Tips for painting Miniatures
Jul 19, 2018 13:16:40 GMT -5
The Semi-Retired Gamer, Maximum Forest Ranger, and 4 more like this
Post by ripx187 on Jul 19, 2018 13:16:40 GMT -5
I'm not sure where to file this under, so I'm going to post it here in General. If enough of us are interested in miniatures, go ahead and tell us your thoughts! If we can get 4 different threads going we can create a Miniature Subforum and put it somewhere.
I always sucked at model making, even today when I try to do it it still looks like the gluey hot messes that I'd make when I was 6-years-old. Now to tell you the truth, I never enjoyed doing that, I just don't have the patience for it. What I did like doing was painting the big Superhero statues that you could buy before all kids wanted to do was play video games. You'd get the plaster statue and that cheap set of paints complete with a horrible brush, and it was fun!
I actually think that working with metal is much easier, but I've seen people paint up those little green army men and have fantastic results that have lasted for years and that is soft plastic! Back in the day, the medium was lead, I've got a bunch of lead figures! Today manufacturers can't sell it and have to work with pewter which is much more expensive, and the old lead figures are now collector's items so they are expensive too, well expensive by figure standards, but I digress. Purchasing armies has never been considered cheap, but if you buy a figure that can work for your PC, it won't break the bank. Reaper Miniatures appears to be the current leaders of the market and the prices reflect that, the more people buying these things, the cheaper the prices, and Reaper knows what they are doing!
It used to be that hobby shops would have a whole wall of Ral Partha and Reaper minis, but for most of us, those days are long gone, so we must shop online. Depending on the figure, and how complex it is, it may require you to put it together. My wife LOVES doing that, and she's good at it; she's got a devilish looking lich armed with a lance riding a horse, it came in three pieces, the horse, the rider, and the lance. Me? I prefer the simpler ones that are just one piece.
Once you get your figure, you've got to do a bit of fixing. Lead was the best because it allowed you to pose the figure if you wanted to, or add all kinds of stuff to it. Pewter (or whatever it is) does have a degree of give, and the figures are soft enough to allow some movement. Usually the weapon is bent and you've got to straighten that out, it isn't a problem. Flashing (odd bits of metal left over from the casting process) also must be removed. We've got a little pair of hobby cutters that are small enough to get inside of there and clip things clean. If something is broken, you can fix it by putting a little drop of glue on the end of a toothpick and putting just touch onto the figure, put the broken part on the figure and hold it there until the glue sets and you can put it down to dry over-night.
Metal figures are very forgiving! It is also kind of funny, the local hobby store doesn't have the selection of figures that they used to, but if you ask them they still might have the box of broken material that you can dig through and buy cheap. Extra heads, arms that fell off, swords or other weapons. Most hobby shop owners enjoy this aspect of the hobby themselves and will gladly help you out. If you don't like the head, you can clip it off and put another on. If your character's favourite weapon is a mace, you can clip off the sword hand and find one that is holding a mace. You can buy broken figures cheap and repair them yourself, and don't forget to keep that stuff! You'll never know if you want to use that sword on another figure!
I personally hate those little bases that the individual characters come on and I always cut it off and remount it on a Quarter, just to give it some weight and better stability. I've seen people get really fancy with their bases! ChicagoWiz's work is amazing! He is a friendly resource for this kind of stuff! I am lazy and just paint the quarter green and call it a day, but you can get really detailed in it if you want to! Glue some hobby weeds and one of your extra heads to the base for a grizzly orc and you'll be a hero at the table!
Once your figure is dry and assembled how you want it (my wife, when she put together the horseback lich king attached the lich's lance but painted the horse and the lich separately before attaching them) I like to mount the entire thing onto a stick. We are still using my father-in-law's stick that he made for the purpose decades ago: It is just a couple of wooden hobby sticks that we call popsicle sticks or tongue depressors glued together, and we attach the figure to it with a bit of melted wax. This lets us hold the figure easier without getting paint on ourselves, and you can manipulate it so that you can get the paint in all of those cracks and crevices. Once the figure is done we can just pop the thing off of the stick and in it comes off clean.
