6 Common Mistakes and How to Fix Them.

no matter who you are or how long you've been painting miniatures mistakes always happen and they certainly happen a lot to me and this is something that can be a little bit disheartening but you shouldn't let it get you down because it's just a natural part of painting models in this video this is exactly what we're going to be talking about we're going to show you some of the most common mistakes made in painting miniatures and how to fix them as well now if you enjoy what you see here then be sure to subscribe to our channel and hit the notification bell too so you don't miss out on any future content and if you really like what you see here then why not check out duncanroads.com which is our membership website that's packed full of videos just like this anyway without further ado let's get to the desk the first common mistake i want to talk about is what to do if you overspray the miniature and by this i mean you've applied too much spray paint when you're undercoating it and well this is a really common mistake to happen when you're starting out in the hobby but to be honest it could happen to anyone and sometimes the spray paint can go a little bit weird for all sorts of reasons for example the weather might cause it to act strangely it might go blotchy or grainy or something like that or indeed you might even have some old secondhand miniatures that you want to strip the paint off and start painting them again and this will work for those as well and to do it what you need to do is to strip the paint and there's lots of things you can get out there that are great for this but you've got to be careful because sometimes they might cause some damage to the model as well for example something i've used a lot is acetone free nail varnish remover which is fantastic at removing paint very quickly but it's only good for metal miniatures because it will damage plastic and resin ones so it's a bit limited as to what you can use it on so what you need to do first of all is just check around see what things are available to you and what you can get a hold of that's great for it and there are some specific products i designed for it for example i've got one just here which is what we're going to use in this video this is from ak interactive this is their paint stripper this stuff's great because it works on metal resin and plastic as well and we're going to use it on a plastic miniature in this example because i've got space marine here who has been well bravely sacrificed for the course just here because i put on a lot of spray paint onto him and you can see it's kind of kind of cracked in the corners around there around that shoulder plate it doesn't look very nice so we want to get it off and start afresh so to do this what you need to do is to get some things together and i've got them just here what i've got is the paint stripper which i poured into this glass now this of course means i'm using quite a lot of it in one go so this is great if you're doing like a squad and you want strip hole models you can just paint on specific areas if you want to remove little bits of paint but if you're doing a number of miniatures this is the way to go so i've got that ready i've also got some water here which is soapy so i put in some dishwasher into there so it's going to be good to clean the model later on i also have two toothbrushes i've got this one which i'm going to be using to remove the paint and this one to help out with the cleaning later on and so what we need to do is just get the miniature submerge into the stripper and then leave it for three minutes [Music] it's been three minutes and i've now put on a glove to protect my hand because what we need to do now is fish the miniature out of there so you just need to dig them out there we go and then make sure you get some tissue down because this bit's a little bit messy you get your toothbrush that's there stripping the paint and all you do is just start scrubbing and you'll see the paint starts coming away straight away now it might stain the plastic still but what matters is that you get down to that sharp detail so just keep on going until it reveals itself if whilst doing this you find the paint starts to get a little bit tacky again don't worry about it just pop it back in the stripper for another 30 seconds and then carry on until you're happy i've been scrubbing for a few minutes and you can see whilst that plastic is indeed a little bit stained the detail is now sharp once again so what we need to do is to clean it because there is still some of that stripper on there so we need to wash the figure and that's what this other liquid is for this is the soapy water all you got to do is just drop your miniature into there and then using your other toothbrush to swirl it around just to make sure it's properly submerged and then it's just a matter of scrubbing it once more so like before just need to fishing back out and then once again just start scrubbing with the clean brush and once it's done this it's a matter of getting some tissue and drying your miniature and then you're good to go [Music] and there we are the model has now been completely dried and it's ready to be repainted and whilst in some places it might look a little bit dusty or rough for example on that knee there it does feel completely smooth to the touch which means as soon as a new primer is put on there you won't even notice now of course the main way to fix this kind of thing is prevention and avoid it happening in the first place and so with that in mind always make sure you read the instructions on the spray can that you're going to be using and remember the key points and those are to make sure that you shake the can for at least two minutes before you use it to make sure you hold it 30 centimeters away from the miniature that you're spraying and to make sure that you apply it in short bursts another common mistake i often see and in fact i've seen this an awful lot especially when doing seminars and things is people not putting enough wash onto details to get that definition now the reason for this makes complete sense because people first of all don't want to waste any paints they're trying to minimize how