Hi everyone!

If you have purchased the Dark Sword Masterworks Painting with Jen/Anne DVD set and have watched a good chunk of it, please let us know your thoughts on it. I am trying to compile any comments/thoughts on people that have watched the Dark Sword DVD (and comparisons to other DVD sets out there are appreciated as well) so I can post them up and people can read them. Has it helped you/given you new insights or "ah ha!" eye opening moments? Is it something you would recommend to a fellow miniature painter?

As I am sure you have seen if you have watched it already - the Dark Sword DVD approach has Jen/Anne talking through everything they do over the entire DVD. There is no music at all to fill in painting time. It is all talking with very little verbal down-time. And it is all live, not voice over talking done in post production. It is important for me to ensure that there is a very casual "viewer-friendly" style on this DVD as they demonstrate everything as this is how I learn best. Early reviews on the DVD set seem to embrace this approach we have taken on the Dark Sword DVD set.

Thanks!

Jim
www.DarkSwordMiniatures.com

I just got mine in the mail along with a few other instructional dvd's. I'll give them a watch and let you know my thoughts as well as comparisons to the others.

Great DVD, you two are just great together. Would love to see you both in another set sometime. Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

I've had the DVD's for a while now and watch them in small pieces. I most recently watched the part that Jen does on transparent fabric and thought she did a great job on explaining and demonstrating it. I watched that piece before trying it myself. Hers was informative, and hers definitely came out better than mine!

I purchased the video to add to my collection of DVD. I have the Hot Lead with Laslo, I felt that the way Jen and Anne showed the technniques was better and allowed those not new to the concept to understand. I would love to see more videos with either Jen or Anne or both doing advanced things such as (painting liquids in bottles/glasses, OSL lighting on magical swords, etc).

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone. It is indeed appreciated. I am in the editing stages right now of the sequel DVD - Masterworks Miniature Painting with Marike Reimer. The footage is amazing and Marike really goes to town on her techniques. It will be a great 1-2 combo having the Jen/Anne DVD to watch first and then watch the Marike DVD after that. Some amazing instruction to say the least...

We are looking at a Gen Con 2012 (August) release date - maybe sooner....

Thanks again!

Jim
www.DarkSwordMiniatures.com

Just finished watching the video.

I enjoyed it much more than I expected from the reviews. The main thing I was worried about was the number of references to them bantering back and forth. In my mind they just had a light hearted discussion during the DVD and did not take away from the quality of the information.

Anne has a great sense of humor and keeps the material interesting. I also appreciated the constant tips on colors and reminders on how to apply the color theory.

What I would like more of:

Details on mixing paint to the right consistency.
Summary of the colors suggested in print form for the different sections.
A short tutorial on how to use a wet pallet. Also showing from time to time the pallet, paint consistency while actually painting the figure.

Overall the DVD was great and I have already improved my painting. it was money and time well spent.

I'm a bit late to the party but after meeting both Jen and Anne at ReaperCon this year I knew I HAD to get this vid! (I prefer the download & got mine through Coolminiornot.com.) I have a couple instruction vids - one other by Jen and then some other professional painters and I was concerned this might be redundant.

Not at all! Every mini is different and I learned even more techniques to add to my painter's toolbox. Even if a certain technique was the "same" on another vid, seeing it again, on a different mini, a different angle, etc. improved my understanding.

Anne was great too although my first thought was "this is going to be more than I ever wanted or need to know about paint, especially the manufacturing process." But it was very interesting and Anne did not beat the subject into the ground. Now I find myself using that knowledge more and more when I never thought I would need it.

The only thing I wished for was being able to watch completion of all of the tiny details. Many times because of camera angles or needing a visor to get into the tiniest areas, we can't see the whole thing. I understand although I can't help but wonder if it would ever be possible to take a "helmet-cam" and turn it into a "visor-cam".

I can't wait for Marike's video and hope it will also be offered with a choice of DVD or Download.

Cheers,
Kath

Forgive my tardiness but I just purchased and finished watching all the DVD’s. I’m still pretty new to the hobby (started a couple years ago but due to building and moving I had to put it aside and recently came back), and I’ve watched a ton of instructional videos on YouTube before purchasing this set.

After watching it I really felt like I picked up a trove of gems I hadn’t heard elsewhere. The banter between Anne and Jen was great! I find the music in the background of other videos distracting so the conversational approach of this DVD set was much appreciated! Having the two of them made it feel informal and laid back. Also, since both are obviously comfortable with each other one person would often be talking and the other would interject another point of view, a little nugget of information, or valuable tangent.

