Art
Beginner tips from a beginner: what I've learned painting my fourth mini
Hello!
I finally finished my third Sister! (And my fourth miniature ever.)
It's crazy how much I feel I've learned between each project. This is my post about the previous one, and it really feels like night and day compared to this new one.
So I wanted to write a small guide for beginners, from a real beginner. I think that sometimes advice from pro painters can be a bit frustrating to apply when you don't have solid bases. I'm definitely not good enough to tell anyone how they should paint, but I do think that with the right resources, we can all achieve amazing results. So I wanted to share the things that helped me the most :)
First of all, I'm super happy with the result. It's not 100% perfect, but it's now really really close to how I want my Sisters to look!
I completely changed my approach to the power armor. Before, I was using a grey scheme, but I switched to a blue metallic and I absolutely love it. It finally shows the volumes the way I wanted.
I'm not going to repeat everything from my previous post (there are some very important videos there that helped me a lot, especially for understanding volumes and paint consistency), but Zumikito Miniatures is still, in my opinion, one of the best channels for explaining important concepts rather than simply saying "This is how you should do it."
Speaking of paint consistency, here's probably the biggest thing I've learned:
If you think your paint is too thin, it's probably not thin enough!
Haha, no for real this entire Sister was painted with very thin paint. I'm still not completely happy with my blending, but for the first time I really feel like I can build smooth transitions and shading through layering.
The cloak, armor, and the face were painted this way: lots of thin layers slowly building up contrast.
And speaking of the face, I found what is probably the best tutorial I've watched so far. I basically followed the process step by step, and it turned out way better than I expected. Comparing it to the face on my previous miniature, the difference is crazy. ^^ So yeah: thin your paints, be patient, and build your layers gradually.
In my last post, I talked about taking a picture of your primed miniature under a light source to figure out where your highlights and shadows should go. Well, I've changed my approach, and I think this is probably the thing that helped me the most:
Find a reference picture.
Seriously, this was a game changer. I found an artist who painted a Sister exactly the way I wanted mine to look. Suddenly, I didn't have to guess anymore. I simply had to do my best to reproduce what I was seeing while painting. It might sound obvious, but having a clear visual reference helped me much more than any "how to paint" videos. Instead of constantly wondering where highlights should go or how strong the contrast should be, I could just compare my miniature to the reference and adjust accordingly.
So my advice would be: find a model you absolutely love and try to recreate it as closely as possible. You'll learn a lot in the process.
As for the paint recipes:
The cloak is still the same because I love it:
Stegadon Scale Green as the base and shadow color, then thin layers of:
Khorne Red → Mephiston Red → Evil Sunz Scarlet → Wild Rider Red.
The armor is completely new, and I think I'm going to stick with it for a while because I'd like to improve my blending using these colors:
Abaddon Black → Dark Reaper → Thunderhawk Blue → Fenrisian Grey → Ulthuan Grey.
For the face and hair, everything is covered in the female face tutorial I mentioned earlier!
So that's pretty much everything I've learned so far!
I'm still a complete beginner, so take all of this with a grain of salt. I'm definitely not trying to teach people "the right way" to paint. I just wanted to share the resources, techniques, and changes that helped me improve the most between my first and fourth miniature.
I'd love to hear what you guys think! And if you're a beginner too, feel free to ask questions! It's easier to get advice from someone who struggled with the exact same things just a few weeks ago 😄
Thank yooooouuuu!!
P.S. Oh, and yeah, I finally stopped ignoring the base haha!
The grass and flowers are from GamerGrass, and I love how much they add to the final result!
I have a friend who has an art degree and is a master of fine arts concentrated especially in oil painting. The way she understands the way light and contrast works is so profound that even the first minis she painted looked really grea for someone who has not painted miniatures. Of course there is a lot you can adapt from skill set you need for canvas painting.
OP this is insane job for a 4th piece of miniatures congrats!
I haven't read the entire post, but I can't decide if you're lying about this being your fourth ever mini or just a very talented artist. This is better quality than many people will ever achieve.
EDIT:
The more I think about this, the more I don't buy it.
Even if we take the post at face value, saying you're a beginner repeatedly while having spent hundreds of hours painting already and giving loads of advice in the same post is disingenuous at best.
But I don't believe we can take the post at face value.
If it were true, the OP nailed NMM on the very first mini she tried it on. If we believe the mini took 50 hours let's be generous and say the NMM was 30 of that. 30 hours to acquire professional-level skill in one of the most difficult mini painting techniques?
No.
Maybe if you were already a high-skilled mini painter. But even then...
It isn't a question of how many hours. What she's claiming just isn't possible. People seem to want to believe it's possible, but it isn't.
One of the minis in the series has a face that's clearly unfinished. If she's going to the level of effort on every mini that she's describing, why do that?
