What Minis Are You Painting?

metalface13 wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Well, it depends on what I'm doing. With the nicer GW stuff, I like to spend a little more time and go for more complex work. But with things like the Mantic stuff, Black Plague or whatever I'm down with just 4-5 colors.

What I wanted to show Casey there is that if you want to attempt the stuff like what you see in WD...it takes a lot of freakin' paint.

Oh yeah, I saw that Tzangor tutorial on BoLS too, that's way too many paints. I plan on doing some trials with various styles to find what works for me. White undercoat, black undercoat, block colors with wash and highlight, etc. I'd also really like to try doing a zenithal prime (black undercoat, do a light spray of gray then white from straight above) and then use washes like so: theleadpile.blogspot.com/2016/08/zenithal-piece-of-piss.html

Wow, that's an outstanding approach and tutorial!

Mr. White wrote:

metalface13 wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Well, it depends on what I'm doing. With the nicer GW stuff, I like to spend a little more time and go for more complex work. But with things like the Mantic stuff, Black Plague or whatever I'm down with just 4-5 colors.

What I wanted to show Casey there is that if you want to attempt the stuff like what you see in WD...it takes a lot of freakin' paint.

Oh yeah, I saw that Tzangor tutorial on BoLS too, that's way too many paints. I plan on doing some trials with various styles to find what works for me. White undercoat, black undercoat, block colors with wash and highlight, etc. I'd also really like to try doing a zenithal prime (black undercoat, do a light spray of gray then white from straight above) and then use washes like so: theleadpile.blogspot.com/2016/08/zenithal-piece-of-piss.html

Wow, that's an outstanding approach and tutorial!

I'm going to give that a shot as well!

Here is what 27 paints and negligible skill look like.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/54116966@N03/shares/pgtu38

https://www.flickr.com/photos/54116966@N03/shares/F6p830

Did some drybrushing on a Deadzone Enforcer. I think it came out pretty well.

Looking good, Michael -- I am trying to work up to that for all the GW minis.

I am using the Ravenloft minis to practice, basically.

The spider was my first one, not as good. Rats look better in person than on the picture.

I think the Gargoyle had 5 colors: black, dark grey (with a bluish tint), light grey, and almost a white grey, and then red for the eyes. Tried some basic layering and dry brushing here.

The wolf had 4 colors: black, dark grey, light grey, red for eyes.

The zombies had more colors, but hard to see on the picture (I might be the shittiest photographer there is). It definitely looks better than the pre-painted version of the same zombie that came with Dungeon Command, which is probably the lowest bar possible to set. Still a lot of room for growth and practice. Ghouls next.

Thanks, I feel like I was pushing my skill level...but you know they really weren't that difficult. There were a lot of steps, but there were just a couple of things I screwed up on. It is all layering. Zero drybrushing. I learned a lot doing these about how to use Lahmian medium to get the right flow, how to lay the brush on the surface, how to blend. I actually used just one brush on all of it, a Citadel S Layer brush.

Having guidance as to the right sequence to paint helps a lot. And it also helps that these figures were actually quite straightforward, no bullshit details.

Base/wash/highlight is still much easier, but even with my low skill level I can see a difference in the depth of color and the effect of different tones laid on top of each other.

Practice, practice, practice...

Once you guys get these dudes painted, how do you store them? I am just storing the D&D minis in the gamebox like a sensible person; however, I am suspecting that some of the GW minis are too delicate to do that with -- especially the heroes.

I just got the White Dwarf with the Slaughter Priest, I think that I will follow their paint guide and see how that turns out. I can already tell I am going to be a sucker for Gorechosen -- no bullshit, just four fighters in a pit; very reminiscent of some gladiatorial combat. When I order it, I am going to order Skarr Bloodwrath and Valkia the Bloody. I think these will be my first GW minis to really try to paint.

I have so much real life work to do though, I imagine that it will take the better part of October to get them finished.

I also am finding the GW games to be a nice refresher for really why I fell in love with board games as a kid. Almost a "pureness" in their approach.

The thing with layering with lots of layers is that you have to repeat that process for the whole army. At least for me.

Maybe one day if I paint a skirmish crew... screw that, I'm sticking with my 3-paints-a-color doctrine.

For storage, my wife allows 2 shelves of Ikea Billys to place my miniatures. More sturdy board game miniatures I just throw them in ziplock bags once varnished. If they're scratched, big deal... fix it in 3 minutes. Another 3-paints-a-color doctrine advantage.

