pogre
Legend
Painting Miniatures Guide
Greetings! In the last few weeks a number of folks have asked for advice on basic painting. I firmly believe it is possible not only for anyone to paint miniature to a table top level, but to rapidly increase their skills in the hobby with just a bit of dedication. I hope this thread can serve as a sort of table of contents for folks and if you think there are some links I should add, please post them!
Basic Painting
Games Workshop’s Tutorial has a few useful articles. Naturally, they are trying to sell you some product, but it still is solid advice from an industry leader.
Tools and Brushes
Spray Primering
Step-by-step tutorials for various models
J.D. Wiker has some decent basic tips to get you started
Miniatures 101
Miniatures 102
Miniatures 103
Miniatures 104
Sven Adrian has a different technique worthy of consideration on coolminiornot:
Step-by-step painting Easterlings
Jakob Nielsen has a solid step-by-step tutorial of a GW Chaos Warrior:
JRN Chaos Warrior step-by-step
Mike Kan mostly paints GW, but he paints pretty quickly and has lots of tips for painting lots of clean, well done, table top standard figures quickly:
Mike Kan Paint
Paint References
Totengraber has begun a really cool paint database that gives swatches and matching colors for other lines of paint. Still a bit of a work in progress, but very cool!
Totengraber's Paint Database
Techniques
One of my favorite painters is Jenova! Who is very generous with her knowledge.
Jenova!’s site - has not updated in ages.
NMM
Thierry Husser a very skilled painter who does mostly Rackham stuff has posted an excellent full color chart of his NMM fomulas:
Color chart for NMM
INKS
Total Model has a nice basic article on the uses of acryllic inks:
Painting with Inks
Metallics
Jakob Rune Nielsen has won numerous Golden Demons and posts an excellent tutorial on painting metallics:
JRN Metallics Tutorial
Shading Metallics
Shading Metallics by Automaton
Shading Metallics by Jabberwocky
MIG Productions has produced a cool article on using dry pigments to weather metallics.
Using Colored Pigment Powder to Weather Metallics and More!
Blending
Oz Painters has a solid thread on using transparent glazes to blend - he calls them juices.
Juices for blending
Dipping
Here is a cool article on dipping figures in poly stain for speed painting. I have used it on Eastern Indians to great effect!
DIPPING FIGURES IN MINWAX POLYSHADE
The Army Painter is a company that produces a ton of stuff for speed painting. They have three kinds of dips, base spray paints, base terrain, and now a new line of paints. The site hosts a number of "how-to" articles. I've used their products for painting historicals and it is good stuff. They are a worthy resource for those looking to paint a lot of troops quickly!
THE ARMY PAINTER COMPANY
Faces
Jen Haley is the queen of painting without peer in the states. Her painting a face article is particularly helpful!
new page her articles thus far:
Painting Faces
Painting Freehands
Choosing & Using Brushes
Reaper has a tutorial on painting eyes by Darin Hlavaz. Thanks Lord Tirian for the scoop.
Eye Tutorial
Wings
Necromancer Tales brings us a lot of cool tutorials including this one on scratch built wings.
Scratch Built Wings
Gems
ZaPhOd's has a neat tutorial on painting translucent gems:
Complex Gems
Lighting Effects
Iron Halo has a very interesting article on painting a blue lighting effect:
Blue Lighting Effect
Hair
Darkstar over at Reaper's message board does some of the most awesome hair I have ever seen. He explains his techinique in this thread:
Hair tutorial.
Horses
Veni Vidi Vici has an excellent section on painting horses:
Painting Horses on VVV
Stone
Texturing Granite article on Hot Lead:
Texturing Granite
Textured Wood
An article over on hot-lead.org on painting textured wood:
Painting Textured Wood
Bases
Frank the DM's Marble bases
Quick and easy marble bases
Make bases like Rackham
Rackham style corkbase
Brush Thralls outstanding bases
Bases on Brushthralls
I have found articles on the net to be very helpful, but one other resource that should be employed is message boards like Reaper’s where excellent painters are always anxious to share their knowledge. When I have more time I will further organize links into techniques, but this certainly is more than enough to get someone started!
