I created a NIGHTMARE Space Marine Chapter to make me a Better Painter!

hello everyone and welcome back to my channel where sometimes I like to post videos where I'm open and honest about my insecurities and this is going to be one of those videos oh boy so I've been painting Warhammer for around 10 years now and given that's not an insignificant chunk of my entire life you may be thinking oh Louise you must be the best painter in the entire world by now and first of all thank you I appreciate that it's very kind of you and second of all no unfortunately I'm not and if I'm being honest some days I don't actually feel like I'm that good at painting at all some days you go online and it feels like overnight everybody and their mother has suddenly become this incredible Pro painter who could just bash out 10 golden demon Miniatures in a week and even though I am constantly painting and constantly trying to improve my craft there are certain things that I will straight up avoid painting if I can because I just don't think become very good at them so I'm kind of thinking that after all these years now might be the time to try and change that and in order to force myself to become a better painter we are going to develop an entire Homebrew Space Marine chapter based solely on things that I hate painting let's go [Music] who so what are some of the things that I don't like painting well we should start with some colors that I just really struggle with red purple and Grays and blacks too but they're kind of in the same category now everyone's got their favorite and least favorite colors to paint and the ones that I listed maybe your most favorite and you find them really easy but I really struggle with red and purple especially and I think that I know why one of my big painting problems is that I am a chronic over highlighter so when I'm painting green I like to highlight it in very light almost yellowy tones which is fine for that color but when it comes to me painting red by the time I've highlighted it up using oranges and yellows it starts to look more like orangey yellow than it does red and that's a problem purple as well has like a similar issue for me where I want to highlight it up using all these pinks and lighter colors so by the time it's finished it neither reads as pink or purple at all it's just a bit of a mess and I'm just not very good at it whenever I paint gray and black as well they also fall victim to my over highlighting and when I want something to look light gray it always ends up reading as white and when I want something to be black but a little bit highlighted it always looks like a gray muddy mess and I hate it apart from those colors another thing I really struggle to paint is just straight up metallics be them true metallics or non metallics I never know where to put the light and the shadow on a 3D object and I get the colors all wrong and I don't think that I've ever been happy with metallics that I've done on a miniature which is actually really sad and I'd love to fix that and finally I'm just not very good at basing and especially painting things which are natural like Stone and wood and it's really upsetting cuz I feel it always lets down my mini at the last hurdle so now that you know all my filthy disgusting shameful painting weaknesses it's time to fix them and get good by giving myself a real challenge since I've decided to push myself as much as physically possible with every single step of this project we are going to be painting a classic primara Space Marine because it's something that I can never seem to get looking quite right I think the only kind of Space Marine I've ever been okay with painting is my beloved Rainbow Warriors but I feel like being able to just paint a really good clean solid Space Marine is like the default standard test for any Warhammer paint painter so we're going to be painting a Space Marine I decided as usual to make my Space Marine have a fun and custom converted pose because he's not like the other Marines and in my head this pose was going to end up being super badass with the sword pointing down and him pointing up and he's looking at you all menacingly and cool but he did just end up looking a little bit sassy and like he's about to hit you with the world's biggest um actually but whatever I still think he's cool and with the Space Marine all nice and built and converted and ready for his disco it was time for me to once again sabotage the entire project for myself by making the world's Clash Space Marine chapter out of my least favorite [Music] colors now during my time at Games Workshop I did a lot of things known as profiles which essentially just means that I colored in a bunch of pretty Space Marines tanks and Titans with nice colors to make them look like cohesive chapters but more often than not those chapters already existed or the colors schemes had already been decided and given to me by managers or other artists so this is the first time I've kind of done it from scratch by myself and because I'm dumb I am televising the entire process here on YouTube For Your Entertainment so please consider liking and subscribing because it wishes me luck and I need it so thank you I started by playing around with things like this spooky gradient sort of look over the whole marine and it ended up looking already just a little bit too complicated and like it wouldn't read but not entirely uncool like I don't know I quite like it maybe some other day we'll do something like this I've