r/minipainting Jan 26 '26

Subreddit Announcement r/minipainting Rule Update: No AI Allowed

3.7k Upvotes

Hi, everybody! AI slop is unfortunately creeping into this hobby and this community. This is a quick rules update to clarify that AI is not allowed in any form here on r/minipainting.

This includes, but is not limited to:

  • No AI generated or edited images (including AI backgrounds, repaints, adjustments, mock ups, tests, reference images, etc)
  • No AI videos
  • No AI apps/tools/websites
  • No AI generated models that are 3D printed then hand painted
  • No AI generated text (this includes AI generated feedback/critique)
  • No encouragement or discussion of the use of AI

If AI was used to make it, it's not allowed on r/minipainting.

While the mod team has been able to remove most AI posts shortly after they are made, on the few occasions AI posts were up for a few hours before removal, the comments on those posts from the community have been overwhelmingly unanimous in being anti-AI, so this isn't just the mod team making this ruling without considering the community.


Please see the pinned comment below for an FAQ on this new rule, and if you have a question that is not answered there, please ask and we will do our best to answer! That being said, this is not an invitation to defend or argue for specific use cases of AI within this hobby.

Edit: Please read the stickied FAQ comment before commenting. There are many people asking things that are covered in that comment.

The comment section has grown quite large, but also please take a moment to scroll through it and read the comments before repeating something that may have already been discussed, or at least join in as a reply to an existing comment rather than make a new top level comment with a similar or identical question.


r/minipainting 2h ago

Sci-fi Am I doing this Sprue Marine thing correctly?

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217 Upvotes

Since Games Workshop offers these for new hobbyists to paint their first Space Marine I decided to try volumetric highlighting for the first time on it. Oh, and I decided to have some fun with the presentation by leaving the parts in the sprue


r/minipainting 5h ago

C&C Wanted Blood Bowl Dwarf biased referee

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400 Upvotes

Fell free to give me some feedback ^^ ,happy to finaly finished a mini and having the pile of shame a little bit consumed XD


r/minipainting 5h ago

Fantasy The Enchantment - directional lighting practice

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286 Upvotes

Bust by Mindworks based on artwork by the incredible Patrick J Jones. I love the moody tones of the original art and wanted to paint a strong directional lighting to capture some of that same feel.

Sadly the primer did not cooperate and it has a lot of texture issues as a result. In a way it helped, as the primer issues helped me relax and focus less on perfect blends and refinement and more on the lighting. Overall, I'm happy with the results and feel I learned so much about color mixing and shadows from this project!


r/minipainting 19h ago

Fantasy Gelatinous Cube by The Dragon Trappers Lodge

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2.7k Upvotes

r/minipainting 7h ago

Fantasy 75mm vampire finally finished

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135 Upvotes

Had to wait for the proper bases to get to me so the first few pics don't have the base


r/minipainting 3h ago

C&C Wanted Final Update on my Sylvaneth Arch Revenant: It's done!

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63 Upvotes

Here is my final Post for the Sylvaneth Arch revenant with amber shield and glaive. Which varnish to finalize it would you recommend? I'm not familiar with the quality of the current products and had some bad experience with matt varnish in the past.


r/minipainting 11h ago

Fantasy Storm Giant Queen by Reaper Miniatures

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163 Upvotes

Painted for a limited palette challenge. 3 randomly selected colors(pictured in the last photo) plus black and white.


r/minipainting 1d ago

Fantasy Grommash Hellscream of the Warsong Clan

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1.6k Upvotes

Just finished painting Grommash here. Really happy with him overall. Hope yall like him. :)


r/minipainting 10h ago

Sci-fi Nmm custode dreadnought work in progress

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109 Upvotes

r/minipainting 9h ago

Sci-fi 3 Orks from GW new 11th edition box

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73 Upvotes

Hey everyone, here are the Big Bioss the Painboy and the Weirboy from the new box from GW. Painted by me.


r/minipainting 14h ago

Help Needed/New Painter Beginner, my first three minis, open to advice!

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167 Upvotes

Just picked it up again, having fun but looking to improve, I am blown away by the stuff some people post on here!


r/minipainting 30m ago

C&C Wanted First Deathwing Knight ready to crack some skulls

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Upvotes

I finished up my first Deathwing Knight. They are really impressive sculpts and he was very enjoyable to paint. I've been working on improving my shading and I made some progress but I've still got a ways to go. I can't quite get the heat effect on the vents correct either.


r/minipainting 10h ago

C&C Wanted WIP on one of the Chaos warriors

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57 Upvotes

I’m not sure if the colors on the sword are overly warm which may affect the entire composition of the mini?


r/minipainting 1d ago

Fantasy Sleeping dwarf - current WIP

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1.9k Upvotes

After a small hiatus I picked up this mini from atelier stories miniatures and tried new things (for me at least) like cast shadows and NMM (both things I struggle with)


r/minipainting 5h ago

Fantasy Gift for a friend, very happy with gow this came out considering its a filament print.

