They say it's a poor craftsman who blames their tools. Is it a poor craftsman who gives them credit when things work out? If so, I am that craftsman.
After my first round of not-great miniature painting, I ran off some more CW minis and tried more painting, this time digging up my well-hidden actually-for-minis paints (as opposed to the standard craft store acrylics I used the first time around), which I had more than I thought I did, and limited myself to my tiniest brushes. I also watched a few more YouTube videos about painting minis just to get a better feel for what it looked like when people did that. How did it come out? Still not great, but better.
The first of batch #2 and by a considerable margin the worst. Involved some ill-advised dry brushing and the metallic paint I used for the weapons and I didn't thin the metallic paint I used on the weapons and side windows, losing all the detail in the process.
This one...is actually OK. The thinned blue and purple paints give a nice shading effect from how they pooled a bit, and I got the dry brushing right on the windshield.
Still having issues with the very fine details, but works OK. Would not be ashamed to put it on the table.
Even worse, but still not as bad as the first one. I think my main problem here is figuring out a good mix of colors to used with a yellow base.
Another not bad one, but I was too aggressive putting on a blue wash or perhaps just didn't let it dry long enough, because it pulled some of the paint off of the primed layer, letting some white show through.
And another not great but not bad one. Need to come up with a way of getting color on the grille, still mostly primer gray here, without messing up the main color.
So, then, just using the right materials for the job made for a significant improvement. I'm starting to print yet another round of minis where I'll continue practicing the techniques I used here and maybe try some new ones.
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