always liked the look of split color schemes on Space Marines like the Nova Marines and the angels of redemption because I think they look really nightly and heraldic and in my opinion the more a Space Marine looks like a freaky Knight smashed into a freaky Church the better so I decided to play around with that and have the main body of the Marine be a split between red and purple which I don't think look too bad I made the trim and the helmet gold added in some black stripes and a half gray leg for some reason and aptly named the chapter the emperor's grief because they're already making me feel a world of pain and the name is kind of edgy too which is cool after I was sort of happy with the color scheme I decided to do something I had never done before and practice painting my miniature in 2D I used an app called impcat to digitally mock up my Space Marine colors then I brought the image onto my tablet where in front of a live studio twitch audience I kind of started to draw over it I'd never really thought to do this before but actually the whole process was really good fun I drew over some areas I knew that I was going to struggle with lighter like the non-metallic metallic helmet and it was actually extremely useful to be able to play around with colors and shading and highlighting without the added pressure of it becoming a messy blob of paint on a miniature at the end like I said I never considered doing this before but honestly if you can I really recommend giving it a go because I do feel like it trained my bra brain just a little bit before I tried tackling the main event so with my home brew chapter the emperor's grief all designed and finalized it was time for me to actually start painting the miniature and at this point I have a bit of a confession to make I know this video is about taking those little steps outside of your comfort zone to become a better painter and that doesn't happen overnight but I really really want this Space Marine to look good I think it's because I set this whole thing up as being like a challenge and if you know me you know I take challenges very seriously but I really want to prove that I can do it and for me doing it is for some reason making this Space Marine the best Space Marine I've ever painted in the world ever I decided to start with what I thought would be the least intimidating part of the miniature the red elements and instead of busting in with the most saturated base coat ever which always tempts me into more orangey tones down the the line I decided to make it a more muted base coat by using a bit more was Daka red than usual you may have noticed that when Games Workshop releases painting tutorials for Space Marines they tend to be very leg Centric and that's because the leg is a really good area to practice on it's got lots of edges and curves and a nice round knee part so that's what I did on this half of the miniature I focused hard on trying to get the leg looking just right and then when I thought it was looking okay I would take a picture of the Space Marine bring it into my drawing program scribble all over it take it back to my painting desk and then I would keep on trying and between that process and me for once deciding to actually use reference images to help me out which I don't know why I don't do more often because it's so smart and so helpful and I do it with every other art so why not miniature painting the miniature actually started to look quite good but also not great not like incredible and definitely not the best Space Marine in the world which has ever been painted which was what I was aiming for but nonetheless I decided to cut my losses and move on from the red side and kind of have another look at it after I had painted the purple side the purple side I'm happy to say actually went pretty well and I think unexpectedly it ended up being a lot easier than the red side was I think it's because it was very easy for me to just mix in some very subtle white tones for the highlights and gradually build up my shiny layers like that whereas with the red the orange and yellow temptation is just always there and once I'd finished the purple side I kind of don't know why I was so scared of purple at all it seems fine I think I just needed to push myself to actually use it on a miniature properly and now that I have I hope that we can be friends again after this video that would be nice after the main color split was in I decided to move on to that weird silver gray halfs split leg and if you guys can think of a lore reason why this chapter would have that or if you have any lore or background ideas in general for the emperor's grief please pop them in the comment section below so I can read them and maybe if you like we can flesh out this chapter a little bit more in another video anyways I made the silver just a little bit too shiny maybe because I was vibing really hard off the shiny red leg I did earlier but honestly I kind of dig it and I ended up painting gray pretty well I think so I suppose that's another tick for the challenge at this point I was starting to feel a little bit more confident in the project as a whole like some of the things I thought I would really struggle with had gone sort of okay if not better than I expected but of course I decided to leave the worst for last because it was time to paint all of the non-metallic metallics and worst of all the helmet I was feeling pretty motivated having practiced loads on my tablet so I cracked in on what I thought would be