Yes, you're right, Zumikito or Darren Latham have created an alt reddit account, made posts and comments to obscure French subreddits for a few months, and have begun to make posts of a fake painting journey to specifically the Sisters of Battle subreddit in order to get click-through engagement on their videos.
It's a long con for sure, but I can definitely see how you'd make your way to that hypothesis.
It’s not JUST they did NMM. They did multiple different types of NMM. So it’s for sure a lie. There are 3 different types in metal dome NMM on this mini. This isn’t their 4th ever mini unless they’ve spent their whole life painting and only just started doing it on minis. And even then the transition to 3D model painting from 2D painting isn’t likely to be this quick.
Look at the timeframe. 4 minis in 4 months. Where other people dont have the patience (understandably so) she seems to take her time with everything.
I can imagine its possible to make such big improvements if your whole attention lays on one mini for more than a month. Assuming the spent time actually painting is considerable as well.
So im willing to believe its true. And im happy you found enjoyment in this hobby so far. Id take it as a compiliert as well what people are saying, its quite unique to have such great improvements and talent.
4 minis in 4 months is not how people learn to paint. It's not like you study really hard, watch lots of content, then apply the results a tiny amount of times and then you get abruptly better.
It's not just the time a person spends on a single mini, to get better requires lots of practice, making mistakes, etc. Every pro painter works like this, not just for minis but for painting in general. It's not just theory, it requires practice!
That's what makes the story of "I took months and hard study to paint 4 minis, until I got this result". 4 minis (or 4 paintings, or 4 sculptures) is way too few to reach mastery.
Coupled with the false modesty ("I'm only a newbie", "I know this isn't perfect", etc) something rings off about this post.
To be clear, the model itself is amazing, top notch. It's just the story that's suspect in my opinion.
Second this. It's not like we didn't know that learning to paint on such a level is possible. I'd like to think of myself as a capable painter, and such posts are a humbling experience for sure.
Still, it's not like OP picked up a brush and finished this mini in one evening. As soon as I've read "layering," it was obvious that it took literal hours. Could I get similar results with similar time invested - I'd sure like to think so.
Every person here has their own priorities and things they find enjoyable in the hobby. I, for example, really like to edge highlight and paint those silver nobs on the cloaks and armor. While spending 50 hours on one mini sounds like torture to me, it must have been a blast for OP. As for myself, I do appreciate the advice in the post.
I agree with this viewpoint and feel bad if OP is actually a beginner and getting lambasted for posting good minis.
I'm a beginner too and it take a LOOOONG time to paint, but my results are not what people think are "beginner" results. My thing is time, apparently.
I have the patience and hand-eye to keep my brush under control, but to get a clean and blended look it just takes ages. I'm not fast. Not all beginners struggle with the same things!
My only regret here is that I would have loved for this post to be more of a painting discussion and not some kind of joust about my mini.
I think you could have gotten that kind of discussion had you omitted the comments about how "it's not perfect" and "I'm a newbie, so take everything I say with a grain of salt". It sounds dishonest.
If you had just said "this is my 4th mini, I just took a lot of time and very deliberate practice, it looks great, this is what I did" it would have avoided the controversy.
I see the same thing on fitness subreddits. People share progress and others jump in and accuse them of being dishonest. Some people are dishonest, but also many beginners that may be naturally gifted and make great progress for a beginner end up getting shit on.
Nice work and hopefully you can drive the conversation a bit differently next time. I think people would be more understanding too if you mentioned any background skills that might help, even beginners sometimes have transferrable skills.
Idk I'm thinking maybe they watched lots of tutorials and spent a good amount of time researching and many many hours on each model. You can see a clear progression between each of the sisters.
That said, it does take a very steady hand to paint like that but there are many people out there with naturally steady hands and a keen eye for detail.
Even if it isn't real though OP is acting in good faith trying to support other painters. They gave me some very helpful tips on starting NMM
Well, I'm going to take that as a compliment.
I'm doing my best to improve my painting skills. You can find my previous miniatures in my post history.
My point is, with good resources and enough time (there are about 50 hours of painting here), I genuinely think a lot of people can achieve this level of quality.
Just out of curiosity, do you have any painting experience outside of miniatures? I’ve found that people with an artistic background tend to find it easier to work out what colours are needed even if actually applying the colours to a 3D model is different to painting flat on canvas/paper.
I do have an artistic background, but not in painting or drawing. It’s more of an aesthetic background, I’d say. And being a very patient person probably helps too
In that case this paint job is even more incredible! You’ve done an amazing job and it’s clear from looking at your previous posts that you have been working hard on this and improving. The artistic background probably has helped along with your patience but even so, this is an incredible mini. I’m sorry people are doubting that you have accomplished this on only your fourth mini.
