Share painting techniques

Greetings and Salutations,

I was wondering if any of you guys can share your painting techniques. Like you like to use layering or blending or any advance weathering technique or colour mixing. I know we can get all of this on the net but it will be great if you all can share you own personal preference or experience in painting miniatures.

wow...

actually i belief painting is best to be demo in person... words are cheap and hard to describe the things we do... muahahaha...

too bad not many shops allows painting.

else we can organise a painting night... or day

Legio has a painting area can look into that

dont underestimate words as it can inspire you.... it will be good if there's a demo of step by step instruction but I'm the kind of person who like to experiment things rather than follow steps to the letter. So just a simple advice might be enough to inspire to try

I know how to do basic colouring and currently a noob at NMM (non-metallic metal).

I dont mind a painting night. At least some of ... 'pros' in action.

Well It sounds like a good idea someone go organize it la ,
I also wanna come watch.

An idea: Iron Painter-esque night.

Obligatory On Topic post: I use to dry brush alot, although I resort to simple highlights now instead. In order to dry brush:

1) Get your paint watered down to the right amount.
2) Apply some paint on your brush.
3) "wipe" the paint off the brush using a tissue paper until no colour is left being smudged (but paint is still evident on the brush)
4) Apply light strokes over your miniature.

Uh... Normally I don't waterdown dry brush. Gizmoduck water down it alot ( from the end results it looks more towards layering than dry brush )

If you refer to my pictures, you can see the wreck.

The wreck I posted how I painted it.


The best advice I've ever got and follows to today. "thin layers, always go for multiple thin layers."
Then I adden to it, I change my colours slightly between layers, brighten/darken it up/down.

The second trick I like is, Gloss varnish brighten and sharpen your colours. Flat varnish dulls your colours. Imagine it as Photoshop, gloss increase contrast while flat reduce contrast. Paint with this in mind.

And I like to mix gloss and flat on my models. And am now using satin varnish over gloss for a brighter/ sharper look. Yet not too toy like appearance.

Next, gloss varnish is tougher, protects better. You can apply flat over gloss for best protection/appearance combo.

Mix your paint, meaning explore different brands and don't limit yourself to just GW or P3. I uses jo Sonja colour sampler set, mr colour, tamiya, GW, P3, vallejo, pelikan, gundam paint pen, marker pen (I'm serious)... And recently I found that gundam colour pen and tamiya weathering pen to be very useful!

Also if someone tells you tamiya spray paint is no good... Screw that. It's one of the best out there, just expansive. And their normal paint is thinner based = troublesome!

Oh... I'm using wood stain as wash...

And I reduce the intencity of my colours ( makes it more transparent ) with my satin varnish added in to keep the paint consistent and not becomes a wash.

I can't stress watering down paints enough. It is a must and requires an understanding of pigments. It is easier if you undercoat white as most colours go well on white. The only part you would need to "reundercoat with black" would be metal parts. When I first started I used to not water down paints and the result was always gloopy and crast. didn't like it at all. It takes more layers to get a section done, true. But the end result justify the means.

Eh?! another white under coat guy?! i remember back in the 80s 90s we all undercoat white. Then recently almost everyone i see undercoat black!... so sad and alone...

Undercoating white brings out colour better, brighter, and the end result is a happier colour. Black ... i still can't get use to undercoating black. When i undercoat black the result is always not as nice as white... ie. the Choir boys i did, the white one looks much nicer. However white undercoat does takes more layers and more work to do, and you really need to wash and shadow properly.

Thin down, thin layer! THIN layer! many layers! can't stress this enough.

from what it understand, undercoat also determine the theme of your model. if the model is an evil char. go for black if good white..

There's a reason both PP and GW recommend black undercoat. It's the quicker way to get tabletop-ready models with less layers but still with some depth. Easier for newbies/kids to do (GW's target market).

More serious painters will prefer to use grey and in some cases, white. They don't mind the many-many thin layers method (which gives this depth too). However, this is not an optimum way to paint large armies needed in GW's games. If you look at the old Rackham (Confrontation) model painting guides, they all tend to use white/grey undercoat. This is because that game uses very few models. Same with Malifaux.

To the uninitiated (ie people who never painted before), here's a brief terminology primer (in order of application):

Undercoat: the paint that goes directly on metal/plastic (usually black, sometimes white or grey). Purpose is to make subsequent layers flow and stick nicely.

Basecoat: this is the main colour of the surface. eg. red on armour of Khador warjacks. PP has named the paints intended for basecoating for ease of use. eg. Khador Red Base, Menoth White Base.

Highlight: a lighter shade of the base colour for highlighting, imitates (accentuates, really) the way light reflects off surfaces. Often this is done by dry-brushing. Quick and easy but can be messy so you need quite good control. Again, PP has named the highlight shades for ease of use.

Wash: a watery paint or ink of much darker shade than the basecoat. This is used to give quick shadows on the recesses of the model and also to harmonize the basecoat with the 1st highlight.

Final Highlights: this is after a wash - since the last highlights would have been darkened slightly by the wash. 2 or more layers. Some people even use pure white for the very tip or edges for the 'light glinting' look.

For tabletop gaming use, that's the 'easy' steps. For more serious painting (eg. painting competitions, coolminiornot etc.) usually the steps are much more involved. Get hold of some of the painting DVDs available to see what I mean.