Hello everybody and welcome to another PMP end of month review. Why what is this? Well, it's when we sit down and we go over all the submissions in the PMP end of month event What is the PMP? Why that's painters motivating painters our Facebook group? I apologize this reviews a little delayed. I've been quite sick So still a little under the weather, but we're gonna try to get through this as quickly as possible If I'm not as wordy this month, please do understand that it's as I'm recovering But I you know, I didn't want to make everybody wait any longer If you'd like to join us in the PMP you can the links down below feel free to click that you have to answer all the questions All three and then you can join us. We welcome everybody from people just starting out to skilled masters If you're interested in taking the next step on your hobby journey. This is the right place for you Every month we invite our people to Submit up to one finished work and then ask for targeted feedback You cannot submit more than one the work must be finished and you have to ask for targeted feedback Not everybody did that because you're not all reading and paying attention to the rules But it's okay. We'll get there. This is the second to last month. We're doing this in 2021 we're gonna change the method of Submission just a little We're gonna have monthly focuses where I am able to deep dive more on certain types of projects Rather than just doing everything all together So that is to say we'll do a month on units or a unit month on vehicles or monsters or so on And if people have those kinds of works finished Then those they can of course feel free to submit that'll make it so it's a bit easier for me to do this as Finding several hours to sit down and chat and talk this all through because I have to spend about two hours reading everything Before I do this so I can move quickly through and then I have to spend about two hours doing this So it's you know, it's a time commitment, which is fine. I like doing this It's just I'd rather be able to dive deeper and help people more with their projects Then the sort of quick way I have to move through it today. So I'm not here for 10 hours So hopefully the new format will mean that we still get to help people Every month, but we're able to go deeper and provide some more robust feedback So look for that coming in January 2021 But as let's turn to this month so we start out with Tanner who's got a towel ghost keel Didn't ask me for any specific feedback and you don't have the base done Tanner I'm gonna use you just a little example here piece looks fine I can't really tell them too well because you have a lot of direct lighting if you're gonna submit your photos We've got to submit nice photos diffuse lighting neutral background that kind of stuff all it takes your cell phone cam There's good instructions on On games workshop site amongst many others. I have a video on taking photos It's important because you know, I can't really review if I don't have the photos But looks fine Okay, next up Eugen with his little pug rocketeer adorable So he had two piece of feedback the leather on the hood and the cloud and the cloud definitely needs more contrast You were right so it needs to have some darker areas pushing more into probably deep blue blacks and some higher areas pushing more into white Gray's as to the leather on his helmet. I actually quite think that I think that's really nice You could continue to push the contract the scratch of the contrast the scratches the texture So you could even go a little bit farther with that, but I think that's real fun I like all your little touches and stippling. That's good. Just take that another step farther and you'll be in a great place Next up Paul Who is he's talking about his big gossip cool Thraka here and she's looking for feedback I think it's a really nice piece. Congratulations on the second place in your in your painting competition well-earned Yeah, I think this is very cool Overall, you know when I look at this part of the the challenge we have It's just some of the you've got a sort of a riot of colors here things I really like the The general scratching and stuff on the armor works I think you did a good job there the weathering and things on the metal is nice I think you might want to be careful with some of these colors like this bright teal doesn't need to be here This bright red tube doesn't need to be here When it comes to stuff like that those are better served being in neutral tones Because you've already got every color of the rainbow on here And those are really strong really saturated colors like if those tubes were both just gray the piece would be a lot stronger Just little things like that can make a big difference some other just small things I noticed if we go back to the Early picture here with stuff like the bone make sure we have all the contrast well Chartered out there So that's one thing I noticed is that it's not quite as The contrast on that wasn't quite as well refined and clean as we might want. There's a lot of there's some tide marks and things like that Coming back to this first view other small things, you know make sure when you've got stuff like the Bullets like them and these are all in metals make sure that those have lots of nice shading in between them and have the individual elements well picked out Beyond that. I think it's really just you know some specific cleanup and stuff like that. I understand. He's a messy boy I just mean clean up in like getting a few things more Clean like here if you look around this horn to this thing. There's some messy paint there just stuff like that So refinement Hope that helps All right, next up Jacob asking, you know these why how does he get his tabletop standard paint job improved sure So if you're at tabletop, and that's where you want to be that's fine I mean clearly what we need to work on here is probably just paint cleanliness and Application to some degree so by that what I mean is things like this face a little messy and could use some relief You know getting eyes in there a mouth, you know stuff like that like a thinner line there that kind of stuff Can really help a lot Going through and giving a second pass on your metals very quickly to make them have a shine or an edge is very powerful And then adding some kind of additional contrast to things like the black even if it's just a single light layer an edge highlight whatever those kinds of things can really elevate a Tabletop paint job up. I know there's a lot of a lot of Imperial guard dudes But that kind of stuff can really help so And it can still be fast. So hopefully that helps there Jacob Next up Keith looking for some feedback on his big giant spider Just looking for what he did wrong what he did right and what his next steps for improvement might be So I know you had mentioned the focus on the goblins. I do think that they still need some more contrast They still feel quite samey. I don't have to see any, you know Pink tones and their elbows or their noses and stuff like that The green could be pushed farther both up and down. So there's still two. There's still not enough contrast Same with the wood. The wood is very flat. The wood is all just kind of brown same with all the red. It's very flat Like on these strings and things like that. You want to make sure those are well separated I do quite like the the web balls. I think he did a great job with those. I think those look really nice And I think the spider is an absolute triumph I think the spider looks wonderful. He did a great job with him. The color changes and stuff are really cool Textures there and brought out. Yeah, really neat. I think the spider is your your big success by far I think he looks fantastic. So Yeah There you go more more contrast especially on the little guys and their associated colors is my main feedback for you Adam Williams, uh so The lighting and color composition and does the osl cell And the answer is no it doesn't because we have too many different colors going on here and it doesn't like it's I you can't tell what's going on. We also just don't have enough the the features aren't well enough defined So here's what I mean Her fingers here.  Because I'm under a bright light Like this direct light that sits above me Right. Well, she's holding a fire right here. And yet it's not Casting any shadows. The problem you have is that you're you're kind of working in a bunch of colors But it's you're using then the same colors as actual colors on the thing and it's hard to tell what's what And you're not you've struck a match, but you haven't created any shadow, right? So either it's bright enough that she's going to be affected by the tone Or it's not and it should just be there My I'll make this very real for you She's holding this fire here like first of all, I wouldn't have the stick glowing at all Like you just don't need this if you're going to do this keep it to a simple to Source thing like colder light on the back and Warmer light on the front. Let's not get crazy here. Okay, and Secondly these horns are very monochromatic So there's this bright orange light here that doesn't seem to be doing much of anything to the horns And I don't really see any shadow behind them or in them Whereas if this bright flame was here the tops of all of these would be cast in deep dark shadow Because there would be the super light pushing up on them Right Uh at the same time We've got some of this green up here, but then we're also using this green down in her dress If she was all in neutral tones and then the color was being infused through the lighting Then it would be a much more readable piece, right? We also need to refine the individual elements more the deeper shadows like she's holding a fire here She has this bust this corset piece and yet there's not shadows cast deeply underneath it If there's a light right here, there's a shadow here. This is a deep shadow on the other side of like my apron or whatever, you know Like if I put my apron up here, you see that shadow that's on my neck That's not there on your on your piece, right? And I don't even have I'm not holding a Magical ball of fire. I'm just in the lighting of my room So that's the kind of thing that you want to work on Okay, next up uh mckel um precision and brush can brush control mini is quite small uh, yeah, I mean so My answer is it's just the kind of thing you need to work on Over time. I know that's a really crappy answer man, and I'm sorry um But you know I I don't love painting super small figures for just this reason frankly I don't paint anything smaller that basically than most gw stuff in a heroic like 32 mil scale. I just find it unrewarding Uh, but that being said if you're going to and you want to work on it Then yes, it's brush control. It comes with the muscle memory in the time and good sharp brushes So, you know having a nice size zero and a size one Sable brush that you can trust and that you can work with having a steady hand And slowly refining it over time and learning how to just apply the paint and exactly the right dilution That you need You know, that's that is really some of the challenges Uh, and overall it does look kind of rough, right? There's some areas where it's clear We could blend it out a little more now the fire here is a little more successful than the last piece We looked at you still got a little too much orange like you actually put this like orange dabby here here You can soften that up a little bit fire doesn't actually really make things glow orange unless it's a very under very specific circumstances Like google people sitting by a fire at night. They're not all orange like they're not all this color orange Humans don't turn this color orange just sitting next to a fire at night, right? They're just lit. They're lit with a very warm yellow light Uh, because that's what color fire gives off, right? Um So for the most part though, what you're talking about is infusing those tones into something. That's what you want to be doing Uh, so I hope that helps uh michael All right, next up joe First submission first attempt in anything beyond washes and dry brushing One thing that was successful and one thing to focus on sure So, I mean as with most new folks my main piece of Direction for you is going to be on contrast Your contrast on on your red here looks rather nice. I think you did a good job there At doing that now that we need to increase the contrast on kind of everything else The skin is flat. I would also stay away from this blue like these blue straps did not need to be blue Avoid colors like this in places like that. You have a highly saturated color sitting in two places unbalanced That's problematic So these would like this piece would look a lot better If these were just gray or brown or you know any kind of neutral tone Rather than a color But the contrast on like his skin And uh all that that's what we need up like I need more contrast of value that is to say lighter colors and shadow colors I also need more contrast of hue especially on the skin So introduction of red tones purple tones things like that into the skin to breathe life into them Okay Uh, but welcome glad you submitted and uh, I hope that's helpful Uh next up, uh, knacko with uh wanted to have this thing have a bright light source on the front and not as bright in the back Um, sure So I think this piece looks nice overall if we've got a bright light source in the front Then one of the things that happens with non-metallic gold, which is what you've got going on here Is that you will get very bright Light catches which you have not captured like your brightness up here does not come high enough on this big banner piece he has When my gold ring is showing directly at light, you see that big light catch that's moving around there That's the high reflection of polished gold All right This has you have nothing on here that's that color Right look at those white dots nothing on your piece hits that level of reflection Okay That's how you sell lights coming in strongly on a piece of gold when you have bright reflections Now that being said, uh looking at the back You've dimmed the gold, but that's not what would happen necessarily What would you still have reflection points? They would just be smaller volumes Metal and less light still reflects it just reflects smaller amounts Right like that is to say at the volumes of light reflection shrink the more lights are all around you The more the metals bouncing and shiny and stuff like that if you take chrome armor You put it into a room That's you know, mostly darker at night. There's gonna be lots of shadows, but they'll still have points where that chrome has reflected You know a pure version of whatever the light source is that's around it, right? So when you're in shadow shadow is generally done, especially in this case Since you're using warm highlights by the introduction of deep blue So dark blue blacks Um and that introduction creates shadow colors So like if you're going to try to do a singular light source like all the front is lit and the back is cast in shadow Then you need to infuse that blue black into all your colors and bring them down And the whole back needs to fall into shadow. It's a tough thing to sell I honestly don't recommend it for gaming pieces because that's not actually the light they're going to be under Right, whenever you try to do complicated lighting setups with gaming pieces That's not actually where they live a gaming piece sits here on my table And if there is a normal light setup of light bouncing around all over the place And so he's gonna pick it up and be like, why is it so bright in the front and so dark in the back? I don't get it Because they're not looking at it as though That's what's going on, right that those kind of lighting things work really