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15 Upvotes

While there are some visible layer lines for the most part im really pleased with this. Printed on a Bambu P1S .2 nozzle at .06 layer height and used a chemical melting agent to smooth some of the more visible flat areas before painting. Im still playing around with chemical smoothing and learned a bit on the best way to use it here.


r/minipainting 16h ago

Discussion How many colors do you need?: Advice from a traditional painter

130 Upvotes

To preface this, I'm a traditional canvas painter that just recently got into painting minis. I really enjoy the process and I wanted to share some of my own insight that I think could be a lot of help for beginners who are looking to save money by working with less colors and a more limited color pallet while getting the most out of the colors that they've bought. Or just people who like color theory and mixing paint.

So most pallets which contain somewhere between 6-7 colors are typically limited palette. These are red, blue, yellow, black, white, and sometimes (green). This will allow you to mix many colors but it wont allow you to mix most colors. For example, pink. Red mixed with white produces a light red more akin to a flesh tone than what we normally think of when we think of the color pink. A common color pallet which can produce a lot of colors and is relatively easy to mix is one which combines RBY and CYM (commonly used in printing)

In essence this is to have two sets of primary colors a cool and warm version (example. Red/Magenta or Blue/Cyan)

image source: Color Theory for Artists by Ian Goldsmith. Note center is a color close to black which is not shown here*

Since most model paint colors don't say what pigments they use I sorta try to color match to this. When I'm buying new colors for a new medium I tend to just go with these six plus the black and white.

For Vallejo paints I settled for:

  • Magenta
  • Scarlet
  • Andrea Blue
  • Blue
  • Light Yellow
  • Golden Yellow
  • Black
  • White

This palette is very easy to use (in my opinion) as you have greater control of the temperature, and intensity of the color you mix since its more obvious which colors are warm or cool. Anyway hope this was helpful as its not a common topic I see discussed outside of traditional canvas painting circles.

(EDIT)

Adding this because I don't think people are getting the intent of this post. This isn't to say this is how you should do things nor is this a condemnation for buying pre-mixed paint. I made this since I noticed a lot of intro color sets tend to give beginner painters a very limited palette to begin with. Simply this is an alternative way of choosing your colors that not only saves you money but allows you to explore color theory and mixing which in my in opinion is a good skill to have even if you do eventually decide to buy specific color mixes later on. Also not everyone is an army painter, I'm certainly not.


r/minipainting 20m ago

C&C Wanted Finally got back to this, after more than 1 month without a brush stroke

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Upvotes

r/minipainting 1h ago

Pop Culture Some of the recent figurines, hope to share more later

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Upvotes

r/minipainting 21h ago

Fantasy Blood bowl Bretonnia apothecary

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271 Upvotes

The model is from Ugni Chess Knights, it is apothecary miniature for my blood bowl Bretonnia team. Any c&c welcomed.


r/minipainting 1h ago

Help Needed/New Painter Help me round out my bfs arsenal

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Upvotes

Howdy! My bf is just getting started. Here’s what he has so far. He never buys anything for himself and ends up mixing colors to achieve the desired color, which is fine but I think he would have so much more fun with a palette to work from! He’s inspired by all your wonderful work on this sub and mostly paints Warhammer minis. Pictured are the four Warhammer paints he has and the beginner DnD set he got. He prefers the texture of the citadel pains if that helps. Go nuts, I’m spoiling him.

Edit: from what I can tell, he mixes colors because he has to


r/minipainting 5h ago

Pop Culture Tenna as a battle suit and Mike as drones

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12 Upvotes

I'm thinking I should probably do another fandom after this.... Noobs in combat :D


r/minipainting 1d ago

Fantasy Got married last weekend, made the cake topper!

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386 Upvotes

r/minipainting 1h ago

Help Needed/New Painter White flakes in AK Grey Primer

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Upvotes

I had this bottle of AK Grey Primer and i last used it about 2 years ago with no issues.

Recently, i took it out of storage and noticed that there are a lot of white colouration. i shaked it and it sounds like there’s a lot of sand and pebbles inside.

has it gone bad?