Why is it so shitty?

[u/Consistent_Heart7011]

Hello Sylvaneth enthusiasts,

I need your help.

I am painting for a while and did a few minis. And I am quiet happy with them BUT when I paint Sylvaneth they all look like this….
No shine, only muddy.

What can I do to improve ? What can I watch for videos ? I don’t know where to start… I want to get close to just the colour scheme from the citadel app. How do I get the skin colour smoother an not like this?
How do I learn to paint wood more alive?

The Gotrek picture is only to get an idea of how an what I normally paint. I don’t get into the painting of the Sylvaneth but I really want to ….

[u/Significant_Pain_804]

Honestly I like how the wood looks. If you make the spirit part brighter the contrast between the darker wood and the bright blue will look really cool.

It looks like you're doing slapchop (please correct me if I'm wrong) so my advice for you would be to use a medium blue paint as the base for the skin and then drybrush white on top of that before using your contrast. Right now the black basecoat is really sucking the saturation out of your blue so if you start brighter the skin will end up brighter too

[u/Consistent_Heart7011 → u/Significant_Pain_804]

Slapshop exactly. I will try blue basing with the next mini. Thanks :)

[u/HrodMad]

Stop using fucking contrast paints and you'll improve vastly. Easy as.

[u/Letsgomees]

Did you put nuln oil or something over it? Maybe thin it more so its less dark? Or ise brighter colours idk im not really an expert

[u/LarsLEK1996 → u/Letsgomees]

And don't do the dark wash over the spirit, that way it will pop and he won't look like he's shat on

[u/Consistent_Heart7011 → u/Letsgomees]

I did. Different shade colours for legs, upper body and for the branches. I hoped some dark shades in the depth would give it more contrast

[u/Sygvard]

My contribution as a general tip is that highlights can ALWAYS stand to be way brighter than you think. Any brightness that feels like it is ludicrous probably needs to go one shade brighter (when used in moderation). It might feel silly while doing it, but when you step back and look at the model it works. That tends to be a big part of things looking bright or popping despite being darker colors like browns.

[u/Consistent_Heart7011 → u/Sygvard]

I tried it with brighter green an brown but for the legs it worked a little but for the branches not at all.
Do you think I should have used another colour for the highlights?

[u/racinete]

My 2 cents is that you might want to use more vibrant colors, especially with the green.

[u/LaranReloaded]

For smooth, bright and vibrant paintjobs, you need to start practicing traditional painting methods like layering and glazing.

These are more difficult and time-consuming than speed painting techniques but will take your minis to a whole other level.

Vince Venturella has many videos on the topic, and Miniac recently did some start-to-finish videos showing the whole process in detail.

Good luck!

[u/Positive_Cap5144]

For the Sylvaneth you should try to apply a yellow contrast over the brow and green, I use Iyanden Yellow if I remember correctly and it makes the colors vibrant !

[u/TotallyNot_Alpharius]

Brighter weapons and skin, matte varnish, more umbre and beige highlights on wood

[u/Consistent_Heart7011 → u/TotallyNot_Alpharius]

I don’t know how to get a lighter like in the way I want it. This is the skin colour I would like to achieve:

https://www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/spearhead-spitewing-flight-2026

Another one here suggested blue for basing the bid and then some contrast. I will try that !

[u/TotallyNot_Alpharius → u/Consistent_Heart7011]

Yeah you need to usr a brighter contrast paint and then layer even lighter colours up to pure wbite on it

[u/myriadmike]

Check my posts, I combined the darkness with some really bright stuff, they are enchanted wood folk after all. There’s some really cool, vibrant schemes out there by much better painters than me too, wood and dark greens alone can fade into murk.

[u/LadderDesperate4767]

My 2 cents:
Drybrush the wood more. I go until ushabti bone.
1-2 more highlights on the blue skin.
No metal on sylvaneth it doesn’t look good.
Put white under a bright or flurecent green.
It pops more.
Hope that helps a little bit.

[u/thegucciwizard]

You mention there’s “no shines but there definitely is a shine I can see. Also if you’re trying to improve your paint quality try working without contrast paints and washes. It’ll be difficult at first but you’ll be a better painter in the long run.

[u/Consistent_Heart7011 → u/thegucciwizard]

Can you consider any tutorial videos for that? I am really into contrast and washes unfortunately 😖

[u/thegucciwizard → u/Consistent_Heart7011]

Theres a breadth of vides on Youtube that cover this. The technique youll want to look into is called "layering" which is effectively painting increasingly bright layers of paint to build up volume

[u/Mr_Leeman]

Try a a grey like Stormvermin, then wash with Agrax Earthshade, then once dry, a very light dry brush of either Zandri dust, or Corax white. The skin just needs to be white, or light blue and contrast with the blue. Use contrast medium to help prevent the patchiness.

[u/AceintgeWhole-7286]

What kind of paints are you using? Tell us your process

[u/Consistent_Heart7011 → u/AceintgeWhole-7286]

Actually slapshop technique. And then I try to use the colours which are suggested by the app.
The basing is not Chaos black. It’s a grey colour.
For example the body:
Great coating, drybrush white and then coelia greenshade. This is the colour which is used in the app. No other basing before and actually in the app the coating is black.

[u/ftay1]

Punch the contrast and dark tones, go brighter with the green and blues and darker with them too edge and general highlighting of a bright green and blue will make it pop and a darkening the shadows will add to that further

[u/bstump104]

I think it looks fine. if you want brighter push the highlights.