great on Display minis where you can control the viewing angles and things like that. It's harder with gaming stuff So Hope that helps Okay, next up one Francisco Gonzalez Hidalgo great man great channel and greatest name in the pmp Putting out this girl right here Sure, so he did a video on this. It was pretty great And his main ask here was on the skin tones by the way. Sorry The skin and musculature Yeah, so my main feeling here One is that uh, I still don't feel like we've I mean, obviously she's far more Uh, like muscularly defined than a lot of female figures you see But where I feel like we're still missing is we don't have enough of those soft pink and red tones Integrated into the into the musculature You've got a good amount of contrast But I still don't feel like there's enough like when I look at my hands Look at all this pink that's in there. All right. There's a lot of blue too because of the light on me lighting that I'm under It's the same of my arms and you know, there's a lot of pink in the human body Right, especially with the the skin tone you've gone for here, which is quite fair Uh, when exposed to the light there there would be pink there So I think having some soft Uh applications of like if the goal with her was to again stick to all contrast paints Then something like the The pink or the purple versions of those like in vulvas, whatever. I don't remember their exact names magos purple. Maybe in vulvas pink Let's say sure anyways introduction of like very soft glazes of those Uh, would I think go a long way to increasing the visual interest there? So There's my take for you all right next up Uh, you and scaven warp fire thrower very happy with the result of this piece especially a non-metallic and the smoke Uh looking for some feedback on the osl and the color choices Uh, yeah smoke looks good. I could have told you that came from sam. I remember that tutorial very well. I know exactly what you're talking about I think the non-metallic is good needs to be smoothed out a little but it's it's not bad at all Uh, yeah, I think the osl is mostly fine. It's quite busy. You may want to soften some of it just a little bit Uh, like some of it's really strong and intense and you probably want to wheel that back just a bit Like that is to say you want to make it so there's that green is there, but it's an infusion It's a cast light like these guys aren't sitting in shadow again this is the thing with osl like everybody wants to do osl but osl is really hard to sell because um You know, I'm in a brightly lit room right now I have nothing around me that makes light But if I had a lighter and I struck it it would not really change the lighting composition of my face Even though I'm two inches from an open flame, right? So if these guys are in a cave, then we need a whole different lighting situation where the light could be that dominant Right where it was it would be mostly the light would be lit by the light source by the motivated light source They would be green and everything else would be in deep shadow or or minor blue reflected lights or something like that But if they're you you've highlighted them like they're in light like there is existing light And so if that's the case if they're out walking around in the daylight Which is what you've told me because you put highlights here that aren't motivated by the green light source Then these greens should be softer and more subtle and not have as big of an expression So there you go Next up andrew Basically looking for feedback on the damage and weathering sure As well as anything else. So I'll give you a The damage weathering looks fine. That's my short answer. I actually think it looks quite good I don't really have any other feedback for you there. Um, I think it looks great You can tighten some of this up, but it feels pretty random.  All that feels good, man. So Yeah Good to go there. So I'll give you a bonus piece of feedback We need to increase the contrast on the yellow before we get into the battle damage So that can often mean soft glazes of colors like a rust color or a light brown something like that Uh and integrating those tones into the yellow in a stronger way The yellow itself also needs to be Separated a little more like where these pieces these various plates are coming together We need stronger lines of panel separation between everything Those are actually the things that jumped out of me. So there's your there's your bonus items All right, next up robin submitted an untamed beast last month practicing skin tones was told to push the contrast Here's the new attempt sure He said he's struggling a bit with the thighs Uh And I feel they should be in shadow a bit from the upper body Uh, sure Okay, so let's take a look We're actually going to spin around to the front view here Nope That's fun too far. Okay So we're getting there. This is good Um When we look over when I look over at the areas where I'm not seeing enough contrast is in things like the knuckles She's gripping something right if you grip something really tightly Your knuckles stand out Right They catch light All right, see the difference there Compared to at the lower part like the knuckles are red up here And bright on the top right so More contrast in things like that Making sure the top of these muscles are well lit the face especially I'm not going to worry about the leather because I did read your note there But like making sure things like the ridgeline the t-line it's tough on her because she has this Dumb strap down the center of her face that really ruins the highlight section of the mini um But like I think this side works for me Uh, although we still feel like we need a little more variation of hue So again the integration of some more soft pink and red tones. I think is what I'm missing here Uh, they can be subtle. They can be glazes. You also want to make sure you don't have the muscles completely unconnected This is one of the the big challenges Like working skin is this fun never-ending journey because yes, you got to establish the contrast But then you've also got to soften the contrast to connect them It's tricky Uh, where the muscle ridges come up and connect like this part should have not be as deep a shadow And should have a little bit more of a connection to it same with the back here same with up here Right. So being able to then balance that all out is actually quite a journey When you get to define a muscle structure because there needs to be areas that fall into shadow But also the muscles need to connect Okay, they can't all just be their own little islands of color Otherwise it will feel false. So there you go. Hope that helps Okay, Amy looking for feedback on my cultist firebrand Uh, sure So, you know, you had said how we get to competition level. Let's you know, that's Probably a lot. Um You know competition is is a whole different thing. Let's just keep it to how we take our next steps Um, I like what you've got going on here. Uh, it's nice um I like the the work on the Um The face the war points war paint As well as the texture and stuff like that you're doing on there. I mean the piece is looking good Now what do we what would I recommend we do? Well, a couple things one get this ferrari red out of your fire fire doesn't turn ferrari red. That's number one Um fire is orange and and then to orange red brown. It's not uh ever ferrari red Um to the You know on some of these uh blends and stuff We you know, I can see we're going for texture That's fine. It's still too rough like that shadow to the some of these transitions are still rough You can have texture, but there still needs to be a smoothness to it. The texture needs to continue So you want to smooth that out the muscle structure on him again Basically see everything I just said for the last review the last figure And uh and and carry that through here to the integration of additional tones Uh, you don't have enough highlights on your skin. Uh, should be pushed up a little But also smoothed out likes the highlights feel almost dusty. I guess is what I would say Where they need to get smoothed out into more natural tones Uh and and still have like the small highlights like especially darker like african skin Needs to have these nice Small volume highlights on it that show uh that the skin has you know, like oil and and reflectiveness to it Skin is naturally satin, right? And so that's how we capture that All right, so I hope that helps All right, so let's keep going All right, next up. So damien, uh first nergal model Just want to get some feedback and tips to make it even more disgusting sure So, I mean one of the problems here is we're just too samey. Um You know, I I get what you're going for but we've got to separate the elements of this more Okay, so we've got to have um We've simply got to have the Skin separated from the armor separated from the rest of the stuff and right now they just aren't that's the problem So when we're when you're dealing with this kind of uh figure, I mean this is um This is one of those things that You know darin did a whole Basically, you know tutorial around I don't know who is this guy or who's a guy, you know similar to this I think it was a different nergal guy, but they're all pretty similar So like you want to have the skin still be skin toned and just You know have lots of infusions of green and purple into it because like right now it just all appears too similar It's less disgusting because it doesn't look at all real Right, if you're trying to make something disgusting it needs to feel like it's Human and then a rotted human Right if it's in sort of all these bright saturated colors that don't really feel like anything then it doesn't feel Doesn't feel scary or disgusting. It just feels like a green guy, right? so When you're dealing with nergal the key is it's actually rather hard because you have to paint well And then paint messy and disgusting on top of that You have to start from something that looks whole and then infuse it With the the different elements. So for example, like the skin here should be normal skin tone The armor should have some kind of color to it That should arguably be the green and then have heavy and then so on and so forth But now I've got to infuse green and purple tones through glazes and stippling and all sorts of other stuff into the skin To make it look rotten or putrescent I've got to take the armor and introduce browns and oranges and stuff like that through rust and streaking and grime, right So that's how those elements can be best manipulated. So Hope that helps Ben worth Was aiming for tabletop on this one? Sure. So, I mean, it it's fine for a tabletop paint job I mean, if you're talking about like what would we need to do? I mean the answer is contrast on everything like I understand you're taking him and you know Sort of playing him as a citan or whatever surprised their bases that small I thought citan had bigger bases, but maybe not. I don't know um You know, like it's perfectly fine to that regard But if we're going to try to step up, I mean, it's more contrast in the blue certainly more contrast in the red Um, the all the earth and stuff you've got down here. I'm generally not a fan of like Bases that overwhelmed the guy and these are very very separate things like this is all brown This is all blue never the twain shall meet, right? And so when your basing element is just like completely separate from the the figure it feels very disjointed and that's what's happening here So, you know, if you could integrate colors of what's down here into up here and Soversa, right? That's you want to draw the piece together in some way um And yeah in addition to that just you know really stepping up the contrast on all the various pieces like having the blue go brighter show more having the Skin have more interesting tonal variation both of contrast and of value And then finally the fire, which is probably the biggest area like I assume this is all supposed to be flame It's really flat. It's the part of this that is the most flat and kind of could actually be something interesting But right now it's just kind of this red color and so like I would recommend turning that into real fire And that would be a nice positive there Hope that helps All right next up uh kartik, uh skin tones and nmm one of the armors look worn and not highly polished while still reading as metallic sure um So It doesn't look non-metallic metal. So a lot of times what people think is Okay, if I'm going to do worn Non-metallic metal then I don't make it shiny. I don't run the same contrast, but that's not correct. Okay What that all that does is make something look like it looks like he's wearing space wool farmer It just doesn't look metal. Okay Um, it looks like he's wearing like enameled blue gray Armor, which is fine. It's perfectly fine. Look, but it doesn't look metallic Even old metal unless we're talking about like something that's truly rusted shines It just shines in a smaller volume. That's what I talked about earlier. Okay So if you've got iron, there's still going to be it's still metal. There's still a point of light reflection there It's just going to be very small Right where the it doesn't have these huge bracing reflections because it's not, you know polished steel or chrome That's reflecting all the colors and lights and bounce of everything in the world It's only reflecting the brightest light Okay, but it's still metal So the key is when you're trying to make worn metal out of In non-metallic then it still needs to come high enough and the gold doesn't contrast to hear high enough either It needs more one and more five Again one being the brightest two three four five being the darkest and just as a way to talk quickly about Continuing more highlights or more shadows um the Generally the way you want to capture worn metal is old or worn metal is pitted and so you use a lot of stippling to create the um You use a lot of stippling to create the The sort of patterning to make it feel rough Like there's darkness over late with light and then you stipple into a very Small area of high highlight Okay So Uh, there you go. Hope that helps. I do think the skin by the way is is very successful Love the infusion of the red tones purple tones a little bit of blues in there. I actually think the skin looks fantastic He looks cold. Um that like that's exactly what happens when your skin goes cold You go flush because your your body rushes blood into your capillaries to try to keep your skin from dying Uh, so that really sells to me. So very well done there Okay, uh next up lucas, um So talking about uh non-metallic metal and the glazed skin So the skin looks okay. It needs to be pushed up higher. We don't have quite enough contrast there But like we need some more well defined highlights, but there's not a ton of skin Um overall it it's feeling good. We could still use a little bit more color infusion as well Once you have higher highlights then bringing in some softer more subtle sepia tones or purples and stuff like that or or even a deep magenta might be valuable Now as to the non-metallic No, it doesn't really sell. Um the sword a little bit um, but The like the rest of it does not and the issue is it's just it's there's not enough contrast there um, we We have everything kind of being a four like the gut plates a great example All of this outer ring is just a four Most of this is a four and then we jump straight to a two on this highlight There's like no three in here. There's certainly no one anywhere and there's very little five All right If we're non-metallic metal is Contrast is king it has to go from the darkest to the lightest All you're playing with is how much volume each one of those steps takes up High polished chrome your one takes up a lot more of the mini Right if this is your total surface