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[tallyrand]

MY GREATEST SECRET:

It's all in the prep work... seriously.

Trim and File:

Yes, clip and trim the mold lines, that's importiant, get yourself a nice set of mini files, I usually pick mine up from some wierdo at the flea market. Also a pair of flat edge model clippers, I have a old set of the Games Workshop ones and they are pretty nice, but they have some new ones, that I may have to pick up. A good exacto knife is nice to have (for those of you allowed sharp objects) Watch that mold line, follow it all the way around the mini.

Once the mini is trmmed and before you prime it, wash it. You've been fondling it wit your greasy mits, and its also got some mold release agent still on it, warm water and a little dish soap usually do the trick, make sure you work over a bowl or collinder, or at least have the strainer in the sink, you don't want to drop your guy down the drain.

Priming:

There are two major schools of thought when it comes to priming miniatures. Black Prime, and White Prime.

White Priming your minis will absolutely make your colors pop, but it can be pretty unforgiving, and getting your brush down into all the little white nooks and crannies can be tough, but if you fail to do so, it is obvious to even the casual observer.

Black Prime does not have this problem, but you have to slather on a several layers of paint to get your colors to really show, and this can eventually hide detail, and even then, your colors can come out muddy and dark.

Grey Prime has neither of the advantages of the Black or White Prime, and the drawbacks of both, and is an abomination before gods and men.

Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots.

When priming, the major environmental factor to watch out for is the humidity, this isin't an issue for some, but for those of us that live down in South Florida, it can be an issue. Priming in high humidity can cause your paint to kind of pebble up, a mistake I still make to this day, usually because I am too impatient to get painting.

Now here is the secret, here is how to get the best of both worlds of prime, and more when it comes to prepping your minis: the Greybrush.

You start with a nice flat black prime, easy enough, now after that, I get my black paint, I keep one of my black paint pots kind of watered down just for this, and go over the mini again, getting the paint in all the tiny nooks and crannies that the prime may have missed.

After that, you do a nice heavy drybrush of the whole figure with a medium to light grey, and follow up with a medium to light drybrush of a nice crisp white.

It's not until this point that I consider a mini ready to start painting. You have the black, down in the deep recesses of the figure, and the progression of black to white on all the detail, this can even bring out hidden detail on the mini that you may have not been aware of before.

When done, they should look something like this:



Or this:



As you can see, I tend to do this in bulk. And I work on several at the same time, giving me somthing to do while the pant dries on another.

Here's some half painted ones:




There are some neat tricks you can do with this technique that I will get into later.

Tallyrand