Painted men

A link for a voting thread on a miniature painting competition. Posted for no reason in particular…

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/787165.page;jsessionid=F88EE4585C63F7FDD1828C5E3349350A

Felt, how do I start painting miniatures? I type it into Google and I get a million results that are like 'hah you're still using dry palettes you fucking chode' and no one seems to have like 'here are three brushes you will need, here are 10 paints that you will want' in a way that makes sense. What do.

Haha you're right. Every third mini painting video is about wet palettes. You don't need a wet palette, don't worry. I have two and I don't always use them. I use homemade well palettes a lot. I make them by chopping the bottom off a Coke bottle and using that. They're perfect for it.

I'm on my phone at the moment, so bear with me a moment and I'll move onto the desktop so I can answer your general question in more detail with some links.

Okay, I'm on the PC. Are you planning on painting any particular kind of miniatures? Is it going to be an army or a disparate group of minis?

I'll give you a few general tips. The things you need for mini painting are some minis, some paint, some primer, and at least one brush.

Priming

You need to prime miniatures before painting them. It makes the paint stick to the miniature.
For primer, your domestic set-up needs to be considered. Do you have a space where you can prime things with a spray can? Many people prime outside, but you get problems when it rains. Also, apparently it being too hot or too cold or too humid can stop you priming, but to be frank I don't know why, or in what way it effects things. Apparently you don't want to prime when it's too humid, and you don't want to prime when it's well below room temperature. If you're still in Scotland, I imagine the second one is going to be more of a problem. Don't prime indoors, as this stuff gets everywhere. Seriously it has a mind of it's own, and spray cans seem to be omni-directional. Personally, I prime in a garage. If you have a garage, that would be ideal. However, I would not put A Garage on the list of things you need.

Anyway, if you have somewhere to use it, I would recommend the Games Workshop Chaos Black spray. To start with, priming in black is a good idea. This is because when you miss gaps between areas it will just create a black line between the areas rather than a white one. A black line looks like shadow. You can prime in white, and I sometimes do. It is harder to paint over black, and you'll need more coats. White primer gives more vibrant colours. The best way to prime is to prime with black, then when it dries, spray white over the top from above. This creates a Zenithal highlight. If you can stretch to a can of black and a can of white, this is what I would recommend. The most important thing is to make sure you keep the primer layer (or layers if you go for the zenithal approach) very thin.

The GW primer seems to be out of stock everywhere, so in it's absence I recommend Army Painter's sprays -
https://elementgames.co.uk/paints-hobby-and-scenery-by-manufacturer/the-army-painter/spray-paints-primers/base-primer-matt-black
https://elementgames.co.uk/paints-hobby-and-scenery-by-manufacturer/the-army-painter/spray-paints-primers/base-primer-matt-white

You can prime with a brush, in which case get some Vallejo primer and don't use your good brush for it.
https://elementgames.co.uk/paints-hobby-and-scenery/paints-washes-etc/vallejo-paints/surface-primers/vallejo-polyurethane-primer-black-60ml-x6?d=22&gclid=CjwKCAjwssD0BRBIEiwA-JP5rAxr9qaD7yw-rwyQ_H7rv99OpkLxI_i6azF8ni92PWO4X0Lvgw7ejBoCHDoQAvD_BwE

Brush

This is easier. You only need one brush with a good point. You can get synthetics or kolinsky sable. The kolinsky sable is much better, but you may prefer not to use animal products. I don't really know what the best synthetic brushes are. The brush I would recommend to start with is a couple of Rosemary & Co brushes. Maybe a size 0, a size 1, and perhaps a 3/0 or 10/0 for fine detail work. You don't need this last one really though. A brush with a good point is what you need. I do virtually all my painting with size 0 brushes. Everyone is different though, I might be a bit of an outlier. Rosemary & Co brushes offer a nice balance between price and quality. Top end mini painting brushes can be about £12, these are £5-£6, but they're actually very good quality. Get the short handle brushes, not the long handle.
https://www.rosemaryandco.com/oil-brushes/pure-kolinsky-sable-oils/pure-kolinsky-pointed

Paints

Ooof. There are a lot of different kinds of paints. Citadel Paints are brilliant. So are Vallejo, both their Game Colour and Model Colour ranges are incredible. If I was starting out today I'd probably go with Vallejo just because the dropper bottles are easier to deal with. There are other ranges - P3 and Scale Color AKA Scale 75 are very good, but kind of harder to find. Scale Color dry with an incredibly matte finish, but are a bit peculiar to use. They're gel-based and can be really transparent. They're not widely used in tutorial videos, so if you're trying to follow along with what someone is painting, you're going to struggle as they have quite different properties. P3 are very thick and require some skill to thin to a correct consistency. Army Painter have a range of paints but I hate them.

