I have never painted fantasy mini's but I have painted 15mm and 25mm historical miniatures for over ten years. Here are some pointers:
- Never paint bare metal. Always prime with an ultra-flat. Black is preferred for dry-brushing. If you plan on using a dark wash, you can use a white primer (this also let's you skip painting highlights if you're using acrylics). I have also seen spectacular results using brown and gray primers, but both of these require both a dark wash and highlights.
- A dark wash is when you thin out a dark pigment and slather it onto a fully painted fig. The pigment collects in the crevises and clothing folds and forms nice shadows. Dark washes are unnecessary if you dry-brush over a black prime.
- Dry-brushing is a technique that produces very nice gradients. To dry-brush, apply your paint to the brush, and then "dry" it off by wiping it on a paper towel. Then gently brush the edge of the brush across the contour you want to paint. It should take several strokes before get acceptable coverage. The trick to dry-brushing is that you only want to catch the tops of the contours (leaving folds and cracks black). This gives a dark and gritty look to your figs. Since enamels tend to glob up, you'll probably want to use an oil or water based paint for dry-brushing (once you get the hang of it, though, you shouldn't have any problem with Testor's acrylic enamels).
- Gradients can be achieved in dry-brushing by tiering different colors. For 15mm historical figs this is usually unfeasible, but for 25mm figs (which many fantasy mini's are) is easier to get two colors in a gradient. For items such as clothes, you may even want to try for a third for optimal effect. If you only want two colors in your gradient, you should prepare a base color and a highlight (which consists of the base color mixed with white). If you want three colors, throw in a dark undercoat (base + black or dark gray) as well. If you use a dark undercoat, slather that on first. You can be a bit mroe aggressive about getting that color on, since we don't have to rely on the black prime as much for shadows. Then dry-brush the base coat as you normally would. Highlights are applied by gently dry-brushing over only the very tops of contours. I think you'll find three-tone highlighting looks fabulous on clothing and skin.
- I use toothpicks to paint details. Most people use thin brushes, but I don't trust my hand. I sharpen the toothpick to the desired thickness and apply paint as if I were painting a tattoo. My ultimate goal is to get details such as hemlines, buttons, and embroidery with a minus-micro-millimeter black line surrounding them. Helps them stand out real nice.
)
