two and one here. I understand you were probably going for a more cold gold and I think that's fine But we're lacking just a lot of the highlights So you can keep them to a small volume if you wanted to feel more cold more green gold That's cool shrink your volumes down, but we've got to come up We're not bright enough on those highlights and that's probably the number one thing that jumps out at me The red armor itself looks wonderful the freehand on the cloak looks wonderful. So like I'm well in for all of that man You have sold me on all of those pieces the subtle shading on the white of the gun I think looks great Like the face looks well defined the elements here are sharp I'm liking everything like especially by the way the red. I think the red looks fantastic. It's rich. It's bright You captured great color and reflectiveness in it. I think it's a it's a part that really really sells for me I think it's just the gold needs a little more brightness to it And if you don't want to go full on into yellow, we can keep it to a more dim ochre You could even bring a little blue in just very lightly teeny tiniest Beety bit of blue and that'll kind of kill out some of it and make it feel colder And uh, but that'll still get you that higher highlight. We can still move it up on the value Spectrum so but overall it's a great piece. I really dig it. There's a very cool zinch The I don't know what he is Aspiring sorcerer guy, I guess probably sure. Why not? Great color palette Okay, next up allen looking for some feedback to the lava In general basing what aspects of painting should I improve on the model while keeping a military style of modeling? Sure So let's look at the picture. He's looking for this sort of dried cracked lava. Okay, no problem So when we look at this and you want that kind of lava the key here is you want to make most of this really Dark and then you want to find those spots What what makes this interesting visibly? So let's let's all really look at this together This is yellow Into a sepia into a dark gray Right, there's actually very little black here But what makes it seem darker is when we notice the white into the yellow into the orange Right, and that's what most of this cool color is So here we would do the same thing we want a little bit of like a a yellow white highlight Into a gray and then into this black as you've got it But then like in these little cracks in here in here In here doesn't have to be everywhere. Just like pick some spots like right there You'd want to you'd want to make sure you have that white yellow orange situation going on. Okay Now general techniques for improve improving I mean what we need to do here is start defining our elements, especially when it comes to If you're looking for a more historical style, that's fine The elements need to be really well defined sharpened Look at like panel lining is a thing that comes out of historical modeling So like the elements of the feet all need to have a sharp line of definition this The like Is honorific thing at the front here this like we need those kind of smooth colors I would you do still want some kind of panel modulation like even historical vehicles will use that They'll just tend to use a fairly quote-unquote realistic style of it um But you want to draw a deeper Ochre color like up to the top of the panel or something because the light's going to actually catch along the bottom I want to shape like that or on the top of a round shape like that And then of course also you may want to think about things like weathering and streaking because again A lot of historical modeling really focuses heavily on streaking weathering chipping Because these kinds of vehicles even though they're well upkept if they're out there for just a small amount of time It doesn't take much on the battlefield for them to become scratched and worn So things like that is probably where I would focus my attention there alan So I hope that all helps All right next up Jonas final part of his star collecting for his kittari just general feedback Uh, yeah, I mean we we've witnessed this over the past couple months. Uh, so I think overall you're doing well Uh, I think that when I look at this the biggest thing that sort of stands out To me is just again some definition Of the elements here like having a dark line in between the The brass color and the brown itself. By the way, this and this are a little close I think the the, uh Ornamentation here might have benefited from either being a brighter color or even being steel I know the leg under it is steel, but this is really well separated with a dark line And that would have helped separate it more from the brown Um, I would have also you could have also Conversely taken the panel and put another white stripe in there I think it's really just the detail that that you know jumps out at me So like this all kind of blends together So having like some more freehand or a white stripe here or making this panel white And then fading that kind of thing would help it really stand out if you wanted to go Steel bronze You know white it would be a lot more eye catching. Okay And then beyond that It's just sort of some little items like we want to make sure that the Uh individual elements here are well defined like having more dark lines separating the steel and this under here around the side of Uh in between like the steel and the orange here Just lots of little type of like almost panel lining type of stuff Uh is all that really jumps out at me maybe even bringing out a few edges those kinds of things But on the whole I think this is really strong I think it's a nice piece like this is a good example here on the back Having a nice dark separation actually between what's the vent and what's the the brown piece itself Okay But on the whole this is a cool dune crawler. I'm glad to see you get it done and uh, yeah, I dig it a lot He'll be uh, I just painted this uh this thing myself not too long ago. Obviously this this top piece So very cool work All right Okay Next up So patrick first post first review post just want to get general feedback on the largest model you've painted today sure This is obviously his big night titan dominus class So one thing is try to keep your pictures a consistent color tone. This is very warm This is very cold. Notice how different those colors look like It's tougher to evaluate when it's like that Just as a note So biggest area where I see for improvement on your night Is largely to do with your metallics The metallics look like basically we just kind of did the old wash trick and stuff like that I would highly encourage you to go watch Some of my videos around how I tackle true metallics when it comes to stuff like this Because they look rather flat And they're they're really the part that's going to let you down the most here and where I think you've got the most room for immediate growth Uh shading these true metallics more like a non-metallic style Glazing and inks and stuff like that having brighter areas of silver where we're catching highlights Those kinds of things I think would go a long way Minor touches of weathering you should be a lot of battle damage across the hull and yet the metallics are like perfect So no scratches. No oxidation. No weathering on them You want to be careful about that you want to be consistent across the piece If this is getting damaged and streaking then these should be damaged and weathering and streaking as well It can be minimal, but it's got to be there right So I think those would be my big challenges. I throw out for you based on the first one Uh, or based on sort of the first blush. I think those would be your your basic next steps Uh, I hope that's helpful for you. Patrick. Uh, very cool. Always love to see another big imperial night hit the table Okay, uh, Cory first submission Uh, he says he never really goes out when painting models mostly for fun But this was for an online competition And so he's looking at sort of his, you know, colored non-metallic metal various textures Uh, in general composition and focus sure So I think it's good. Uh, it's it's really nice. I like the orange and blue. Obviously, that's a very eye catching color combination I think the axe for the most part works. It's got good variation across the like the blade So I think that works well A little bit more on the bottom would probably be in order There's the volumes on the bottom of the blade are a little small and mostly dark The wood feels like it could use a little more texture Vertical striping and stuff like that Same with where you connect to the hand again Always make sure when you've got a weapon connection like this You're getting those nice dark lines in there You want a nice dark line separating hand from that because there there'd be a space of Shadow there that would be created like see how my two hands come together See that dark line in between the two underneath there underneath my top hand That's what you're capturing by putting a nice dark line in there. Okay Uh I like the the orange texturing on that. I think that works well I think the purple the low shading of the muscle tone with the purple I think could be expanded just a little bit We could smooth that and bring it up just a little bit a little bit more of that into the muscle structure itself Uh, it feels a bit abrupt right now, but it's good color selection. I like that very much We just need to explain with the volume a little bit texture wise things on like the cape and the pants I think those and the belt I think those all work really well. I think those are very very successful So overall, this is a really cool piece. I dig it. What a great Challenges you gave yourself with a cool 3d print. This is exactly what I love to see People who you know painting should be fun if you're happy with most of your painting most time That's great And then this gave you a really nice chance to sort of stretch your legs and really push yourself I think that's great more people should do stuff like that where you know Every so often they really try to push themselves because I think you did an absolutely fantastic job here So uh, well done Okay, Amy first attempt at a whole model with proper non-metallic metal. Sure Uh, so The looking at it here, uh, I think the silver as it is with all the rust That's probably where we have the most opportunity because it doesn't really have much variation to it or Interest, uh, that's that's my biggest challenge. I think most of the rest of the color is fine It needs to be you're kind of overexposed on your lighting by the way that's coming in like this guy is under direct light So it's making it a little hard for me to evaluate just as a word of warning um Like it's tough for me to tell because the colors are kind of blown out because of the the desaturation Uh, I think the green looks really nice and I think the from what I can see of the sort