area Okay, I'll highly polish chrome one is like that much and then two three four five Okay, or something like that very dark metal This has this much as one And then two three Four five, you know something like that, right you can play with the widths of those volumes across the surfaces But they all still have to be present. Okay, so there you go Uh, all right next up Antonio. Um, it's a cool project here. We got a little combination of a bust and a miniature for sub zero Um, sure. So it's a neat project kind of a cool little idea of having the little guy in front of the big guy It feels like you're selecting the actual fighter in the game. So that's kind of a cool concept um, again, the issue is really on Uh, it's just contrast across the whole thing, uh, but in slightly different ways So when we're dealing with the small guy, we need more contrast in the individual elements there Um and to smooth out some of them, but especially the skin Um, the skin is the major part especially his arms and stuff like that's where I I notice that The black of his pants just needs to be smoothed out with the big guy The problem is we don't have enough variation of of hue and things like that or texture You know this like we blew this thing up exactly the same like this thing is So much bigger in scale than the guy's in front of it. Yet. We basically just have the same blue Like it's still the same thing. He's just it's some blue and we've got some dark spots in it That kind of looked like maybe a wash was put over or something like that Like we can't you can't paint like that on a bust unfortunately Like on big scales like that We have to bring out the texture like that jacket at that scale. That's so big You can see like the texture in my shirt or the patterns or you know The you can see the creases in my knuckles, right? Or in my face like where there's individual elements, right? And so all that stuff needs to be brought out Like there's opportunities here in the leather to show scratches wearing tearing indents texture cloth types Right all of that kind of stuff Needs to be brought out when you're working in busts The rule of busts is you do everything you can possibly think of until you're nearly insane And then you do twice as much as that Okay, that's the rule for busts So, um, that's your biggest challenge. So there you go Uh, Dominic, uh, so gonna just roll right into what I just said take everything I just said repeat, right? The problem we have here is it's too simplistic Like this would be great if this was a 28 millimeter sized doctor doom Right, and then I'd still say you don't have enough contrast But still we'd be better off at a bust this scale doom has all these beautiful wonderful You know elements to his clothing. There's clearly tears here On the edge, right? So there's texture to the cloth The cloak itself is made of silk or you know something like a heavy or a heavy wool material or whatever you tell me Right the metal can't just be metal like you can't we can't just call that metal and call it a day We've got to like we have to create planes of light shadow take control of the light Like look at dr. Doom in the comics and how much they They'll do with him on when he's you know when you get a full page spread of him or something, right? So A lot more contrast a lot more detail a lot more texture all that kind of stuff. So there you go Always remember no one judges doom so next up one Wanted to know where to keep going to the next level sure so this guy looks really nice I like your mega boss on mall crush. I think you did a great job here Lots of interesting color choices lots of infusion of different things going on I really enjoyed this. I enjoyed all the time and detail you You clearly took in in catching all those little bone spines. I know how much that can take The work on the wings This guy looks really great. I will say I think if there's anything you could do it would be on the orc himself So I've spun to this picture because honestly, I don't know that I have any feedback on the the Mall crush on itself on the beast. I think he he sells for me. I think he looks really cool I think on this guy we could have done a little more Um, it feels like we didn't you know, he's supposed to be the main selling piece But he's kind of the most boring element of the mini Uh, like I feel like we could have infused a hue in here like a color had some of his armor plates have something different going on These recesses have some color put in them Uh, you know a design a check a dag works famously, you know do stuff with their armor Uh having the skin to have more contrast in it here Um, it's it's a little bit, but it's not far enough More infusion of light around his face introduction of pink and red tones around his nose His eyebrows his under his eyes His lips, you know so that way we get that look of like there's some kind of blood under there or something Um All of those things I think are where we had a missed opportunity. Um The bones themselves look very samey like again We could have pushed the contrast and really done some big striations or something on them Just like stuff to draw us up here. This is where I think you've got the opportunity, but overall this guy, you know, he looks great It's a it's a very cool piece Yeah, well done Okay, next up, uh, george, uh Looking for advice on how to paint flesh in a more believable way So I've talked about it a lot during this review. Uh, by the way, george finished stuff not You know kind of I understand this is the guy at the top I know he doesn't have a lower part, but you know show me the whole the whole piece finished pieces only Now as to the skin I have multiple videos on doing skin I have a recent video on painting space marine faces on painting faces in great detail I would recommend you go check that out because that's going to answer your questions here because I use a space marine face And I show you how to introduce the various tones But the answer is is more complicated than I can give here But the key is with the infusion of tonal variation both value Light to dark and hue color Okay, like there needs to be more tones blue around his jaw Red in his cheeks yellow at the top. That's very broadly stated It's not like you're actually using those exact straight colors. If those are infusion you're infusing color tones. Okay Um, and then uh, you know, again, then building up the planes of light around the areas of the face that are lit So go check out that video. It'll explain more All right, next up nicolas bordis, uh looking for, uh Advice on the volumetric lighting true metallic metal and the composition sure so, um compositionally it's rough because you've got two major color items here and they're not really crossing over too much Like this guy is really red and this guy is really teal and Other than a little bit of the red up on the chair. There's and no teal down here They don't really cross together. This is one of the challenge when you're you're dealing with You know these kinds of figs, right? Because you have to figure out a way to bring them together in some fashion So compositionally we've got a challenge now it would be Uh better if this ridge Or these stripes or some kind of infusion was this same teal as his Um, you know, that could be a way to go right the dino itself could be his teal With the same Black stripes right then they would feel more aligned right now. They feel very disjunctive compositionally okay Now as far as volumetric lighting goes we still don't really have it Because the under parts here are still not as shadowed as they should be we're getting better Um, but like the under part of the dinosaur that is completely shielded from light Is still very very bright right like up here under his tail is still just as bright as anything up here Okay, like this color and this color are still pretty much the same color Um, the lower part of this like a little more shaping and stuff around the muscles and things of that nature Right where we're infusing those shadows a little more Now as to the tmm. Um, same thing. We need to take more control of the light. So stronger editions of um Of inks and things like that and then to to create shadows and that sort of thing and then Uh more addition of silvers and things to to highlight those now I can see where you are doing that some and so we're we're getting somewhere. We're not it's it's not zero here Okay, um, but we've got to be smooth. I mean part of the problem is I Uh That it feels like some of the metal paint is a bit rough. I don't know what metal paint you're using but it feels a bit rough um the So, you know, but like when you have it up here like these parts are just kind of dark But they're just it's just like a big area of dark and then kind of a normal gold and then a big area of dark Like I get what you were going for you're trying to show reflection in the middle But that doesn't feel like how that reflection would work, right? Like the individual elements would be picked out what should have edge highlights on them There could be dark here and dark here, you know Or something like that at the top could be dark and then it could cascade into some light And then you can have some additional shadow here Like it has to feel like it's ringing true to how these planes of light would be falling, right? normally and on a flat surface like that That's you know sitting there. It's not a it's not a column. It's just a flat plane light's going to cascade toward the bottom Uh, so, you know, you could have areas of light where it's catching But then again each individual element needs to be edge highlighted and things like that, right? So good progress. Um, you know, there's a lot of stuff here. I like the colors all look good You're working with them. Well, it's not a question of you're not doing it It's just a question of you need to put keep pushing yourself and keep going farther Like your volumetric lighting is going the right direction. We just need to push it farther The control of the light and dark on the metal is is pushing, but it needs to go farther. Okay that kind of thing All right next up mark, uh, some thoughts on the cloth and the power sword. Um, sure So, I mean the cloth is fine I would push it a little more or think about adding things like texture what it really needs is To be smoothed out a little bit.  Um, that is to say like I the blue plus Just like the white lightning doesn't work. Um, it stands out It's a color that isn't in the rest of the composition. It doesn't work well with the rest of the composition You'd be better off if the sword were either done like a traditional power sword build So like that is to say you had highly desaturated blues going up and down the sides in opposite directions Um, and then lightning tracing the middle or if the sword was a more neutral kind of gray Nommatallic and then you traced a blue lightning up the middle of the power sword The key with it is it has to be thinner The lightning has to be like really really really really really thin no thinner than that No, it's as thin as you're thinking right now. It's twice as thin as that Okay, and to do that that means you need a razor sharp brush You need inks and you need some flow improver to really get in there and and and get those and very precise brush control To get those hyper thin lines traced, right? So that's kind of my general thoughts for you. Um, uh, as far as like the the cloth goes It's fine. Like I said, just smooth it out You could go with smoothing it through texture if you want it it would work fine on there But the power sword unfortunately doesn't doesn't sell for me. So hope that helps All right next up, uh, Jessica, um, looking for basically feedback on, uh The her scene here and what to use for the highlight on the little critters in the front. Um, sure I mean the answer is you know, you come to some of the questions you were asking Jessica Is like should I do this with a puddle all that kind of stuff? That's up to you. That's just elements you can choose to add or not Um, there's not like a some qualitative thing that's going to happen there What what we've got is yes, you definitely want to we need to bring the the highlights Especially the volumetric highlights on the little animals up and him by the way Just the contrast in general on the piece needs to come up is my answer At the same time watch out for these non painted pieces like the mud the tree behind him that kind of stuff You know, you want to make sure that everything has paint on it. Um, so when you're going to Uh, when you're going to put on some piece of a bush like that It really helps if you have an airbrush and you can go in and actually take control of the light on that thing Because it's just a big ball of green with no definition to it And that's not how trees are trees have lots of light and shadow and stuff like that, right? um the his green and the, uh The cloak and things like that as well as the little critters you need to both come up and Deep in the shadows some like we need to stretch the contrast in general We have them just too much existing in like basically the Three and maybe a little bit of two spaces kind of where they're at right now So we just need to push all of that in general Uh, so I hope that helps Jessica cool scene Okay, next up Daniel, uh feedback on the visual cohesiveness of the color scheme and how you can improve the skin Sure, so on this big bad nergal boy here. Um, he's nice and gross I'm just going to go around to the front of him because that's the easiest place to look. Um Yeah, I mean, I think it's fine. You're color wise. You're pretty balanced. You've got the You know bright green on both sides is like right arm and his left arm The um The uh The skin itself is pretty wonderful I love the pushing to the texture and the dots at the high level which makes it look nice and sickly Um, I think you could push that even a tiny bit farther Up at the very highest highlights have some really weird like white dots in there or something the sort of pustules and things like that are pretty dead on Um, I think where you've got some opportunity for improvement is namely in the bones They don't seem to have enough uh tonal variation in them. So tracing them more with some striations Or something like that, uh, or bringing down the very bottom parts of them darker I think would be where I would go if I was you but overall this guy's really good. It's great work, man All right, next up, uh, gary. Vince is my first real attempt at osl um Sure, so I mean This is going to be a rough piece gary. Uh, I I do not like the central figure at all and what you're aiming for is does not work Um, I assume what you're going for is an inner heat That is not what's captured here. He just looks like a big bumblebee Um, I'm not going to be not trying to be mean. I just want to be straight with you, man Okay, and that's because that's not how inner heat Look It doesn't work like that Like if you've got something that would have I mean, I you know lava within it Which is what you're ostensibly trying to to replicate here, right? Um, like if you google pictures of lava, it's not lines of yellow and then black So this would have to be way thinner Like the light and the heat needs to be way thinner and more of it needs to be black with like bits of osl of the light creeping out over the black because that Heat that light is going to escape and actually tone the edges Uh red orange stuff like that Now as to the light cast on the wings Yeah, that's fine. That actually works fine Like if this guy was just painted like a normal demon Okay, and you were just asking me about and you just gave him a fire whip and a fire sword and cast some of this light onto the wings I would have been like, yeah, that's fine with me. Again. It's a little too orange Like I know everybody thinks orange fire cast orange light. It really doesn't I promise especially not in a like If it's the only light that's around if you're in a dark cave and you Strike an orange torch, then yes, you can have some softly orange infused tones, right? But it's still going to be mostly yellow infused tones So like the stuff that works for me is like up here Stuff like that. This is all working that I have no issue with The one of the problems though is we've just got too much bright yellow in here and not enough Orange in the actual fire itself. That's where the orange should be orange fire casts a yellow A soft yellow infused glow.  