To nitpick a little I do wish some of the projects that they started on they could have gone into more depth and illustration. An example would be the OSL section. Here the project was more or less started by being blocked in and then the viewer told how to proceed to finish. That left me wishing I could see how they would bring the colors up on the model and how that was ultimately done. For example, is the model painted first and then the OSL glazed over to achieve the colors or is a separate color palate used for the lighted areas and then blended into the darker shaded colors where the OSL doesn’t hit? I would have also liked to have seen a little more work done with different colored NMM. Don’t get me wrong, what was offered was very good, but I wish I could have seen a little more.

A couple other nitpick areas that Dave above suggested and I agree with:
"Details on mixing paint to the right consistency.
Summary of the colors suggested in print form for the different sections.
A short tutorial on how to use a wet pallet. Also showing from time to time the pallet, paint consistency while actually painting the figure."

With all the great information spread across the DVD’s the one area I really appreciated was at the end where they give their miscellaneous tips. Here they dove into patience, persistence, and reminding the viewer that it’s a hobby and you should have fun with it. I’m overly ambitious at times and I’ve been told by many I’m a perfectionist. Often I get frustrated with my own limitations and my lack of progress. Just last night while painting I started to get frustrated and I made myself reflect on the section of patience, persistence, and for the love of Peat have some fun!

I’d also like to give a word of thanks to whoever picked out the mini’s to be used in the DVD’s. Call me a prude but I’ve got little ones and I’ve passed on instructional DVD’s that show a lot of nudity or racy mini’s. I know, it's all art but frankly I don’t want stuff on the cover of DVD’s where little hands might accidentally grab them.

Thanks so much for making these! They are invaluable to me!

Thanks for the kind words. These DVDs are about the best value on the planet as you get over 10 hours of instruction from amazing world-class painters for about $5.00 an hour. The Marike DVD comes in around $4.00 an hour.

The big thing with filming DVD sets like ours (Jen/Anne and the Marike DVD set from Dark Sword) is what to include and what to not include.

The Jen/Anne DVD is a baseline building block DVD that can take a person from level 1 to level 7. The Marike DVD is an intermediate DVD that can take a person from level 4 to level 9. There is of course some overlap between the two, but this was by design so the DVD sets complimented each other with different approaches on certain topics.

The Jen/Anne DVD touches on more concepts to provide a rock solid baseline understanding/starting point while the Marike DVD has deeper dives on fewer concepts.

Thanks again for the kind words. They are appreciated. It is a good time to be a miniature painter with all these amazing tutorial resources out there. I wish I had these when I was a young painter in the 1980's!

Jim
www.DarkSwordMiniatures.com

I am almost finished watching the third and last of the three DVDs and have found this DVD set very enlightening and useful, and well worth the purchase price and the time to watch. I had recently watched Hot Lead's instructional DVD, which I also found useful, but I found Jen and Ann's video definitely helped and was not duplicative. Even where they covered the same techniques as that other DVD set, Jen and Ann added information, tips and demonstration that complemented and added to what I learned from the other DVD set, so I'm glad I bought and watched this set as well.

I found having the two painters, Jen and Ann, provide their different perspectives on various techniques, etc., was both useful and also made watching the video more entertaining than having a single person talking throughout. While I was glad I watched Hot Lead's DVDs the little music intro to each and every segment drove me crazy by the end, so I was glad the segments in Jen's/Ann's DVDs were mostly fewer and longer and did not have an annoying music at the beginning of each segment.

I do wish there had been more camera shots of the pallete and paint consistency being used for the different techniques, not every time but on several occasions, in order to demonstrate how thick or thin the paint was when doing certain washes, glazes, blending, etc.

Also, it would be nice to have the color being applied at any given time shown in a caption in writing even for a moment on the bottom of the screen, or to get the names of the paints/colors used in writing enclosed with the DVD. I found myself many times rewinding to catch what color was mentioned here or there, and a few times the color was not specified when it was applied. While of course it is not necessary to have a precise formula, but it helps to know the colors or color mixes are being used as an example, to see how these experienced painters select colors for highlights, shading, etc.

Overall I found this DVD set to be a great resource and would definitely recommend it. It also definitely inspired me to want some of the Dark Sword miniatures used for the demonstrations.