Moonbreaker - Improving your painting!

Hello! Below is a bunch of tips, advice and general things you can apply to your miniature paintings to make them much higher quality!

Note: There's probably going to be some things I'll miss on my first publication of this guide or some small typos so if you spot anything that you think would help the guide better make sure to send them over in the comments.

1 - How to use the brushes and tools effectively

1: Paint - this brush will simply just paint on a model, nothing special it will just paint wherever you brush.

2: Wash - This brush is used for painting the lower areas of the miniature, cracks, dents and creases is where this brush shines the most, it's great for adding quick extra detail to make your miniature look alive and interesting.

3: Dry brush - this brush only paints on the highest areas of the miniature surface, great for painting sharp edged surfaces like weapons and armour. It's also really helpful to add in some extra highlights on your miniature to make the edges pop.

4: Air brush - this is pretty much like a spray paint, its softer and adds paint with an air/pressure effect

5: Stipple - this is a detail/noise brush, it will add little dots on the surface of your miniature. It's great for many uses but mainly in my purpose to add random extra noise on parts of a miniature.

6: Decals - these are pretty much fancy stickers you can place on your miniature to give quick and high quality details.

Extras
Save system - make sure to save! Get into the habit of it, because you will regret it when you lose some awesome work, make sure to save a lot. Better yet make a copy of your miniature when painting it so you can branch off and explore ideas.

Opacity - is how strong your brush is when painting, you can slide this up and down to use a lighter/darker tone. This is also great for mixing colours, you can use opacity to add certain levels of colours to an already existing colour.

Brush palette - There's already loads of brushes but be sure to make your own and get creative, don't have a good colour make one! Also make sure to try all of them out and experiment with what they can bring to your miniatures.

2 - Extra keybinds and hotkeys

Here's some of the extra keybinds that you might want to learn and use, they will speed up your painting and also make your experience much easier.

Go back - CTRL + Z
Go back - CTRL + Y
Brush hardness Shift + (Up) and Shift - (Down)
Mask painting - Shift
Toggle UI - TAB

The movement and camera controls are all quite standard and traditional but I'd also recommend you adjust the bindings if you find them strange.

3 - Planning a miniature painting

When starting a miniature it's best to consider and plan a few things, ask yourself a few questions. They are basic but will really give you a good start.

1 - What overall theme am I going for?
2 - What are the main colours of your miniature?
3 - Where is the focus of the miniature?

An important thing to do is possibly get some references if you really wanna get a good start
Go to the internet and grab some images of characters, colours or anything to help you get inspired and get ideas flowing, you can find good images on places like “Artstation” and “pinterest” a little side tip, you can use a software called (Pureref) its free and allows you to have images sitting on your screen anywhere while you paint. This is great for those using a single monitor.

Another thing to do is just start by laying down basic colours onto the model with little detail, just get some rough colours down and worry about detail later. One last thing to think about is the context of your painting, make sure to paint using believable colours and shapes. This helps views see your work more clearly and understand it better.

4 - Artistic direction and theory

Once you have defined some ideas it is really good to outline your exact colours, shapes and overall approach to the miniature.

Colour theory - getting good colour theory in your miniatures will just make your work look 10x better, our eyes like to see certainly colours work together because we are used to it in the real world. So when painting, think about what colours contrast nicely and what colours blend and overall where should your colours be placed. A good example is christmas, christmas colour themes are reds, greens and whites mainly and all of these colours fit very nicely together. You can use a colour wheel or a colour palette generator website to build a good set of colours to get started with.

Shape theory - when painting thinks about the shape that already exists, does it have armour? If so then maybe you could use a lot of hard edges to amplify the other shapes. This will help the model look much more believable. You can also consider shapes on damage and patterns on the miniatures to apply extra effect, such as adding edge highlights to make the damage more deep looking.

5 - Artistic tips

These are just some basic tips that will help you advance the miniature painting process, this is my own personal advice after all so you may not agree but it's personally how i approach painting in Moonbreaker

1 - Try to work on the model in phases, start with a base layer then move onto a secondary colour pass then maybe start your first detail passover. Think about splitting up your ideas for the miniature into easier parts.

2 - Try not to get tunnel visioned on one small area, getting bogged down in one area for a long time could mean nothing when painting details, this whole model so make sure to take a step back after once in a while to see how your work is progressing.

3 - If you have references try to replicate the techniques. This could be just adding in colour variation into the surface of the miniature or even adding in brush strokes to add more effect and emphasis.

4 - Make sure to focus on the biggest parts of the miniature first, it will help you get a clear idea for the rest of the model. I'd recommend mainly starting in the torso/upper body area.

Once again there's loads more ways to approach this but these are some that come to mind for me.

6 - Add highlighting, gradients and shadows

I wanted to make this part specifically on its own because I think it's very important to the overall results of your miniature.

Highlights - added edge detail or adding brighter colours to the edges of places can really give your miniatures a next level look, instead of being very flat they will have brighter edges that define the overall shape much better. A great brush for this is the dry brush.

Gradients - add gradient miniatures, things like making the corners of a surface darker and the middle region brighter, this will really help add more overall shape to a miniature even though it's not 3D detail. You can get some great results using the opacity slider keeping this idea in mind.
Example gradients:


Shadows - darkening places that are concealed or get less direct light will need some shadow so make sure to add in some in the places you think it will matter most. The models do include some already existing shadow that's baked into the surface but adding some extra shadow really makes your model unique. You can utilise the wash brush and opacity for the best results.

7 - Extra tips

These are just some tips that are mainly not about the process of painting itself.

1 - interact with other players and use the discord, if you really wanna get some good results speak with others about what you are working on and get some feedback and they also could provide some great ideas .

2 - make sure to take breaks! These models can take a long time to fully paint in perfect detail and quality so make sure to rest and let your creativity recharge. Taking breaks will also help you not get burnout

3 - practice your skills, the more you do it the better you will get at painting the miniatures. I know this contradicts what i said above but you can find a good balance.

4 - if you really are looking to advance your skills then go and check out some videos or websites that demonstrate how to improve your art, this could be in traditional arts, 3D art or even in painting miniatures.

5 - It's kinda obvious but try not to feel jealous or feel like you're making bad miniatures. Other people's skills will be very different, so don't give up, learn from these people!

8 - Closing words

I hope this will help you make your miniature painting much stronger! If you liked it consider giving it a thumbs up or a favourite or even an award as it will boost it for others to see. Once again if you see anything missing or you have an idea make sure to share it with me and I'll be sure to add it! I have some of my 3D art on my steam profile if you are interested in seeing what I've learned so far in my art journey!

Thanks a ton for reading through! Looking forward to seeing all the new miniature paintings!

[lore]

cool

[The Spy]

Applicable for both the game and real life. Thank you

[DamJess]

This is awesome, thank you!

[RU55ELL]

Useful video for painting faces! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7a5cbacB8Y

[ecoclone]

I have been loving the painting as I had got out of the hobby years age so this if fantastic. I have some pics of my minis in the screen shots that show how insane you can get with them if you take the time

[RU55ELL]

no never, do you have any other devices that could stop it from working as expected like a drawing pad?

[Taubateh]

I'm having problems where the camera control stops working, did it happen to you too?

[Chimie]

Great intro guide

[Ethereus]

Thanks!

[Halabaloo]

Excellent guide!!