Whatever range you choose, you have to thin the paint a bit with water.

It might be worth picking up a starter paint set. Maybe one of the GW ones that come with a miniature and tell you how to paint it on the back. Or something like this -

To be honest, what I did was find a tutorial video for the minis I wanted to paint (in my case Imperial Assault Stormtroopers) and buy all the paints used in the video, before following the tutorial. This can be an expensive way of doing things, but I do kind of recommend it. A good video tutorial or series of tutorials will show you how to use different kinds of paints such as washes. The Warhammer TV ones are good as well, particularly for beginners. They are tied to a big corporation though, so stick to the GW-approved method, which involves no real layering, no blending, and no mixing of paints at all. It's a very good method for painting armies though. Armies and self-mixed colours do not go together well as it is very hard to mix the exact same tone twice.

Actually painting things
Give me a shout to let me know what you're painting and what you want to do with them and I can give you some tips or point you in the direction of the right kinds of tutorials for you. There are a lot of ways of doing things, which can be bewildering, but it's also easier than you would think to get great results. We haven't even touched on the Citadel Contrast Paint method, for example. They're an odd thing. A great but mysterious tool. Something marketed at beginners, although personally I think they're quite terrible for beginners. Everyone's mileage varies of course, and they might be perfect for you.

Here are a couple of video series that I leant on heavily when I was getting started.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Sorastro

https://www.youtube.com/user/GamesWorkshopWNT/playlists?view=50&sort=dd&shelf_id=25

Cult hero Duncan from Warhammer TV has now broken away to form his own channel, still with the same focus on teaching beginner methods but using -SHOCK - miniatures and paints from other companies that are not Games Workshop.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuRNH2cb6VwsZbzILptDVIA

Sorry this is so long. If you want a TLDR, grab a can of black primer, get a Rosemary & Co series 33 brush size 0 or 1, and get a few Citadel or Vallejo paints suitable for the mini you want to paint. You will also need an old mug to hold the water in and something to put the paint on - an old tile or saucer, or the bottoms of some Coke bottles if you're me.

Great post. It's worth saying that although felt quality results (TM) take a great deal of skill and finesse, good tabletop quality miniatures you can be proud of are not really reliant on massive amounts of artistic skill, just good practice. What felt has condensed nicely there is the basis of good painting:

Prime (pref in black if you're a beginner)
Multiple coats always look better than one thick coat. Work in good light when you're not tired. Take breaks.
One good brush is worth 100 shit ones from The Works
Ink washes are like magic if you do the prep to take them well
A matt varnish is also a great tool to have and can make the finish look considerably better
The only person who has to be satisfied with the results is you! (Unless you're felt and entering competitions)

That's a lot of information wowie.

The thing that I am going to be painting will likely be the minis for a boardgame, so there's not really any uniform nature to them, alas. I think I'd be going for table-ready rather than show-ready or something. Before they arrive, however, I was looking to try and get some practice in on other models. Stuff that's more… disposable doesn't seem like the right word but- you get the idea?

Thanks for the recommendations :)

Which boardgame is it?

A lot of boardgame minis are somewhat substandard in detail terms compared to Sigmar stuff, for example. There is an element of not being able to make a silk purse if they're a blobby ill defined shape to begin with…

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flyosgames/vampire-the-masquerade-chapters

for the amount they raised, the models better be good

Yeah, which board game is it? Although as cav says there are some boardgames where the minis aren't great, lots of them are. I'm painting the minis from Stuffed Fables at the moment and they're pretty good. They're fun and full of character. The detail and plastic quality isn't up to GW standards, but to be honest not much stuff is.

One thing I forgot to mention in my Long Post is that there are a few tools you'll need. Some clippers to remove minis from sprues, a craft knife to scrape mould lines off, and some glue to glue the parts together. Board Game minis tend not to need assembly, but they do tend to have noticeable mould lines, which you remove by carefully scraping them off with the back of your craft knife. If you're going to get a few cheap GW minis to practice on, you'll need the clippers and glue. For the clippers, I use the GW ones, which are really good, but pretty expensive. There are cheaper types out there. For glue, I use superglue, specifically Gorilla superglue, which you can get for about £6-£7 in a supermarket. You can use plastic glue, but that melts the parts together and you'll never get them apart again. Also, if you're messy and get it everywhere it will melt detail off your mini.

If you want stuff to practice on, GW do a range of Easy To Build stuff that isn't too expensive. A tenner for three Space Marines (BIG Space Marines these days) or something like five Plague Walkers (zombies). If you're painting Zombicide these might be ideal.