much they're using but in addition they don't want to get it to clog up detail or anything like that so the thin coats thing and washes though it doesn't quite apply in the same way you want to get enough on there that you get that definition but not so much that you clog the detail so you can see why we'll lead people to not putting on enough now i've got a space screen here where i've got this as an example on his bolt rifle just here and essentially what's happened is i was using a little bit water to illustrate what's happening here people just get a small amount on there they start applying it and you can see the sort of shine i get from the water just there it dries really quickly so there's not enough time to get it across the entire thing thereby establishing an even coat across it and get the definition standing out adjusting as you need to before it starts to dry which means you get an uneven finish on things in some places such as around the barrel of the gun there's hardly anything so you can see there's no definition whereas on the back it's kind of dried really flat so again there's no real definition however on the magazine down here there's a blush at the bottom so it's a bit too dark it's not even it basically just looks a little bit messy it's not very nice so all you need to do is to fix that up and luckily doing so is really really simple because we've already got those base coats on there what we need to do is just reestablish those base coats by basically reapplying them but because the color is already there you just need one thin coat so for example if we start with the fist in red which i've got just here all you need to do is get a small amount of this ready so i'll just get a little bit onto my pallet make sure it's really thin with some water so get a touch there nice and thin there like that and all you do is just paint this back over those red areas and because the wash is so thin there anyway you're not going to see it showing through so all you've got to do is look for those red areas let's reapply them and the same on the silver and the gold as well [Music] i finished neatening up all those base colors and so now ready to reapply the wash to it and what we need to do is consider how big an area that we're going to be applying the wash to to make sure that we apply the correct amount and use the right brush for it because depending on how big the area is you should pick a brush that's appropriate to it so for an entire miniature for example you want to go for something really large like one of citadel's medium wash brushes in the case of this bolt rifle though i want a kind of medium sized brush so i'm going to use a regimen brush in the army painter and i've got some normal oil here that i'm going to be washing over the gun and with this i'm going to be using a pallet now you don't have to use a pallet for this if you're still fairly new to the hobby it's a good idea to do so because you can clearly see how much paint you've got on your brush it's a bit tricky to see it when it's inside the pot but it's really up to you what you go for here i've got a good puddle worked out and i'm just going to load up with some of this so i've got a fair amount of my brush there and what i'm going to do is pick a starting point on the gun that's far away from details i want to avoid so in the case of a bolt rifle like this i'm looking at this kind of area here away from that hand and the idea here is once you start applying it to get it all across the weapon as quickly and as efficiently as you can so really blob it on there like that don't worry about it being too much just keep moving it around like that you can see as i go it settles nicely and i'm able to get it all the way across quick enough so it's not started to dry yet so this way i'm able to see how it's behaving and i can adjust as i go so keep getting it all the way across there down to that hand you'll notice as well because i started up there when i get closer to the details there's far less paint to control which means i've got much more accuracy about avoiding those areas we also need to make sure that we get the back of the rifle too so again a fresh amount at the top there and start moving it around get it all the way across there and there we go so you can see already i'm getting a much better result it's much more even getting much more definition it's much cleaner as well now because it's still wet i can see how it's behaving and i can see it's got a little bit too much just there where the finger is so what i'm going to do make sure i haven't got any paint in my brush just really like get rid of the excess often some tissue and you can just kind of poke it at these areas to absorb away the excess paint and just put it on some tissue to get rid of it same thing's happening just here you can see as it's settling more and more is appearing just there across those shells so i'm just going to touch my brush to that just soak away that excess there like that just adjust it as i need to then use the tissue to get rid of the excess and there we go i'm getting a much better result [Music] that wash is now completely dry and you can see the result is much much better it's far more even across all the flat areas and there's far more definition in all the recesses too giving a much nicer result now once again i can totally see why people tend to put on too little wash into these things because they're trying to avoid using much paint so they save some but also they want to make sure they don't clog any detail but as you've seen you need to make sure that you put on the right amount so you can manipulate it around and get it to the right places before it dries but also you don't want to put on loads and loads and loads so it doesn't clog up any detail and speaking of clogging up loads of detail that brings us on to part three so we've just looked at what happens if you don't put enough wash into a detail but what happens if you put on too much and how do you fix that and well this kind of thing is much more common when you're applying large quantities of wash to a model so covering large details like cloaks and things or even the entire miniature and it's because this paint is quite runny when you