My Attempt at Painting a GW Balrog

[Andrew D. Gable]

Thanks a ton for putting this up... I too had purchased a GW Balrog quite a bit ago and was similarly rather intimidated. As it was, I rather naïvely (and not a little ambitiously!) also used it as my experiment in blending... not the best choice of figure for that. As it was, I abandoned painting it, I was so frustrated. This inspired me to maybe start again.

Come to think of it, I haven't painted miniatures in like... ever.

 

[Greatwyrm]

Beautiful work. I did okay on character sized figures, but I never got anything as big as that looking good.

 

[Keith Robinson]

Thanks for the positive feedback, guys I'm certainly glad if this thread motivates a few people to pick up their paint brushes and have a go themselves, as it was pogre's and kris' threads that partly inspired me. That and the crappy paint jobs of the recent ddm stuff they've been putting out!

I've now turned my attention to my Paizo goblins

What the hell are you talking about you not being the best of painters?!

Heh - thanks, but really, take it from me that I'm not. Several years back I painted up some orcs and a dragon and then just stopped when my son was born. I sold off all my metal minis, none of which I'd gotten around to painting (otherthan the aforementioned orcs and dragon), and replaced them with the plastic ddm line. Recently, however, I started to find the ddm quality dropping off, so I started to touch up a figure here and there and even repainted a couple. I guess in total I repainted maybe a dozen and touched up maybe a dozen more. Prior to the balrog, that really is pretty much the sum of my experience painting minis.

Don't get me wrong, I'm generally happy with the final outcome, as I just want a decent tabletop standard, but I'm still learning many of the basic techniques - in particular, I find doing washes and highlights very difficult, and am still unsure how make effective looking leather, paint drow-black flesh, make hair look realistic, etc. But I'm learning, even though I don't paint much, and I'm enjoying it. And for those reasons, I was very happy with the way the balrog turned out

Thanks again.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Very nice job Keith. It's a pretty big figure to paint and I definitely think you did it justice.

Did you look up anywhere online for advice on how to paint it or did you just do what you thought would look good?

Olaf the Stout

 

[Rhun]

Awesome paintjob! The Balrog looks great. I just wish I could paint like that.

 

[Keith Robinson]

Thanks, guys

Did you look up anywhere online for advice on how to paint it or did you just do what you thought would look good?

A bit of both, I guess. I based the initial idea on the picture that came on the box, but wanted mine to be more fiery, so it kinda looked like a living molten demon (the picture was much darker with more black surface area). Some things - like the fiery mane - I went and looked up on the internet for the best way to paint it. As I said, I'd never painted any kind of fire before and since this was a significant chunk of the mini, I wanted to get it right. But pretty much everything was a learning curve, so I was always happy to look to the internet for help

 

[jaerdaph]

Very impressive! I wish I had the patience and the talent to attempt something like that.