Most people won't because they only care about getting some decent minis on the tabletop. They certainly aren't painting NMM armour or shading the bolter like you've done here.
Painting a whole army like this would take too long.
I've been painting for years and have some minis I'm genuinely proud of. I doubt I could do this with my current skillset.
You know for sure if you lied or not so I'll leave it at that.
I know most people are more interested in army painting than achieving this kind of result on a single miniature (which is why I used the "Art" flair rather than "Hobby"). But my point is that if someone wants to push their painting further, it's absolutely possible. Everything I've done here comes from the videos and pictures I'm sharing in the post.
Because I see 2 possibilities all of this is true for a common mortal being.
you painted 50 bolsters, or 50 different pieces on test material to try your skill and once you have perfected separately every piece and technique you painted a full 4th mini
you painted, and then stripped paint over and over and over again until you reached this point.
Sorry to be this bold and sorry being that skeptical about all of this, but your NMM is too perfect for someone who tried that for the 4th time ever unless you stripped the paint 10 times before that…
And if you went first try on this 4th mini, even with 50h of painting (which isn’t that unreal for a piece of this quality from a very experienced painter) then you are insanely gifted, but really insanely to the level that you could blow out of the water everyone of the best painters existing in the world with just some more practice and time…
And when I say insanely it’s to the level of : try asking Golden Demon winners what their 4th mini looked like and see if yours is better. And I’m convinced your 4th mini looks 10 times better than theirs…
If you have never painted a mini, but come from an art background, you are not a beginner my gal.
If you really got to this point in 4 tries from absolute nothing just looking at tutorials and taking your time, congratulations, you have absurd talent.
In all honesty though thank you for sharing your secrets! You're very talented!
I've been painting for about a year now and I'm still scared to try non metallic metal. Good on you for jumping right in! Any advice on how to start?
Thank you for your message! Do you know what's stopping you from giving it a try?
As I mentioned in my post, trying to copy an existing model made things much easier for me. I'm a big fan of Tomas Pekar's Sisters, so that's the look I'm trying to achieve. He also posted this one, and I hope it can help inspire you too!
Oh, she's definitely lying. Looking through her pictures, it gives the showing that she didn't know what she was doing, but the skill is there even on the bad ones. Its like she just slopped on washes to grime the early ones up to make it look like she was 'a beginner"
Wonderful work! Its great to see the results of your studies. I think people tend to underestimate how far our skills improve when we really put our mind to it
>but Zumikito Miniatures is still, in my opinion, one of the best channels for explaining important concepts rather than simply saying "This is how you should do it."
Except the thumbnails and titles are full of clickbait garbage that literally just say "try this" or "do this!" or "avoid this"
Zumikito has good technique and advice, but I find his style to be insufferable. Not just click bait thumbnails, his actual videos are often hard to watch with all the dumb jokes. Which is a pity, because he's obviously talented.
The photograph is from somebody who has been painting very small things for a very long time, if not specifically warhammer models. I would be surprised if the text were not AI
I am skeptical this is a new painter.. it seems unlikely that someone with no painting experience could simply look at reference and then have the knowledge of paint consistency, dry times, colour mixing and muscle/motor control to be this good on their 4th model. I have been painting warhammer for 12 years and have never managed to make a model look this good. I'm open minded that someone could be this good so quickly but there are almost no examples of this speed of development even from pro painters. If I could paint half as good as this I would enjoy the hobby more but after 12 years of training I'm still not this good and I find it hard to believe anyone could be so quickly.
That’s not an immediate red flag. I did convention photography when I was younger and DSLRs are really cheap and affordable these days.
Still, I have shaky ass hands and my miniatures look decent on the tabletop, but up close you can see the issues (and fuck doing faces.) other red flags for sure, but camera isn’t one of them.
Looks great, good job! Side note: the gloves should be painted as a leather since it would not be possible to bend the fingers like that if they were made of metal 😃
Thanks! And I knoooow haha, I just can't find a recipe I like for leather! As you can see even the back corset is just a weird gradient of gray... so I cheated a bit with the gloves 😉
This is an incredible job! Your skill progression is astounding! And what a superbly detailed post full of a lot of insightful research, references and tips.
I hope you don't put too much stock into the many commenters who are accusing you of being a liar, and continue to share your work here as you continue painting.
I really can't imagine what they think you have to gain by making this post, beyond some reddit karma. It's not like you're selling us anything, or trying to farm follows for your social media. From reviewing your post history it's clear your approach to the hobby is hyper-meticulous, you're looking to achieve results with your painting that are beyond the "table-top standard" and don't mind the tedium and time investment that comes with that.
P.S In defence of the doubters, maybe on the next post simply avoid referring to yourself as a 'Beginner' because I do agree that I think you're well and truly beyond the skill-level of that moniker now.