put a lot of it on what happens is it tends to run towards areas and pools in them so like water really creating puddles and you need to watch out for this kind of thing now for the example we're going to use here what i've got is the champion from some mirnish pain bringers i'm going to use this cloak just here that's a great example of where this thing kind of happens often particularly in corners such as down there but it's worth noting is any parts that hang down on details so for example the points in the bottom of shields there are a great example of where this would happen same with that little point there on the bottom of his sword but we painted this cloak purple this is phoenician purple and what i'm going to do is apply some normal oil to it using a medium shade brush from citadel so i can get lots on at once and you can see i'm really putting it on straight away it's running down but i'm going to stick with it apply it all over and then we'll let it start to dry [Music] it's been about 15 minutes now and you can see the cloak is drying but these lumps at the bottom there's so much wash there that they still very much wet now if this is happening at this stage you notice it like this to fix it what you need to do is remove away the excess paint and it's going to leave a bit of a mark so what i'm going to do is do on this one just here get a clean brush i've got my regiment brush for this and all i'm going to do is just use it just to soak away some of that paint so just get some of it loaded up on there and some tissues wipe with the excess get a little bit more and there we go now you'll notice what it leaves behind is actually that original purple just there and it leaves a kind of ring around it where the wash is versus where i've taken it away now don't worry about that we will clean that up later on but doing this avoids having that lump there now for the other ones we're going to leave them like that so you can see what happens when it's left to dry this way but ideally you want to remove the excess paint there like that [Music] the wash is now completely dry and you can see it's behaved a little bit weirdly partially going ever so slightly shiny because the quantity of it but you can see over here it's really caked in the recess and there as well whereas when we wiped away we've got a bit of a ring now where it's dark around the outside and actually lighter in the deeper recess now to fix both of these first of all what we need to do is while not fret about it and just move on to the next step which is to layer that cloak to re-establish the mid-tone and from here we can then work to fixing those areas so what we need to do is return to phoenician purple which i'm going to be applying using my regiment brush and this what i'm looking to do is to paint onto the raised areas so let's make sure it's nicely thinned down and then applied to those parts so in this case even though it's all very lumpy around there i'm just going to look for that recess and avoid it and just apply this color on either side so going along there and along there [Music] i've finished that layering so now what we can do is go back to neatening up that shading and to do this what we're going to do is shade it manually so over the top of the areas we've just got there what you need to do is to go to your mid tone so phoenician purple in this case but then mix it with a darker color that's appropriate to the wash that you used and in this case because i used a black wash that means a black paint so i'm going to be using some matte black from the army painter for this and i've already got some on my palette just there and what i'm going to do is mix it with some venetian purple to make a really dark purple so get this one up there start mix them together in the middle and just create a really dark version of the color there like that then make sure it's nice and thin down as ever and then using this what we need to do is paint it directly into the recesses to control exactly where this is going to go we can't reapply wash the part that we washed away because you'll never quite get it to match up with the areas you've got around it that kind of ring that's there so instead we just paint this directly into this recessed part like that just to help control where it's going to go the other one we paint over the top so it sort of obscures that shininess and just helps hide it amongst the rest of the robes [Music] and with that done you can see the controlled shading really helps rectify the problem now it is a bit noticeable especially on the one where it was really lumpy down there because that slight texture has got to it but it's not that noticeable once you do some highlights over there that will just disappear but there are times when you can't really do that because the detail is so pronounced that the gunk wash really does show and that's the case with this space spring we've got just here we can see in his bolt rifle we've let it collect around the muzzle of the gun just there and it's really gummed up all that detail so we need to remove some of that now in this case the only thing you can do about something like this is to use some of that paint stripper once again and that's what we're going to do only applied in a much more localized and controlled fashion and to do this what you should do is get hold of an old brush and i've got here an old regiment brush i've had for a long time i've got some of the stripper poured into the cap just here and i've got some soapy water once again and what i'm going to do it's like the previous time i used it is apply it but rather than dunking the model this time i'm just going to paint this over the part we want to remove so let's get some of that on the brush i don't need loads and loads all i'm going to do is just start painting it around this area just here and you'll see very quickly it starts to eat into that paint and remove it and it's essentially just a matter of doing this removing from that paint until you've got rid of the excess wash and then just washing this small area with that soapy water now once that's done it's just a matter of reapplying the base coat to this area and then washing it once again in a more controlled fashion and