Painting a miniature, step - by - step

Starting to Paint

What to start with

Armour

Shading

Painting hair and fur

Painting the face

Basing your miniature

starting to paint

When you first start to paint you haven't got much tools. But actually you don't need that many tools.

The only things you need to get started are:

Brushes:

some nr. 2,1, and 00 or 000 brushes.

paint:

you will need one of every color you wan't to use, and some lighter and darker shades of skin-colors and the colors you use most often. And its a good idea to get several shades of brown, because a dark model with lots of brown, looks boring if all the brown is the same color. Once you have got the colors you wan't you an start painting. But after a while you should buy some washes. If you don't have any washes, you can thin your paints. All waterbased paints can be thinned down with water, other paints should be thinned down with terpentine. (What are washes for?)

Other tools:

Needle files are usefull to scrape of the excess material from making the miniature.

Drill & pieces of wire, which are usefull for larger models, where 'just' powerglue wont hold it all together. A good way of pinning two pieces of a modeltogether is Drilling a hole in the first part, put in a piece of wire, just big enough to stick out of the hole, put a blob of paint on the wire, and hold the two parts of the miniature together, this wil put a dot in the place you need to drill a hole in the second part of the miniature.

Tape & flock, or pebbels, or clay: These are to enhance the base of the miniature. (How doI do that?)

What to paint first

You should first assamble the miniature, or if it is only one part, just stick it onto its base with powerglue.

I find it best to paint the deaper layers of a model first. but if something needs drybrushing (like armour) that always goes first, because it makes a mess out of things. So for example: if I have a model with a shirt and a coat, I paint the shirt first. Only if the coat requires dybrushing, I do that first. Next rule is paint lighter colors first, because its easier to paint black over white, than to paint white over black.

Armour

Armour and weaponry are usually the most eye-cathing feature of a miniature. The best way to paint armour and weaponry that you want metal-coloured is to paint the whole area black, and drybrush it with silver or boltgun-metal (citadel paints). Drybrushing is a simple technique, but it ruins your brushes, so use an old brush for this. To drybrush apply a lot of paint to your brush, and and brush it against a piece of paper until there is barely coming paint of the brush. Now brush your model with it, the paint should only be applied to the raised area's of your miniature (also works on clothing). When you've done this and think its to bright, you can darken it by applying a little wash on the area's that normally don't catch light. (e.g. an erea under an arm, or close to the torso). When you want to paint a 'special' swords a hero might hold, don't use the drybrushing technique, but paint is the old-fasion way, because you can then pain it really shiny.

Shading

By now you should have painted your miniature's basic colors.

Washes are watered down paint, they can be used to shade a miniature. I use wash for almost the whole miniature, except for the flesh and armour. painting flesh will be explained in the "Face" part of this document. Washes are used as follows:

1. Apply the base color you want.

2. Apply the wash, make sure it doesn't mess up the rest of the mini.

3. Apply the base color again, but now apply it only to the parts of the miniature that would normaly 'catch light'. you can apply this layer by simply painting it, or by drybrushing.

Actually you now can say you have finnished shading the mini, but you can use a lot more coats of paint to 'blend' the wash and the normal paint together in a natural way. You can use many layers of paint for this, but for your first miniature, we end it here, when you got the hang of painting shades, you can apply more layers.

Hair and fur

I paint hair one of the last things on the model, but because its on top of its head, you can drybrush very easy, and not mess up the rest of the model.

Hair and fur is very simple to paint. Start by painting the hair a very dark shade of the color you want it to be. Then drybrush a lighter color over the original color, this color should be the color you want the hair to be, maybe a bit darker. Finally take a very light shade of the color, and do a very light drybrush.

Painting the face

Painting a face is done in the same way as the clothing, but for a face I never use washes, because they can obscure detail when the're applied on small surfaces. When painting a face, start with the flesh.

If you want really dark skin, undercoat it black. Then paint flesh-color over the black. Leave some of the black in the folds of the face, so it will look even more dramatic. Be sure to leave some black where the eyes are going to be, otherwise you have to repaint this when you do the eyes.

If you want light skin, paint the whole face with a color slightly darker then the color you want it to be. Then paint the final color over it with some of the darker color still in the folds of the face, and the places where the light does not reach.

Both of these steps can be devided in several layers when you have experience with painting, but for now we're gonna leave it at this.

Bases

All that is left now is to base your miniature. There are several ways to creatate a base for you miniature. I'll explain them from the most simple one's through the most complicated.

1:

Before undercoating your model, put watered-down PVA glue on the base, and sprinkle some sand on it. Once the model is finished, paint it green, and drybrush with a lighter shade of green, this gives the impresion of grass.

2:

Paint your mini as normal, and paint the base green. Then put a little watered-down PVA on the base and sprinkle some green flock(can be bought at your local hobby store) or static grass (but it at Games Workshop) on it to make a grass base. Or use brown paint and flock, to make it look like dirt.

3:

Take some pieces of rubbish, some leftover sprue (the frame plastic model come with) or just some pieces of cardboard, and glue them in a chaotic way to the sprue. Undercoat them, paint them black and drybrudh gray. There you have it, a model in a piece of ruined wall.

4.

Do this before attaching the model to the base. Cut out some pieces of cardboard to look like tiles, and stick em to the base. (Sounds simple, but you need patience which I don't have.)