You'll want to clean the figure too, with a wet q-tip, nothing too elaborate, just dust it off and prime the piece with a couple of layers of primer, this is a light coloured and very specific thing, it is what our paint will stick too. It dries pretty quick, but don't get in a rush. Make sure that the primer is dry before painting, and that the primer is in all of the cracks and crevices. Once it's dry, inspect it really close to make sure that you didn't miss anything, if you did then just apply a second coat but I bet that you didn't. This isn't rocket science! Once the figure is dry we are ready to paint.
Now there is a secret here that will save you tons of money. Many folks believe that you need those fancy model paints; you know, those acrylics. You don't. I buy craft paint from the hobby section at Wal-mart and get those cheap tubes. Those paints cost pennies and you can find the fancy colours too, like shiny silver, and it won't smell, won't stain, and can be cleaned up with soap and water, not to mention that you get way more bang for your buck! Craft paint dries really fast too, so painting goes quicker.
A word about brushes. If you are just trying this out for the first time, you can use cheap brushes, but once you find that you enjoy it, take some of that money that you saved from using craft paint instead of model paint and invest in a really nice set of paint brushes. You'll use these and they will pay for themselves. For high detail work, you can trim the bristles off of a cheap kids paint brush so that there are only two or three bristles, this will allow you to do some pretty fancy stuff! But a professional artist set will save you time and energy of having to trim those things yourself.
Now, get a paper plate and pick out what colours that you think that you are going to use. Look at the figure and make a plan. Let's say that the figure is wearing leather armour, and we want the leather to be brown. Squirt some brown on the plate and some white next to it and take a little bit from each colour and mix it together in its own little puddle. Keep at it until it's the colour you want and you have enough of it and apply it to your figure where you want it. It doesn't take much paint, a good rule of thumb is to work light to dark, simply because light colours don't cover dark colours as well, but don't get hung up on it. Since we are using craft paint, if you hate the paint job we can always strip it off and try again.
Paint your basics first, if the guy is holding a sword, paint the sword your fancy silver colour first, and then go back and carefully paint the hand with a smaller brush. Smaller brushes allow us to control the paint. My wife likes to show off and she will use a magnifier and paint itty bitty details that nobody but her is aware of. My father-in-law painted a magic book on a pedestal and if you look really close you can see that he actually managed to put little details of the text on it. THAT is showing off! I'll also tell you that my father-in-law was a professional tattoo artist, so there you go. Me? I just go for general detail, but with the trimmed brush method even I can get some really fine results, and I don't have the steady hands of a surgeon.
So, paint the large area's, blowing on it to dry it as you go. You don't want to put wet paint on wet paint, it will ruin it. Painting is a relaxing hobby that gives us pleasure and a chance to listen to those records we've been clinging too. My wife and I do it together and we just chit chat and have fun. Don't be in a rush. Once you get more confident, if you want to go out and buy an army to paint up all at once, that isn't so relaxing, but painting figures one at a time really is soothing to the soul.
Paint what details you can. You'll need more than one brush as each colour should be applied with a clean dry brush. I mean, if you paint something black, switch brushes, put the dirty brush in your cup of water and grab another one out of the water and wipe the bristles off on a paper towel before dipping it into the new colour of paint. Some new painters try to paint faces on the figure, but that is generally a mistake. I mean, if you have an orc with fangs you can try to paint them, but that is showing off, and we run the risk of paying for it. The small scale really works in your favour, painting blue eyes for your PC, even with the trimmed brush is going to look stupid so don't do it. Allow the sculpt to come through, that is what you paid for, right? Sometimes you'll have a thief or something with a hood on, paint the hood, then the face, and go back to cover up any flesh paint that you accidentally got on the hood itself. Same goes for any time that we have colours contacting each other. Get is as close as you can but don't get frustrated as we'll fix the itty bitty mistakes at the end.
Once you're happy with the figure, take a look at your water. You know, the one that you soak your brushes in. It should be pretty nasty, if it isn't, then dip a brush into some grey or brown paint and swirl it around some in the water until it is good and dirty because here is another secret. Once your figure's paint is dry, we are going to wash it with that yucky water. Just take your thickest brush and get it good and wet and rub it all over the figure. This won't mess up your paint job, but it will get into all of those cracks and crevices and highlight all of them and give your figure some of that sexy dirt so he isn't oddly clean.