I like how you deepen the shadows and stuff like that It's the only part that doesn't work for me as the main demon Like when I cover him up and just look at the wings I really like them Again, I push it a little more into the yellow. You've got a little too much Especially like up on this wing right here. There's way too much orange way too much orange They should be more yellow infused But other than that, I like where you've chose to place your your light catches and your shadows. I think those all work Uh, I just think it's this guy that doesn't work. So hope that helps All right next up, uh Dane, I guess. I don't know Dane. I'm not sure Uh It says normally paints quite dark drab colors. Um, and trying to do something bright and saturated Um, sure. So I mean the issue here is we just don't have enough contrast I appreciate the push to bright colors But again, my main pushback would be contrast everything here is it's nice.  They can both be the same tone, but there should be Something pushing that to be hair He needs a lot more highlights. He needs a lot more shadows. The green needs a lot more shadows The green probably is already a number one. That's where you'd want to end at Um, but you need to go darker same with like the wood and the weapon. So Contrast is king and uh, I like the push toward brightness, but these things will seem brighter and more Uh, luminescent if you have more shadows A white dot is never as bright as when you put it against a black backdrop. Okay. All right. Next up jim The goaler was slightly weathered dark gray armor not highly reflective Uh, sure um Yeah, I mean, I think it's fine. If you're if your goal was kind of a nice tabletop paint job, then I think you're you're good. Um Yeah, looks nice. Uh, I mean, obviously If we're if you're just looking for the gray, I think that's that's fine I think the issue is probably as much with the sculpt as it is with anything else. Um, drill out your gun barrel Always drill your gun barrel Clean up this flash that's on the end of the gun, you know that kind of stuff like I think my main push would be mostly on Just cleanliness of paint job. You've got some stuff here That's a little messy that needs tighter separations between everything more well defined lines those kinds of things Like your lettering up here is a little messy that kind of stuff, but if you're aiming for tabletop I think it's it's perfectly fine. So yeah Okay Next up Camille, uh, while making this unit I tried a few new things like chipping osl and colored metallics I have the biggest problem the last thing I spent many hours mixing paint and metallic medium to get a nice olive green Uh, what I can be satisfied of on the palette the color was almost perfect But after applying it on miniatures it lost the olive look a little bit Is it only a matter of highlights and shadows and armor? Maybe it's problematic metallic medium added to paint Yeah, I mean So my answer is I never add metal medium to paint because I think it actually always just looks like garbage Is my short answer. It's not a good product Metal mediums are in general full of horrible awful gross giant pigment That just makes it's great if you want to make a glitter infused color So if your goal is to make your figs look like they're strippers Then metal medium is an a plus product for that beyond that it has no purpose um If you want a metal infused color, then you then you should look to My video that I have on doing colored metallics Wherein you're using things like the lejo metal color and either mixing in a color or putting a color over top and The reason I say that is because then what you're able to do is create your contrast with the existing metallics first And then just glaze over the top of them by the by Cult of paint has an excellent recent video on under shading where they talk about under shading with metallics as well and it's the same Same principle I would employ and then talk about in my video So you can check that one out as well, uh, you know, ultimately like they're going to look different and You know, we still need more contrast here when you the problem is when you're mixing a perfect flat color like this Perfect, then you it just ends up making the fig look flat because like that whole flag is one color Right that whole shield is one color There's no contrast. There's no life to it. It doesn't matter how cool of a color it is. It's flat right so You're better off if you actually paint in the metals first And then took some kind of green over the top of it through a contrast paint or something like that, right? um Or if you wanted to paint it directly you could also just infuse some kind of appropriate green into something like a Vallejo metal color Then at least you have nice small pigment But in general you still then have to infuse the normal tones You have to increase your black or your deeper part of a color To get shadows and you have to then bring up the silver quotient as part of it to get to the high highlights, right? Where it's reflecting light Working with metals with colored metals is actually really really hard and very very very easy to make it look really bad Okay, so my advice is travel this road with great care um Your your best bet is if you can work something where you're Where you're setting your gradient first and then putting a single tone over top of it, but it is it's It's not an easy road to to walk So I hope that helps uh Christopher uh trying to learn glazing and working at smooth transitions What can you do to improve this? Well, my short answer is going to sound really trite, but it's keep keep going. You're doing great um So, you know when I look at this again, we don't have enough contrast like the guy himself is very flat The the space marine himself, but I don't think that's where you're focused on Um, my guess is you're talking about like the cloak and the sword So that's fine. Um, I think the sword looks nice. I think the cloak Is soft, um, but this is far too yellow like white doesn't shade with yellow in that way white shadows with grays basically Because that's what it looks like when it's out of the light.  Um, and if you're talking about a cream colored cloth, it still doesn't turn yellow So you want to be careful with those kind of color infusions, right because it just makes it look dirty uh the Green guy himself like he needs more contrast more highlight. So I'd say keep going keep practicing Certainly, it looks nice. You're you're certainly getting the the glazing process Now you've just got to keep pushing that contrast the metals the yellow the green itself the black back here All that needs to be pushed. Okay All right, next up, uh, yawn with, uh, big old, uh Big old, uh cthulhu Yeah, so this is interesting. Um, cool piece. He's super big certainly looks like he's set at night. I enjoy that um, you know, it's Uh, a little bit more of the in the details could be picked out down here like the boat kind of really blends in to the to the um To the coastline and like I understand that at night in darkness and moonlight things all You know, it removes the colors from our site. I too am a uh, big fan of the song, but um You know at the same time we want to have a little bit more Uh, maybe some kind of color sticking out there like you did with the lighthouse honestly where I um I thought that stood out rather nicely actually because that just that little infusion of green there actually made a big difference So just again something like that that would infuse the the boat in some way Um, I think cthulhu himself looks good. It's pretty simple as far as the execution on I think if you were going to go to the next level, we'd want to be more attentive with the details So like there's a lot of he feels kind of airbrush right now. And if you wanted to Uh, you know put more time into it. It would be bringing out micro textures and things like that Like this dude is as a point of fact huge Um, like that's a regular lighthouse. I assume so he's not attacking a toy boat in a toy lighthouse Which would be funny if he was if this was like cthulhu in the bathtub that would very much make me laugh but um, you know He's so big that there's going to be lots of texture and things that we can see here having the individual texture in his arms Things like that picked out these these scales and things would be, you know catching moonlight There'd be textures and scratches and things on top of his head where I see this texture in his tentacles Those would have more light and shadow and you know more red purple tones in the You know in the shadow underneath it and stuff like that. That's what you would want to push to so There you go. Hope that helps All right, ben Restricted in color scheme, uh, the primary black and gray due to how the model is sculpted Uh, I went with highlighting close to the edge of each square, but not sure if there was a better approach Sure So I mean the fig isn't doing you any Any benefits here a lot of the dnd figures that are out there just aren't good um You know, so when we're talking about how do we highlight this kind of a situation Well, the answer is you have to think volumetrically, right? And so there's going to be a general pattern of light across the whole thing if they're meant to be literal pieces quilted together Then there should be a shadow Where they come together and then light up on the top, right? So you can you can fake that That effect by shadowing the bottom side and highlighting the top, right? So it feels like it's Uh, there's raised and lowered areas there and that's ultimately what I'd recommend if you're going for that now The other thing you can do is bring out texture, right? So you can get in there with a sharp brush and you can give it individual You know kind of cross hatch texture or something like that In there and that will be a way to sort of make it more interesting But honestly the the cloth is the part that I think looks okay to me Like you mentioned the you know this big flat thing on the front again That's where you could just do some texture put in a little design put a symbol on there Do something to just kind of distract and then other than that rely on the volumetric highlighting where it would be You know kind of brighter at the bottom honestly is what should be happening there and darker up here Um But at the same time where I see the most opportunity here is actually with the steel that guys wearing a lot of metal and he doesn't have The steel itself needs some more love as far as you know things being carefully shaded Each individual element being picked out more control of the light On the metal parts from a volumetric perspective, especially when I look at a piece like this back here, right? Like this all just feels steel and there's not like that much going on That's like why isn't this in more shadow? Why isn't this in a mid tone? This should be highlighted. This should be a highlight This should be highlight. I mean you can see the actual light from your desk or whatever So like follow that and and then this should have a big shadow across the middle of it because I got light here And light here so shadow and shadow and light and light or something like that, you know Being kind of the idea, but you want to create that take control of that light over the metal paint I think that's actually your biggest opportunity there been so Hope that helps Ellen uh directed practice following last month. Uh, no, it needs a lot of smoothing but focusing on light placement values on nmm Uh, yeah, I looked over this earlier and I think this is great The hammer probably needs to have its light volumes expanded a little But on the non hammer pieces same with actually the shield parts like these The volumes is on your The shield or a little too small so your one and two are a little too small I understand you're probably going for darker metal cool beans But they still need to be expanded a little and then yeah, most of it's just smoothing The parts I thought were really successful was especially like the shoulder pad the um Sorry, we'll go back here this thing and bobber here. Don't forget. There's going to be a light on the bottom too It's not just the top non metallic isn't just light on the top Shadow underneath that's not non metallic. That's cloth Metallic is highly reflective meaning there are bounce lights and secondary lights. There needs to be another reflection underneath here. Okay So on cylindrical surfaces, it's going to go like light medium dark medium light, you know that kind of thing All right, so there you go But yeah, overall I I think your your placement's good Like a lot of the edges good light catches. I think you're really you're really working with light catch as well I think those do a lot to sell it. So yeah, good stuff All right next up greg uh entry for a local competition Bone's figure was the only model permitted to be entered looking for feedback on the cloth skin and general thoughts on improvement Sure. So um, I like the little soft green glow the skin's not bad. Um, I would like it's it's uh, You've got some nice infusions of coloring here. We do need more more hue So more pink uh and soft magenta and purples and stuff like that, especially on female figures That goes a long way. Uh, I like the subtle green that's cast on the on the leg and stuff there that works okay for me Um, the Hair needs to be smoothed out some like your your individual lines need to be thinner sharper and smoothed more in how they're uh In how they're transitioning and then have multiple areas So there needs to be one not only here around the crown of the head but then also out here on the lighter parts um The wings are something I noticed where Uh, when you're doing I I would avoid this like the black pieces That's way too strong for that as far as a contrast. It doesn't Like it's a bad design overall like just this is not a good sculpt right there But that being said it's not doing it any favors because now it looks like you've got like, um Like a lit piece of paper with some wood in front of it or something You know like there's a there's a cast light behind a japanese paper wall or something right You don't want the contrast to be that strong between the two of these Um, it needs to feel more natural right so um the extension could be Uh, if I also there needs to be like contrast in the wings themselves You need to make sure in these kinds of areas. We don't get messy whenever we've got this yellow and black like down here This just looks messy Right over here on the side I'll show you here this part. This just looks messy like we didn't get it all the way filled in Right now if the whole thing was like this where it was actually softly glazed over and it looked like there was a darker piece Hidden under the yellow skin. I'd actually like it a lot Okay, but the key is we got to pick a lane here Okay, so if this was all just this subtle glazing like you've got here and all of these were like This soft tone that it looked like there was something trapped around it and there was a darker piece inside Yeah, man. I'd be all about that. Uh, I would love that but that's kind of I think Where I'm at. I hope that helps cool piece though Uh, john uh tear knit warrior found this piece very challenging Trying to incorporate your advice on pushing contrast shadowed areas struggle to push the contrast on the skin Any overall tips? Yeah, I mean more contrast on the skin. It's it's just the answer is more contrast buddy I mean, you knew it was when you said it to me Uh, this color up here is the same as this color here This color is the same as this is the same as this is the same as this is the same as this It's you know the score here, man. I talk about contrast a lot. Um, I don't mind a little stippling.  