for a small area like this i wouldn't even bother undercoating it just painting straight over this with the base paints will be just fine [Music] i've reapplied those base coats and the wash in the end of the gun as well and well there you go it's in a much more controlled fashion this time and you wouldn't even know there was a problem there in the first place and the gun is now ready for some layering and some highlighting so as you've seen the key to fixing this is to look out for the problem as it happens and move away the excess paint but if it does happen don't worry about it because it's not the end of the world the next common mistake we're going to take a look at is making mistakes when you're applying highlights particularly edge highlights to miniatures and this technique is notorious being a little bit tricky to do because the steady hand required but don't worry it's not anywhere near as difficult as it first of all looks and to do it really the key is to minimize any mistakes being made in the first place by getting the paint thinned down correctly so that's what we're going to start off with just here i'm going to be doing that on an ultramarine so the highlight i'm going to use is some kalgar blue and to get this ready i'm using a small brush a small airbrush from citadel just here which i picked because it's got a nice fine point so it helps out with those highlights but what you need to do is to get some of this paint onto your palette and i definitely recommend a wet palette for this because it keeps the paint wet now the consistency you want for longer it's really comfortable when you're doing this kind of thing and what you should do is get your brush clean and then start bringing in some water to the mix so i put it next to it on the palette and start mixing it in like this because this way i can control how thick or how thin the paint is going to be by just bringing in a bit more of that pigment and essentially what you're looking for is the sweet spot where the paint's thin enough that it applies easily from your brush but not so thin that it runs out of control now it takes a bit of time and experience to get used to exactly what point you want to bring each color to and each color is slightly different for it but cargoble is a great one to learn this from because it's a really lovely painter applies really nicely and what you're looking for is to get it to about this sort of consistency here then get rid of the excess of your brush and just test on the palette by painting some lines and just see how long you can go for if the lines keep on applying then you know you got it thinned down just right and you can see they keep on going and going here so this is good i'm going to go along with that so it's a matter of just loading up your brush making sure there isn't loads of it on there so you see i am loading it but there's not a massive amount in that brush and then we can start applying it so all you do is just very carefully start looking for the edges and just brushing across them so using the side of the brush for example on this part here you just skim along and get that fine line catching like that and then along there along this part just here and you just turn the model so you're comfortable now as you're doing this mistakes will happen so for example if you're going along here you might make a bit of a splodge like that if you're quick you can wipe it away with your finger but you might not notice it in which case you might leave like a little lump there like that or some cases when you turn the model to use the tip you brush for some of these tricky to reach areas such as just here when you paint the line along here it might go quite thick so for example it might splodge like that it might look really rough it might run into some of that recess just there all kinds of things can go wrong as you're doing it so don't worry about it if that does happen just carry on because it's very easy to get hung up on things like that and basically just keep on fixing them and doing them again and never actually finishing the details so what i'd recommend you do is karen applying calgary blue to all the areas on the miniature for the blue armor finishing that highlight then returning to fix these things up now to fix them what you need to do is return to the mid tone and also the shade that you use to shade the armor so in this case that's going to be some acrylic blue and some non-oil and we'll start with the crag blue and with this all you got to do is just get a small amount of this ready so there we go nicely thinned down because remember we thinned down those highlights which means they're nice and translucent so we don't need this to be really really strong get it to about that point there and then what you do is reapply it over the flat of the armor kind of going up over that blotchy area so for example you can see the blotches just along there i'm going to start this sort of distance from the armor and then just kind of go back and forth sort of wiping like that almost erasing it going close to the edge and then stopping there so once again a bit further up back and forth just bringing it up to that edge and there we go nice knee edge highlight now same will be true on this part just here again approach it from the side just get your brush flat across there and go back and forth just bring it up close that edge and there you go easily done now for the recess on the other hand for that what we need to do is return to the wash so in this case it's going to be back to normal oil and with this you just need to get a very small amount of it ready on your brush so just a very small amount just there i'm just going to get it from the lip of the pot there we go get rid of the excess and using this all you need to do is just dot it back into that recess so just approach very carefully and just dot it in there like that run it along and there you go problem solved so as you see it's really easy to fix these things it's certainly nothing to hung up about all you've got to do is we'll just keep on going with that color for the highlight to get across the whole area and then go back and fix things up because then you'll feel really good about having finished that