How to... ( miniatures)?

[Keith]

I like Reaper paints. Citadel paints are nice enough, but they do tend towards more fantastic or cartoony colors, to me, unblended. I would say if you want more realistic color schemes for medieval-type figures, say, reaper can be of more use.

Reaper have great figures, too, if you are going for that scale. It is harder now to accumulate the, er, “not-heroic” 25mm scale, so the Reaper and Citadel figures offer a nice mix of options at the slightly larger scale.

By the way, I have found Citadel brushes not so great, personally. Also, if you are gluing metal figures together, the Citadel glue works fine, but is more than twice the cost of the similar glues readily available elsewhere.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

1. Reaper's Dark Heaven and Warlord miniature lines are awesome.
2. Remove the flash and mold lines before painting. If you don't, you'll someday look back at your first minis and say, "If I had cleaned this up, I wouldn't have spent hours painting it only to have it look like a baboon's butt."
3. Hobby knives and needle files are a must for metal minis. An emery board just won't get the job done.
4. There are some great sites out there with painting tutorials and lists of recommended supplies. Google is your friend.

It's been said before, I'll say it again.

http://www.wegotgame.net/jen/main.html
http://hot-lead.org

Reaper also has a starter kit that comes with paint, brushes and a pair of minis and a paint guide. It also comes with a bottle of primer but, personally, I recommend spray primer.

 

[bekkilyn_rpg]

I am pretty new to painting myself but will go ahead and post some things which have been helpful to me so far.

First, you definitely want to use primer all over your mini. If you use paint as the first layer, it will just start peeling off whereas primer will stick to the mini and the paint will stick to the primer.

I prefer black primer. White can be a lot harder to completely cover up and can sometimes make a mini look too bright (for my tastes).

I prefer metal and metal will just look better even with a non-professional job whereas with plastic, it has a tendancy to look bad unless you are *really* good at painting. Metal is also sturdier and if you're going to go through all the time and trouble to paint something, paint something of quality that you're going to want to keep and use. Nothing wrong with using plastic of course, but if you like the feel of metal minis, then just go with metal. If you end up making huge painting mistakes, you can either paint over the mistakes or you can just strip the paint off and do it again. It's easier to strip paint off metal than plastic.

I use brush on sealer nowadays because the spray dullcoat sealer came very close to messing up my minis. It was extremely cloudy. I haven't heard anyone else reporting this problem (I was using Citadel sealant and had shaken it briskly for over two minutes before use), but even with using light coats, I ended up having to use a thinner to strip off the sealant and redo. Thank the gods the thinner worked to salvage them and didn't destroy the paint job or those minis would have needed to be stripped and redone completely. Now I use brush on (two coats of gloss and one dull with gloss touchups afterwards where necessary) and the sealer dries as clear as crystal. If for some reason you have trouble with the spray sealer, then brush on sealer might work better for you. It did for me. Either way, I apply one thin coating every 24 hours for three days.

As far as paints go, I like the Citadel brand paints, but find myself using a mixture of Citadel and Anita's all-purpose acrylics from...hmm some craft store like Michaels, but it was another name I can't seem to remember. Since the Citadel paints have these really crappy lids that get stuck, I can't get into most of them without using a sledgehammer on them, so I use the ones I can use and use the other paints for everything else. I refuse to buy more Citadel paints until my gaming store gets the newer ones which have flip-top lids. The Citadel paint itself is great though--very smooth. I haven't found the need to thin the paints too much for normal painting but will keep the brush a bit damp (not wet...use a paper towel or something to soak up the excess) at all times and just make sure there's not too much paint on the brush.

 

[Stegger]

Thanks again. I think I am off to a much better start now. I really like some of the links showing pictures on how to go step by step.
If there is any more tricks or things up your sleeves I am listening
What about my first model? What did you choose, or does it matter at all?

 

[Someone]

Just remember: It´s not difficult! Just seems more than it really is. Once you dominate the basic techniques, you´ll start having pretty good results.

 

[Wombat]

White primer

Acrylic paints

Sealant

That is my Holy Trinity of painting

That being said, remember you can paint as detailed as you want. If you are going for Mass Troop, keep the details to a minimum -- I have a friend who uses just the black primer for his orcs, goblins, etc. (Black primer does indeed hide the holidays in your paint, but it also makes it damnably hard to paint anything other than Very Dark Colours...) Player Characters tend to get the most detail. I can get a blobby pupil in the eye of most 25mm scale minis nowadays, but I have no intention of trying this on my new Faen mini

Oh, and as one related to a person who is a Painting God, only compare your paint jobs to your previous paint jobs, not to someone who is a (semi-)professional. You will feel better about yourself later

 

[Zulithe]

Wonderful tips everyone

I have a BOX full of WotC minis that came out when 3E launched. I've been meaning to paint but just didn't know where to start, and didn't have the funds at the time to stock up on paint and other supplies (I know... wasn't it kinda dumb to buy all those minis then? heh oh well, least I have them now!)

I'm looking forward to painting them all, including my Umber Hulk! Sadly I am about to move, so I gotta put that off for a few more weeks

 

[pogre]

Buy quality materials - it will make your painting much easier, Vallejo paint and Windsor & Newton series 7 brushes.

Vallejo is cheaper and nicer than GW paint and packaged most conveniently. They have over 200 colors to choose from and are available on a lot of places on the web and in stores.

Windsor & Newton brushes are outrageously expensive to buy, but many of mine are five years old or older. There is no finer brush.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Step 1 for both plastic and metal - wash the figure with handsoap and an old toothbrush. This step is often forgotten, and often doesn't make any difference, then other times the paint will start peeling off of a bit of mold release left on the figure.

Get a good assortment of brushes, a large (1/4 inch) flat one is good for drybrushing. A 1 or ) for large areas a 000 or 00000 for most normal work, and a 0000000000 for things like eyes and teeth.

Prime with black for figures that are wearing dark colors or a lot of armor. This also works well with furs. Go over any areas that are going to be bright and cover those areas with white paint.

Prime with white if the figure is wearing bright colors or is caucasian and showing a lot of skin. Go over any areas that are going to be metal and paint them black.

On paints I have had very good luck with Americana and Ceramcoat, both are available in craft stores for around $1.00 for a two ounce bottle. (Games Workshop goes for around $2.50 for a half ounce, you do the math.) They also in my humble opinion have better bottles than say GW.

As for the quality of the paint, I make a small but steady amount of money selling painted figures - the cheaper paints work just fine.

Use a seperate pot of water for cleaning any brushes that have been used with metallic paints.Clean your brushes. Don't let paint accumulate at the base of the bristles, this will cause them to spread. Again keep a bar of handsoap, it helps remove the paint, and allows you to shape the brush. If you can find any with lanolin the brush will thank you.

Something I started doing way back when: Put the date you painted the figure on the bottom of the base. Going back and seing how your style has changed over the decades can be both amusing and humbling.

The Auld Grump

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

What about my first model? What did you choose, or does it matter at all?

It doesn't matter, to a certain extent. I wouldn't recommend spending 30+ dollars on a large dragon mini and then trying to make it a masterpiece with no prior mini painting experience.
The first minis I painted were a set of skeletons. It taught me very quickly how to properly use the drybrush technique. They aren't too hard to paint and they usually don't require a boatload of different colors. There were eight of them and the difference between the quality of the first and the last one is amazing.