eBay Miniature Rescues is back again with another video tutorial, and this time he’s giving us tips on how to get better at miniature painting!
eBay Miniature Rescues is a unique channel that shows you how to take beat up, damaged minis, and restore them to their fullest potential! It’s a relatively new channel on YouTube and it’s super fun to watch what Casey is able to do with some once hopeless miniatures. Be sure to check out all his stuff here!
This week, he helps us all improve our painting, and how to actually get better! He does all his tests on a Branchwych that needed saving!
How to Get Better at Miniature Painting: eBay Miniature Rescue
The Beat Up Mini
Just to note, he uses a Citadel holder to paint these minis. His buddy left these minis at his house for over a year or so… So he decided to go ahead and paint one!
How to Get Better at Miniature Painting: The Rules
To actually improve his painting, he needed to lay down some ground rules. Here they are, no washes, more detail, and a more composed base. This will force him to use techniques he normally doesn’t and look at certain areas he knows he needs to improve. Let’s see how well he does in his areas of improvement. Next time you paint, do the same idea and see how you can get better with a purpose!
The Paints
Here are the paints he’s going to use for this project:
- Liquitex Acrylic
- Golden paints for the blue, green, and purple
- Rhinox hide, Screamers Pink, Genestealer purple, Moot Green, Ushtabi Bone, and Sotek Green from GW
Airbrushing
He starts by hitting all the areas with White in the airbrush where he will eventually have highlights. This just makes it easier in the future. Then he hits some orange on all the branch areas from above. After that, he uses the purple from beneath to give even more contrast.
Basecoat/Wet Blending
Next, he breaks out the wet pallet and wet blends some dark brown, light brown, and purple. He then goes over the entire mini with this and tries to get a clean blend everywhere. Since he’s not washing it, this stage is super important. He starts with the darkest color and slowly blends in lighter and lighter colors. He does a lot of coats here, so stay patient and get nice smooth transitions.
Adding Detail
Once the basic skin tone was established, he started adding lines all along with the bark where it made sense. He used a real-life reference, and used a light color, and hit every area where the bark was the highest. He used very light lines and hit every area he wanted to be highlighted. Then he goes back and glazes in some of the darker brown to bring in more contrast and an element of warmth.
Worm on the Back and Runes
The Hobby Products & Tools We Swear By
He took a similar approach here, starting with a darker purple, slowly moving lighter and lighter. Once he was satisfied with the tone, he went back and worked in highlight lines with a very light purple. He then did the same with a lighter blue/green for the underbelly. Lastly here, he painted all the rune marking with the Moot Green.
Painting the Scythe
He airbrushed it black over the other paint, then hit the tips white. After that, he mixed green, blue, and purple into the airbrush and hit it with a series of highlights to bring out the color.
Making the Base
He found a perfect little branch in the woods to make the base with! He then sprayed the bottom and recesses with a dark brown in the airbrush. Next, he grabs a bunch of grass tufts and foliage from the hobby store. Then, he just glues them all around the wood where makes the most sense and he likes the best!
Takeaways
There will an amount of fear when you jump into a new project with different styles of painting than you normally do. Also, be sure to set realistic goals for yourself. Don’t set out to paint an entire mini NMM if you don’t know how to glaze or wet blend. Just step out of your comfort zone, and you start improving!
Finished Mini
Overall, he was really happy with how this turned out. By setting certain rules for himself, he forced himself to become a better painter and get more comfortable with techniques he doesn’t use all that often.
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Joined: 2019
Socials: @paschbass
Bio: Dark Eldar Dracon and Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the third edition in 1998. He also loves camping because you can only paint so much! He joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the main daily writer since 2020. Maybe one day, he’ll finish converting all his Ad Mech models and turn into a true tech enjoyer, complete with sad and happy robot noises!
