What Minis Are You Painting?

Finished some more Sigmar stuff, signed up for my first tournament in February.

Still early WIP. But this big ork is coming along... Just making him for fun and to test some sculpting and scratchbuilding... who knows maybe he'll be the start of a new army.

Spent the May Day holiday working on these. Still work in progress.

Are those Renedra? I want some generic knights for a human army I want to do.

These are actually Perry's! They're tad smaller than your usual 28mm (such as Oathmark). These are the metals, but couple of months after I have these, the Perry released some plastics. Just my rotten luck.

Perry has two range of medieval knights: Agincourt & War of the Roses, you just need to pick 1. If you need something chunkier, check out the Fireforge plastics (although their website is a pain to work with).

Their plastic medieval infantry are also very good (but, again, smaller), available both in Agincourt & War of the Roses setting. Although I have to warn you about the kits peculiarities. These kits are super-historical, that their weapon loadout will be according to their historical prevalence in battles. The WotR infantry box has 36 dudes, but can only make 18 billmen, but up to 30 archers. At 20 pounds for 40 dudes, I can't complain though.

I just started painting minis for the first time in my life. On a whim, I bought a Reaper paint starter kit which comes with three minis and a "guide book" to walk you through how to paint them. The starter kit is pretty genius marketing, because it did exactly what they wanted -- it got me hooked. I bought a second Reaper paint kit, and a handful of their resin Bones minis, and some brushes, and before I knew it ... I'm neck deep in another goddamn hobby.

What I've decided is that with some patience, it's not hard to paint a mini that looks "okay." That's about where I'm at. But then I see stuff like in this thread, or on the internet, and I realize there is a VERY HIGH ceiling to what can be done. It's honestly kind of intimidating. But I'm having fun so far!

Joebot wrote: What I've decided is that with some patience, it's not hard to paint a mini that looks "okay." That's about where I'm at. But then I see stuff like in this thread, or on the internet, and I realize there is a VERY HIGH ceiling to what can be done. It's honestly kind of intimidating. But I'm having fun so far!

Congrats on the new hobby. May it be fulfilling for you.

The ceiling gets raised every year as well. Mostly because, the hobby is broader in participation, the people that do participate who now had a lot of practice, and since YouTube has been created we now have epic tutorial videos free of charge.

But don't let the height stop you.

Miniatures are merely three dimensional coloring books.

Once you have brush control, palette technique, and a few other personal tricks up your sleeve after some experience, you develop your own style and you get results you can be quite happy with

Don't fall into the trap of comparing the work of others with your own. Unless your trying to build a technique, there is no point in the jealousy that results in such comparisons.

Colorcrayons wrote:
Once you have brush control, palette technique, and a few other personal tricks up your sleeve after some experience, you develop your own style and you get results you can be quite happy with

Don't fall into the trap of comparing the work of others with your own. Unless your trying to build a technique, there is no point in the jealousy that results in such comparisons.

Brush control! Is that what you call it when I slop white paint all over the mini's face when I'm trying to paint a fucking eyeball? I swear, my minis all look like they're wearing goggles, or they look very startled.

But thanks for the encouragement! It's much appreciated.

I get by on the notion that Duncan Rhodes is actually a demon, sent to cause chaos.

I think my secret, such as it is, is “don’t paint eyeballs.” At least, not usually. A lot of the pleasure of going for a pretty-darn-good painted miniature can be lost in the quest to master a few unnecessary details.

85 per cent of all miniatures look great without painted eyeballs. And the truth is, badly painted eyeballs will really ruin a figure, at least for me.

See also “edge highlighting.”

I think the single best piece of painting advice is if you can’t do it, don’t feel like doing it, or if you are already happy where it is...don’t do it. Like GG with the eyeballs...if you just can’t do it or if it ruins the finish on a decent looking face, just don’t. Same with the edge highlighting. The thing is, stuff like that takes more skill than the average miniature painter has. It’s easy to look at stuff online, Duncan, etc. and be like “oh, I can do that”...but a badly highlighted miniature looks worse than one with just a good, clean base paint layer and maybe a light wash.

You’ll find that naturally your skill ceiling goes up and you’ll have the confidence and brush control to go for it. You’ll know when it’s time to go for it and do an extra highlight or paint eyeballs. Or it may not ever happen and that’s OK.

I’m mostly into painting Northstar (Oathmark and Frostgrave) stuff right now, and let me tell you it is FAR less demanding than any GW figure made in the past 10 years. There’s a psychological thing where you see the pics on the box or whatever and you feel defeated or inferior if you can’t get close to it. With these little 25mm-ish dudes, you don’t feel that subtle pressure to do more than you are really able. I mean, the results you see in pics on the box/website are actually obtainable by average painters, and that’s nice to see.

So keep practicing with the Bones figures...some are TERRIBLE, some are really good. But the Learn to Paint Kit is a great way to start out. You’ll definitely want to upgrade to decent brushes quickly though, that’s another issue- if you don’t have the right brushes, you are limiting what you can achieve.

Joebot wrote:

Colorcrayons wrote:
Once you have brush control, palette technique, and a few other personal tricks up your sleeve after some experience, you develop your own style and you get results you can be quite happy with

Don't fall into the trap of comparing the work of others with your own. Unless your trying to build a technique, there is no point in the jealousy that results in such comparisons.

Brush control! Is that what you call it when I slop white paint all over the mini's face when I'm trying to paint a fucking eyeball? I swear, my minis all look like they're wearing goggles, or they look very startled.

But thanks for the encouragement! It's much appreciated.

Eyeballs.

Back when I started, I attempted eyeballs. Some were good, most looked like the model belonged in an insane asylum with how crazed their expressions became after my brushwork was done.

So I became content with painting the entire eyeball in the color according to the character I was painting. This paladin has green eyes? Well, now their whole eye is green. Up close such a thing looks haunted, yet three feet away on the tabletop, it looked a lot better.

That last sentence is likely the best thing to keep in mind over the course of your time in this hobby.

What looks good and technically awesome up close may look like garbage at a distance. Sometimes... No, often times the more cartoons effects look better on the table than technical perfection.

I no longer use that eye trick, but I think it's a decent one for beginners. Especially since once you do 'git gud' at it, you can go back and do it right as a simple touch up

There is also another psychological trick your brain does...when you are holding the figure up close and under a light LOOKING for imperfections...you find them. But put the figure away for a week and come back. Sit it on the table and look at it. You’ll be like “dang, that turned out pretty decent” 9 times out of 10.

One of the better eye painting tips I’ve seen is to NOT do white. Do a cream or bone color. The white is way too contrasty with most colors. If I am doing eyes, I usually drop a little shade on top of it just to tone down the “goggle” look.

Or just paint models that don’t have eyes!

9 times out of 10 I don’t even mess with eyes. I know it would only make things worse.

The thing about edge highlighting is--backed with my "experience" painting over a hundred marines--don't worry if your lines are not sharp. I mean, sure, at close range it will look sloppy. But at normal viewing distance those 1-3 mm non-highlights really help to form the shape of your minis.



Oh, the horror!