Let the figure dry over-night and in the morning we can take it outside and spray it with sealer. This will preserve the paint and keep him looking nice for years! Once the sealer is dry, you are ready to pop the figure off of the stick and he is ready for action!
I always sucked at model making, even today when I try to do it it still looks like the gluey hot messes that I'd make when I was 6-years-old. Now to tell you the truth, I never enjoyed doing that, I just don't have the patience for it. What I did like doing was painting the big Superhero statues that you could buy before all kids wanted to do was play video games. You'd get the plaster statue and that cheap set of paints complete with a horrible brush, and it was fun!
I actually think that working with metal is much easier, but I've seen people paint up those little green army men and have fantastic results that have lasted for years and that is soft plastic! Back in the day, the medium was lead, I've got a bunch of lead figures! Today manufacturers can't sell it and have to work with pewter which is much more expensive, and the old lead figures are now collector's items so they are expensive too, well expensive by figure standards, but I digress. Purchasing armies has never been considered cheap, but if you buy a figure that can work for your PC, it won't break the bank. Reaper Miniatures appears to be the current leaders of the market and the prices reflect that, the more people buying these things, the cheaper the prices, and Reaper knows what they are doing!
It used to be that hobby shops would have a whole wall of Ral Partha and Reaper minis, but for most of us, those days are long gone, so we must shop online. Depending on the figure, and how complex it is, it may require you to put it together. My wife LOVES doing that, and she's good at it; she's got a devilish looking lich armed with a lance riding a horse, it came in three pieces, the horse, the rider, and the lance. Me? I prefer the simpler ones that are just one piece.
Once you get your figure, you've got to do a bit of fixing. Lead was the best because it allowed you to pose the figure if you wanted to, or add all kinds of stuff to it. Pewter (or whatever it is) does have a degree of give, and the figures are soft enough to allow some movement. Usually the weapon is bent and you've got to straighten that out, it isn't a problem. Flashing (odd bits of metal left over from the casting process) also must be removed. We've got a little pair of hobby cutters that are small enough to get inside of there and clip things clean. If something is broken, you can fix it by putting a little drop of glue on the end of a toothpick and putting just touch onto the figure, put the broken part on the figure and hold it there until the glue sets and you can put it down to dry over-night.
Metal figures are very forgiving! It is also kind of funny, the local hobby store doesn't have the selection of figures that they used to, but if you ask them they still might have the box of broken material that you can dig through and buy cheap. Extra heads, arms that fell off, swords or other weapons. Most hobby shop owners enjoy this aspect of the hobby themselves and will gladly help you out. If you don't like the head, you can clip it off and put another on. If your character's favourite weapon is a mace, you can clip off the sword hand and find one that is holding a mace. You can buy broken figures cheap and repair them yourself, and don't forget to keep that stuff! You'll never know if you want to use that sword on another figure!
I personally hate those little bases that the individual characters come on and I always cut it off and remount it on a Quarter, just to give it some weight and better stability. I've seen people get really fancy with their bases! ChicagoWiz's work is amazing! He is a friendly resource for this kind of stuff! I am lazy and just paint the quarter green and call it a day, but you can get really detailed in it if you want to! Glue some hobby weeds and one of your extra heads to the base for a grizzly orc and you'll be a hero at the table!
Once your figure is dry and assembled how you want it (my wife, when she put together the horseback lich king attached the lich's lance but painted the horse and the lich separately before attaching them) I like to mount the entire thing onto a stick. We are still using my father-in-law's stick that he made for the purpose decades ago: It is just a couple of wooden hobby sticks that we call popsicle sticks or tongue depressors glued together, and we attach the figure to it with a bit of melted wax. This lets us hold the figure easier without getting paint on ourselves, and you can manipulate it so that you can get the paint in all of those cracks and crevices. Once the figure is done we can just pop the thing off of the stick and in it comes off clean.
You'll want to clean the figure too, with a wet q-tip, nothing too elaborate, just dust it off and prime the piece with a couple of layers of primer, this is a light coloured and very specific thing, it is what our paint will stick too. It dries pretty quick, but don't get in a rush. Make sure that the primer is dry before painting, and that the primer is in all of the cracks and crevices. Once it's dry, inspect it really close to make sure that you didn't miss anything, if you did then just apply a second coat but I bet that you didn't. This isn't rocket science! Once the figure is dry we are ready to paint.
