Describe how you paint a normal miniature

[theoldschool]

I suppose I paint in what is now the 'classic' style. Brush on black gesso primer and then work up from dark to light starting with the face and then the main colour areas - coat, trousers etc and finish with the details. Normally between three and seven shades depending on how smooth I want the transition.
I have been using the Foundry paints for a while, but have started to move over to the P3 colour range which I think has better coverage and the colours have a more natural tone.
Recently I have been playing around with going back to a white primer. I love the finish that washes can give, but still find it a real pain on some of the modern figures with a lot of hard to reach detail.
Pat

[matakishi]

I have been using the Foundry paints for a while, but have started to move over to the P3 colour range which I think has better coverage and the colours have a more natural tone.

Same factory as Foundry and Coat d'Armes (and old GW); I'm hoping to try these myself soon as Foundry are good but very expensive to replace when one runs out.

[Plynkes]

1) Clean up flash, mold lines etc.

2) Glue to 1p coin, cutting down integral base a little if necessary to get a fit.
2a) If Renegade figure: Glue to 2p coin, as there is no way in the world to make them fit on a 1p coin.

3) Landscape base with miliput and the little never-ending bag of GW grit that I have been using for ever.

4) Undercoat in white.
4a) Notice how undercoat shows up the fact that I missed most of the mold lines in 1).
4c) Go back to 1)
4d) Undercoat again, replacing the paint that was removed by going back to 1)

5) Paint flesh tones. First the basic colour (which I make up as I go along from other paints), then the shadows, then the highlights and any 5 O'clock shadow is added sometime around now. Flesh work is probably the only stage where I can be bothered to attempt anything resembling blending.
5a) Insides of mouth, teeth, lips, tongues, moustaches, etc.
5b) Paint eyes black.
5c) Add dots of off-white to the eyes.
5d) Separate 3/4 of the unit that I messed up painting the eyes on.
5e) Repaint the eyes on the above-mentioned figures.
5f) Realise that on about half of  these that I've made the eyes worse.
5g) Get in a mood.
5h) Repaint the eyes.
5i) And so it goes on...
5j) Keep this up until only one figure in the unit still looks like Marty Feldman.
5k) Agonize over whether to persist with this last fellow or leave him goggle-eyed.

5l) Get in another mood, and go and watch Pussycat Dolls: The Search for the Next Doll on TV instead of doing any more stupid painting. My favourite is Asia.



6) Forget about Marty's eyes and Press on. Base colour of main article of clothing (jacket, coat or whatever, usually). Add shadows, then several layers of highlights. Keep going with the highlights until I think I've overdone it, which I usually have.

7) Same again for other articles of clothing.

(That's supposed to be an 8 with a right bracket, not a 'cool' smiley!) Equipment, belts, packs, etc. Usually just do one colour plus single highlight on stuff such as this.

9) Weapon (usually rifle with me). Paint metallic parts black, tiny highlight with Boltgun metal. Pick either dark or light brown for the wooden part and add a single either darker or lighter colour for a woodgrain effect.

10) Finishing touches. Usually: Boots, hair and then hats. This is because I find with acrylics that if I paint the boots early on, I tend to rub the paint off them as I'm painting the rest of the figure, just because of the inept way that I hold the base. Hair and hats are last for the same reason: I always steady the figure for painting by having a finger on the top of his head.

11) Paint base. Drybrush highlights. This is usually the only drybrushing I will do on a model of a person (though I do use it a lot on vehicles). It's not because I'm sniffy about it like some of those master painter types, it's just that I'm no bloody good at it. I always find the slow way of layers of highlights looks okay for me, but if I try and drybush something it always ends up looking rubbish. But it's hard to make a mess of drybrushing soil or sand, so I use it in this case. Used to drybrush a lot when I worked with enamels, but I've never been able to get a good effect using acrylics.

11a) Bit of flocking or static grass or whatever sometimes goes on now.

12) Gloss cote.

12) Dull cote.

Ta da! Finally!

[theoldschool]

I have been using the Foundry paints for a while, but have started to move over to the P3 colour range which I think has better coverage and the colours have a more natural tone.

Same factory as Foundry and Coat d'Armes (and old GW); I'm hoping to try these myself soon as Foundry are good but very expensive to replace when one runs out.

Although all three ranges come from the same manufacturer Foundry and Coat d'Armes can be a bit hit and miss on coverage (especially the reds), whereas P3 is consistently excellent. Painters looking for ready made triads might be a bit disappointed with P3 which involve more mixing for the shades and highlights.

Pat

[Malamute]

10) Finishing touches. Usually: Boots, hair and then hats. This is because I find with acrylics that if I paint the boots early on, I tend to rub the paint off them as I'm painting the rest of the figure, just because of the inept way that I hold the base. Hair and hats are last for the same reason: I always steady the figure for painting by having a finger on the top of his head.

 I used to have the same problem as you, rubbing off the paint, or getting cramp trying to hold such a fiddly little base.
Now after cleaning the flash off etc I glue them with a tiny drop of Superglue to Aerosol can lids. They make perfect painitng stands. Its alot easier to hold than a figure base. Once painted and varnished they are flicked off with a scalpel blade and attached to their permanent washer base.