of gold color I think it's it's good Uh, I I think overall you're in the right direction. It's a little tough because again like looking at it. I don't I need a more even lighting Uh, I feel like maybe we need a little bit of deeper shadows and some of the gold or just smooth them out So maybe like this brown should be a little more extended but should be smooth So it should fade a little more up into this area Uh, but I think your biggest opportunity is going to be on your steel work Especially like on the weapon and look at how you integrate rust and that kind of stuff into the non-metallic But for doing the whole fig as your first one with a try, I think this is really strong I think it's mainly a matter of smoothing refining and working on your steel Variation, especially as it integrates with weathering, but really cool. Thanks for sharing Amy. Very awesome big Okay, next up alberto, uh, bringing us the big dragon Uh, and so you want as much contrast as possible Can't figure out what to do to go to the next level to let the figure pop up more Sure So where are we we looking at this guy over like the things like the wings and stuff like that look really nice In general, I like a lot of the shading and what we've done with the face But we're going to stay on this this shot for a second because this is where I'm going to where I'm going to take you So what we don't have is nice deep scale separation Nor the volumetric control of the scales So both the low tone here Does it go deep enough nor to the shadows in between the individual scales and part of that can just be the softness of the sculpt But like having a really deep section down here where the light at the edge of the scale Needs to contrast more against a dark area of the next scale Like if we flip back here Right because that's a black and white of this photo More this is where we're lacking darkness And in here and in here like you've got some nice shading But a lot of it's happening on the top of this muscle This should be mostly bright This should be mostly dark Right so just a little more shaping of that and then actually It's even less the darks because you do have a nice integration of purples and browns and low tones that I really like Where you need to really push is actually with the highlights Especially on the edges of the scales So going back in and actually like taking the side of your brush and just with almost no paint on it And hitting some of the edges of those top scales and these top spaces And really picking out that texture I think would really help a lot in making especially those individual scales and the general volumes of the The musculature itself pop out So there you go, Alberto. I hope that helps for you Uh next up Heath uh first bust he's ever painted really wanted a natural demon skin Uh Said is these things the weakest points the gold non-metallic metal sure So let's take a look. Um, I do agree with your assessment. So you don't need me to tell you that so that's fine And uh, like the gold does need more work. It needs a lot more value a lot more stretch from one through five Now let's talk about the rule of bust painting So the rule of bust painting is more when you think you're done You do twice as much and when we're done with that you do another 50 So like I see a lot of sections where our paint isn't quite as smooth as we would want it So we're finding that Really shaping in like around her clavicle and in her neck and drawing some deep colors there But especially in the face busts live and die by the face So a lot more definition of the various elements My best advice for you as always whenever you're wanting to do like female faces and especially busts Is you should spend some time on youtube watching makeup contouring videos Because those are women who can completely restructure their the shape of their face with color and makeup and powder And They will show you quite authoritatively exactly where Colors and tones and shadows and highlights should be placed because right now like there's not enough distinction between your t-section and the rest of it Right and so just bringing those things out introducing introducing more variation of hue as well as contrast I think is relevant here and that's probably where I would tell you to go so Uh, really cool bust and uh, it's it's a great great work for your first For your first ever bust and now the key is to keep to keep going So, uh, I look forward to seeing more from you and more busts for me in the future there keith All right All right, so continuing on All right, so zen uh brings us a a little nascool action This is for his next he's posted last month that we got some feedback And this month he's uh working on his tonal variation. So sure Uh, basically where can you improve his uh his his lighting and things like that? So obviously a miniature like this is really tough because it's it is very sort of monotone But where I think you want to improve is what you want to do is focus a more directional light So as a simple reference, let's just take a look Again always the the best answer is to go look at You know the real thing, right and if you look at how the nascool are often painted in Art or stuff like this when we look across them like here if we look at That image, which is going to be impossible to see because that's how facebook or not facebook. Sorry, that's how google works now. There you go right you can see How they've integrated like greens and stuff like that into the witch king to create more color Or how they make light more on one side. You can also see the blues and things like that in there, right? So the point being is that you want to think more when we try to translate this over Here you go. This is a nice shot by moonlight Right notice how the light notice how little this is actually black And how there's little bits of color right So it's the same here things like taking the The the horse's eyes and making them red or hiding a little light in its mouth Or pushing the light on one side up there working in subtle greens and blues that kind of stuff Can really help to elevate the the paint job Okay Well, I guess that was that's funny.  Whoops Sorry, there we go now. We have the right one. Yeah, so working the red in the eyes Pushing a little more of the light onto that's very funny because it's the Nazgul I couldn't tell the difference because they are all black and white. So let's look at this color one What I still said, I like the brown addition of the horse. I think that's good Uh, but like having the eyes be read pushing in the other colors into the Nazgul I think is the right answer. So the tonal variation push here is on hue not on Necessarily value. I think you've got about the right amount of value We could probably pop the edge of his hood up a little more with like a blue white light As you saw in some of the moonlight photos Uh, so hopefully that gives you some stuff to think about. Sorry about the confusion there Okay So next up Damian, uh, he's got his big mega boss on macrusher and looking for some overall feedback Color scheme, etc Sure. So the first thing I'll say is that uh, just kind of looking over it It's uh Very singular in the two pieces. So that is to say like none of the The the orc is so green and he's right up top and we didn't integrate any of that into the macrusher itself And it wouldn't normally be a problem, but you picked a very very saturated Green skin for the orc. Also, you want to focus on some of these pictures being like more in focus So when you upload pictures do try to actually, you know Make sure that they're sharp and focused and stuff like this This is no good. Get a background get some diffuse lighting steady the camera. Take the shot, right? Okay uh, and So because your orc skin is so very saturated It makes it feel very separate from the the mount that it's on Uh, I think that overall the blue and black Work I and you know, obviously you're using sort of an orange color as a as a through the copper as a um As a contrast and that works just fine. There's nothing wrong with that Uh, so what I would push you on is really just creating a little more variation around the The model itself like I think the black is rather glossy and generally we wouldn't want that to be that shiny and reflective You know, the blue is rather monotone Same with this skin Where I see our major opportunities are really with Tonal variation of value So, you know, like the upper parts here should be brighter than the lower parts here Like this blue should not be the same as this blue. This is very exposed to the light. This is very hidden from the light Right. This should be a lighter color than this down here Right because this is very upwards and facing the light and this is very turned in and tucked under Just that kind of stuff same with this skin, especially the face Like desaturating the orc you wouldn't have to you don't have to work any of the green in if he gets more desaturated through highlights Soft inclusions of reds and pinks and stuff like that. So That's my big piece of advice that jumps out at you there or jumps out at me. Hope that helps All right, next up, uh, trung who brings us his uh, his first aos army And he was looking for how to paint the pink diamond on top Uh, sure again, normally trung finished models only and feedback like not just generic painting advice I have to keep this someone under control But I will answer your question this time just in the future try to keep it to finish projects and for feedback Now that being said, uh, yeah, I mean with a gem with a facet like this, uh, the key is you want to create Basically just the facet So it's going to be dark toward wherever the light is like if the light is coming from here Then this would be the dark side and this would be the light side of this facet And this would be the dark side and this would be the light side of this facet and each one gets done individually I have a uh video on painting um On painting sort of warpstone and things like that that you can go check out where I paint those kinds of faceted crystals And I show you exactly how to run that that sort of transitions But it's effectively you want to treat each facet each plane of the gem as its own surface Where the dark is towards your light source and the light is away from your light source whatever that and that'd be the actual color Uh, and then you want to have the edges really nicely highlighted because that's where the lights can actually shine and reflect and catch on So there you go. Hope that helps Uh, next up benjamin, uh bringing us a diorama for a local painting competition He said that, you know, he doesn't know where to go with it from here. So Uh, how can he push this further? Sure so It's a it's a really interesting space you didn't use too much of it, which is good That is to say like a lot of people if they've got multiple figures like this use a