Hints, tips, and Techniques
Page 3
| Painting Tips Listed below is a collection of tips to help improve your painting. |
| Dowel Rod: Take a wooden dowel rod (1 inch in diameter), and cut it into 1 1/2 to 2" lengths. Put sticky tack (such as the blue tack used to hang posters on walls) on the top of each one. Press primed miniatues onto the sticky tack. Now you can paint the miniatures without touching them by holding the base instead. No more paint rubbing off the unfinished mini, and no more paint on the fingers.
Instead of using dowel rods as a painting base, you can use old plastic twist-off coke bottle caps. Empty paint jars, or corks from wine bottles will also work. Yet more alternatives to holding a mini while painting include using forceps and wooden cloths pins. The clothes pins need to be taken apart, and put together backwards, in order to be able to hold the minis. Just use C size batteries. - Greg |
| Blending: I've received several questions from people having troubles with blending. I can understand your troubles, as I also still have trouble blending. Usually the paint dries before I get a chance to blend it. One way of achieving the same results that works for me it to first paint on the darker colors, then add the lighter highlights. Add a larger (or wider) area of lighter paint that you normally do for highlighting. Now, to blend the two areas together, try adding a thin wash of the original dark color. Carefully paint the wash only on the border of the light and dark area. This will help darken the highlight, blending it with the dark area. You could also use a wash that is slightly lighter that the dark color, but still darker than the light color. |
| Painting multi-part models: Question: When painting multi-part models, should I paint each piece separately and then stick then together at the end, or should I build the model first and then paint it as a hole? Answer: I find It really depends upon the miniature. Normally, in the case of something like a Lictor, the model would look better painted after it was assembled. Otherwise you would have to touch up the mini after the pieces were glued together to hind the seams and glue. If painted as a whole, any areas that you could not easily reach would not be easily seen. These could be painted a basic dark color. There are a few miniatures that I assemble after I've painted them. They include riders and their mounts, terminators and their arms, and space marines and their backpacks. The basic guidelines for me is if you cannot see the joint of the different parts once you've assembled it, it's ok to paint them seperately. What I try to avoide is having to paint the parts, assemble the model, and then paint it again, covering over any glue or unpainted areas. |
Painting Eyes:
Using quality, small brushes: |
| Painting Faces: Question: What colors do you use to paint the face to avoid that orange look the > the store bought flesh colors give you? - Andy J. Answer: Paint the face with Bronzed Flesh. Create a wash with Snakebite Leather (add water - about 3 drops water to 1 of paint - experiment). Add wash evenly over face/flesh. Make sure to cover every bit of skin visible, not just the deep/recessed areas. Allow to dry completely. Once dry, drybrush with Bronzed Flesh. Highlight raised areas with some more Bronzed Flesh if necessary (such as on nose, etc.) You can use a darker drybrush color initially if miniature is larger. Mix Snakebite Leather and bronzed flesh. Follow this with Bronzed Flesh. |
| Painting gemstones: I don't paint gemstones the same way that they are done by the GW paint crew. What I do is this. Paint the gem black. Next, paint it a metallic color (such as GW's Amethyst Purple, Polished Blue, or Glistening Green). Next, I take The Armory's paint Pearl (a light silver color, almost white). Put a small dot of this color on the center of the gem, making sure not to cover the underlying gem color. Finally, I put a gloss varnish over this when the mini is finished, to add that extra shine. If the gem is in a setting, first paint the setting and gem black, then paint the setting gold. Repaint the gem blank, and then finish the gem as detailed above. For best results, leave a thin black line between the setting and the gem. |
| Painting metallic colors: When trying to achieve the look of metal, first paint the area black. Then paint the metallic color over this. Dry brushing works very well here. |
Dry Brushing:
Dry brushing involves dipping a paint brush into the paint, then running the brush tip over a paper towel several times to remove most of the paint. Stop when it appears that paint is no longer coming off the brush. At this point the brush should contain little or no visible paint. Now, gently run the brush over the area that you wish to highlight. You should notice a little paint sticking to the raised areas. You may need to do this several times to achieve the desired results. Repeat the process until the entire area has been highlighted. Dry brushing works great on chain mail, furs and hair. Also remember to use old brushes when dry brushing. Dry brush with old brushes, as it tends to ruin the brush tips. Avoid using new brushes if possible. Also, brushes with flat tips work better than brushes with pointed tips. A dry-brush technique that you may have a use for. If you are dry-brushing a large area, get some toilet tissue for drying your brush and instead of wiping it clean, swirl it around. Use enough paint to wet the tissue and when you swirl the brush it will pick up tiny bits of the tissue. Now when you brush the area it will have an extra layer texture. It's great for undead flesh and I have yet to try it on metal armor. - Matthew C. Reply: I personally would not do this, as I feel this might ruin the finish on a model. However, someone else may find that it's just what they're looking for, so I'm listing it here for others to consider. |