one of the easier Parts which was the trim on the pldr I decided to try and keep the non-metallic elements pretty simple without a bunch of those mad reflective shiny lines everywhere and just keep it to a few areas of shine and contrast here and there I also found this pin from Warhammer Fest which was like the perfect reference for non-metallic gold and I was really happy about that and I kept it next to me whilst I painted and again I felt like I was really starting to learn and maybe even potentially I was doing quite well too until it was time for me to paint the space marinees helmet and as I predicted I struggled a lot like I said I kind of knew that I would struggle here so I tried to keep it really simple and just do a nice high contrast gradient from the bottom to the top with all of my metallic colors I'd used already with just a few nice highly saturated shiny Reflections and refractions at the bottom of the helmet but it just wasn't looking right I also tried to get some inspiration by looking at what a bunch of other amazing painters had done to tackle this weirdly shaped area and I mean I can see it I can see what they're doing but I just wasn't able to replicate it and unfortunately at this point in my painting process the focal point of the entire miniature wasn't looking so hot one of my big toxic traits that I've noticed about myself when I'm painting War Hammer is that unless I am 100% happy with a miniature I really struggle to put that miniature down and walk away from it at the end of a day and that often means that I end up exhausting myself and solidly running myself into the ground and unfortunately that's what ended up happening here with this miniature by the time I had gotten around to the helmet and I was struggling I was painting solidly and furiously for around 4 to 6 hours nonstop and and I hadn't even looked at the time which also meant that I hadn't thought to do things like eat or drink or rest or you know any of the other things that humans need to basically function and stay alive and if you relate to this experience or you know how it feels to get into this weird obsessive head space for hours and hours then you'll know that when you finally snap out of it you are just so exhausted by the time it got to around 1:00 in the morning I realized that I had messed myself up a bit I was starting to feel borderline unwell and that's really not good at all so even though I wasn't super happy with where I left my miniature I managed to pop it on my shelf for the night to wave it goodbye and drag myself home to have a big late dinner and get tons of sleep I could have stayed up until I don't know like 5:00 in the morning trying to get that helmet looking perfect but what actually will affect the quality of the paint job is if the painter me is well rested fed and most most importantly happy so for once I actually tried to practice while I preach and I'm so glad that I did because I ended up coming in the next day with much more energy and a fresh outlook on the miniature I added a few extra glazes and highlights and I worked on it a little bit more until the helmet was looking a little bit better and I was much happier with it after that the rest of the Space Marine was fortunately pretty easy sailing I decided to paint the sword gold with a simple two gradient classic Power sword technique and I added in the rest of the little details like the Purity seals and the extra gobbin with no issue whatsoever after I'd finished all the extra details I was so relieved because I thought I was finished with the Space Marine and I could move on but then I realized that I had forgot to do any chapter symbol whatsoever his pauldrons lay Barren and my day was ruined so I whipped out my tablet to see if I could come up with something the chapter is called the emperor's grief so my immediate thought for a chapter symbol was something like an eyeball or a teardrop shape to look like it's crying but just drawing an eye means it looks pretty close to the Suns of Horus and unfortunately a teardrop just looks exactly the same as a blood drop and that makes it look like a blood Angel especially on a red pauldron after a while of playing around with different concepts I landed on one which I really liked which is a bit of a mashup of the two except it's got really strong kind of Legend of Zelda egypti Vibes which is cool and mysterious and I think will work to Spur up some inspiration and speculation as to their lore later on I quickly freehanded the symbol a classic big arrow and some subtle weathering onto the marine and with that he was finally done which meant that it was time to move on to the final part of the challenge the Bas I'd already sort of mocked up this really cool Scenic bass idea using some vintage Forge World Bass Toppers some spare little Twiggy scraps and an old doorway piece from I think hero Quest or something and it Incorporated the stone and wood Elements which I wanted and I think it framed the miniature really nicely but I don't know as usual I wanted more I wanted it to be better and bigger and fancier and I knew that what my Space Marine really needed was a plinth ah yes the mighty plinth the ultimate golden demon wind bait apart from you know actually being good at painting and spending years and years practicing fer skill it's mostly plinths though I promise I'm fairly sure that a good plinth makes any miniature look like a billion per better so I quickly sketched one up which had a similar vibe to my mockup but