Now there is a secret here that will save you tons of money. Many folks believe that you need those fancy model paints; you know, those acrylics. You don't. I buy craft paint from the hobby section at Wal-mart and get those cheap tubes. Those paints cost pennies and you can find the fancy colours too, like shiny silver, and it won't smell, won't stain, and can be cleaned up with soap and water, not to mention that you get way more bang for your buck! Craft paint dries really fast too, so painting goes quicker.
A word about brushes. If you are just trying this out for the first time, you can use cheap brushes, but once you find that you enjoy it, take some of that money that you saved from using craft paint instead of model paint and invest in a really nice set of paint brushes. You'll use these and they will pay for themselves. For high detail work, you can trim the bristles off of a cheap kids paint brush so that there are only two or three bristles, this will allow you to do some pretty fancy stuff! But a professional artist set will save you time and energy of having to trim those things yourself.
Now, get a paper plate and pick out what colours that you think that you are going to use. Look at the figure and make a plan. Let's say that the figure is wearing leather armour, and we want the leather to be brown. Squirt some brown on the plate and some white next to it and take a little bit from each colour and mix it together in its own little puddle. Keep at it until it's the colour you want and you have enough of it and apply it to your figure where you want it. It doesn't take much paint, a good rule of thumb is to work light to dark, simply because light colours don't cover dark colours as well, but don't get hung up on it. Since we are using craft paint, if you hate the paint job we can always strip it off and try again.
Paint your basics first, if the guy is holding a sword, paint the sword your fancy silver colour first, and then go back and carefully paint the hand with a smaller brush. Smaller brushes allow us to control the paint. My wife likes to show off and she will use a magnifier and paint itty bitty details that nobody but her is aware of. My father-in-law painted a magic book on a pedestal and if you look really close you can see that he actually managed to put little details of the text on it. THAT is showing off! I'll also tell you that my father-in-law was a professional tattoo artist, so there you go. Me? I just go for general detail, but with the trimmed brush method even I can get some really fine results, and I don't have the steady hands of a surgeon.
So, paint the large area's, blowing on it to dry it as you go. You don't want to put wet paint on wet paint, it will ruin it. Painting is a relaxing hobby that gives us pleasure and a chance to listen to those records we've been clinging too. My wife and I do it together and we just chit chat and have fun. Don't be in a rush. Once you get more confident, if you want to go out and buy an army to paint up all at once, that isn't so relaxing, but painting figures one at a time really is soothing to the soul.
Paint what details you can. You'll need more than one brush as each colour should be applied with a clean dry brush. I mean, if you paint something black, switch brushes, put the dirty brush in your cup of water and grab another one out of the water and wipe the bristles off on a paper towel before dipping it into the new colour of paint. Some new painters try to paint faces on the figure, but that is generally a mistake. I mean, if you have an orc with fangs you can try to paint them, but that is showing off, and we run the risk of paying for it. The small scale really works in your favour, painting blue eyes for your PC, even with the trimmed brush is going to look stupid so don't do it. Allow the sculpt to come through, that is what you paid for, right? Sometimes you'll have a thief or something with a hood on, paint the hood, then the face, and go back to cover up any flesh paint that you accidentally got on the hood itself. Same goes for any time that we have colours contacting each other. Get is as close as you can but don't get frustrated as we'll fix the itty bitty mistakes at the end.
Once you're happy with the figure, take a look at your water. You know, the one that you soak your brushes in. It should be pretty nasty, if it isn't, then dip a brush into some grey or brown paint and swirl it around some in the water until it is good and dirty because here is another secret. Once your figure's paint is dry, we are going to wash it with that yucky water. Just take your thickest brush and get it good and wet and rub it all over the figure. This won't mess up your paint job, but it will get into all of those cracks and crevices and highlight all of them and give your figure some of that sexy dirt so he isn't oddly clean.
Let the figure dry over-night and in the morning we can take it outside and spray it with sealer. This will preserve the paint and keep him looking nice for years! Once the sealer is dry, you are ready to pop the figure off of the stick and he is ready for action!