part and it looked nice and neat as well the next thing we're going to take a look at is a very common mistake when it comes to painting in fine details so for example painting the eye lenses of a space marine which is what we're going to be doing for the example just here because when doing these fine details it's very easy to lose control of the paint and get what we call a splodge on there so a lump of paint splatter that kind of thing now if this happens you shouldn't worry about it it's very easy to fix but you need to be quick on your feet to be able to really mitigate it and that's what we're going to do just here i've got some matte white because we're going to go through the method that we'd normally do on space marines which is to paint a line of white and then put a wash over it to give it a kind of glow effect but starting with that white go for a small brush i'm using my small airbrush from citadel just here and with this what i'm going to do is just get a small amount of it ready so thin down with that paint so like that and then we can apply it to the eye so as you're applying it what might happen is you might have too much paint in your brush or it might be too runny it doesn't really matter when you're putting it on something like that might happen and it might just sort of splat this all over the eye lens now if that happens don't worry about it quickly get another brush that's clean and some clean water and what you do is just get a bit of this and just run it over that area like that and you can see straight away what it does is activates all that white paint and gets it moving and removes it from the area and it means we can then use the brush like a sponge just to soak away the excess there like that now it might leave a few little white marks but certainly nothing to worry about because once this is all dry we can easily come back to that and fix it up [Music] i've left the model for a few minutes to let it dry completely and then it's just a case of looking closely to see if there's any white residue left in this case there's only a very small amount in the brow just in there so that's all we have to fix up but it's really going to vary from model to model depending on how quick you are and how much white that was there also whether you've done highlights yet or not but over the case just go back to the area that's got some white on and paint over it so in this case it's mccrank blue if any of it's gone to the recesses then you'll want a little bit of normal oil and you know it's just a case of just painting back over like that fix it up and there you go you'd never even know the mistake it happened so the trick is really just to make sure you've got some clean water and a second brush and if it happens just quickly wash away the mistake the final mistake i want to talk about is what to do when dry brushing goes wrong because it's very easy for this technique to leave behind some sort of dusty streaky marks and so that's what we're going to do just here once again we're going to be using an ultramarine for our example so the color i'm going to be dry brushing on is chronos blue i'm going to be doing it using a small dry brush from citadel here now what's going to happen here is much more likely to happen with citadel's dry paints than it is with other paints because these are so pigment rich so it's very easy for them to have some paint left in the bristles and leave behind some marks but it can happen with anything now i'm going to get this ready in the usual way by just getting rid of some paint on a tissue but it's often the case that you don't get rid of quite enough and start applying it to the model too early in which case this kind of thing happens where we start getting sort of rough marks appearing on the flat of the armor there like that now if that does happen don't worry about it all it means is that you've got too much paint on your brush so just go back to your tissue and get rid of the excess but what do you do about that well this is actually a lot like when we're fixing those edge highlights earlier on we've got to do is go back to the mid-tone of your armor so in this case that's going to be mcrag blue so it's going to go for a small airbrush to fix this up and all you've got to do is get some on the palette like we did earlier on thin down as ever with that touch of water and then all we're going to do is apply it to the flat the panel now this you might need to do two coats because the dry paints are so pigment rich they're very strong colors but in this case i think one's going to be enough and like that previous step when we're fixing the edge highlighting just start a distance away and just kind of go back and forth like this effect we are raising the mistake going close to the edge and there you go you got that fixed up really easily and the same is true in the other areas so angle the model see nice and comfortable and just work up to those edges so along there for example on this round part just there just bring it up to the edge and there you go problem solved no issue whatsoever so then when you're ready to go back to the dry brushing just carry on as you were but remember just get rid of more of the paint off some tissue and you'll be good to go but as you've seen it's very easy to fix nothing to worry about at all [Music] so there you have it some of the most common mistakes and how to fix them now the key thing to take away from this is when a mistake does happen don't be disheartened it happens to all of us and as you've seen fixing these things is no problem whatsoever anyway have fun painting your miniatures and we'll see you all again very soon you

Channel: Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy

Views: 229,775

Rating: 4.9773936 out of 5

Keywords: Duncan Rhodes, Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy, Miniature Painting, Wargaming, painting miniatures, fixing mistakes, fixing painting mistakes, games workshop, edge highlighting, drybrush, fiverr, citadel, Space Marine, six mistakes and how to fix them, painting mistakes, Army Painter, Painting for beginners, Miniatures beginners

Id: HHgUoSHhO-M

Length: 23min 54sec (1434 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 19 2021