Have fun!
Greetings! In the last few weeks a number of folks have asked for advice on basic painting. I firmly believe it is possible not only for anyone to paint miniature to a table top level, but to rapidly increase their skills in the hobby with just a bit of dedication. I hope this thread can serve as a sort of table of contents for folks and if you think there are some links I should add, please post them!
Basic Painting
Games Workshop’s Tutorial has a few useful articles. Naturally, they are trying to sell you some product, but it still is solid advice from an industry leader.
Tools and Brushes
Spray Primering
Step-by-step tutorials for various models
J.D. Wiker has some decent basic tips to get you started
Miniatures 101
Miniatures 102
Miniatures 103
Miniatures 104
Sven Adrian has a different technique worthy of consideration on coolminiornot:
Step-by-step painting Easterlings
Jakob Nielsen has a solid step-by-step tutorial of a GW Chaos Warrior:
JRN Chaos Warrior step-by-step
Mike Kan mostly paints GW, but he paints pretty quickly and has lots of tips for painting lots of clean, well done, table top standard figures quickly:
Mike Kan Paint
Paint References
Totengraber has begun a really cool paint database that gives swatches and matching colors for other lines of paint. Still a bit of a work in progress, but very cool!
Totengraber's Paint Database
Techniques
One of my favorite painters is Jenova! Who is very generous with her knowledge.
Jenova!’s site - has not updated in ages.
NMM
Thierry Husser a very skilled painter who does mostly Rackham stuff has posted an excellent full color chart of his NMM fomulas:
Color chart for NMM
INKS
Total Model has a nice basic article on the uses of acryllic inks:
Painting with Inks
Metallics
Jakob Rune Nielsen has won numerous Golden Demons and posts an excellent tutorial on painting metallics:
JRN Metallics Tutorial
Shading Metallics
Shading Metallics by Automaton
Shading Metallics by Jabberwocky
MIG Productions has produced a cool article on using dry pigments to weather metallics.
Using Colored Pigment Powder to Weather Metallics and More!
Blending
Oz Painters has a solid thread on using transparent glazes to blend - he calls them juices.
Juices for blending
Dipping
Here is a cool article on dipping figures in poly stain for speed painting. I have used it on Eastern Indians to great effect!
DIPPING FIGURES IN MINWAX POLYSHADE
The Army Painter is a company that produces a ton of stuff for speed painting. They have three kinds of dips, base spray paints, base terrain, and now a new line of paints. The site hosts a number of "how-to" articles. I've used their products for painting historicals and it is good stuff. They are a worthy resource for those looking to paint a lot of troops quickly!
THE ARMY PAINTER COMPANY
Faces
Jen Haley is the queen of painting without peer in the states. Her painting a face article is particularly helpful!
new page her articles thus far:
Painting Faces
Painting Freehands
Choosing & Using Brushes
Reaper has a tutorial on painting eyes by Darin Hlavaz. Thanks Lord Tirian for the scoop.
Eye Tutorial
Wings
Necromancer Tales brings us a lot of cool tutorials including this one on scratch built wings.
Scratch Built Wings
Gems
ZaPhOd's has a neat tutorial on painting translucent gems:
Complex Gems
Lighting Effects
Iron Halo has a very interesting article on painting a blue lighting effect:
Blue Lighting Effect
Hair
Darkstar over at Reaper's message board does some of the most awesome hair I have ever seen. He explains his techinique in this thread:
Hair tutorial.
Horses
Veni Vidi Vici has an excellent section on painting horses:
Painting Horses on VVV
Stone
Texturing Granite article on Hot Lead:
Texturing Granite
Textured Wood
An article over on hot-lead.org on painting textured wood:
Painting Textured Wood
Bases
Frank the DM's Marble bases
Quick and easy marble bases
Make bases like Rackham
Rackham style corkbase
Brush Thralls outstanding bases
Bases on Brushthralls
I have found articles on the net to be very helpful, but one other resource that should be employed is message boards like Reaper’s where excellent painters are always anxious to share their knowledge. When I have more time I will further organize links into techniques, but this certainly is more than enough to get someone started!
Have fun!
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