Goblin King Help

cooper101183 · **Posted:** Wed May 21, 2014 8:50 am

I have tried to paint the Goblin King twice and just cant get the flesh look right right. The problem seems to be applying the layer it ends up looking chalky and looks to much like it has been painted rather than a natural look and the brushstrokes on the round part of his belly seem to be visible. I want a nice smooth look. I can get it perfect on the smaller goblins its just this big guy.

Any Ideas?

JamesR · **Posted:** Wed May 21, 2014 12:11 pm

Several actually lol.
1. Are you thinning your paints? Because if you're not then I'd highly recommend that you start, makes layers much more smooth

2. Do you "cross-hatch" your strokes? By this I simply mean do you alternate the direction of your paint application? For example if coat 1 is applied left to right then your strokes on coat two should be up to down, that way brush strokes aren't being deepened into ruts but instead removed.

3. Do you let each layer fully dry in the area you're painting before moving onto the next coat? Because if you're not then the half-dry paint can do some weird stuff.

4. Also making sure the brush is well taken care of will help as well, incase the bristles are becoming too firm etc

Hope that helps

cooper101183 · **Posted:** Wed May 21, 2014 1:19 pm

Thanks James, In regards to the Goblin King I prime white, wash with crimson, drybrush with Eldar Flesh, everything looks great and then out comes the Pallid flesh and it goes to hell. I have not been diluting this as it is already a very wet paint, maybe I should. Thanks for the tips about alternating brush strokes I was not aware of that.

JamesR · **Posted:** Wed May 21, 2014 2:07 pm

Glad to help, its simply that GW paints are rather thick if you're not diluting them. Also your described technique may be a part of this as dry-brushing tends to pick up any brush-stroke marks on the model, making them more noticeable. Not to say you shouldn't dry-brush it just might be why you're noticing the brush strokes at all

Wise Old Elf · **Posted:** Thu May 22, 2014 9:26 pm

Wet-palette... wet-palette... wet-palette!!!

I can't emphasise enough how brilliant these things are! I started using one a few months back and haven't stopped using one since, it'll make your miniatures instantly look fifty times better!

cooper101183 · **Posted:** Thu May 22, 2014 9:30 pm

I have been using a wet palette for some time however with citadel dry paints I use them straight from the pot, do you recommend adding them to the palette also? I too noticed a massive improvement using a wet palette.

Hodush · **Posted:** Fri May 23, 2014 4:04 am

Wet palette does not equal a thinned down paint. According to the GW site, Dry paints are for drybrushing and are THICKER than usual (which is already too much IMO). Either use a different paint not from the dry range, or give it a go watering it down, there shouldn't be any issues in doing so.

Never use paints straight from the pot (an exception might be for basecoating on regular troops which you are happy to do a tabletop standard on). NEVER!

Chalky looks are associated with drybrushing or dry paint clumping - for this model you probably shouldn't be drybrushing anything, except as a light layer on a black undercoat before basecoating, or immediately after the basecoast, but then if you do too much you will just end up with a clump again.

For models with a lot of skin you want to be watering down a lot (this is a good rule for any skin) - you would be wanting to do at least 2 layers for each skin tone (which would be equivalent to less than 1 application straight from the jar). I'm not expecting you to do this straight up, but this is what is done to get smoother results - just thinning down paints is a good place to start.

cooper101183 · **Posted:** Fri May 23, 2014 4:55 pm

Thanks for advice guys

Wise Old Elf · **Posted:** Thu May 29, 2014 2:34 am

Hodush wrote:

Wet palette does not equal a thinned down paint.

No, no it doesn't. But it does loosen the paints so that they're easier to paint with, create tonal blending, and don't dry as quickly as just slapping paint onto a palette/tile/etc. Even a mixture of paint and water on a palette will dry quicker than paint mixed on a wet-palette. When painting my Goblin King, I used the same wet-palette over a period of three days and the paints had barely dried at all.

Goblin King Help

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