I paid for this too. I don’t have the patience to do a lot of the things he suggests but it’s a great guide on exactly how and why painters do things in certain ways.
I built my bathroom with some boards made of hard pressed insulation-like foam (much more expensive than regular concrete blocks, but lighter and easier to work with). I think the heaviest was 100mm thick and would be excellent for making terrain, if I was still into that. Also the expansion insulation foam you can spray into crevices and stuff is really good - you can spray it into molds and you can make a huge blob and just start shaving and shaping it. I just don’t know how well it keeps the shape over the years - but considering it’s just around doorframes and other places where dampness and changing temperatures is an issue, I’d bet it doesn’t change shape much.
I haven’t done landscapes for 10+ years, so perhaps this is all old news and well tried… but at the time it was a revelation to me.
In other news I found all my old models. Seems like I have 3 complete fleets of Man’O’War miniatures as well as some random stragglers, so I guess I’ll try and convince somebody to play that (The big Dark Elf ship was missing, though. Even though the box was there, so perhaps I have another box of miniatures somewhere).
I also had a Necromunda gang, but no terrain to play it on. And a full Empire Epic army as well as a slightly water damaged box of Titan Legions - when Epic was discontinued, I apparently bought our remaining stock of tanks and whatnot, which are still in their blister packs. So I think i’ll sell that.
I’ll post some pictures here, or mail to you if you PM me your info - I’m not out to make a lot of money, but if I can save some of the expenses on the Vallejo paints I’ve decided to get from the UK that would be great.
I also found a great undead mammoth (but a smaller scale than WH unfortunately) that was only primed as well as a handful of unpainted Deadlands miniatures - I probably bought them with my store discount, because they looked cool and never got round to doing anything about them. I’ll give them away, if somebody wants to give them a good home.
Oh, and a question:
I also found this
A rather expensive 1/8 scale model of Bernie Wrightson’s Frankenstein matching one of his illustrations. There’s a set on ebay for $200, which I think is close to the original cost (although I paid more with the then exchange rates) Unfortunately moisture had warped the vinyl in the larger pieces (floor, tub, boxes) and my question is: Can this be fixed?
I found a store offering complete painted WH armies as well as custom miniatures, and his work looks good. But if the model can’t be fixed, there’s no need to ask for a quote. Also he might not have any experience with vinyl at all - I need a paint job somewhat more subdued than the GW style.
How about you Ian? Doesn’t that sound like a fun challenge?
Those large scale pieces are hard to paint. I have tried them but not for a while. As far as warpage goes, you may be able to fix it with by leaving it in hot water until it is softer, carefully rebending it and then putting it in cold water to set again. Depends what kind of vinyl it is - that technique works for most resins but I don’t have a lot of experience with vinyl kits.
I read that as a “Yes, I will totally paint your kit for you!” ;-)
Thanks for the advice. I’ll try with one of the smaller square parts. And then I need to check if some of the more organic parts are warped too… if that’s the case, I don’t think I have a chance of fixing it (but I think it’s only the larger parts).
I have to say, getting a good brush really has made things much, much easier, and I strongly recommend all of us newbs start there.
Do any of you gurus have experience with 15mm? I’m finding that a lot of the specific techniques I read for the 28mm stuff doesn’t really apply at this scale (attempting fancy highlighting etc just kills the detail). The biggest problem I have is that the difference between the recess of the model and the rest of it is so small that my ham hocks just paint right into it no matter how hard I try. My workflow so far has been simply paint the base coats, then drybrush the highlights, then wash with Devlan Mud. This works well for shading, but I have a feeling that I’m cutting out all of the effects of the highlight. Should I go with the wash first, then highlight? Has anyone had any luck block painting at this scale, or is it futile for all but neurosurgeons?
This is the correct order regardless of scale. I’ve painted some 15mm stuff - mostly Napoleonic and ancients figures but I didn’t enjoy it much. It wasn’t so much the scale but the limitations of the colour palette - for historical wargaming authenticity is important. Also, the quality of the miniatures is much more variable than with major 25mm producers.