But yes, we need to like Just coming in here with an airbrush and shooting a Like a very thin paint is great up directly from the bottom of him would improve his look like 30 percent just being completely Uh, just you know, not even like any kind of detail that would just do a huge to you a huge amount right there Okay Uh, so because that's what I mean. There's just no shadow life there. So hope that helps All right Dwight Uh suggestions on how to strike a balance between picking out details and actually getting models like this finished. Yeah, sure So, I mean the answer is it's really annoying because they have a lot of stuff like this where it's just super detailed And the answer is you do as much or as little as you want, man It's your it's your model You don't need I don't you don't need me to tell you what it's okay or not to do What's your goal if your goal is tabletop? You're fine. You're there.   And again, this piece I don't think is going to end up for competition It's just about like you having a cool scrap launcher for your ogre army So in which case then that's fine. So there you go. That's my my overall advice. I hope that helps Uh, oh as far as color composition goes. I mean, there's just it's fine There's not much you can do with color composition on a thing like this. It's mostly neutrals and metals Like you have almost no colors in this piece. There is no color composition to this the the color composition is for goblins They are such a minimal part of the overall thing. It's not really a concern If you wanted to infuse it with a bunch of color You could but I don't really see a need. I mean almost everything in this piece is ivory metal like steel brown or gray None of those are colors or have any concerns on composition You can do it out of the heck you want them because they're just nothing they're they're nothing in a color composition so There you go And that's fine by the way again, it's not a bad thing Perfectly fine to have things that look are largely neutral colors little goblins stand out because they're bright colored great Okay, next up Dave Tile sale my skin tones. I think I've nailed it would like feedback on what you do to give the extra touch Sure, so he's good. Uh looks really nice I what we don't have is the pink that's in dungeon master's cheeks.  They should have a little pink in them a little blue in our shadows, right? Where especially around his ears under his head stuff like that Okay, uh red and pink down in his hands and his knuckles Where again, there's always a lot of pink tones and things like that infused So I think you've got the variation of value quite well said here I actually like that a lot. You're good on your variation of value. We just need more variation of hue Uh, by the way, Dave, if you're a fan of dungeon master, I hope you have watched The lost episode that they recently re-recorded of the dungeons and dragons cartoon with all new voice actors and they animated it and everything Uh, so it actually they brought in new people and whether we're doing their best with all the voices and um, They somebody actually fan funded animating the whole last episode and the last episode is Incredible, uh, I had read the script years ago and I was so happy to see it finally got made So anyways, if you're a bigger fan of the dnd cartoon as I am So that's just for me and Dave or any of you others out there. Go check it out It's wonderful Uh, okay james, uh want to work on metallics. I'm worried about doing nmm. So I've been doing tmm How to make my tmm look better sure so I think this is uh, you've got some good stuff going on here And I looked over it, but again, my advice is going to be much the same as it was to other people. So first of all The silver infusion here is much too stark. Like you've got it. It's got to be smoothly done I would recommend you go back and you watch my how to infuse non-metallic metal into true metallic metal videos It's tougher on this dracon because he's got a lot of really rough textures Um, I think you did a nice job with the metals, but yeah, we've got to like get more of the softer tones in there As far as taking control of the Shadows and the light and when you get to lights they have to be More smooth transitions into them even through the metal So you mix a little bit of golden of the silver than a little more silver than a little more silver and so on You need silvers around all the edges like all the gold needs to be edge highlighted just like anything else every ridge every edge Every everything. Oh, yeah, like if you want to take it up the same, there's not much different effort. It just naturally looks better When you go the full monty but every edge every ridge every piece every Divit every everything should be edged in silver all the same for the most part or some silver gold infusion Especially if it's facing towards the light like if you don't want to actually commit suicide That's super cool. You know, you can you can um, you can make it so that's just like Around upper facing edges, but I mean metals are going to reflect even lower facing edges so, uh Yeah, go back watch those videos and uh like several that I have on it and not all that should help you Okay, uh next up luigi just the non-metallic metal never ends. Now. We're going into the super mode. This is like bonus round Sky earth non-metallic metal. Okay, sure So, um, this is a very tough fig to sell sky earth non-metallic metal on because he's full of a lot of other stuff Okay, um, like there's other things going on the first thing you want to do with, uh Sky earth non-metallic metal is really think about all of your shapes And make sure they're well controlled The second thing you want to make sure is that everything else that's not that is very dark and like I'm not saying you shouldn't have done bright wings like those work fine but The trick here is is Okay So these this guy has like let's flip around here. I'll show you I mean this guy here has these super bright wings Right there this blue and pink color, which I really like. I think that looks gorgeous by the way Okay, this guy's armor is chrome right because that's what's being reflected So why isn't this in his armor? Right like where's the blue and pink wings in his armor? Where's the Let's go back here Where's this gold being reflected in his helmet? It reaches around it should be there Right like this should be not the ground. It should be the gold This should be reflecting a big pink feather right here and here Right because that's what this is reflecting um Sky earth is like really really really complicated because you're trying to paint something that's reflecting everything around it And on a gaming piece like this, you just it's very hard to have the space to tell that story now That all said okay um From the parts that I can tell yes, it doesn't it feels like most of your earth tone actually Uh for the most part works. There's some pieces. I can't really see what's going on There's just kind of too complicated or strange Like the shape of this guy is not a favor of this like it really isn't this guy's mister loopy swoopy all different weird shapes and stuff like a smooth Space marine storm cast that kind of guy reflects this much better because this dude has so many weird angles It actually wouldn't reflect like this if he was chrome. He would just be a riot of colors Right because he'd be bouncing everything because it wouldn't just be it's not like it's just one light It hit him here. There'd be a bounce off here. His hand is in the way this thing He's got a tube coming down all those reflecting. There's a wing color that's bouncing off There's a wing bouncing off a sword bouncing off his helmet bouncing off his wing again bouncing off of the side Right, it would just be like crazy color everywhere anyway, um now that being said the uh The I think the issue is you need to wheel back the blue amount The sky is still a little too blue infused which sounds strange But the sky of sky earth one of the hardest things to nail is the exact saturation of it And it needs to if it had a little bit more Pushed into the gray white tone and off of the blue. I think it would look It would sell a little more. I think you've got too much of the the blue element here It's hard for me to tell with the legs the the gun is the part that sells the best to me It's the clearest like I buy the gun I don't I have no issue with the gun at all. I actually love the way that thing looks. I think that is top notch Like nailed it I would love this dude if he was just more flat and the gun was sky earth non-metallic metal Then you know, you'd have me some pieces of the chest work. Okay, but it's kind of hard to tell Um, just because again, there's so many little transitions so quickly One of the keys is sometimes you've got to like not try to be covering the light the the Sky earth horizon on every single piece Right when you try to do it and like on every single piece it ends up becoming overwhelming and visual chaos So sometimes you just want things to be more sky reflected if they're mostly up And then some to be more earth reflected if they're almost completely down And then the parts that are in the middle tell the story So just some thoughts there Hope that helps Luigi All right, next up nick All right, trying to push the contrast. Uh, this is the most ambitious project yet. Sure So, yeah, I looked over this earlier. Um, I mean the I'll give you a couple thoughts. Uh, love the colors and the composition. That's fine. Um The base is certainly fun the the big cave and stuff and him with his hands on there The biggest issue we have is a lot of the pieces just and this is what happens on these big pieces like this They're just not finished refined enough as they could be Uh, like a lot of the transitions on the wings are a little stark, right? Because it's like there's a hard line between the purple and the red the red and the orange the orange the yellow and the yellow and the white, right? All right every as it were The gold doesn't really have much life to it up here The skin is pretty flat and neutral on her like she's the center of this But it doesn't feel like she's got the same amount of effort put into her There's also a lot of shininess going on in the purple always make sure you're matting this kind of stuff out You don't want unintended shine. That's going to always make something look Worse because like she's not wearing Shiny clothes, I guess But there's a lot of shine to it there um The you know stuff like these bone claws that are just Great, they're just base coated, you know stuff like that really lets you down Right because you don't have any texture or detail there when you've got a lot of stuff going on Beyond that. It's just mostly then refinement smoothing stuff out You know, you got a lot of places where we're jumping up in high highlights here I like that fine, but we need to smooth the transitions out like this line right here is rough and things like that It's always going to happen with these big monsters unless you want to spend it just forever on them so My main advice is on just you know making sure you you Put the effort into the part that really matters namely her She's the she's the goddess in the center of the frame, right? She's the point of this figure um and then uh Make sure you're establishing all the contrast of not only uh tone but hue on her and uh and then That you know, then when you have a little refinement stuff on the rest of the piece It's not really gonna matter as much There you go Okay, next up colin some serious criticism on how I could prove from here Yeah, I mean so colin my main answer is going to be the same thing I've given most everybody else Which is contrast, but it's also in separation of elements like we don't have enough dark lines celebrating things Are separating things so the face is very flat in the color The red is okay. The red's the one area where it seems Pretty decent, but like the problem with the Highlights on your green is you have this one and then we just the rest is all three It's just all the same thing Right, like you have one bright color going into here one bright color and that's it one bright color in the net Right, we don't have enough of that. We're also not separating the elements like each of these little pieces on these little rivets need to be like separated Dark lined and then painted metallic or whatever right because that feels like what they should be Red and green compositionally is also not super great because they're both very saturated colors So you get this weird Christmas vibe off of it But when I look at things like the horns or the hair or the face the skin the wrappings on here the wood Right, none of these have enough contrast or detail like that hair is just base coated brown Right, what we need to be doing is really capturing that out You know so composition I think we've got a challenge and that I wouldn't have gone with that green if you had had the red and then all of these were I don't know what's good more. What's a better adjacent color for that if you wanted to stick to some kind of color You know if they were all like a really desaturated deep blue You know that would work a lot better if you then especially if you especially if you desaturate the color So you got some Some you know light pushes into a more gray infused tone and some dark pushes into a more black tone Then it's that would work fine, you know something like that Okay, so But my thoughts is also really focused on the separation of your elements having nice dark lines Separating all of the individual elements all the individual pieces make everything feel like it's separate Like for instance, the red here just blends into the brown of the legs, right? Like what's what's going on here? This is Like is this red or is this brown that kind of thing So there you go All right, so let's keep going Next up florian Uh, thanks for the feedback love exploring light and wanted to ask if you have any tips here Three factions want to get different schemes from the general idea of different light situations. Yeah, sure So I looked through all these earlier I think they're nice, you know, you've got this sort of warm yellow light and one blue light another And the sort of pink light on the the final one Yeah, and for the most part, I think they work I think the biggest issue is just smoothness of everything. I think as far as your light placement goes Let's actually go back to the to these because I think this is probably the one where we can Talk about the most. It seems like you're deepening your shadows In the parts that aren't lit We might be a bit over Like overstretching it in some cases Um, you also want to make sure that you keep them all the same like I noticed on Yeah, this girl like we have a warm yellow light and yet we still push the hair into blue highlights Which doesn't really make sense. Like this is it's either yellow or or loose like this big I noticed The biggest challenge we have is just we need to smooth all this out Like if we're just talking evaluation on light placement I think it works if we're talking evaluation of like, you know, the overall paint job the challenge is that we've got A lot of roughness to the paint and things like that. So you'd want to refine from