lot bigger space I think you're using pretty much the right amount of space here Um, and so I think that works okay for our sort of hospital or healing somebody while the the other one prays over them I think probably the biggest issue I have is What's going on with the yellow? Like I assume that's meant to be glow from something up here But I like is this candle light. I don't know what this light is. I don't know what this yellow is If it's candlelight, it's way way way way way way way way way too bright And I say that because even at nighttime it wouldn't be like this like Go light a candle in the middle of your living room on a sunny day and tell me how much yellow light it creates okay And that's the basic issue here you've painted a daytime scene like these people are highlighted the ground is highlighted this uh the the extra faceplate here from the night everything's highlighted as though it were Bright sunny daytime, but then these yellow candles are here and it just looks like a big sort of yellow splot I get I I really had to cast about to try to figure out what exactly you were aiming at So like you can have a little candles with some soft glow But I mean they should be casting a glow like this a candle is a really dim light source as it is A single light bulb is like the equivalent You know, you're like a hundred watt light bulb This is like a thousand regular candles, right? So I mean just it's it's that when we're talking and we're talking about the difference of being outside and assumingly some kind of sun It's just even it's even more diminished, right? So I mean, I think that's the biggest distraction like the rest of the the piece Is being hurt by this sort of yellow that's all over it And even if this were the candle glow like if you wanted to paint a nighttime scene and have everything else in Desaturated dark colors except for this glow you could do that but it would be structured very very differently You would still have very little yellow and it would mostly be a soft Orange ochre glow not this cold lemon yellow We've done here because again candlelight especially in darkness is a very very yellow Light and it's way down there on like toward the orange end of the spectrum So that's my biggest change for you I know that's kind of a lot of work probably to to change to fix that around after you put that on there But it really is the thing that strikes me the most about the piece now beyond that There's little stuff like you know with your dirt a lot of your dirt is just kind of grayish down here So again as always with stone and dirt and these pieces back here Working in more colors more variants of hue into them would be Highly recommended. So those are the other things that jump out of me All right, next up mark First submission counts as a rogue idol made for his mountain king in general comments Sure, so we can just continue with what I just said So I like the conversion. I think that's fine Uh, but again mostly what we've got here is some rock with not a lot of other things going on Finding a gray rock in nature is nearly impossible like a purely gray rock Uh, because Nature happens and so there'd be browns and reds and purples and greens all over here Now you worked a little bit of the moss in I can see a little bit of green tone here in there We need to go a lot farther like if this is this thing assumingly is a big giant idol that spends all of its time outdoors Getting rained on getting weathered like it's not a it's not a creature that cleans itself So this earth and this rock should be very much grimy and full of like where water has collected and then evaporated and Left behind detritus and things of that nature so, uh, I think that that's Probably the biggest thing that sticks out to me is that the gray is just kind of too gray and doesn't have enough else going on Beyond that, I think we could probably push some of the the tonal variation of value in the skin areas Uh, the sort of brown parts here that could probably go farther, especially with shadows some deeper colors and more contrast Hope that helps Okay, next up, uh, the uh, praetin or peritin or however you say it model Uh, trying to create an atmospheric swampy base, uh, trying to add more to the swamp sure so Many of the same things I just said are going to apply again Uh, so if you've got this sort of swampy base here, uh, again, like there should be more colors more plants more vines Just I mean google pictures of swamp, right? I mean, that's the answer. Just look at real life Right like we don't need to we don't need to try to cast this in our imagination Right everything uh Like the the The real world will give us most everything we need in painting Right, we just look and you can see here. I mean just look at all these these different Colors and things like that that are happening in here. Look at the plants the leaves and I understand you want it to be a dark swamp Okay, so that looks pretty dark and and scary, right? And you can see like the stand-up trees little things poking out detritus and the water muck and mire Like all this sorts of stuff, right? so, uh The point being is that you want to have those kinds of Elements all diffused throughout there and right now we've got some ground coverage, which is good and and a leaf But that's kind of all So we want to take that and carry it out further with plants and hanging vines and stuff poking up out of the liquid and things like that So that would be my biggest piece of advice for continuing the sort of swampy theme And then you just desaturate that all down with some browns Uh and some very darker green tones and you'll get the feeling of sort of the dark swamp. I suspect you want All right next up uh connor who says that uh, you know He'd mentioned that I had said that I hate the magma dragon model and I do And so he's he's got a uh mega boss on maw crusher converted from the magma dragon So looking for advice on how to make the wingskin a little more interesting without adding too much time As well as did general tips sure So with the wingskin I highly recommend you go back and watch one of my early hobby cheats. I think it was in the 20s Maybe but it's about textured wings. It's a simple fast easy process You can you can watch there, but it will it will make all the difference Uh, so you can like it's just dry brushing and and applications of inks or washes and stuff. It's it's very very simple Uh, now as to the color scheme, I think it works. Uh, that is to say, I think that I like his storm cast armor By the way, I think that's fun Uh, I think that for the most part the the red and blue works I understand you were going for kind of a quicker paint job, and I think this works It feels uh dirty and and sort of grungy, but yet still has some really nice variants to it the bright blue Uh of that it's uh, it's this sort of desaturated metallic blue. I think looks really nice on the Helmet piece of the maw crusher plus the the armor. I think that works well together I think the red sort of freehand and elements up on the uh, up on the orc I think those work really well. So I think that's a that's a definite victory right there. Um Yeah, I mean, I think that would be the main thing with the wings Probably the only other thing you could do is you could give some of the texture here a little bit of a very light controlled Sort of dry brush and I'm not saying like I'm meaning more like you just kind of wipe across there a couple of times very lightly very controlled fashion Because you want to hit these little horns just to kind of pick out a little more of those as a final highlight You know take one step up into an orange red or something from from what this is and give that a little touch And I think you're good to go but overall this is a really cool fig I think you did a great job with it. It's it's it is the best version of the magma dragon I've ever seen So there you go Okay, uh next up, uh nick first time a long time pushing his painting beyond tabletop standard Okay um Looking for help making more realistic natural tones pop more and any additional things sure So, I mean the the biggest challenge we have here is One it's still satin. You want to probably take that down. Uh, you don't want that to be shiny shininess is going to very much deter from kind of those Tones that you want, uh on the face Um, you know, you want to make sure that you've got a little more Variation of hue in there. So again, there should be a little more rosiness to the cheeks Watch out for the circles all the way around the eyes. Like I mentioned earlier It just makes people look tired or high or something like that You don't you don't have circles like that all the way around your eyes Right. Notice how the shadow I'm under an extreme light directly above me. Like I have a daylight balanced Uh more like hundred and something wop bulb directly above me. Okay And you notice how this part of my eye This part is red, but it's not dark Okay So it would be the same here Uh and that kind of thing. So the other thing that if you're going to paint realistic You know, but whatever that's defined to mean, I assume you mean like you don't want it to be cartoony and over contrasted That's fine contrast is still very much a thing and one of the ways you can build that in when you're painting quote-unquote realistic is Uh, it's through texture like this these clothes these these this, uh Jacket he's wearing can theoretically have some sort of texture to it. So, you know And it can also be a way to help smooth out some of these blends in here So you can look at stuff like stippling and things like that to add those texture elements that'll help Not only make it feel more realistic, but will also at the same time Allow you to build in more contrast in a naturalistic way. So There you go. I hope that helps Okay, next up william First posting with this converted free mill free guild general Looking to work on his non-metallic metal the freehand on the cloak and the texture. Okay Sure. So the First thing that I notice is that it Uh, we want to focus a lot more on cleaning up and separating our elements So like we don't have a lot of hard separations between here Notice when I the difference between one of the simple differences between a Good-looking paint job and a dirty looking paint job And I don't mean dirty like grimy or gritty because I understand that's what you said you're going for Is just when I say I mean clean application of paint is a hard separation of the elements. Okay Uh, where I can easily see how everything is divided and the colors go light to dark light to dark And that's not happening here because a lot of these things are just kind of running into each other in lots of ways There's lots of overlapping colors, right? So the first thing I would have you do is focus more on like your paint control and on your paint separation Making sure that we have all the elements