Here’s what I was working on tonight. He’s going to be my company commander, so I spent a lot of time on him, trying out some new things on a bad sculpt first:
This is my first ever attempt at both true block painting and white priming, and I really don’t think either would work well for a production-level output (the 130 men necessary for a US rifle company, for example). But I’m quite happy with the results for a special unit figure. Staying in the lines was the hardest part for me on this one, he’s not nearly as clean as I was hoping. I know that will come with practice though. I’m also not that happy with how the helmet came out - no matter how I tried to highlight it, I couldn’t get the definition in the brim that I wanted. I also got to cheat with this fig since he doesn’t have a rifle, which I’ve been terrible at painting so far :)
I did learn something very valuable out of this: don’t try to prime when it’s like 90% humid outside. I ended up with a nice layer of snow on my model and had to just paint on the primer. So that was fun.
Once I get his radio-bitch painted, I’ll base them and post a picture of the finished product. I find that a decent basing job hides a terrible paint job quite nicely.
Oh, and this is also me testing my “light box” setup - a box with a white t-shirt over it, over which I have placed a lamp. I should probably cover the sides too, huh?
Anyway, please pick this apart as much as possible. Like I said, I couldn’t do everyone like this, but I think with some modifications to my technique I could get something close for the majority of my army.
For FOW minis, that looks great. You will rarely see anything painted to even that standard with the crappy, tiny infantry figs. Even though I didn’t get to play much I really wish I hadn’t sold off all my FOW stuff. I had an assault company modeled after the Company of Heroes version of Able Company with lots of the units that you could get in that game and I miss having the cool figures around for shermans, quad-50-cal halftracks, etc.
This was a great thread and I’d love to see it keep going, especially since I’m thinking of paintings some minis. Anyone have any good beginner videos to suggest? I liked this guy but I wish he would do more closeups.
I really like Sorastro’s Painting. He covers a lot of different miniature and board games. His technique is great and he covers every little step, so it’s easy to follow. And, as a beginner, you can always skip the last few highlight stages if they get too fiddly.
That looks terrible!
Nonsense. You’re high on Canadian bacon.
The advice about fixing the figure to something using putty instead of holding the actual figure in your hand is worth the price of the entire video.
With the caviat that i neither play tabletop nor paint, i’ve been watching this guy for some strange reason and been impressed with his and his guests painting skills.
Being the huge Game of Thrones nerd that I am, I couldn’t resist KS this one. So I’ve been watching lots of Youtube videos from various channels on the basics of painting minis. I used to paint lead minis back in the late 70s and early 80s during my DnD years and really enjoyed it, still have a few of them sitting on my bookshelves. I will say, the art of painting minis has come a long ways, lots of techniques I would’ve never thought of 35+ years ago.
I bought the Vallejo game color set of paints and have about a dozen or so more colors on my miniaturesmarket wishlist once the KS ships (presumably this summer), but plan on using the Pillars 2: Deadfire companion minis as practice. Been using b-day and Christmas to get brushes, washes, magnifying headband, basing materials, etc.
I used to make my own miniatures out of Sculpty. It comes in many, many colors so you can sculpt in those colors and thus no need for painting (maybe you’d want to give it a wash to make it look dirty or whatever). You bake it in the oven.
So with Games Workshop finally supporting a small scale skirmish game, imaginatively named KILL TEAM, there’s never been a better time to grab some models for ‘the project you are totally gonna start one day and inevitably never will’, and put them to good use. I’ve been able to throw together a bunch of scratch squads just with leftover models, but none have taken my heart (or won more campaign games) then Deez Ladz. Still a WIP, but about 90% done, should have the bases complete tonight :)
I love that you put the dice in there for scale. I don’t know how you can paint things so small! A lot of patience & a good magnifier I guess.
I have to take my glasses off these days 🤓 Thanks for thinking I was clever enough to use the dice for scale, that model is still drying in the pic and I have him bluesticky tacked to it, haha. No other reason.