The problem I think you're going to run into is that it's getting quite hard to get some of this stuff, including the paints. Games Workshop have completely shut down, including their online side. As far as I can tell, the online retailers who are still open must be having trouble getting stock from them as a lot of stuff is showing as out of stock. The biggest online retailers still operating as far as I can tell are -

https://www.firestormgames.co.uk/

https://elementgames.co.uk/

https://www.waylandgames.co.uk/

I hope I'm not overwhelming you with information.

Not at all. The boardgame's the kickstarter one I linked above. The models aren't out yet but the sculpts look very nice

As for finding it hard to get this stuff, yeah I was… I was really hoping to use some of the pile of time I have at the moment to do this.

Those are nice looking minis. 40mm too, which is big, and therefore more fun to paint. Modern Games Workshop minis are nominally 32mm, but tend to actually be closer to 40mm in size, so they would be a good fit for practicing on.

What sort of results are you hoping for/expecting? Are you hoping to have them coloured in with a bit of shading and looking infinitely better than plain plastic? Don't expect Sergio Calvo results, no matter what techniques you use. You won't have the brush control to start with. However, patience is more important than skill, as long as you have a basic grasp of the basic tenants - thinning your paints a bit, getting nice solid base coats, using washes for shade - you could get some results you're very proud of, and as I say, any paint looks better than the plain plastic.

I'm basically looking to get a bit of shading and looking better than flat plastic. I am not expecting Sergio Calvo results for many reasons - I don't know how much time I'll have to paint them when they come, and also that would require me to be good at something which has not happened before and is unlikely to start happening now. It's part of why I'm looking for starting on basic models to get some practice in before I get a batch of models that I'm more likely to actually give a shit about :V

Luscan - Games Workshop are reopening their online store later this week. When they do, this is what you need -

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Warhammer-40000-Essentials-Set-2018-eng

It's got the best red, the best blue, and the best yellow they do, plus black, white, bugmans glow flesh tone, some metallic, and the best wash they do - Agrex Earthshade - which can basically be used over anything. The brush is complete trash, the glue is good but can only be used on plastic, not on resin, but the clippers will serve you well.

With feltmonkey being dead, I have taken up the mantle of miniature painter on here. Behold, tonight's efforts and my first miniature painted in like 25 years.

As you can see, I am clearly nipping at felt's heels for that Golden Demon award.

It was neat. It was a couple of hours where I spent time mixing colors, working out that you can just bluetac the base to the top of a bottle you're not using and hold that rather than fucking around with the model, deciding that you can just use a big brush and fix mistakes later rather than freaking out about it constantly. From kit to prime to washed in 2 hours.

Bottlecap for scale :D

Good work!

And RIP Fuzzymonkey

Lovely stuff. Did you blutac the mini to the coke bottle top as an improvised painting handle? That's a pro-move only the elite use. In other words I do it and I've never seen anyone else use the same method and I don't know why.

Your mini looks good actually, pretty neatly blocked-in, a bit of shade, and nice colour choices. I bet it passes the arm-length test well. Two hours is fast. Nothing I paint is finished in two hours, ever.

Here's a selection of stuff I've painted in the last few months.

The cast of the brilliant Stuffed Fables board game.

Some old metal 40K Harlequins from the 80s

Mollog

A Nurgle Blight Drone

A yellow Sperce Mereene

A wizard.

A Norc

The last one was painted with oil paints instead of miniature paints, which is a very different technique, but opens up some possibilities with blending.

I'm literally a pro now as well, which is cool.

Lovely stuff. Did you blutac the mini to the coke bottle top as an improvised painting handle? That's a pro-move only the elite use. In other words I do it and I've never seen anyone else use the same method and I don't know why.

Your mini looks good actually, pretty neatly blocked-in, a bit of shade, and nice colour choices. I bet it passes the arm-length test well. Two hours is fast. Nothing I paint is finished in two hours, ever.

It passes the arm-length test just fine. It is teeny tiny though and I have no idea what I can use it for. I stuffed the base with bluetac and stuck it to the top of a wash bottle and used that as a handle with the cola bottle lid as a starter before I went 'no this just seems as fiddly'

I really like the base stuff you've done there. Is a lot of that greenstuff or are you doing odd things?

Are you running a business yet @feltmonkey

FOOTBALLS!

I really like the base stuff you've done there. Is a lot of that greenstuff or are you doing odd things?

No greenstuff there. I don't really know how to use it to be honest. I have no ability to sculpt. The bottom two and Mollog come with sculpted bases, the Stuffed Fables crew I just painted the bases to look like carpet, and the Harlequins are your standard fake grass. I should have used Goblin Green, but I didn't have any. The Imperial Fists marine I made the base out of cork, sand, and a plastic skull from a GW box of about 500 plastic skulls that is one of the best things they sell. The Nurgle drone is the weirdest bit of basing as I made gribly vegetation out of superglue dripped into PVA glue. The two react together and create weird strands.