in the correct places. Okay uh the uh The other thing I'll say is On the non-metallic metal. I'm not sure What parts you're going for like I don't know what you're doing with this yellow and Color here. I don't know what the yellow is doing here Uh, it's like that's not how Steel weathers if that's what you're going for um You mentioned the freehand. Oh, okay. There we go Uh Yeah, I just do I have another picture of the freehand on the cloak. Nope. I don't okay. That's kind of as good as it gets Uh, I think the like hashing texture on the cloak is fine. I can't really tell with the freehand It's kind of this isn't the best picture for it like if you want me to evaluate something try to take a picture of it dead On right and in clear diffuse light. This is very heavy direct lighting. I can tell because there's a big shadow right here um But I mean it it looks like Interesting, so I'll say it's probably fine, but I would need to see it more direct on to to truly evaluate uh the the thing about the This black and white will really kind of tell us why we don't have enough tonal variation Everything here is the same color Right. I mean like when I look at any individual element even like the chainmail No part of this is different than any other the boots. This is all the same color the armor. This is all the same color, right? There's no tonal variation there whatsoever in that And of of value and that's where we run into an issue, right? We want to have that actually have separations from light to dark and then the individual elements be separated and that's how we get to That's how we get to something that looks more clean and sort of ready to go If you're going for weathering and stuff on the chainmail, which I'm not sure if that's what you were after or not Oh, there we go. There was a picture of the freehand okay sort of Now we have the opposite problem. We have too much light. I can't really I can't really make out the detail So I'm sorry. I can't evaluate that one as much as I as much as it might help With the the Chainmail my best advice is I don't know what this yellow is doing here, but I wouldn't include any of this there's like a lot of just sort of yellow that's kind of hanging out on this guy and I'm not sure why And uh, I feel that like if you're going for the red and blue scheme, that's cool Like to paint dirty you have to paint clean first and then make it dirty Because it has to be applied over top dirt happens over the base element And Like painting dirty and making it look good is actually much harder than painting clean uh, so What I would what I'd recommend is get rid of that if you want to if you want to have this stuff be rusty Or something like that then what we want to do is we want to integrate browns and uh, and Oranges and then into like a few spots of bright oranges, especially on the edges where the chain links would would very naturally rust Uh, so that's kind of my thoughts and advice on that one. It is a good conversion out of the white king though I like that that different use of it to turn into a free kill general. That's cool. Cool conversion Okay, uh Jason with his first large-scale bust Uh And you know, he says I know I haven't taken the dark shadows as far as they could go. Yep.  Look at the light on my upper cheek here Compared to what's here And the red inside my nose things like that right My head is about the same size as his is on the screen right now. Okay We're about the same size head And look at the difference in in color and shadow right now in addition to that because you're You're trying to make something artistic and eye-catching you have to push the contrast even sort of farther even in realism You know, there are plenty of painters like sanghy on lead that paint very very very realistic like if you want to see You know, like if you want to see the difference here of where you're where we would go okay So one of the best bust painters in the world without a doubt And uh, you know absolutely paints very realistic looking busts Okay, that was very small I need one that's bigger Why are they all so tiny? Okay, but you get you get what I'm saying here You're killing me here Nope, they're just tiny. Okay. So at any rate You get the idea Uh, I I should just get my little picture out of the corner. It's just it's just constantly we're gonna move down here I'm gonna move it in the bottom corner now. There you go Notice the reds the shadows all these things look at the different tones that that are worked in here, right? This is the kind of stuff i'm talking about So there you go I suppose if you can't you know, why why didn't I just think of moving my myself first because i'm done. So there you go. Okay So, yes, I would say more shadows more red tones more colors like that. That's where you want to be Uh, I mean really if you just like you could just looking at sang's work as a master class in itself So that's where I would recommend you go Okay, uh Tomas feedback on the lava on the base and the fire in the belly and mouth of the monster Uh, sure Also, I'm under the impression that green does not reflect red orange much is that right? Yes, that is correct because it is a complementary color Technically it doesn't reflect it at red at all if it's green, but then but that's like they if they're both exact perfect uh Exactly perfect versions of that color like a perfect Red light against a perfect green surface would reflect zero light, but of course that's not Actually real because that's just not how things actually work in life um Yeah, I mean as far as the I think the lava on the base Uh, we need more deeper tones in there. So like more Uh, deep oranges and reds and stuff like that Uh, hull reds like that deep dark red brown black like i'm talking about it's all a bit too yellow It doesn't seem like it has the the variation. So go back and watch like my video on Uh on painting lava bases and you'll you'll kind of see what i'm talking about there Um, I think the stuff on the belly and things like that work just fine I I think that part is is okay. You don't have Like your glow has maybe a little too much yellow in it like around the eye. That should be orange not yellow Uh, but for the most part, I think like the stuff on the chest and in the mouth there Yeah, that feels pretty right. I don't have much. I don't have any issue with that. So yeah, I think you're good Okay, next up richard, uh So this is uh looking for feedback on the skin tone on go track Sure, so we've got some nice, uh variation here Good volumetric definition of the various muscles I think what we want to see Is probably a little bit higher highlight up in some spots like Your shading is really nice like we've got our five. We've got our four and then we just got to three and we stopped Right. So where we actually need to go is into some higher highlights on the places that would be Really exposed. So you've you've integrated the other tones nicely But they don't get as bright as they could and you can see that right here Right, like when we go to the value shot, we see the shadows, but all of this is basically the same light right We need to take that up into those those bright highlights where the skin would really reflect sharply Uh, again, like my skin way up here up here right these lights that kind of thing That's what we want to be catching Uh, but yeah, that would be my main feedback other than that you've worked in some nice tones here So I like all that you could you could glaze a couple more soft reds in as well Just around some areas where you want to bring a little more hue Not just the shadows but just some natural hue into the skin But on the whole I think it's really the highlights would be your next step So hope that helps Richard Okay, uh, Michelle, uh, tried a cold color scheme this time to push himself to work faster while achieving a higher standard Feedback in terms of how he can push this farther in general color choices are much appreciated. Sure So it's a very weird creature. So I it's going to be like it's a very strange thing But the the number one thing that kind of jumps out at me Is again much like I said before and like I say often It's really in the contrast in the tonal variation. That's what I see here for example our Like the the legs and these arm pieces and stuff like that we've got kind of this messy Dirtiness to it and I suspect part of that's probably the sculpt because it's a really weird Sculpt that doesn't have a lot of actual flat space on it But when I look at stuff like the arms and things like that like we we need to see a little more variation there Like the top of his belly mouth is about the same color as the lower part of his belly mouth Or like this side is about the same as here Right, whereas we should expect there to be some kind of light in maybe the front of the figure or up here Or on the top like some kind of directionally based Light source where I'm able to more easily identify Sort of what's going on Um, you know, same with just kind of keeping some of the colors more cleanly applied If it looks rough And like I said, I'm not sure if that's partially because of the sculpt which I'm sure it actually probably is Or or whether it's the paint But either way I would look at trying to like smooth some of that and really like smooth the transitions between some of those elements So that's what jumps out at me. Hope that helps Okay, thomas uh first submission when I was comfort zone Uh, so the body has said it was a growling earth and reds and yellows underneath Uh, not very happy with the flames. Uh, the base is also Any tips and cc are much appreciated. Sure So again with the lava see the two or three previous times I've talked about lava in this video Uh, it needs more orange and it shouldn't be this color red Like this color red isn't actually what lava is very much It's either a slightly deeper red or it's mostly into orange and white Like so you want to create some areas in here of highlight and interest I think it's much better executed on the skin. I don't mind that at all I think that's actually a really interesting take to Apply that texture paint over it and then kind of have the cracks seep up in heat I actually really like that. I think up here on the skin You capture it really well, then we didn't execute on the same concept down here right so and uh Like I like you can even have a couple parts where it goes up into a brighter orange And then just a tiny spot area of orange yellow white See that again the earlier images of lava cracks that were in this very video Uh, but I like the I like the shading on him in general now with the sword It just doesn't look like fire because we have way too much yellow Very far too little orange and then again, we're going into Ferrari red Right, so like if this is meant to be fire then like this much should be white This much should be yellow This should be orange and then this back