Painting minis; getting started

[Sacrosanct]

I think after literal decades, time I revisit the paint jobs on my very first minis I got as a kid. Yes, some of these are from 1979 . I’m old lol. And yes, some of them I never got around to painting, but only primed. And others I’ve painted multiple times over the years. Back in the day when the only available paints to me in Ketchikan Alaska were Testors enamel paints for model cars.

 

[MGibster]

I think after literal decades, time I revisit the paint jobs on my very first minis I got as a kid. Yes, some of these are from 1979 . I’m old lol. And yes, some of them I never got around to painting, but only primed. And others I’ve painted multiple times over the years. Back in the day when the only available paints to me in Ketchikan Alaska were Testors enamel paints for model cars.

While miniatures have gotten better over the years, I find those old models charming.

 

[Sacrosanct]

While miniatures have gotten better over the years, I find those old models charming.

Yeah, same. I'm still a bit bitter that miniature use went to a larger scale, essentially making it very odd to use some of my old favorites with modern minis. My barbarian looks tiny and...not nearly as imposing compared to a modern mini lol.

 

[Andvari]

There's always the Nolzur basilisk.

 

[Sacrosanct]

There's always the Nolzur basilisk.

Do you mean, the "we know you're really buying this for the grell." basilisk?

 

[Mad_Jack]

I glanced at that picture briefly, and there were only two of those figures I didn't instantly recognize, lol.

I love the old figures because a lot of them just have soo much character that the modern ones lack - skeletons almost all seemed to have individual personalities, and they weren't afraid to put out whimsical stuff like Grenadier's Comedy Lords set or Ral Partha's Texas Bob... One of my most prized old minis is the Ral Partha three-headed not-the-Three-Stooges troll...

 

[el-remmen]

I painted some hill giants I ordered off Etsy and I am in love with them. . .

 

[MGibster]

I painted some hill giants I ordered off Etsy and I am in love with them. . .

Those are just me from my pre-COVID exercise days.

 

[MGibster]

I have yet another Games Workshop giant I'm working on here. For some reason I used a red base coat following by a very light red highlight and then some coats of thinned down burnt sienna ink. It wasn't working at all so I switched gears. I used a highlight of dwarf flesh and followed that up with a few layers of a burnt sienna glaze and ended up with much mor satisfactory results. I used dwarf flesh plus some pink for the scar tissue. I went ahead and sprayed a matte varnish in order to protect what I have done so far. If you ever use inks, you're a risk of reactivating if you do any additional painting. I've got a lot more brush work to do on this dude to finish him.

 

[MGibster]

Here’s an update. I used some layering and dry brushing to add some more discoloration to the scarred areas. And then the teeth of course and the horns. I glazed on a few layers of sepia and a final glaze of red/sepia around where the horns growing out of the head.

 

[MGibster]

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, something goes horribly, horribly wrong.

 

[Richards]

Is that what happens when you wield a vorpal weapon but you're too short to reach your foe's neck?

Johnathan

 

[MGibster]

And here's the final result. I'm pretty happy about how the skin turned out.

 

[MGibster]

And now for something a little different. This is an ogre skeleton from Reaper. I applied a base layer of dark aluminum with the airbrush from Vallejo and then followed that up with some Typhus Corrosion from Citadel. The fun part came when I used Dirty Down Rust Effect and Verdigris on the weapon. The rust looks okay to me, but I'm not too keen on the verdigris. Maybe I need additional layers of verdigris to get it to look right.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Painted this infamous mini using pretty much only speed paints to see how it turned out.

 

[MGibster]

Painted this infamous mini using pretty much only speed paints to see how it turned out.

Looks like a Ray Harryhausen creature!

 

[Sacrosanct]

Looks like a Ray Harryhausen creature!

Now that you say that, it's all I see lol. Although it's actually the Demogorgon mini from Stranger Things

 

[el-remmen]

Painted this infamous mini using pretty much only speed paints to see how it turned out.

View attachment 267809

Amazing!

I have that old school troglodyte that is unpainted in the background.

 

[MGibster]

I bought some minis to give as gifts to my players. This pair is going to a married couple. Too cute?

 

[MGibster]

I've got three more I've finished as gifts for my gaming group. Two plague doctors, his and hers, and one knight.