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.

Storage- Michaels sells these $2.99 bead boxes that fit most figures. I've got like ten of them now.

I've never gone out of my way to protect minis. I do have a big craft box with various bins for Deadzone figures, but I don't do one figure per bin. They aren't Faberge eggs.

Almalik wrote:

Mr. White wrote:

metalface13 wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Well, it depends on what I'm doing. With the nicer GW stuff, I like to spend a little more time and go for more complex work. But with things like the Mantic stuff, Black Plague or whatever I'm down with just 4-5 colors.

What I wanted to show Casey there is that if you want to attempt the stuff like what you see in WD...it takes a lot of freakin' paint.

Oh yeah, I saw that Tzangor tutorial on BoLS too, that's way too many paints. I plan on doing some trials with various styles to find what works for me. White undercoat, black undercoat, block colors with wash and highlight, etc. I'd also really like to try doing a zenithal prime (black undercoat, do a light spray of gray then white from straight above) and then use washes like so: theleadpile.blogspot.com/2016/08/zenithal-piece-of-piss.html

Wow, that's an outstanding approach and tutorial!

I'm going to give that a shot as well!

I've got the perfect minis to try this out on....Dreadball's Crystallans. They're these rock aliens, so could lend themselves to this sort of thing I'd guess.

Trick is that they are made from that translucent blue plastic, which if you pick out only the rock parts to paint will give them a cool crystal/gem/rock hybrid look. Sort of like living geodes.


If I try this approach I will lose that. However, there has been some good results simply painting over the whole fig in a traditional manner, so maybe it's worth a shot.

For mini storage at home, I use the APCs from Portable Warfare. They stack well, hold a lot, and I don't care if they're only cardboard boxes. These things sit on a shelf in a closet, so I don't need anything hardcore.

www.portablewarfare.com/products/

I do have a svelt Feldherr MINI case for when I travel out of the house with a gang or team. Made of the finest German engineering...it's quite nice.

www.amazon.com/Feldherr-MINI-miniatures-...ywords=feldherr+mini

Mr. White wrote:

Almalik wrote:

Mr. White wrote:

metalface13 wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: Well, it depends on what I'm doing. With the nicer GW stuff, I like to spend a little more time and go for more complex work. But with things like the Mantic stuff, Black Plague or whatever I'm down with just 4-5 colors.

What I wanted to show Casey there is that if you want to attempt the stuff like what you see in WD...it takes a lot of freakin' paint.

Oh yeah, I saw that Tzangor tutorial on BoLS too, that's way too many paints. I plan on doing some trials with various styles to find what works for me. White undercoat, black undercoat, block colors with wash and highlight, etc. I'd also really like to try doing a zenithal prime (black undercoat, do a light spray of gray then white from straight above) and then use washes like so: theleadpile.blogspot.com/2016/08/zenithal-piece-of-piss.html

Wow, that's an outstanding approach and tutorial!

I'm going to give that a shot as well!

I've got the perfect minis to try this out on....Dreadball's Crystallans. They're these rock aliens, so could lend themselves to this sort of thing I'd guess.

Trick is that they are made from that translucent blue plastic, which if you pick out only the rock parts to paint will give them a cool crystal/gem/rock hybrid look. Sort of like living geodes.

If I try this approach I will lose that. However, there has been some good results simply painting over the whole fig in a traditional manner, so maybe it's worth a shot.

Jeff, another alternative I've seen to the zenithal spray is to prime the figure white, wash with a black or dark brown wash and then drybrush white highlights. Then do the color washes on top of that. Seems you could use a brush on primer for the rock parts, then wash all over the primed bits and the translucent bits, then do the dry brush highlights. Would that work?

metalface13 wrote: Jeff, another alternative I've seen to the zenithal spray is to prime the figure white, wash with a black or dark brown wash and then drybrush white highlights. Then do the color washes on top of that. Seems you could use a brush on primer for the rock parts, then wash all over the primed bits and the translucent bits, then do the dry brush highlights. Would that work?

I'm not sure what plastic the figures are made out of, but I would assume it is Mantic's usual mediocre restic. In my experience, that material is fairly hydrophobic and does not take a wash well without a primer. You might need to clearcoat the translucent bits so the wash will correctly adhere.

yeah, I have already sprayed these blue figs with testor's dulcote. You do need to put something on them for any sort of paint or wash to stick.

I was actually wondering...if I ran multiple layers of red glaze, if the translucent blue would start to take on a purple hue. That would be ideal.