If you only see the finished product. It started finished.

Nothing starts finished is the tag line of my website and of my advice as a painter. Just remember that nothing starts finished and you will be in a good place when your painting. So I wanted to go through my process so you guys get that I work hard to get the results I get to. It’s not some secret cheat.

The next thing I do is something called a Zenithal Prime. So don’t be scared of the complicated word, it just means from up high.

So what I do is get a mid grey in my case Mechanicus Grey and spray with an airbrush at a 35 to 35 degree angle to start.

Then I at 50 to 60 degree angle with a lighter grey such as Administratum Grey and finally I finish off with an off white like Ulthuan grey, at 75 degree to 90 degree angle.

Next once a batch is finished, I show the client. The reason that some people enjoy them is that there is great contrasts of kind. So let me explain contrast of kind.

You can see several contrasts of kind in the picture, the armour which is quite dark which reaches shining bright. The shadowless skin. The smoothly shifting fabric. Finally the rough bases.

The first thing I do when painting a character level commission is, take a photo in black with a high gloss coat.

Why black why high gloss when the thing your painting is going to be white!?
Because it will give me the natural places to place highlights. Here is where reflections happen and it is very important for metalics.

Next you block colours and give basic highlights so your client has a rough idea of what they are going to receive. See here most of the skin is already done, given the purple undertone. However, that is the only airbrushing done as airbrushing obliterates shadows and most of the time when we look at skin it is quite smooth so it has a brilliant contrast of kind with the fabric and later the metal.

People often talk about colour contrast but they don’t often talk about contrast of kind. Colour contrast is fairly easy to understand, blue stands out against orange and so on. However contrast of kind is a little harder to understand. But I hope this helped explain it and you can see it with a more discerning eye now

Finally, take a boatload of pictures because you won’t see these miniatures again for some time. And if you're a good artist, you put a piece of your heart and soul into them. So you want to see them again sometime.

I hope this makes you feel more confident about your painting because…

Nothing starts finished.