area here should be orange transitioning into a deep red brown black Almost what you've got up here, but a lot more of this should be this And that kind of orange to that transition should be happening there. Okay And you can dot some orange sparks amongst the flame by just literally stippling some little orange sparks on And that'll help it make it feel like cracks and little bits of cinders and stuff are flying up in the air So very cool take though. It's a really neat experimentation. So cool stuff All right, Shane, uh New to the new the group in the hobby, but here's your entry. Um, sure So I think Shane welcome. It's it's good to have you along Figures like this are kind of tough to paint because they're kind of cartoony and they don't you know It's really difficult to to to evaluate them But I'll say Shane as you're just starting on your hobby journey My number one piece of advice for you is going to be on things like one making sure you Understand what colors are going to be shiny. We don't generally want our colors to be shiny like your Your yellows and your reds are very shiny and you want things to generally be matte. That'll feel a lot better um, two, I want you to work on things like brush control And because you've got a lot of places where the red is up here on the yellow and this isn't quite painted And that's not quite painted and you know, just stuff like that The mouth has some red going down. So I really want you to work on separation of the elements Right, that should be your first step Just getting that brush control down being able to cleanly apply the paint Where you want it to go and hit the individual elements That's really going to be your first big challenge And and I think that should be your next step on your journey there, but uh, yeah, appreciate you submitting Okay, next up, uh, Miko, um, so a bunch of firsts uh And uh, he said he doesn't know what to ask for feedback specifically. So anything is appreciated Uh, struggle a lot with the leather bits Uh, sure Um And then the attempted maw tribe symbol on the flag. Yeah, sure so Let's actually start at the end with the Uh, the maw tribe symbol.  It doesn't need to be Um, it should just be all purple probably and then you could just use white for the maw or something like that And it would be a nice contrast And when it comes to like curved surfaces like that, it's just a matter of, you know, very carefully and slowly tracing it And that's why if you do big giant triangles, it's easier because you can start small And then just kind of correct by building out the triangle here and there and then stop once you get it nice and even Okay, uh the rust and weathering and stuff on the hammer and the weapons look good the um The separation of elements of the muscle structures is way too Liny like we have this single dark liner to the peck and this single dark line around the bicep You're you're ending in sort of the right color there, but it shouldn't be that Dark nothing else on this figure says like comic book style art, which is almost what that's drawn as And you really don't want to have in it. So that needs to be softened and blended into the the skin itself, right? Now as to the leather the key with the the leather and stuff is really just texture Uh, that is to say you want to like with these little Strappy straps you need to treat each strap individually So you come in with a little brush and you line Each strap on the edges with something brighter and then you line each strap In between with a nice dark line and so on and so forth It's a very very laborious annoying process, but it's how you make those kind of straps really kick, right? Um Yeah, so that's going to be my feedback for you for the most part. So I hope that helps Okay, next up, uh matt talking about uh with his tabletop gobos and he integrated some feedback from last month Uh, yeah, so looking at this one based on the feedback from last month and and reading it I think this is really good. You're big. I think the goblin's good. I like the integration of the red I think your biggest opportunity now is probably with the metal So if you don't want to go and add a lot of shading and stuff to the the metal then I would add in some weathering So we can do some some light washes in some places not the whole thing But some browns or a little bit of agrax like that to get that around there Maybe stipple on a little rust here or there a couple little, you know Rust out the edge of this where there's a connection and that screws rusty or you know, whatever Because as is right now the metal is very very very flat Uh, and we want to try to avoid that even with a tabletop figure But I think with the goblin especially with the skin going for a sort of tabletop standard and understanding that you're going to be painting Oh, I don't know 100 goblins 150 goblins. I think you're in the right place. This this seems fully satisfactory. I mean, yeah Good job All right. Casper, uh feedback on osl. Uh, sure So let's let's take a look at the osl It's nice because you've got the bright spot right in the middle, which I think is good and then we uh, we It gets weaker as it goes out Uh, the fingertips I think look nice with the little glow right there. I think that sells Uh, if there's anything that you could do That would help to push it a little farther It's you could have some deeper shadows in some of these areas where light would be directly blocked I think this purple muscle highlight is a little too strong Because you need to think about like getting osl is one of the hardest things you can paint Because you have to factor in How far away is it from the light source? What is the material reflecting it? What color is the actual light and how is it going to interact with the surface itself? Right? And what's the angle that the light's going to travel at and what what is the light going to bounce off of and then Cause other lights to happen. So for example the edge of this gauntlet should probably actually be in blue light Why because you told me the light's coming this way and you told me this thing's metal Which means it's highly reflective you showed that by putting a bunch of blue light here If this is reflective then part of this light's going to come here bounce and hit this edge and gather Okay So just a little stuff like that that feels a little too saturated up here on the glove Maybe again tone it down just a bit it should be like a soft infusion of the color Into the base tone itself So after you apply the blue sometimes you got to go back with whatever's underneath it and glaze back that color To kind of bring it in harmony So there you go. Hope that helps cool stuff gasper All right, john uh with his uh caradrin overlord Uh, sure. So I I'll tell you right now. I mean my basic answer to you on this one is really simple The purple needs to be smoothed out You can watch my video on exploring colors purple and you'll see why purple's hard to blend with and you're you're like You're walking right into the hardest way to blend it here The other thing that I noticed is that the metal is really really flat like super duper duper flat First off, I would drill them gun barrels. It's I haven't had to say that in a little while, but drill them gun barrels Uh, always drill gun barrels Uh abd always be drilling Uh, because otherwise it just looks It just it just looks weird because the end of the thing that he's shooting is just a flat metal surface Uh, if you don't have a pin vise and absolutely can't drill then at least paint a black circle onto it So at least it has the illusion that there's that there's something there Uh, but on the whole the metal is way too flat. It's it's just the metal color applied. That's it Uh, we need to have a lot more control of shadows in the recesses here Of highlight sketched of matte colors sketched out stuff like that So I think that's my number one piece of feedback for you. I have lots of videos on Uh, true metallic and you know how to how to Add shadow and light and contrast to to metallics and I would highly recommend you check those out But overall I like the base scheme. I think it's really cool Like blue and the copper works really well together. So you've you've got a solid scheme We just need to up that that control that contrast on the metals All right, Sergei With his gold smoke knight From kingdom death mini looking for feedback on the reflective nmm and the flames Uh, so this is really great. Uh, looking at the nmm. I think this is extremely well executed Um, I really love the colors the tones in this. I think they're Absolutely fantastic Uh, the one thing I noted Was that this Secondary highlight felt a bit too Stark like too flat It feels like it should have some Variance to it in verticality you varied the other metallics like really really well like the other Uh light sources really really well This one still feels very like it feels too single liney basically Like it needs to have the same transition and kind of change to a point That the the lines the other lines you have do like This line right here on his on his waist it varies in size, you know, sort of same here same here You know, all these have a nice you're doing a really nice job of capturing this sort of brushed steel non-metallic Um, some of them might need a few more glazes like over here on his arm That some of these feel a little stark in transition, but it's minimal stuff You know down here on his leg like you can spend forever glazing this perfection But I think you're really capturing it pretty well here The one that stuck out to me was this that secondary reflection now as to the flame itself Yeah, you're I think it's good, uh, you could have a few spots of a white yellow In a couple places around the helmet itself to show like the hottest hottest part Uh, and then maybe we could add we could push a little more normal orange in there We do jump from like yellow into red black brown pretty fast having a little more Deep orange in there. It'd probably be helpful Uh, but overall this is a really fantastic piece. I think you did a great job with the gold smoke night here So this is this is really wonderful. So well done Okay, next up, uh, lee tutor general feedback on the model except for the wings. So still working from last month Uh, what should you focus on to improve the next model and keep improving the unit? Sure So we'll ignore the wings. Uh, so my Feedback for you. Let me swing around here. Yeah, I get closer. There we go. That's what I wanted Uh, my feedback for you is largely going to be in refinement So a lot of this is still quite sort of chalky and uh, and and really harsh in the blends I think color wise you're mapping it well, but we need to smooth it out So the biggest thing that jumped out to me is we need to, uh Have these be more smooth transitions So some careful applications or glazes of inks or dark transparent colors To sort of like in