Warhammer 40k

I went into a games workshop with my son yesterday and I have to say, as someone who knows nothing about any of this stuff, I’m so impressed with the artistry and skill involved.

The sheer attention to detail. The shading etc. you must have to have a very steady hand, a tiny brush and a lot of patience! The owner of the shop said it’s quite meditative and I can see why.

You might see this as work in progress but I’m blown away by the love that goes into these mini figures.

Looking good. Great shading, but you need to take that to the metals as well. You can treat them just like the rest of your model (shade and edge highlight).

Non-Metallic Metals are the new hotness (and for good reason. There are plenty of videos that go over how to do it. It might take time, but it's worth it to try.

As for eyes, the best trick I learned was to paint the skin first. When you paint the eyes, use a magnifier (head or desk mounted) to better see what's happening. Don't be afraid of going outside the area when painting the whites, as you can just touch-up the skin.

You did really great on these. The edge highlighting is very consistent and makes the purple stand out. So I would build up on things which benefit from that.

Don't stress the eyes. Especially with AJ the other detail you have in the face the viewer will just assume they are in the shadows and not notice. You can lean into that illusion by doing a darker shade coat and some even brighter highlights on the face (nose and cheekbones on this guy, for example). Mediocre Hobbies shows done good examples of this technique.

With edge highlighting that crisp in the swords you will be able to pay around with NMM and your highlights will cover for any trouble on the blending/transitions. Nice midpoint is too do NMM style transitions between a few different shades of silver, then top it off with your sharp edge again. It will make those swords look more alive.

If you have the patience to add a few layers to your process you can bump the shadows all around so the sink as much as you highlights rise. After the base coats hit the whole mini with shade paint (probably Nuln Oil for these colors) and then re-establish the base colors, leaving the darker edges, maybe one lighter purple on that (even a dry brush from above to show light), and then your edge highlights like you have here.

Last thing is take photos of one at a time. For the life of me I can't figure out how to get 3+minis in focus at once and I think we miss some of your with here because the camera is confused about what to focus on.