Are you running a business yet @feltmonkey

FOOTBALLS!

Nope, but I am now painting for a studio. I'm on probation at the moment, so it's really important I nail the stuff I'm doing for them, which is horrible pressure. Their house style is completely different to my own so I'm like a reasonably good Championship-standard centre-forward who has been signed by a Premier League team and is being asked to play at full-back. See? Football metaphors. They're all I can do.

I'm pretty sure I can take commissions on the side as long as I prioritise the stuff for the studio. So I suppose I could run a business on the side? I can't exactly advertise my services as a painter for studio x though.

Is this a full time switch? Even if it's a different style it must be something of a dream job?

Oh, like er…. like Rafa coming back to Newcastle FOOTBALL

could you at least pretend to be talking about blood bowl to stay slightly on theme thanks

Steve Bruce is doing an alright job.

(I got that from the website Moss was using in the IT Crowd.)

It's not really full-time as such. It's possibly not sustainable, but it's early days and we'll see how it goes. I'm essentially a freelance artist, so I paint some of the commisions that come in to the studio, which is a lot more dreamjob-adjacent than retail supervisor. I got made redundant a couple of months into lockdown 1 and there are no jobs about that I could really do in the circumstances. I've been living on my redundancy money for the past eight months, so anything is a relief. I sold virtually my entire games collection for a pittence. The pittence wasn't part of the plan, but ebay had other ideas. A job that I can do at home and which I actually enjoy doing is something I feel very lucky to have fallen into. It remains to be seen whether there is enough work to maintain my extravagant lifestyle. Even if there isn't, when things get back closer to normal, it could be combined with something part-time, I would think. I've got to pass the probation period first, of course.

Several important lessons learned this time.

White is a bugger to paint smoothly. I should probably be using it as a mixer. Alas, this means that actually painting white might just not be a thing I can do? Like, I might aim for stonewall gray mixed with a bit of white in the future.

Washes should be far less liberally than I was led to believe! I much preferred this little guy before I gave him his agrax bath.

Freehanding is fun and my terrible brushmanship works well for orks.

Edge highlighting with the middle of a brush rather than the tip is much easier and makes for cool 'haha this sword has blood on it because it's still the 90s and heavy metal owns'

Here's what I've been painting for the studio I'm doing stuff for. It's Siege Studios, who are one of the bigger ones in the UK. It's a very Eavy Metal GW style, but fun to do. So far I've painted an Imperial Knight and a Space Marine army in white and blue armour.

The Space Marines are currently being posted to Siege's instagram. I don't have the images to post yet, but I'll post IG links.

Those space marines are fucking awesome.

Thanks mate. :)

Amazing as ever, felt. Really first class.

Incredible work as always. How big are they, out of interest? There's so much detail in the paintwork.

Thanks guys.

They're twelve foot tall. I have them made especially because the normal size is too small. It does mean that nobody will play the game with me because I literally crush their armies.

I suppose they're a couple of inches. The bases on these guys are 40mm across, if that helps.

Jesus christ felt save some talent for the rest of us. Your ascent to painting godhood has been amazing to watch. Those are absolutely top tier.

Thanks.

To be fair the photography is incredible and the client came up with a belter of a paint scheme.

I think the Captain with the power fist might be the mini that has the most likes on the whole Siege Instagram feed. I've ascertained that by the non-scientific means of scrolling through until I got bored. If you consider how big a name Siege is in the GW sphere, that boggles my mind.

Found this photograph of Feltmonkey.

That was at the start of lockdown. I don't fit into that armour anymore.

Got myself a Count Binface!

Feltmonkey, do you do commissions??

It's literally my job.

I am trying to work out what a good way of doing pearlescent paint is. I have a dragon I'm painting for a DnD game and… I'm seeing a lot of mixed information. There's dedicated pearlescent paints but they're whoppingly expensive. Vallejo do a metalic medium but I've never interacted with mediums like that before.

Any advice?

Still some work to go but it's getting there.

Very nice!

Here are a few of the things I've worked on for Siege over the last year or so -

A few more -

Missed these updates, nice work as usual. :D

Oh my, those are great!

Holy shit Felt!

yeah's alright

Thanks guys. 🙂

A few more from the same set of jobs:

These are all from the Drukhari army. I went really over deadline on this one.

A Farsight Enclave Tau army for the Vanguard Tactics youtube channel.

And a couple of Crimson Fists squads.