this step and smooth everything out. Okay Uh, all right So, uh, let's keep going Next up craig with a big old lord of or Nurgle guy great and clean one. There we go. I got there um Any critical feedback appreciate it. Yeah, I mean ultimately I think the problem is the skin still doesn't have enough tonal variation Like on the whole and it has to do with the volumetric highlighting It's things I've talked about already in this review many times Top of the arms same color is the bottom part of the arm top of this boob fold Is it the same color as the bottom of this boob fold and like, you know, that's just There should be more change in there now as well with something like this You probably need more variation of hue as well. Not just variation of value Um, like you you kind of just treated everything as though the most recessed is always the darkest And then the outside is always the brightest no matter Where it is vis-a-vis the actual light source Um, but hue would also serve you well here having in more glazes that show overall changes into greens purples magenta Those kinds of things will make the skin look more vile and disgusting and uh, and nurgle so There you go Okay, next up dan, uh Feedback on his entry into miniature monthly's Sure. So I I did look at this piece. Um, there's a couple things that That stood out to me One, I mean the fig itself is not great like mr. Bendy sword here, you know, you got to watch out for stuff like that like fig choice matters Right like the better the quality fig the better job you can do with it. Okay And if you have something like this it's you got to either fix it or use something better Like cut that sort off put a new blade on it, you know, whatever the case, right? There's things I certainly liked a lot about this one. Um the like under glow of the red and stuff on him I thought sold really well. I thought the wood tone was nice And I get what you're going for here of this guy emerging from shadow this big demon But this stick just didn't work Right like under any lighting condition. I can see the stick And that's a problem. It's not supposed to be a big stick Like my impression of what was going on here was there's supposed to be a big demon I can barely see any of right And he's just coming into the light of this extreme spotlight um the problem with that is One you told me there's an underlight here of red Okay, so assumingly that underlight would be on him as well because you've you've said it's coming up from this side There's a bit of it here. There's a bit of it here. So this should have the same red To that big stick doesn't work like it's a it's a cool concept.  I can imagine that stick's not there But it's there, right um So if we're going to sell that image then, you know, you'd be better off like Honestly, you would have been better off having more of the demon in frame and slicing him directly in half Like having a whole front half of the demon in frame. So you have a connective tissue for all of it And then you literally just buzz the left the rest of it and then flatten it and black that side Then I would have been like, okay. Now you're telling me, you know, now it's a story. I can see what's going on, right? So and you still could have had the same impression it just It just would have been It would have been easier for me to sell The other problem is you're using what is a normal man sized demon parts And then you're extending it way out like that leg is not the right size for something that tall Right, it doesn't work size-wise Like this is a normal demon sized leg like this this his leg is basically the same size as this guy's leg If we spin around here Their legs are almost the exact same size right, so like This isn't to scale with this Right, so there you go. Damn. I hope that helps Great piece though. Very cool. All right, Joe Thanks always just looking for first impressions of what to work on for this bust Especially with regards to textures or extra details. Sure. So first of all, I think it's coming out really nicely Love the the dots and stuff I would Desaturate those some they're a little too strong and they need to have a little bit more of like a skin tone around the edge of them Perhaps or soften them, you know, they need to be a little more varied They especially on the lower cheeks in the shadows. They feel a little too pronounced Um, you know, so bringing them down into where maybe there's a bit of a glaze of a skin softly over them Or over the edges could make a big Could make a big impression The face itself needs a little bit more Attention, especially around the eyes more transition here around the top of this piece because that actually is an area where color tends to fade and change same with under the nose And then this needs to come in a little more on the side Like we need to bring that in so she doesn't her so her nose doesn't feel quite as fat I understand she's like clearly half work or something and so probably has you know more broad nose. That's fine It's just it's we're extending the sides of it a little bit too much to make it look more like it's broken than it is large nose The hair is probably the biggest area where I think we've got improvement We need to get more light catch on there more like it the hair is in almost complete darkness right now Whereas she is painted in very bright light. So that's actually the number one thing that stood out to me there So that's what I would if I was going to focus on one thing it would be the face and the hair So that's my thoughts Ildar's okay Review on the attached model Mistakes and flaws and sort of stuff. So the picture's a little small It's hard for me to tell I I like that you put them all into one thing But do make sure we've got a bigger scaled picture because it's really hard for me to see Detail but that being said I very much like what you got going on I like the orange in the hand and the reflection up onto the side I like the The like sort of evil arcane magic on her foot where she's stepping. I think that actually sells really well I thought that came out great. Um, that's fantastic A little bit of that light cast back up onto the lower parts of the dress might sell really well Um the texture and stuff on the dress. I think works quite great The skin it's a little hard for me to tell other than like sort of the orange glow and some of the reflection I'm not sure about the other tones worked into it. Um, like I love this part here I'm not sure about over here on the female side of her if I've got enough Other tones or hues in there and then the only thing that jumped out of me was the big claws Which are really sort of a focal point of this miniature feel kind of flat and boring compared to everything else They don't just don't have the transition of value as you come out toward the end They feel kind of uniformly Textured and highlighted and if there was some kind of transition there It would feel a lot more visually interesting And match with the rest of the piece where you've got a lot of these lighter areas around the outside moving into something Darker and then bright in the very center of the thing. But overall, this is a really cool piece I'm like I really like the take on it here. I love the big hot claw and the reflection it's giving As that's sort of this reflecting this orange light onto her shiny skin. I think that that sells okay Uh, yeah, so there you go All right next up, uh, alex tabletop gaming piece how to improve the best bit and how to improve the worst bit um Sure, um So, you know, it's a fun model of you turning the the Uh dragster into like a on on rails here is is funny. Um with the Be careful with the smoke like this like this is It's that's probably the worst piece Just because it's too over the top and it's too much of just gray and it really blocks out If you had a little if this was a third of this amount of smoke I mean this kind of cotton smoke never super sells, but I've done it before too Sometimes you can get interesting effects of it But you got to really stipple in there and have lots different things and it can help if you've got other Like stippled bits in it By the way, don't go this big with it. Like if this was a third of it if it stopped here I would be or maybe trailed out and something like that. I'd be much more about that The execution on the on the The dragster itself is good. Um, I like the the red and the tone. I like the stripe I like the flame. I think that's your your the execution on the body I think is your your by far the standout. I think that looks really nice good edging good capture of the the Um Of some of the color shifts I think what we need to do is have the panel lines more well separated here Like these pieces aren't well separated here and here and here Stuff like that So you want to make sure all that stuff gets well separated And then you may want to push the shadows on the stuff that's very much inverted from the light Like right here around the front those areas might need even a little bit of deeper shadows just to really push them So there you go. Alex. Hope that helps cool piece though All right, Steven Abaddon working on a smooth blends and contrast first attempt at non-metallic metal would appreciate any feedback to take to the next level sure um So, you know, I was I was looking through this Um, I'm not sure what your which piece is Your non-metallic metal. I mean clearly the gold is still um The gold yeah old old Abaddon. Oh god.  Okay, so Clearly the gold is still real metal if you mean this thing being non-metallic Um, it doesn't really sell. We've got to smooth it out. We need more one And two we don't go bright enough um So and you know the the volumes need to be more smoothly transitioning. We're like we're basically like two Four five We don't it has to we have to capture all the volumes there Also be careful of a lot of shininess like the red here you used a glossy red paint The bone is shiny like a lot of this stuff is shiny It shouldn't be like these bones should be very matte this head should be matte this this matte this Matte, you know, like so you've got to make sure things actually look matte and don't have these inappropriate reflections on them Um with the sword, I would say you want to bring that up a little bit It should have higher light points on it to really show its energy Uh and then with the gold we need to shade the true metallic metal like we're playing with non-metallic metal and Uh, so we want to make sure that we get the appropriate shadows and stuff like that into there as well So there you go Okay, next up Abe Taking some advice from videos dry brush airbrush more than first step Contrasting and more not great with large vehicles, especially tanks and squarish objects. Yeah, sure So, I mean, these are tough this kind of vehicle shape It's feel really small. Is this actually big and it just seems small. It's so weird Like I thought these things were really huge, but this feels like it's really small I don't know. Like is there a small version of the necron pyramid? I don't know Um At any rate when it comes to big shapes like this, it's tough. So but I'll walk you through like what you can do here So your execution on like the details and the light and stuff like that and these the the little energy Thing up top. I don't know. I don't know any part of this is called Um, all of this is working for me. Like I like the green glow. I like the execution on that I like the light here all that kind of stuff. I like your little Color used for the inner stone or whatever it's supposed to be that that stuff I like this like this thing looks really nice. So that's all really good and this this glow that's cast up here works So the question is what do we do with with this right with the outside? Well part of the answer can be um Nothing and that's okay. Like that's fine. Again, it depends on what your goals are Now if we're trying to take this up to the next level, then what we need to do is we need to think more about some volumetric Sort of panel modulation type of situation where there's more darkness pushed toward the top and then more light pushed toward the bottom Now as well with this kind of piece, you've got some nice lines in here We can push some brighter edges. You can make those edges have a little bit of a color to them So you could take a little bit of that green and we could like take the upward facing angle Of everything or upward facing in one side Like maybe the side toward the middle And give their edge highlighting a bit of a green edge to them, right? So now there's something visually interesting that feels like they're being tied together Like a little bit of that green lights pulsing out of the middle and just catching on the edges It's not like a true osl glow. It's just a little bit of that eerie light is bouncing around and catching right stuff like that can go a long way to Spicing up a big flat boring area like the outside of these big monoliths or whatever, right? So there you go. Hope that helps Next up joseph some feedback on the triple osl Yeah, sure. So I think this piece Really works. It's great as like sort of a manga anime style um, so I think the the purple like you've worked with sort of non Traditional lights in a more white light a blue light and a purple light which is great because those all stand out well against each other Um, and I think you've roughly captured the angles pretty well There's a smoothness question where we need to smooth out some of these highlights like some of these are a little rough Um, I get what you're going for as far as the effect of the outfit. She's wearing. You don't want it to be perfectly Like I'm not asking you to make them smooth planes because I don't think that would work I get the texture you're going for and I think that does sell We still need to smooth it down a little because they're just kind of out of scale So maybe going in with and working the brush just a little bit more in there Maybe a couple glazes over the top something like that The the white light works sort of the best for me. Um, the blue is really nice. So let's flip around to that But again, be careful with these like bright white lines coming in here Um, you want to if they're if you're going to have that texture that it needs to carry out And they should be a little more diffuse, but I like the blue tone the purple the challenge with it is That it's a little stark in how suddenly it ends Whereas it feels like it should fade a little more So my only problems with the purples are here in the legs Especially in this middle torso area where it really feels like it's like the purple goes to here and then stops Right and what's going to happen is there should be some kind of Shadow that it falls into before the next light hits it because where the two lights are shining from each side Then there's going to be a shadow in the middle. That's just how the light will naturally work So this should be a little more shadow infused a little more softly transitioning away Like it needs to fall off a little slower there. Okay So that was the biggest thing I noticed but overall this is a super cool piece I don't know if you like made this yourself and decided to do this Or if this is just how it is with the three little weird things looking at this lady, but it's uh, it's a pretty cool piece It's fun Okay, uh next up john Looking good getting back into painting after 30 years away from the hobby. Wow. All right. Welcome back General advice on where to focus on to improve. Sure So, uh, I like that you're trying to work in some interesting purples and and tones like that into the skin That's good. Um So you've you've already got the right kind of ideas down You're really going bold and I appreciate that right out of the gate My best advice is in smoothness like work on your paint consistency and your smoothness if