this area where it's very chalky and here and here and here and here Like to kind of bring that all together. I think that's You're you're really your next step that I would I would challenge you on It's not the most exciting process in the world But I think it's really the thing I would focus on if I was you to go ahead and take this up to the next level So I hope that helps Lee and keep keep working. It keeps submitting them. I'll keep giving feedback I think they're looking great. I love the conversions you did with these Uh, so I'm all about it All right, uh low low low low l Dini LD says it has painted this manicure and uh, does the color composition work? Like I think you got it was obviously depressed with this one Like he felt like he didn't quite hit where he wanted to be Uh, especially unhappy with the color of the ochre wings and fur to let's extend the green scales Uh, sure All right, so he mentions that it looks too desaturated so I don't know that it looks too desaturated. It's just doesn't have any tonal variation I mean this picture is worth a thousand words right here Right, you used a lot of quite desaturated colors and they're all not Contrasted like look at the wings. They're all one shade Right or look at the heads of the monsters. They're all one shade. Like this is all the same gray This is all the same gray. This is all the same gray Right, the black and white tells the whole story If we go back to the color one, yeah, I mean what we need here is I think color wise you're fine But what we need is more separation So like in the wings as we get toward the joints and the skin becomes more bunched it should get darker again, go watch the video on um That I did on uh on wings the on uh God why can't I think of any names? Not smooth wings. The other one doesn't matter on textured wings. There we go. Good night Uh, go watch that and that'll probably give you some heads up same things for the scales You know in here like we need more separation of the scales now compositionally does it work? Sure. Yeah, there's no problem with it I mean, I don't think it's there's anything wrong with it compositionally. It's a chimera. It's always going to be a bit Uh, you know kind of split because of the nature of the thing But what we really need to do is like we could take some of this gray and kind of Make the edge of the wings the center of the wings turn gray on the texture like dry brush some of that We could have the edges here get more dark, but we just need a lot lot lot more contrast overall That's where we need to go so Uh, hope that helps Okay, william uh Feedback on cleaning up details and nmm is the contrast enough And is the picture okay? The picture's a little rough because we're kind of far away and it's not super sharp um I can't really evaluate the nmm at the detail level you've given me here I mean I can see yellow So if that's meant to be gold it's not there's too much. There's not enough transition in there um and I mean as far as Detail goes or cleanup. It's it's tough to tell like I I need a closer shot with a sharper cut like a sharper image In in more desaturated sort of but but you know bright but desaturated light conditions um Yeah, I mean that's kind of all I can say the gold nothing reads to me here is non-metallic gold If that's what you're going for I just see a lot of yellow. So we don't have enough One and two and four and five in that and we're not running the contrast enough is my guess Again kind of hard to see so uh, hope that helps william All right, richard, uh painting for two years now and getting into airbrushes and glazing over a grayscale pre shade If you don't have keen on feedback on color choices Uh, yeah, I think your color choices are real solid.  Uh, I like the yellow and the green variation into the Uh, sort of green blue black and then into the red I think those were all really wonderful for very simple figs. I think these are executed on really well um You know, you could do things like pick out some of these edges A little more around some of the ghosties just to make some like little light catches on the very edges of the thing But that's kind of all that really jumps out at me. Uh, in the initial take So, yeah, I think these banshees look great. Well done Composition definitely works looks great Richard Juan Francisco Gonzales Hidalgo the best name in the pmp and a fantastic painter Uh, and I've been watching this project with uh, great gusto as it's been evolving online And I'm so happy to get a chance to look at it. Uh, this was obviously recreating the Second edition third edition. I don't remember which one it was L. Dar cover Uh, it's great. It's a super great cover. I never played L. Dar So you have to excuse me like I know the cover off the top of my head I can picture it crystal clear and this is such a great representation of it But I literally could not tell you what what version or what edition that was I never liked or played L. Dar um But the I think this is really nice Uh, I really do. I think you did a great job of recreating the the artwork in general Uh, and of executing on the various components of it Really the only thing I notice one and it's you know, it has to do with what you're doing with the project The only thing I notice is some more finish on just a few elements where Some of the transitions aren't quite as smooth as they could be For the most part, it's really really really solid. I mean, this is a great looking piece And you handle the whites here so well the blues here so well There's a couple times where we go into the dark brown where I can still see some pretty hard transitions Uh, so, you know smoothing those I think would be helpful The only other thing that jumps out at me is carrying the shadow lines up a little farther on the non black pieces of hair Like what's strange to me about the piece is your black hairs you have a shadow line running all the way up Your red hairs you sort of do and on the white you don't at all Like there's a very light blue and it often doesn't get all the way up to where it should be So I think maybe more having a slightly universal color where we Where those those individual lines are a little more delineated Not crazy. So I mean, I'm not asking a black line in between each streak that would look ridiculous and not correct Um But in the original art, you know, I think they had some harder like pencil lines in there And so it's just like a soft gray line running all the way up could be really Powerful I think but overall this piece an absolute triumph Obviously, I despise everything about the goblin green base and think it's anathema But I understand that it's only temporary base for a larger diorama So I am excited to see this goblin green go away But I know you're going for it because it's an early 90s thing and that was all the rage then This is an absolute triumph man. It's a beautiful piece Absolutely gorgeous and I I love what you created here So I think your only other step is maybe a little bit of additional refinement and smoothness and some of where We get down to our darker colors All right, so continuing on Next up we've got andre who brings us uh, the His glockin And he says the most ambitious project he struggled so far struggled with painting the horns Love your feedback on all the skin and the yellow parts, especially the area Those areas turned out. Sure So with the skin the main challenge we have here on this model is it's too samey I mean, it's you can see most the comments. I've made here previously If you go back and look at the earlier creature caster nergal model, it's a great example of how to vary this skin Now that was some more flesh tony color, but the same rules would apply here We want more higher highs light pale greens and yellow infusions and then deeper dark greens and purple infusions into the the wounds and the The spaces and stuff like that, right? Same with the skin on the actual brother's glott up here those kinds of elements Now on the horns you can get a long way because these horns are so big with just like washes and stuff like that Where you're carrying them up and out Same with like the pustules and boils and things like that. You want to make sure those have some variation to them They're all just yellow We need to see like some reds around the side of that to make them really feel like they're They're sort of these bulbous poppy things, right? So again more variation of both value and hue is going to serve you well here So that's what I would that would be my main feedback for you, but I'm glad you posted I'm glad you decided to tackle this big boy nergal is a really fun project and uh, this is a great centerpiece So, uh, hope to see more from you in the future Okay, geordi, uh first review post looking forward to the advice, uh, most of his models have followed the hit the gw method Uh, his focus here was glazing and non-metallic metal. Sure So with the non-metallic, uh, the problem is we're way too stark in our transitions. So we need to smooth that out um And have a lot more like movement. So like look at what Juan Francisco did Or go back and look at the gold smoke night and you'll see, you know for a couple of reasons We just did a couple minutes ago and you'll see the elements. I'm talking about there right with the the transitions um The now you can have that be Uh, still in a more like cartoon influenced style But you want to avoid like if you're going to do that then it needs to be lots of sort of sharp lines That are very thin and well structured and and things like that think of how like Uh flame on paints or something like that with his his like really extreme color transitions But they're all like this particular like lines that he's cutting and then smoothing the transition between and so on and so forth I like the hashing and stuff on the leather. I think that looks really nice Uh with the checkerboard pattern if you're going to do it, you have to go back and clean it up Don't just paint the checkers once then stop You've got to go back with like your white and make sure that everything's nice and even and square it off there Part of the key to good freehand isn't just painting the freehand It's then painting over top of the freehand and covering over the mistakes Uh, and those would be sort of the main things I noticed here The red looks really nice nice soft glazes. I've got no issue with that Uh, I think we could probably do the same with some of the orc skin and glaze more colors and tonal variation into that as well But there you go. Hope that uh, hope that all helps Okay Brendan uh first time posting something for the end of month review. This is for a local painting challenge to the theme of violence Uh Trying to focus on improving his painting really and would like some feedback overall Sure, so My answer is going to be again. This is a nice shot to show it This is going to be much the same as what I've said