[Plynkes]

I usually blu-tac them to something bigger, but even so ended up rubbing paint off the boots somehow! So now I just paint them nearly-last.


I should've said that I use GW and Coat d'Arms paints, (GW because they are the only paints I can get in the shops around here, and I have a stockpile of Coat d'Armes that I bought a while back).

[matakishi]

Painters looking for ready made triads might be a bit disappointed with P3 which involve more mixing for the shades and highlights.

Pat

I went off and did some reading up on the P3 paints and I've decided for the reason given above that they're not for me. I can't be bothered to mix shades, it takes too long and my poor colour vision usually gets it wrong anyway.

They have an extended drying time too apparently which I can also do without.

Foundry it is then, despite the postage  

[Malamute]

Foundry it is then, despite the postage  

If you ever want to combine an order and share the postage cost then let me know, or if we blow suffcient funds I think its post free over a certain amount.

[matakishi]

£70.00 or any order with books is post free.
At the moment I'm looking to order £6.00 worth of paint so I'll be charged £7.50 P&P. I'll wait a bit until funds are available and then get some of their colours that weren't in the basic set. With their prices it doesn't take much to get over the £70 threshold. I always feel disappointed though when I spend that much and and then only a small parcel of paint pots arrives  

[WillieB]

Usually work in batches of 10-15 figures.

Clean figures. Get bandaids.

Spray paint figure with GREY Holts primer. Very strong, very fine and dries in minutes. Don't forget mask or you'll cough for about an hour.

Same as Plynkes, wonder how I could have missed that mould line. Repeat process at infinitum.

Paint a much diluted dark purplish wash over the entire figure. Purple contains both red and blue, the most and least diffuse color in the spectrum.
The purple acts as a pre- shading color.

Drybrush entire figure with a light off-white or cream color. Learned this not so long ago from Rudi G who uses it for his as a base for his 'inking technique'. Took me 35+ years.....

I always start with the faces as this gives me a 'feel' for the figure.
I mix Napels yellow (reddish) with burnt umber and burnt Sienna for the base color. From this mix you can make an infinite variety of skin tones just by adding more burnt umber, raw Sienna or Mars brown.

Brush on lightly and remove some of the paint with a clean brush.

Eyes are next with a mixture of again burnt Umber and Phtalo blue- for some reason look much better than black.

One (very small) white dot  next to the previously painted bluish- green eye. That way you can give direction to the eye and avoid the 1000 mile stare or Marty Feldman- look as the eloquent Plynkes would say.
Tip; turn the figure over and try to paint underneath the eyelid.

A light wipe of Cadmium Red mixed with the flesh base color for the lower lip mixed and the figure is nearly ready.

In some instances you might want to add some more shadow to the cheeks, under the nose and chin, but mostly the purple undercoat is sufficient.
If some shadow is needed I find that a mixture of Burnt Umber and Alizarin Crimson is quite good.

Eventually highlight the nose bridge, the cheekbones, chin, ears and the upper lip with some white/flesh mixture. Again, mostly not neccesary since the light drybrush takes care of this.

Now, who said painting with oils take too much time? :mrgreen:

[Captain Blood]

Hmmm.. WillieB - that's the most unorthodox approach so far, but very scientific - especially the purple pre-wash (i do something similar, but using a very dark earth wash).

Most of all though, I love all those good old pigment names.
Alazarin Crimson... Cadmium Red... yum yum. Sounds so much better than 'orc-snot green' and suchlike, doesn't it?  :wink:

I'm just guessing you understand, but painting 25mm/28mm figs in oils must surely put you in a very weeny minority?

I once tried the 'wipe off' oil paint method on horses - and can tell you they looked categorically sh*t.  

Okay - I'm intrigued. Any chance of a pic or two to judge the results?  

[Hammers]

Most of all though, I love all those good old pigment names.
Alazarin Crimson... Cadmium Red... yum yum. Sounds so much better than 'orc-snot green' and suchlike, doesn't it?

I effing hate those childish paint names ('Vomit Brown'? Come on!). Makes it impossible to talk sensibly to any tradesman of acrylic paints. Bringing that kind of nomenclature into the miniature painting hobby is the worst disservice any company has ever done.

[WillieB]

Captain Blood,

Haven't got many pictures on this PC but perhaps some of my older ones will do.

I find that using this method a fairly realistic 'flesh' colour can be achieved but I'll leave it up to the experts.



Just to show that darker skin tones are also possible with this method.



Rather fierce looking Diamacheirius.



ANother one I wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.




Not even a face, but a lighter skin color and the proof that metallics in oils are not that bad...

[Lowtardog]

These are also painted with oils (skins and Warpaint)

[Plynkes]

I assume those guys are wearing some kind of covering on their winkies? Either that or there's something very odd going on with their anatomy.

They look like the ticks that cats sometimes get. Painful place to get a tick that big!