you're if you're just coming back That's going to be the biggest change also work on sort of your total Volumetric highlighting like your contrast on the arms is nice, but it needs to be again smoothed out Glazing those color transitions into one another integrating those tones and then the same way working them into the face Right, so it feels like you've got pretty good paint control here I don't really see a lot of stuff being where it shouldn't be so that's good. Um, you're just going to want to work on basically Smoothing and glazing and again you're blending That's going to be your number one thing that I notice here And then making sure you're drawing the visual interest to the face to the center of the figure where it should be So popping up the interest on that adding more interesting shadows and smooth transitions around the face stuff like that. So Overall cool piece john. Uh, welcome back. Uh, great stuff for just coming back to it after a long time. You're you're doing great All right, next up serena, uh first non-game miniature Shooting for more tabletop standard, but you're beginner in the hobby and this is also your first attempt at basing Um, sure any feedback is appreciated. So absolutely. Um You know, this is an early miniature. So my best advice is Just keep working on getting your paint applied thin learning your paint dilutions and your brush control I mean, that's the most Poor thing I could tell you when you're working on things like you're blending like this line is very hard here That's just stuff that's going to come over time You need to work on pushing your contrast like I talked about to you know to other folks And that's just something that comes with working Go check out my how to shade true metallic metal like non-metallic video like I mentioned earlier And when it comes to basing, uh, I like where your head's at it's got some good stuff going on But don't have unpainted stuff Next to a painted miniature everything on a base needs to be painted in some way So like this sort of chip material you've used to do the base It's cool thing if you had then primed over it dry brushed it painted it and created a scene, right? But as it is you can't just lay down material and then call that a base like it's got to have paint on it Even if it's only like with the tuft if you only put a wash in it and then dry brush it You don't need to prime tufts or whatever like you can set them down at the end But they still need to have a little bit of acrylic paint on them because otherwise they just stand out They don't have the same level of contrast then that the rest of the piece does and they naturally feel fake And like they don't belong in the world that the rest of the miniature does Okay All right next up joshua Uh, yes, I saw the canteen wasn't painted, but that's okay. Um, whatever you want color wise It doesn't really matter. Keep it something neutral like a Desaturated different green or brown or something like that. Um, I think she looks really nice I think that Your skin is coming out. Well, I do want to still see you want to see some additional colors glazed into the skin Like I like the blue But again some purple some magenta stuff like that will make it feel more like a living being we just recognize that as humans The bag feels like it could have more texture to match it to the To the figure itself Okay And her hair needs a lot more attention and if she's going to have black hair The angle that i'm looking at her is straight on so this would be a highlight coming right along here That would create the the light for me to create that halo again Go look at your panting bottle stuff like that. Um, I love the blue of the skin I think your highlights are placed really well I think her face has the most light on it and that draws a lot of attention that looks beautiful the eyes look great Uh, and I think the texturing and stuff you did on the cloth looks really really well on the her sort of hoodie Or whatever she's wearing so that all sells for me All right next up, uh, michael first piece where I took more thought about color composition and placement Um, yeah, I mean, I think it's fine. I think the green and the pink work. Okay There's not a huge amount of color composition going on here. I think the little pink flowers on the base work just fine um You know again with browns whites and silvers and neutral tones It's they're really not part of a composition. They're just Color now here's a bit of a distinction here with your clay pots since they're orange like those are true color orange pots So they stand out a fair amount But it's not so bad as to cause any kind of real challenge because it's still a very De-saturated thing though. I'd be happier if there was a third instance of that somewhere Uh, I don't know what that would be other than maybe like the rake could be the same thing instead of metal or something Like that or if there was a little third piece on the base somewhere of this clay Like if there's a little pot sitting on the ground anything like that Um, so compositionally, I think it's fine I like the little touches and I think the the bright saturated pink pop color is used in just the right amount So, uh, I have no issue with any of that You may want to think about increasing the contrast on your whites a little And taking some more care into the shadows there But it could also just be this picture is kind of overexposed with the correct light I can tell because there's a shadow literally cast behind it. So it could just be that All right next up jason, uh second crack at a bust. Um Um Main things need to work on sure So just as I've said with every other bust like we've got to get more in here, right? Like so we don't have the we just don't have the the life in the face because there's no color to it. Um, You know, there's got to be tones of purples and oranges and blues So like around the eyes the red tones that would be worked in there like my best advice is like This kind of feels like it's supposed to be um, morgan freeman or somebody like that So like google a picture of morgan freeman in one of his, you know head shots or or things like that and really look at it Don't just don't just see it. Look at it. All right, or don't just look at it. See it. I guess whatever Stare at it for 20 minutes and really look at all the nuances Look at the detail in his skin and stuff like that right where colors are reflected where there's soft blues Cast into here where you've got reds and purple infusions where you've got the light pushing in Again, so we just need to bring up the contrast on the face and infuse those other Tones more variation of hue and value as to the non metallic on the horn. I mean, it just needs It's fine. It just needs smoothed down.  I think that's great I think probably the only thing that really stands out to me is their red tentacles Not being quite as clean or crisp as they could they feel like they need to be a little more separated From the body of the miniature like darker parts underneath them to make them stand out more Probably coming into a more pink tone at the highlight and then having into a more purple shade And then there could be a little more purple infusion into the blue shadows of the the skin of the alien creature itself Um, but yeah, other than other than that these guys are Weird, uh, but cool models.  It's cool I don't mean that's a bad thing. They look creepy as all get out is what I mean All right, andy armature warglave mix of non metallics and metallics And looking for cc on that combo and the general feedback. Yeah, uh, I don't mind it I think it's fine. I can see what's non-metallic and I can see what's metallic So, I mean that's a thing, but I don't know that that's bad You're you've relegated the non-metallic to the parts of the thing I would expect to be to have that kind of a different feel to it. So Works okay for me. Um, as far as the actual non-metallic goes itself We need more one and probably more five in some places that does the contrast isn't high enough on it Like if you look at it, it's really easy for me to tell the difference because the real metal has super high contrast And the fake metal does not I mean that's It stands out like look at this guy's leg and how bright and white all of this is and how dark that spot is right there Like we go from a one to a five on on You know real metal just that fast, but I don't have anything similar up here on this part Right, which is in non-metallic. So You know, that's what I would say um as if you wanted to be super clean. That's fine I generally think war machine should have some kind of streaking Battle damage something because they're not living things. They you know, the second this thing walks out of the factory It's going to have scratches and dents on it. So microtexture scratches tiny dots dusts pigment All that kind of stuff can really go a long way. Um, I would also push your panel shading more It feels like the panels are all pretty flat Pushing that with more shading more depth I think would also be the neck of the thing I would recommend but overall I like the color tone. It's cool Love the crisscross pattern on on the on the side here. I think that looks uh Really fun. Love the application of the the decal up here. Yeah stuff like that works for me So as far as detail goes. Yeah, good good stuff really like the eyes too. He did a great job on the on the eyes of the of his face Really draws the attention. So that's good. This is where you want to draw attention on armatures and you you actually did that All right, Alberto, uh Okay, uh, what would you have done differently in this diorama? So I looked over this earlier Um, the skin feels a little Salo on Don Quixote and the other guys like again the skin needs to be smoothed out We need to be controlling the skin more as far as the right zones being highlighted Like his cheekbones right here have super high highlights and his nose does And then it sinks down into a very dark thing here Like your your your face doesn't go like that Right, your face has a line of light that travels across it, right that kind of stuff Um, and then again the infusion of other tones beyond just you know, sort of Caucasian-ish flesh tones um So that's the thing Also on the horses, they feel like they could have the most room for growth Through the addition of things like fur and stuff like that. I understand that the other guy is actually writing like a donkey or whatever But through like where there's not sculpted fur texture of adding fur texture And smoothing some of it out, especially some of the white on his horse feels quite rough The armor itself of of Don Quixote doesn't Quite sell to me again if it's meant to be non-metallic some of the areas like the big Uh chest plate and stuff up here don't quite have the level of contrast. I would expect I think also if you thought about stippling these kind of big Assumingly his armor is a bit worn given that his nature So a bit of like stippling and stuff like that around could go a long way on that Okay, all right Tate Uh So he said your last feedback to me was on increasing contrast and basing so advice would be great Uh same thing. It's still the same thing. We the bones are too flat. We don't have enough dark We don't have enough light. They're not well enough to find the red is too flat, right?  We don't have enough shadow tones A lot of not enough reds not enough purples not enough other tones worked into it, right? I mean it's the same story as last time now the basing looks a lot better I like it. I like the grass and the wood and stuff like that. I've got to keep pushing that contrast Again individual fur texture the hair the bone the metal the skin everything More like a lot more go look at you know any I painted this girl two or three times now You can go look at my versions of it. You know, you'll see what I'm talking about, right? As far as really we got to push that contrast up. So That's what I'll say Same advice keep going it's getting better. Keep going Rob Any advice on painting older minis?  I think older minis generally look terrible and should be obliterated and shot into the sun So there you go So I'm not probably your guy for that, but I can give you advice on how to paint things So I'll I'll tackle that and I think you did a great job on this guy for one of I think one of the most Atrocious sculpts in the history of sculpts. We probably have a different opinion there I think you actually made this look quite stunning. I like your transitions I think your gold really works a little bit of deeper browns on some of the gold and some of the places could have Worked maybe a little bit of a purple infusion into that deep brown But the five is the only part of that I find a little bit lacking I think the armor looks fantastic that space wolf armor super sells to me. I have No pushback on that at all. So that's great great execution on this fig And then finally on his skin, you know, that's probably your other place Like make sure you're still working in those tones, especially pink tones He's in the cold and in ice his skin would have more blood expressed So there would be more red and stuff like that in there And then you always want to think about blue around the lower jaw on things like space wolves or anything like that because they Probably have five o'clock shadows, which gets expressed as blue tones But very good, I mean, this has got to be one of the best versions of this guy I've seen so that's pretty pretty great Okay, next up Tebow Who won the miniatures masters painting competition with this feast? And my feedback to him I mentioned the absence of a catchlight from the blue light. Yeah, sure So I'll walk you through what I mean Tebow. So it's only a few places. I mean, this this thing is a freaking masterwork, dude So I don't you know, it's not much room here, but here's what I mean The hair itself doesn't have the blue light expressed in it The the normal light like it doesn't have this other light that's up here. That's not the warm fire expressed in it in its secondary tones And the catchlights on the blades aren't present. So what I mean by that is if we let's go around to what which picture do I want? Yeah, this one So here we have the softer light, but softer light isn't completely softer.  