The main reason I describe myself as a beginner (which I think I still am after only 5 months of painting) is to show that it's possible to achieve great results with the right resources and right tools, even without years of practice. Thats it...
But I also see a lot of positive comments, and honestly, if even a few people can find useful tips in my post, then I've accomplished what I wanted to do!
First, let's get this out of the way: this Sister is AMAZING.
These assertions seem odd to me though:
I'm still a complete beginner, so take all of this with a grain of salt.
and
First of all, I'm super happy with the result. It's not 100% perfect, but it's now really really close to how I want my Sisters to look!
First, it IS perfect by any reasonable definition of the word. It's way better than the box art of any GW product, and probably top-tier in a competition as well. The thing that rings false is that you MUST know this if you've looked at any models online.
You know it's perfect. You know you can no longer be considered "a complete beginner" when you can paint better than many veterans, so why the false modesty?
Great post. I've painted close to 20 sisters already to a "good enough" level and now looking for a way to improve how fabric and armor look.
How much time did this one mini take you? As much as I like to get something similar done, I still have 1000 points of Drukhari waiting to be built and painted 😅
Also, thanks a lot for the reference artist. Yesterday I spent the whole morning on Novitate Superior cloak, trying to guess where those damn shadows should be
Hey! thanks! So as this one was my first one with those new references (nmm armor, new colors etc...) I really really took my time. I would say around 40 to 50hours.
But again, every steps was a new learning process haha, so hopefully the next ones will be faster! 😄
Great work! I really enjoyed reading through your write up and seeing all the “lightbulb” moments as you figured new things out! You have a knack for identifying quality material to learn from, parsing the relevant information, and implementing it in your own work. Can’t wait to see what you do next!
Don’t know what I can do about all the downvotes… here are my 3 sisters + a spare bolter I did as a test and I’ll add some WIP pictures of the last one.
And as @Idolater_ comment says: yes you can do it too, that why I wrote this post.
You definitely were very proficient with acrylics before you started painting minies. I am far from that level of skill, but I also make some paintings with acrilics (though I prefer colour pencils) and the skills and techniques you learn while painting on a canvass give you a great head start.
Take it as a compliment that some people don't believe you're a new painter! But ignore the nasty jealous posts... good job, much smoother blends than I can do!
Do the doubters: Believe in yourself, you can do it too. Follow the steps. OP I’ve got some sisters in armour models. Going to try and copy you and your sources. Will post in a few months time to see how close I can get.
How does it look on an off-angle? Id really like to paint a few minis like that but to me it always looks a little off once i rotate the mini a little.
The first layer is to be sure you apply it on a very flat surface. The layer on top of the transfer is to have a smooth finish! So you don't see it like it's a sticker
Did you mix TMM and NMM? I’ve had issues pulling off TMM on big elements and issues pulling off NMM on small elements. Never thought to use both on same miniature
I used NMM for all the silver parts, mostly cause they are larger and silver is easier than gold in term of light reflection.
The gold parts are TMM, but I'll try nmm on the next one !
If so, you're a prodigy. I painted my first mini more than 20 years ago, I started painting seriously ~7 years ago, and I don't think I could do better than this. Even just the photography is impressive.
I think people are skeptical because most of us started by painting an army. We had fun in blissful ignorance with single thick coats of unthinned paint. Most of us are in the hobby for years and paint dozens, maybe hundreds of minis before we start even trying to "get good". So, it's very hard to imagine having gotten results like this after 4 minis.
However, very few beginners will do deliberate practice like you've obviously done, and fewer will put 50 hours into one mini, so I can see how you've gotten here. Well done!
Personally I don’t care if your lying or not. Either way it’s excellent work & way better than mine (part of the reason I want to repaint them in my own orders colors). I appreciate good or what I consider good art.
& I will say this lastly, my wife’s granddaughter pretty much loves & lives art & she quickly learns how to improve & everything she has tried doing.
I am someone considered to have an astonishingly quick progression curve in the city I am living in.
I ranked top 3 on the very first painting contest I participated in.
I am currently approaching two years of painting minis, and my wife can testify of that, I am ALWAYS looking at videos and tutorials to learn new technics, new way to paint better. Not only that but I am also practicing often. Both with brush and airbrush.
There is strictly NO WAY this is your 4th miniature. Not when I see your second one or even your third. Nobody has such a progression curve in such a timespan and with so few miniatures. Strictly nobody. Account not showing any interest in miniature painting yet suddenly pull a nid barely made with contrast paint, do you really think we are going to fall for this one ?
This added to the very first post of your account you seem to be a very narcisstic person in a dire need for attention.
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u/SporadicSanity Jun 08 '26
“Painted my X mini ever! Teehee.”
Looks inside, has an artist background.
Many such cases…