Help with Mini's

[Foundry of Decay]

I personally would reccomend:

Brushes: Stay the heck away from Citadel. They have some VILE brushes that seem to come from the factory split, and easily frey even when proper care is taken. Go to an art store, and buy some of their nylon brushes (or natural sable if you want).. They may be pricy, but they don't fall apart as easy.

Paints: I personally use Reaper, and Vallejo paints. Vallejo, depending on where you live, might be very hard to get (I live in Canada, thus nearly EVERYTHING is hard to get, and Vallejo seems to not exist anywhere decent around here). I don't care too much for Citadel myself, because I find their paints much akin to glue, in dire need of thinning, and much, MUCH to shiny for being a matte paint. Their inks, however, are some of the best in the market. Out of the group though, Vallejo takes the crown, due to their paints being extrememly pigmented, and usually needing no more than one coat applied, even when thinned slightly.

As for colors.. Well, I'm of the school that you can never have enough

Definitley get the basics at least. Then you can concentrate on the odd ones like sea green, bright gold yellow, green-brown etc. I'd personally stay away from Enamels as they are vile to clean up, and for most you need an open tin of thinner to wash your brushes off with, as well as an open tin of thinner to thin paints for washes. They also take significantly longer to dry due to being an oil based paint. Though they do cover wonderfully if you are very patient, and don't mind painting a figure over a course of days or a week, and the pigments are very well done in most as well.

Store bought paints, such as craft paints, can also be good to have handy. I use a few pots of Golden for colors I use the most, like Black and White, though you have to be careful with some of the craft paints, as they can turn colors after a period of time, or the pigments might turn to a slimy mud if thinned down for washes.

By the way, Dark greens seem to be the color that most paint companies can't get right for some reason. Reapers Dark green is horribly pigmented, and very thin, needing many coats to darken it over a white primed base. Citadel's is just as bad, as well as Ral Partha (Though they're out of the paint biz right now). Vallejo's dark greens are perfect though, as they come out both flat, and usually are dark enough on the first coat. Just food for thought

 

[frankthedm]

Here is atip for cool looking blood

Mix clear paint on gloss [ i use aleen's] with red ink or red food coloring [works for me] and brush itonto the mini once the rest of it is painted. you can also achieve this effect with tamiya clear paints.

BTW add a bit of brown ink if you want the blood a little darker

 

[alsih2o]

find a registered duncan teacher, and learn ceramic painting, this will prepare you for anything minis have to offer, in 8 weeks or less

 

[Tewligan]

when I was done mixing and applying those colors there was no place to hold the mini without rubbing off a little of the paint, and each color had to be matched for touch up. Needless to say, it was a pain. The guy came out looking great, but I had to take a lot of care with the colors.

A trick that's saved me lots of valuable swearing time since I've started doing it is to stick a wad of that putty you use to hang posters onto the bottom of your figure. Then stick him on top of a paint jar you aren't using. You can just hold the jar when painting, and your big fat paint-destroying fingers are kept safely away from the paint job.

 

[thalmin]

For the fans of Ral Partha paints

Ral Partha paints are returning. We expect to see them at the end of this week. It will be just the original 24 colors. Best news, they are returning in the familiar RP bottles. Iron Wind Metals is bringing this paint line back.

 

[Black Omega]

I'll second the comments on Vallejo. A local dealer just started carrying those and has really been pimping them to anyone buying paints. Excellent quality and very pigmented. I just wish I could find some variety in flesh tones from them.

 

[Morrus]

I'll slip this over into the Art Gallery & Miniatures forum.

 

[Painfully]

So as soon as it goes to the "minis" forum nobody posts? Maybe it should be the "Minis and art gallery forum"

Thanks to Morrus though, and Piratecat too for getting minis out of the general discussion forum. Things flow much more comfortably here, although I am noticing very few minis posts.
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As for paints, I've got quite a bit now and I must say I now buy Vallejo paints almost exclusively. Reaper ProPaints offer a few more metallic colors like red and orange which I like, and I also buy their inks though I still water them down a bit before using it.

I've found a color wheel to be a useful tool. It runs about 3 dollars at any art store.

A few small containers to keep colors you've mixed yourself can prove useful when you need to touch up a mini later. It sure beats trying to color match it later by having to remix your paints again.

I've just picked up some pigmented ink pens. Sakura makes Pigma Micron pens and Zig makes a pen called Millenium. Buy the smallest size you can get (005 should be marked on the tops of their caps). They are useful for tattoos, eyes, and other detail work.

Brushes...I can't say enough about getting the right brushes. Get some brush cleaner too. I think someone already mentioned a brushes tutorial above. You gotta take good care of your brushes!

As far as keeping my hands off the minis while I paint, I just use elmers white glue and stick them on a popsicle stick. I place them upside down on the corner of a box (so it hangs down inside the sidewalls of the box) and prime them that way, as well as right-side up. The elmers glue always breaks clean when I pull off the mini.

The only real lesson is practice, practice, practice! And practice some more! After the initial money investment it's a fairly cheap hobby as long as you don't buy imported figs from France like the Confrontation line of figs.

I'm constantly trying new techniques. I will add that you should not buy more minis than you can paint in a month. Everybody I know that paints minis seems to have at least $100 of unpainted figs in their closet (me too). It's hard, but I promised myself not to buy more minis EVER until I paint them all. Good luck to me!

And good luck to all the new mini painters out there. Just remember it gets a little easier with each figure!

 

[thalmin]

Painfully, I would like to see some of your work. Please bring a few minis by sometime. Good tip on the upside-down priming

Just a little side note. The Ral Partha paints are once again available, at least the 77-701 thru 77-724 colors are. I don't know yet if the other colors in the line will become available soon or not.