many times throughout this review Which is we need more tonal variation in general so for things like the Bone on his helmet up here like and the red like we need more highlight more shadow We're way too in just a three here. We have a lot of mid tones and not much else So on the metal of the chain mail, we need to use like some black ink glazes and some brighter silvers to create transition there Same with the the red. We need brighter reds and then going down into deeper shadows. You can watch my exploring colors red video I talk about lots of ways to manage red Same with things like the brick here. A lot of these bricks look very soft Um, so if you're going to do this sort of thing, which is fine Uh, just make sure they have texture like bricks like texture will make things look rough So, you know stippling and stuff like that on there Same with the the dead space marine here Uh, so stuff like that would be my my main challenge to you where I would push you to go Uh, just a lot more contrast overall and really pushing those highlights and shadows Very cool though. I hope you did well in the competition or if you didn't enter it yet, best of luck Okay, next up. We've got jeffery, uh He said he got some feedback He was aiming for strong contrast and the saturation between the armor and the rest of the model Uh clean paint job that delineated each element of the model. Okay Uh, what strengths and weaknesses do you see? What's the first thing that jumps out as room for improvement? Sure So I think you did very much accomplish. This is a good example of the keeping the the elements separated So we've got some good, uh, light to dark transitions I think we could go even farther with some of the leathers like especially up here on the arm and stuff Like having a slightly darker separation between the elements Uh, popping up even a little more of the light on the top of the thing So we could go a little darker here and a little lighter here Uh, same with maybe a little bit of a little bit more hashing and light on the leather there Um, overall, I think this is a A nice piece. I think it's really good I think deepening some of the shadows on the leather is going to be something you'd want to do like glazing in some darker Brown purple black tones. I think would make that really sell The only other thing that really jumps out at me is the gun. The gun feels a little flat Like there's not quite enough There's not quite enough highlight to it And it almost feels like it should carry out like like you saw with the gold smoke night where it's the brush where you have kind of the The stripes going they would be horizontal on this miniature because they're of the way the light is It's even if it was just on like the the silencer I think that would feel really good because that would tend to be a machined metal piece Um, I think that could do a lot of work, but overall, I think this is really strong Uh, I like the green. I like those elements how they stand out I think you've got you've captured some good texture here. So I think that's really good Yeah, well done Okay, next up uh saying, uh Hello again saying uh second attempt at white non-metallic metal. Uh, sure. So let's take a look at this So I think saying we I like the integration of the other colors You've brought sort of a soft turquoise or a teal into this, which I think is really nice Uh, but we've lost the thread here almost a little bit because we've gone A bit too far and now we don't have enough white So the rule always when you're doing a non-metallic of a color Is that 50 of the surface has to be that color? That's a guideline.  I really like the color We just need to increase the volume of the white slightly Keep the rest of those transitions and I think you're getting to a good place You also may want to think about moving it so they get goes back to white So for example, you can have it be white up here go through this green into a darker and then have like a lower white here Okay Like starting to transition back into a gray white down here And that can be the secondary reflections of bounce lights and stuff like that Same with the knee pads where you commonly see this all the time is on space marine knee pads They're the perfect thing to practice on because they're almost a perfect globe And a globe always has a bounce light like if this is the globe You have the brightest part up here going down into shadow But then you've got a bounce light down here that comes up and hits it as the light bounces off the ground and Hits what's underneath it. So a little bit more brighter white gray kind of down here Would be another way to turn the volume back tilting it toward the white spectrum But uh, really cool experimentation. I like the addition of the other color It could probably be desaturated even a little more like This is a game of inches and it's it's constant adjustments to get it exactly where it should be So I think probably just a little bit more white in there and you're good to go Okay Next up Lauren who said this is the result of some deliberate practice Uh, the feedback on the elements he tried to focus on the gold non-metallic metal and the shiny armor Sure so with the Uh, this is a riot of a piece. So it's it's a bit hard But uh with the gold non-metallic metal we're missing our two Uh, a little two and a little three what I mean by that is we have our deep shadows and we go to our high Highlight, but then there's no mid tone in between so I need more ochre stretching out over this area To kind of smooth the difference in between the brown and the white We don't have enough of the ochre tone to make it actually feel like gold Now as to the shiny armor components Um, yeah, I mean, I feel that's fine Obviously with this kind of turquoise we could use with a little more smoothing and cleanliness of our blends But I think the lighting there feels pretty appropriate You may want to look at if you're trying to do shiny armor putting on some final light dots Uh recently, um Uh and helo geraldes, uh did a really nice video where he was doing A storm cast a turtle in a really interesting color scheme of non-metallic And one of his final steps was sort of placing these final light dots That really kicked it up and caught the reflection because it's meant to be that like that light point You know where where you can see as I move my ring around how there's that little Piece of light like right there Right, that's what you're trying to catch with that little light reflection, right? So something like that can go a long way So there you go. Hope that helps but very cool stuff and I love the deliberate practice. Keep at it. Lauren.  So wonderful because it's exactly the chance to do stuff like that So, uh, what I would focus on here is much the same thing. I've been talking about a lot so focused on kind of the A little more tonal variation and popping up some of the elements But I'd also focus on separation The biggest challenge we have here is on separation of elements just like there's no dark lines Separating the individual pieces and that's making it kind of all run together What we'd want to see is like a nice dark deep line around the belt Around here like panel lining around the knee in this spot under here over here between the boot like In general space Marines are a really good chance to practice with panel lining. There's lots of ways to do it There's special enamels for it. You can just use a ink with some flow aid. You can you know paint a deep thin black Paint in there All the ways in the world, but it needs to be there and then conversely we want to catch some of the edges now We don't have to go full on gw edge highlight everything top bottom left right and in between But you know some of the edges that are more turned toward the light like this front edge of his Of his chest piece around his neck and here around the top of the knee and like the bottom here Like those parts that would naturally the edge of his like pointing hand here Where the light would naturally gather along a hard edge That's a great place to again pop that contrast and it'll look really good when put against the dark line of You know separating the knee element and the hand element the finger element from the Back of the hand element and so on and so forth, right?  He created for the grim dark paint contest Know if the lighting and composition works Sure, so we're actually going to flip around to this one Uh, so first off with the lighting This doesn't work because light doesn't end like that unless there's a physical thing Actually stopping it like I have a couple lights up on my wall right now I'm looking at and like that light is shining out and it just Goes and it gets diffused now. There are some cast shadows. So the cast shadow thing works here I actually quite like that these should actually be a little darker in the middle Like this piece over the top unless this is also a light which I don't think it is you've told me it's not With this cross you've told me that what this is is like a Like a metal grate over the light. So that should still be dark in the middle. It shouldn't be bright Okay Now at the same time what we'd want to do is make sure that the cast light on these guys Is largely focused from this light if this is the light to us in the room So that is to say like they should be much more lit on this side and much darker on this side Right this area of the peck this area of the peck this area of the head This all be very bright and this area being very cast in shadow So you want to really push that extreme contrast if you're going for that kind of a yellow lighting source Okay Compositionally for the actual like base and the piece. I think it works just fine I think it's a nice cool conversion out of I think that's the uh the servo hauler From the adeptus mechanicus set combined with some other adeptus mechanicus pieces So I think that all works. I think that the scene itself actually looks really nice and grimy and gritty And I I like a lot of those elements. So I think that's all rock and rolling The rust and the weathering look really good. Uh, I just think that ultimately we need um Yeah, we need to basically more directly control the light and this should basically be a soft diffuse light over this whole wall Being brightest about here. You're correct to do that because the edge of this would dim this part here And then it would be brightest about here and then just fade Like I'm literally looking at a light on my wall and almost that same not exactly the same shape But of the same about tone and that's exactly what's happening. It's just kind of you know going and fading out So there you go. Hope that helps Okay, next up, uh robin continuing with his um With his work on the uh corvus cabal Uh says he struggled primarily with the ruffs and the feathers The latest one pictured solo is the last image Try a different approach the ruffs