What Minis Are You Painting?

Man, restic is so shitty. I just got the Warmachine 2 player box for review, I didn't know they were doing restic too. It's slightly better than Mantic's but still awful. The figures are a pain in the ass to build. Superglue everywhere.

Zenithal priming seems like more trouble than it's worth. I'm already stressed out enough in that step- less than I am painting itself. It's too easy to get off to a bad start or even ruin a model. I'll try it sometime.

I've learned to love a gray prime. You don't get the overall dark tone of black and it gives a cleaner look than white. Painter's Touch, DAMN.

Might present the Knight-Questor tonight...

Michael Barnes wrote: I've learned to love a gray prime. You don't get the overall dark tone of black and it gives a cleaner look than white. Painter's Touch, DAMN.

Yep, it's the only prime I use. Home Depot for, what, $5?

The problem with Zenithal is that I'd have to go buy a black and a white spray. Then be sure that my distance is correct to get the desired coverage. Add that on top of the normal spray primer worries of moisture in the air, and I think I might pass. My system has served me well for awhile now.

Can't you get a black and white primer for $5 from Home Depot too?

For primers, if you have a compressor available, an airbrush is way better than any spray can. Vallejo Surface Primer provides great coverage and a nice clean coat. Added benefit is zenithal shading for model's that largely use one color is even easier than a can as you can jump straight to your model's primary color spectrum for shading the base.

I've done zenithal highlighting with with drybrushing. It's ok I guess, but I prefer cartoony highlighting style.

Once you get rolling it doesn't take long to follow something like that Slaughterpriest guide. I think I only spent maybe an hour and some change on those Acolytes. It's kind of more complexity than time.

Generally yes, but the big issue is when you do a lot of minis, you tend to forget things. Say, you put 5-6 layers of a color into minis. Then you look at their behind and you totally forgot that their butt should have been the same shade. This is... excrrruuuuciating, and doubly so with those layers.

Funny you mention that. I started on two more Acolytes, humming along thinking I was hot shit and didn't have to follow the video. Yep, I completely skipped the very first step (Rakarth Flesh basecoat). I Bugman's Glow-ed them.

The punchline is that after Reikland and a drybrush of Kislev, they actually don't look too much different than doing all that layer work.

So yeah, next two I'm doing the "MB's Hubris" way.

Sevej - what do you mean by "cartoony highlighting"?

Well, it's just my simplistic way of painting. Blue is blue, red is red. Etc. I don't bother to find different shades of blue, although I do have 3 blues of the same hue but different brightnes, and a set of grey-blue color. When doing smaller scales, I just paint base color (darker blue for example) and then hit with a single layer (of brighter blue--the cartoony highlight). The single layer is done rather sloppily, leaving a big patch of the darker color on the side opposite to the light source.

Actually for bigger scales I also do the same. If you see the runewars minis on the previous page, all colors are just two layer (a base and a single layer). Sometime I do wash, but verry rarely since they make things muddy and not so cartoony.

But mainly it's about color choice. I only have 25 paints of bottle to cover *all* my painting (paint is expensive here, and importing takes 4 weeks!). I only mix only for very special cases, and never to apply on multiple figures. The only color that I have quite a bit is brown. I have 2 or 3 shades of brown, since I can't have straps, boots, leather armor, leggings, and bows the same color. Even then I have to be creative using darker yellow and bone for wood and leather. I also play with maximum contrast.

For example, if you check Barnes' slaughterpriest, I'd reduce the number of browns since brown isn't really contrasting red. The belt would be very bright gold, and the sash on the back would be black to provide more contrast to the red (and the brown of the boots). The reds would be bright red and the spiky ball would much more shinier.

More like World of Warcraft than any other recent MMOs.

This approach takes a while to think about, but really fast on the execution. They just have to impress from an arm's length.

I had a chance to go through some old photos and wanted to share the mini painting fun. I mostly do 15mm now, but these are from my days of 28mm. Currently I have a single Blood Rage figure started (Hill Giant) that is 2/3 done and almost everything else in storage from moving.

Opening with board game stuff here is LNOE minis... I think I traded this game away though...



Even though I played Menoth, the Khador I painted always looked better.




Here are some of my IG, these were the first minis I ever got and I have a nice before and after shot of first time painting vs. second time painting years later.




Lastly here is a fun one showing off my "unique" Space Hulk termi colors.



If I ever unpack more stuff, I'll try to take some shots of 15mm and BB stuff.

Sevej wrote: Generally yes, but the big issue is when you do a lot of minis, you tend to forget things. Say, you put 5-6 layers of a color into minis. Then you look at their behind and you totally forgot that their butt should have been the same shade. This is... excrrruuuuciating, and doubly so with those layers.

I keep a paint "journal" for this reason. I list the general color/area of the model and then my steps (Base: X, Wash: Y, Layer 1: Z, etc). I can then reference it later when I paint up a similar figure. It's a digital file so I can copy and paste easily from previous entries to create a new entry for a given model.

Been painting Silver Tower. First time painting a game.

First time my ass, you are sandbagging!

Those look really good for a "first time"!

I'm about to do the Pink Horrors myself...what colors did you use for the skin?

Thanks! I've learned a lot through this process. First ones painted were the little fire dudes, where I learned you don't want to use black primer when painting yellow. The Pink Horrors are several models in where I got better. I have been using Army Painter and for the skin I used their mixing guide to make pink (2 Matt White, 1 Alien Purple and 1 Pure Red). I added a wash using Army Painter Red tone, then I may have drybrushed the pink again (can't remember).

He said "First time painting a game", not miniatures in general I surmise.

OK, OK. Here is the truth. First time painting miniatures, however I used to paint model kits. So, some similarities in techniques, but minis are way smaller and challenging than 1:8 scale models! I learned a lot from some of the recent threads on this site, too, which has helped!