And the hair should have that same color infusion to the edges those are like the only two things I noticed on this man the the Introduction of this like lava tone into this red reflection of you know, this figure dancing over lava I thought really worked incredibly well. So super cool piece. This is great I says this is your best work Tebow by far. I mean, this is this is top notch Uh, scodster, um Yeah, I saw this piece online Feedback on the composition and transport of the message Uh, yeah, I mean, this is a fun piece. Honestly, I I think it works pretty great. Um You know whacking the earth and uh getting angry with it. I think it's really funny Um, I don't know that I have any great. Here we go. Let's look at this one because that's that's a nice center image um As far as just selling the the image of what it is. I love the moon as the lamp. I think that's hilarious So, yeah, I mean as far as telling the story, I think it's great. I think it's how we all feel I had an emotional catharsis when I looked at this online Um, you know painting wise is there some stuff we could improve sure Um, but you know like some of the things to be smoothed and the colors can be enriched a little bit But uh, but on the whole just you know, I don't think that was really the purpose of your question Or the point I think this is a fun looking or a fun diorama that sells the message and I love it So yeah, I I you wouldn't have needed to give needed to give me any explanation for it. I feel like this woman is feeling All right, next up john More contrast in the last entry wasn't a great sculpt. This is the latest attempt at this paint scheme Um, worry about his highlight and shadow placement. Um, yeah, sure So we're getting better. Um, this fig is a little bit better sculpt. I think the shadow Let's um that you're capturing there along the back leg is we're getting there We need to keep like this is nice. We need to keep pushing a little bit more So we still need to continue drawing that contrast down with the edges They need to be smooth and sharp on these edge highlights I wouldn't go into the white on them like our we're jumping too high there So that should be more of like a uh, a yellow infused tone to get those edges Um, like bring it in a little bit. I understand you're going for metal and so you want a sharp highlight That's good. Just don't jump all the way to white. Keep that to a more yellow infused tone It'll still feel quite bright and near white Um and continue to pull your shadows down We still need more volumetric shadows over things like the inside of the torso the inside of the thighs The individual pieces right so uh in here and stuff like that keep pushing it It's definitely you're making progress in the last one. We just got to keep going Uh, next up duarte, uh another month, uh, uh, sure Does he look border and especially overall composition and a slide of effects working? Yes, this piece is incredibly disturbing. Um, I mean, you know feedback there you go That's a good shot of it. Um, yeah, sure the the drip effects work. Um, he definitely does not look bored He definitely looks in a high amount of distress. That's for sure Uh, so this piece is you know nightmare inducing Um, I think if like as to all your questions It totally works the thing I would tell you to keep pushing is just the contrast on it We need some more highlights and low lights and stuff like that some of the elements Especially the jacket and the ribbon is hair and his hair itself and the tentacle and things like that are a little flat But uh execution wise, I think you're you know emotionally and compositionally and stuff like that as you asked Yes, it sells exactly what you asked about no no issues there at all Uh, james lynch, uh been working on a knight hunt force for this scheme thoughts on the metallics I know the lighting isn't technically accurate. Um Who cares whether the lighting is technically accurate and who even knows what the technically accurate would be Who knows what the light is around this guy could be he could be under three suns or zero or seven moons Whatever Um, now the question is does it sell right and the answer there to me is yes, it does I especially love the sword. I think that is the big success Um, I think the helmet is also nice Uh, especially the front of the helmet. Uh, I think with the um I think with the wingies it might have worked a little better if there had kind of been two spots of light But I'm okay with one. Um, it just isn't as visually interesting as the other elements because it's kind of a large flat area Maybe some more dots or something like that to break it up But the sword really works love the infusion of a little bit of color on the into that's not all one color I think this is I think these are really great. Uh, like the bones like the infusion of that light in there that color that you've chosen for the bone is really great and yeah, I I think it totally sells man. I I Think the sword is my favorite part. Um, I love the little bits of green In there, uh, worked into it as well to kind of draw it all together I'd love to see a little maybe green worked into some of these as well But that guy has a little bit in a little blue Maybe a little bit of green working in here. I think would be Fantastic, but overall james. This is uh, this is a super cool looking guy. Um, one thing I would say is Make sure we get a little bit more touch down here On the ends of these flames just kind of bring them up to ultimate light. Um, because they feel still a little too Airbrush type of thing And whereas what I want to see is like some of those edges and little bits of it Still kind of brought out and given that same level of of visual interest. That's all James is a great painter. I I I hope to make it to australia james and see that that That force All right. Gavin. Um Yeah, so I saw this piece online Before you ever posted it here and I got to say I really love this man I think this is great. Um I thought you did a wonderful job executing on the the dual light scheme Um, some of the stuff when I looked at it, you know, you could could be um, some of the Colors could be and some of your transitions can be smooth just a little more But I think that's maybe my only piece of feedback for you The all blue side we may want to think about deepening the shadows Let's see if I can get a good picture over here Nope It felt like in one of the pieces like we didn't have enough deep shadows on The back side of those muscles, especially on the back or in the cloak Maybe so a little bit deeper up here. Let's see if I can get to the right image Just one earlier that really yeah, here we go Like maybe a little bit deeper up here. Um I like the the deep in here but on this side of his back and stuff You know drawing drawing some of those shadows a little deeper because he feels a bit oversaturated on this side Like all of the light is exactly the same brightness Whereas it feels like there should be a little bit of variation, right? So some of the edge is pushing a little more into deeper shadow Um, but yeah, this guy's great, man You really you really did a magnificent job executing on this dual light scheme. I think you did wonderful I think it looks great. So yeah 100% Not sure the non-metallic gold here in the middle cells That's a little flat but the lighting scheme of like the flesh and the stuff like that that all sells to me 100% Okay, robert, um Okay, uh, is there anything you can tell by the pictures? What you call it is this neat isn't needed for an army or tip should give like you would achieve a better result if you I mean, it's hard to say um overall I feel like You know, these guys look perfectly fine if you're talking about for a tabletop quality force. It's certainly fine um You know, you may want to think about with forms like this a little bit more pre shading Uh highlighting so like, you know, if you're using an airbrush to lay down that green or something You know going with a stronger volumetric highlighting initially That's a quick way to get fast and easy results and still like preserve all your highlights Um, but no, I don't think there's anything here. I wouldn't do. I think they feel like they're okay Um, we could push the contrast a little more like you could have some more shadows pushed into the green Plates on the towel armor and stuff like that where they're where things would be more in shadow but I mean the It's the much the same story as everything else that I've covered so far, which is you know, we need more contrast overall So if you're I don't know, there's anything I wouldn't do But I might change the way that you lay down your initial contrast colors because that might help you get Higher contrast in a quicker time or the same time.  Uh, this is just a super cool piece um I I and so oh, he said curious what you uh, what you think about using video movement other stuff in text This is so cool because what effectively happens is he has his his phone under there There's like a an old not his phone but an old phone under there and it can like display different images Of cracking up through the thing and it's got a little battery pack underneath it and stuff I saw how he built it. Yeah, there you go. Isn't that amazing? Like that's so super cool Um, I just I dig the heck out of it. That's that's cool. What do I think of it? Man? I think this is amazing, dude. I think as part of your display board. This is mind-bogglingly cool. So yeah, I love that you can, you know, put on different images and you made it so you can kind of swap the different uh, element around there as you need to. So no, it it completely works for me and uh, I would love to see more of it. Okay Very cool stuff. Oh, it's great to see stuff from bleep Okay, Jacob, um Basically he's asking about the osl. It's all the questions. Um, okay So, um, yeah, the question is does it, you know, does this neutral light work? So here's my answer. The problem is not your light, it's your shadow Again, you've painted the rest of him as though he's in some completely normal lighting situation And then this thing, this little eggy here is like casting a glow If we took the rest of him into deeper shadow, if we flattened out the rest of him and really Pushed the the contrast way up.  It would sell better Does the white do other color is one of one of your other questions, Jacob Was to do other colors of osl work easier? Yes Absolutely because then they they have this natural contrast and you kind of fade them out and stuff like that When you're just dealing with like an ultra bright light source It becomes a lot harder because you have to sort of manipulate Your level of shadows a lot more harshly To to capture like that. This is more than just normal light plus Right, but I think honestly the the light catch isn't the problem here for me for the most part I think you you know you're pretty much I would love to see an image from like we don't have this from the right angle I need to be looking at the osl like you saw with the barbarian where he gave me the all blue picture right But I think what you don't have is is you know deepened shadows If that's the again think of like, you know when Gandalf holds up his his staff and lights it up and you know Calls upon the flame he You know like this is all the light in the world to him other than like a bit of fire In front of the distance like this weak fire Everything else on the back of him is in shadow, right? So that's what you want to think about there All right matt Deliberate practice on skin tone here trying to bring up the contrast without getting too cartoony. Yeah, I I hear that We got a lot longer to go. We're nowhere near cartoony. Um, so much more contrast could be built in here again, like I you know Let's let's do a little experiment. Uh mark mask lands Managers sure mark mask lands is one of the greatest painters of skin tone ever Right and like you can just google through all this stuff and like, you know find things that uh match into your color scheme But really look at the way he, you know infuses tones into here, right? Of course, I'm covering it up here. I'll move myself Right like look at this darkness in the skin. Look at this. Look at the purple tones. He's infusing Look at the red see the red and the cheeks Stuff like that, right?  Whereas here with like this orc, right? See how he's got the yellows And a bit of the red tones in here and here, right all these different wonderful tones He's working in this is like none of this is cartoony, right? This feels very realistic So the point is we can go a lot farther. Okay, that's That's the worry here is not we're going to get hit cartoony land anytime soon So we need a lot more variation of value and hue. Okay like Really bringing it in there Really up that contrast. I'll watch some of my skin videos where I talk about the infusion of both color and contrast. Okay All right, alex second submission trying to work in greater contrast Okay, so first off I would ask, you know try to give me a picture with diffuse lighting in front of a neutral background Hard to kind of see what's going on here Um, but yeah, I mean we we can still go farther. The picture's a little rough for me to tell It feels like there's still you keep pushing on your contrast But also keep working on keeping your elements separated clean and getting those those paint lines nice and smooth It's hard for me to Super tell here because again like you've you've given me this much of the figure on the screen, right? Whereas if you got me closer give me a bigger image had me in a neutral background with diffuse lighting I could probably give you better feedback Saying uh, yeah, man, uh coming along still, uh The part of this that doesn't work for me is the Ferrari red up here If this was darkened down more, uh, that would sell the green glow out of the hourglass is Uh, mostly fine. It's a little bit strong on that part of the cloth You might want to soften that up just a bit now technically it would not reflect off of that Okay Red doesn't reflect green green doesn't reflect red. That's why it's red and that's why it's green So like if you shined a perfect green light at a perfect red surface nothing would reflect Right because that's why the surface is red um So because it's the It's the contrasting color, right? Uh Now that being said there's no perfect tones in the world and you know light is light and it's going to do something Um, but I would still soften that some Uh, but overall I think yeah, this is cool. I really like your execution of the sort of white gray on this I think that looks really nice. The red is also, uh, where where you know the other parts of the red I think that looks really good and well executed.  So well done there okay Johan, uh, I'll keep I hope you successfully get away from any giants Um, grateful for any feedback one positive one negative meant for the tabletop. Sure. Um, they look good Uh, you know, I think you said you're they're tabletop and you're just kind of starting out. So, um, that's cool Um, they they look nice. Uh, what I would recommend that your color is very smooth application looks nice Um So I think that looks good I mean what we need to do is continue to push the contrast These guys have lots of texture in them. You can do it through washes and dry brushes and also like that You can get in there with your brush and pick out individual things of more lines of wood like wood has a lot of texture to it And so anything you could do to bring that texture out is going to generally make them more successful So that's my biggest piece of feedback for you All right next up. Jan first submission would like to know what you think of the highlight placement or anything else That could be improved With the technique sure. Um, so the biggest thing I noticed was with the sword Uh, these Like we've got to smooth these transitions out Um, I also would infuse some kind of color in general metal Especially metal that's reflecting this much light is going to pick up something of the world around it So like having some yellow tones from these bright wings or whatever would be a good idea Uh, I really like the contrast on the armor plates. I think you did a great job there Um, I think those look really nice. Um, you got your running to a nice bright color and it's in this nice plum Um, I think the yellow could use a little bit more shadow Like we we don't really have the yellow shadowed to the same level So again infusing some of more, uh, maybe like rust tones or slight browns or or or light rusts or something like that into it I think it's probably the biggest area of improvement that I see here Okay, um, and you can see it when you look at this where the armor has this wonderful level of contrast to it But the yellow all just kind of looks like flat gray And you can really see the non smoothness of the sword when you're in that view. So there you go. Overall cool stuff though All right, next up then uh first submission this first 75 millimeter mini um So feedback on the good and the bad here, sure Uh, yeah, so this is a nice piece. Um, I think that overall, uh, it looks good What we need to work on here is one making our metallics more interesting So really taking control of the light on that again, watch my highlighting true metallics like non-metallic metal video The red could use a little more smoothing smoothing out That's on a figure this si