What Minis Are You Painting?

Any of y'all have experience with the Army Painter color spray primers? I've got most of Betrayal at Calth built and it looks like those would be a great way to prime and basecoat them in bulk since they are two main colors. Dragon Red for the Word Bearers, Ultramarine Blue (duh) for the Ultramarines.

They are kind of expensive ($14 a piece), but it looks like a signifanct time/effort savings.

I've used the system - it's really fast. Personally, I like Painters Touch 2x better but the Army Painter primers are still good stuff.

I just got the latest Imperial Assault expansion (Bespin) and primed and will be starting on those.

I also painted the WWE Showdown figures lately. I used the GW Ardcoat to protect them, but I can't rid of the tacky touch sensation they have. I even tried putting them in a refrigerator for a few weeks to remove any humidity to no effect.

Barnes! I'm only using Army Painter stuff. The primer is pricey, but the pigment consistency is spot-on with their bottles. 'Time is money' as they say, and I'm a fan of being allowed corrections with the bottles. Super convenient, super fast. I have 12 different colors in the studio, and have sprayed though multiples of matt white, black, and anti-shine varnish. My only complaint: two cans over the years have had nozzles that quickly snap off.

Painting updates...

I just primed most of the Betrayal At Calth SMs using Army Painter spray primers- Ultramarine Blue and Dragon Red. WOW. 20 of those little bastards and five Terminators are primed and base coated. In like 20 minutes. They look good too - if you weren't interested in painting them fully, I think it would be reasonable just to use this to make them red and blue. The red is a little gloppy and there's a few spots on the Word Bearer Vexilla I slopped up, but the blue is fantastic overall. A little black, a little red, a little gold and a little silver and these guys will be done. I didn't do the "hero" minis with the spray, I may just do them in white and then give them more intensive attention.

Reaper paints, ugh. I hate to say it, but Citadel does seem like the best right now. Back 10 years ago when I had my last painting go-round, it was all about Vallejo. The Citadel stuff just works better. I haven't tried P3 yet.

Some pics...the first one is an Ice Spider my son did. He did it all by himself (after much "I can't do this!). I thought I had a picture of the zebra unicorn my daughter did, but I don't and she's lost the figure. Second is a Feral Troll from D&DAS. I think he turned out pretty good, ironically I spent less time on him than just about anything else I've done. The Reikland Fleshshade did really well on him, I never really used inks/shades so I'm getting used to using them. Sort of tricky. The rest are from Imperial Assault. Stormtroopers, I have no idea what to do with them. I've tried a couple of things and they just wind up looking murky. Luke is not looking so hot either. All of these need some clean up (god, the bases) but I feel like I'm making at least a little progress. My goal is to be taking commissions to paint F:ATties' miniatures by this time next year.

<a data-flickr-embed="true" href=" www.flickr.com/photos/54116966@N03/27488041742/in/photostream/ " title="Untitled"> c7.staticflickr.com/8/7243/27488041742_47f986064d_z.jpg " width="640" height="640" alt="Untitled">

<a data-flickr-embed="true" href=" www.flickr.com/photos/54116966@N03/27309981290/in/photostream/ " title="Untitled"> c3.staticflickr.com/8/7462/27309981290_0c7186bce2_z.jpg " width="480" height="640" alt="Untitled">

<a data-flickr-embed="true" href=" www.flickr.com/photos/54116966@N03/26978175363/in/photostream/ " title="Untitled"> c4.staticflickr.com/8/7744/26978175363_667b2e56cc_z.jpg " width="480" height="640" alt="Untitled">

<a data-flickr-embed="true" href=" www.flickr.com/photos/54116966@N03/27552731596/in/photostream/ " title="Untitled"> c5.staticflickr.com/8/7259/27552731596_7895556058_z.jpg " width="640" height="480" alt="Untitled">

<a data-flickr-embed="true" href=" www.flickr.com/photos/54116966@N03/27587167965/ " title="Untitled"> c6.staticflickr.com/8/7577/27587167965_1be641f0be_z.jpg " width="640" height="480" alt="Untitled">

One thing that would help give a huge boost with little work - hit the the entire mini with a wash like Devlan Mud or whatever they replaced it with. That's basically dipping, just washing the entire figure but it makes it look 100 times better. It cover up mistakes and makes the detail work really pop.

Ya, I have the Nuln Oil which is what GW says to use on them. Kind of scared of it because it botched the Stormtroopers, but I think it will work much better on the SMs.

Looking at your pictures, C3PO and IG-88 would hugely benefit from it.

By botching the Stormtroopers do you mean it made them look too messy?

With a mini that's very clean and bright (like Stormtrooper armor) the best approach is to base coat them, hit them with the generic wash, and then go back over them painting the original base coat color in on most of the surfaces. Just keep the brush/paint away from the edge/joints/folds. For best results do this for all figures as it provides a natural highlight (base paint, wash, highlight with base paint on raised areas).

If you hit C3PO with the Nuln Oil you'd need to do this so he still looks bright on the majority of his features.

That's the only way I paint now really and it works for pretty much everything.

Your kid did a good job on the spider. I kind of like it the best of the bunch. Did he take the design/color off of something or come up with it himself? I'm really digging it.

Yea, wash' em and hit them back with the base colors. Back when I painted my friends' storm troopers we did the same. Sloppy white drybrush over black primer, wash, and then more white. Some minis are just very quick to paint and look good. The Imperial Guards are one of those. Hit with red, wash, and red again.

If you're really afraid messing them up, just use selective wash on the crevices.

I'm painting the Runewars heroes, just the base game. I've painted everything else in the box, and by far they are the worst things in the box. The minis are just bad. The artwork style actually doesn't help at all. The colors are boring (mostly reeeeeds). The orcs have several different hues, but they are so non-saturated it's difficult to decide the colors. And then the minis and the artworks have difference. Like one having shoulder pads and the other's not. Well, I just slap colors over them and be done with it. My Runewars base game is 99% complete now. Just need to finish the base on neutral and heroes (grey base with white lips).

BTW, for paints, I currently use Army Painter. They're on dropper bottles, nice bright colors, and finally they dont have a dozen shade of green (bright, normal, dark, army and puke). They're just easy to use. I still use GW base paints for difficult colors though (white and yellow). In fact the whole range is just like less than 40 colors... then they also have the 100% match guarantee thingy although this is useless for me since I cant buy aerosols from overseas by myself. Them being cheap is just an added bonus.