Incorporated more of the things I hate painting like Cobblestone and Big viny Trees I sent it off to Tom and within a day he had made the best plinth ever because he's weird and talented like that the plinth printed out an absolute treat and I was so pumped but unfortunately my excitement was shortlived because it was once again time for me to suffer and paint some Stone I decided to take some inspiration from these bright old castle rocks which I photographed back home in Scotland a few years ago because they're not just gray and boring they're really bright and beautiful and colorful they have a ton of purple and greens and other colors in them too which is perfect for my painting style I knew that I wanted to keep the background pretty dark to contrast and frame the bright Space Marine so I started base coating the stone in this dark grayish purple color which I blended into some purple dark tones around the edges for a little bit of extra depth instead of washing the whole thing with non oil I decided to use a dark green Teresa shade each Stone and whilst that was a little bit timec consuming it gave me a result that I was much happier with than any other time I'd painted Stone so I felt like I was definitely onto a winner here with this method I thinned down some yellowy gray tones and I used them to add a few sporadic washy highlights to to some of the stones and then I gave each Stone a few lighter Edge highlights then to finish off I added a few green and yellow sepia washes around some of the stones and the recesses to really make them look old and mossy the trees were a little bit more of a struggle for me as I fully expected them to be just like Stone I think that I struggle with trees because as a wise painter once told me trees aren't Brown which of course infuriated me because of course trees are brown and they have little green Cloud shapes on top which are the leaves and that's just the rules of trees I don't make the rules I'm sorry well no apparently trees aren't Brown they're actually gray and sort of brown but mostly a mix of the most bizarre colors ever I decided to keep my tree cohesive with the background and start by using some purpley tones for the base coat and hey look at me using purple more often do I actually like using purple now I don't know maybe instead of traditional brown tones I mixed in a lot of yellowish grayish colors to highlight the the tree to keep it looking Moody and desaturated and honestly I really like it I'm so pleased with how this little plin turned out and I think it may accidentally end up being the best part of the miniature in fact I am so happy with it that right now on my patreon I have released a full painting tutorial for the plinth as well as the STL for the plinth itself so you can download that print it out and paint it up however you like or like mine using the tutorial and trust me this plinth suits like every single miniature ever so if you can please consider signing up to my patreon it really helps support this Channel and I really appreciate it so thank you after i' finished the plinth I put the whole thing together did a little bit of tidying up and at long last I was ready to unveil the fruits of my suffering the very first Space Marine of The Emperor's [Music] grief and there he is an entire miniature and chapter build and formed of things that I absolutely hate painting and considering that he was created to make me suffer I kind of like him and he's not actually the worst thing that I've ever painted in my life so take that suffering I've definitely learned a lot from this project which Beyond me wanting to entertain you with my despair is kind of what I wanted to do in this video anyway over all of these years I've been painting I've often avoided things which make me uncomfortable or I know I'm not very good at because I just want to be seen as being good at my craft this was a great project to get me out of my comfort zones and to force me to actually practice painting things that I've been avoiding all this time and if you struggle to paint a certain color or technique then I really recommend you try this out yourself and make make your own custom Space Marine chapter but I think that the main takeaway I've had from this whole experience has been more about how I manage my own feelings about maybe not being the best at something becoming a pro at something really does take a lot of time especially something as difficult as miniature painting and miniature painting is very difficult and I think the hard truth is is that if you want to get good at something you have to start by being a little bit sucky at it and that's okay just take your time and be proud of yourself and be proud of the little things that you've created and left along your path to being great and I'm afraid that's all we have time for today I hope you like this video and as usual thank you for being Rogues I will see you in the next one bye bye-bye

Channel: Rogue Hobbies

Views: 101,224

Keywords: warhammer 40k, warhammer 40k lore, warhammer, space marines, warhammer 40000, warhammer 40k space marines, warhammer lore, 40k, warhammer 40k timeline, imperium of man, warhammer 40k henry cavill, space marines 40k, space marine 40k, space marines lore, astartes, games workshop, art, how to paint miniatures, speed paint, warhammer community, miniatures, warhammer40k, grimdark, 40k 10th edition, painting warhammer

Id: WNiPsHZ7EEk

Length: 22min 3sec (1323 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 22 2023