is struggling to have a different colored feathers in such a small area look good General tips for how to improve on overall quality and more tonal variation into the turquoise feathers Specifically requiring tons of time into them and failing sure. So let's take a look. Let's go to the last Photo here we go. So we can look at this guy So with the turquoise feather the key is actually pretty simple What you want to add in is you take the turquoise and you want to add a deep blue black This can be something like a real dark blue It can be a panes gray It can be anything like that and you want to get it real thin and just glaze it in there on the feathers to bring it down That's generally going to be your most realistic shadow With a turquoise color, you know, sort of not caring about anything else You can use you can use a lot of things to to shadow everything, but that's a good all-purpose kind of Solution, okay Beyond that, I mean, I think he looks fine. I think this transition is a little harsh So I'd watch that like I don't know where the pink is here Make sure we've got a nice dark line separating these elements And make sure that on our metals were doing the work to also put in the contrast there So that's uh, that's really my best advice, but on the whole I think you're doing a good job with these guys Um The Feathers need more like more of that drawn in glazed shadows Use something like that panes gray to draw the rough and the feathers down Uh, and and the light down and then use a little like an ivory or something and really get in there and make some super thin Hashes with a sharp brush that's really flowing You know mix an ink in or some flow improver and give us some real nice hashes on the top And that'll create a lot more value contrast on that I think you could also push the pants a little bit farther, especially in the shadows Uh, the highlight might be high enough. We could maybe go a tiny tad bit higher But we could definitely go lower and again We could use the same color on the turquoise here that that sort of panes gray that blue black Use that same thing on the pants to deepen those shadows and bring them down a little as well So there you go. I hope that helps, but these guys are a really fun ride of colors I think it's great. You are doing a great job of balancing everything Across the model. So that would be my recommendation All right. Next up, uh, pete who's working on pushing his true metallic metal Sure, so I love a good, uh Shading of true metallic metal. Let's get around there. We go one of the front shot. Uh, I think we're doing well here We need to uh You've got some good Variation good work of the purple now. We just need to bring up more of the highlight And more of the bright color So especially on like the chest plate having a line go down here Having this edge be catching having a light like here that would be catching So just kind of controlling where the light is in your light placement, you know on his foot This should be a very bright silver spot down here going into bright gold and then the shade falling down here somewhere One of the advantages to trying this on stormcast is there's a thousand non-metallic metal stormcast on the internet a search away So if you go to that and kind of look at where the with non-metallic metal, they've placed their light in their shadows Uh, it's a good guide for you to use with your true metallics as well. So There you go. Hope that helps really cool fig Okay, next up, uh, sam uh bringing us his latest on his hobby journey Uh, it says he wants to eventually get toward display quality Uh And he he'd mentioned he caught a couple non-smooth blends cool good stuff Taking photos of your models and then looking over them You'll be surprised how much you notice that you didn't notice before that you're just missing when you're looking at the thing in person Then you look at a photo and it just you you catch things uh, so Uh, where we I think we want to go here is again in variation of hue. So things like when you've got things like the the little uh Dots or bumps on him or whatever, you know make those a different color Fortunately, this cave squig has got a lot of good examples out there. So andy wortels recently working on one Richard gray had uh, did one that was really really awesome There's just lots of painters out there who've who've tackled this model and done a great job with it So my advice is go look at them and notice how they use Colors and how they work things in and texture because I think where I would push you on is You're working hard on your tonal variation of value now. We need to work on hue Uh, so like adding in more different tones when it comes to the bone toes and stuff again That's more chance where we need to get a little more actual value contrast there same with the blue armor It's all a little too blue and not enough kind of white or whatever we're going there for the reflection to pop that up So those would be my challenges for you for the next time, but I think you're you got a nice piece here It's really cool. I do like how much you are drawn to sort of the face the thing because this line of white blue I think that's a good compositional choice Uh, so well done. Yeah, the loon boss on cave swing is just a really fun model Okay, next up uh, we've got jim who's uh Uh, I challenged him to work on reds because they were flat So with this project he's trying to do just that a lot of back and forth going on here Uh, feedback in this area would be very appreciated. Yeah, sure. So we're definitely getting there That's what I'll say when I'm looking at this I'm liking a lot of what I'm seeing that shoulders looking good that backpacks looking really good Yeah, this is looking a lot better and you can see it In piece in in like this black and white where the knee here on the front is just a really good example of it How how nice and deep that shadow is how the light comes up really nice really reflective I like that a lot I think we need to work on the chest piece a little that still feels a little flat Just carrying kind of those concepts out like you executed on here Throughout this thing and like on the chest piece if it's flat and the light's from above Then the dark will gather toward the top or we can create a light line or something like that You know, you can you can kind of make the light be however you want What you kind of told me from this knee is that the light is coming in like this Right at this sort of uh 2 p.m. Angle So then ostensibly what should happen is this would be really bright This area here and this area here would be bright and my shadows would be gathering up here and really dark And then I'd have a really nice bright edge So just stuff like that. You're definitely making great progress keep pushing it And uh, I think you're gonna make some you're you're really doing a great job here of boosting this up Okay, next up, uh, james new to the hobby, uh, you know, you didn't miss the cutoff any tips can be improved sure So, uh, james looking over the model, uh, I think it looks really nice I mean obviously who doesn't love, uh, the Uh, sorus old blood or whichever one this is Scarred vet. I don't remember which one has the shield which one has which On a carnosaur. Uh, I think this looks nice. I think you've got a good color scheme going here Uh, your pictures are I would have loved like a front up angle a little close to this guy It's kind of hard to tell and our lighting is not great But where I'll say we've got room to improve is in things like the shield And in making sure the individual scales and elements there are well defined much like you did down here On a lot of the beastie we didn't define as well up here The other thing I would encourage you to do is push yourself on your metals Um, your metals are very flat. They're just kind of the metal paint applied I have a lot of videos on how to make true metallic metal pop like non-metallic metal We need more colors more tonal variation in that metal And uh, and that's really going to be your next step. That's going to make a big difference for you there Uh, but welcome very good stuff overall and I hope to see some more serif on from me in the future I think they're suit looking super cool Okay, next up uh, jacob Uh, this is a in sense a test piece for his skin on his abhorrent arch region Uh, looking for feedback on the skin as well as any tips to the eyes Um, sure. Yeah. I mean eyes are tough in this scale. They really are Uh, you know, it's I think your eyes are probably about as good as this model could get because it feels like he has real tiny eyes You can try to push them out a little Get a really sharp brush with some well flowing paints and magnifiers and go in there and give them a pupil But with undead like this, I think a single glowing eye is fine Now as to the variation on the skin I like the reds. We need to smooth it out some a lot of it's still a little rough in its application Um, I like the the uh inclusion of the sort of reds and stuff like that. I think that's fine Uh, but I think we need to to basically just smooth that out You may want to also think about how you can get some sort of purple tones in there to softly transition Uh, a very like faded purple down in this area or in the deep shadows as opposed to that dark gray I think that would feel a lot more organic and it would end up making it feel still very dead But still more like a living thing as opposed to he almost feels dusty right now So that's kind of what jumps out to me jacob. I hope that helps and uh, I can't wait to see how the arch region turns out Okay, next up jake, uh some non-metallic metal first real goes at it and jumping in into an all non-metallic army Woof bold move bold move cotton. Let's see how this works out for him. Uh, feedback on what works What doesn't and what can be improved sure So, uh, I think it's looking nice. Uh, you definitely are running the full contrast which I like I see everything from one to five there Uh, as I mentioned last time we need to smooth a little more mid-tones We have a little too much five a little too much of the darkest color here Here here we need to bring that more into a four three zone Uh, I think is probably our best bet Uh, but you can definitely like boy the black and white on this tells the full story right when we're talking about contrast Like look at that beautiful contrast on that non-metallic metal. Yeah, that's that's what we want to see, right? So I think here on the back. It's a little bit, uh better because again Like what you did here with the more minimal amount of brown and then going through We need a little tiny more white down here or ivory or, you know, a close approximation And then I also want you to look into light catches Uh, so, uh, Darren Latham on his blog, uh on raza mini painting He has a great article about painting non-metallic gold if you just literally sea