Now that you have bought your minis, cleaned them up and got them primed, it's time to start painting! Where to start? Well, the most obvious place to start is with paint and brushes. By no means do you have to go out and buy every paint color or brush a company offers. In fact, I have a few colors I only have used once in a few years, so be somewhat selective at first as to which colors you buy. I suggest working out a paint scheme in your head and once you know how you want your army to look. Start buying only the colors you will need for that army, and slowly build up your paint collection. The picture above is where I am at after two years of buying paint here and there.
Paint Storage:
Once my paint started to not fit in a shoebox, I got a cheap tool box from Walmart, you can store all of your painting supplies in the bottom and all the paint up top. I'm starting to run out of room again so I will probably have to get a craft case soon. It is important to store your paint in room temperature or cooler, and keep the paint pots out of direct sunlight. This will stop your paint from drying out. If you have the old hexagon paint pots, it's best to store these upside down so if the seam of the cap doesn't stay perfectly shut it will stop air from getting in.
Restoring paint: If your paint is starting to dry up you can restore them back to normal by adding a few drops of water and a drop of mixing medium (explained below). Only add one drop of mixing medium max to ensure you don't make the paint too thin. Shake the paint and listen for a sloshing sound. If you do not hear the paint moving around when you shake it, add a few more drops of water.
Basic Terms:
Base Coat: The darkest color you are going to paint on any area.
Mid Tone: A color in between the base color and the highlight color
Highlight: A lighter color painted on top of the base coat, on the raised surfaces of a model to create a look of light shining on the model.
Wash: A watered down ink that is applied liberally to the base coat to create shadows and shading.
Painting Materials: Paint.
Foundation paint by GW is a paint that is high in pigment, and is designed to give you opaque coverage on an entire model without using very much paint. These are used to make an area darker on a white undercoat, and to cover a black undercoat in the color range of your basecoat. As I mentioned earlier, some paint colors will not cover a black undercoat in one or two coats, Yellow for example is way too transparent of a color and you will be painting layers of paint till you're crying before it will start to look right. This is where Foundation paint comes in. Only use Foundation paint for base coating! When it dries it will look a little chalky like craft paint due to it's high pigment count. Only use regular paint to paint a mini. These shown are only a few colors of what GW actually offers. Instead of buying the kit with all of them in it, I recommend just getting the colors you need for each particular project.
Washes:
I highly recommend that if you want to paint miniatures, you should invest in a wash kit from GW, or buy washes from the other companies you may buy paint from. The washes pictured are all the washes available from GW. They are magical little mediums, once applied they can really help bring your minis to life. They make it easier all around to have a good looking mini in less time than manually blending, layering and shading with a brush. You can just paint on a base coat, liberally apply a wash, letting it fill all the recesses of a model to give it shade and shadow. Washes are made of 4 parts mixing medium, 3 parts water, and 1 part paint and/or ink. (Do It Yourself Recipe: 4 drops of "Liquitex: Slo-Dri Fluid Retarder, 3 drops of water from a dropper bottle, and one drop of paint and/or one eye dropper drop of ink). The washes I find myself using the most are "Badab Black" and Devland Mud", but all colors are useful, so get them all.
Model Paint:
I only use GW paint, not because I like it best, rather that's all that is available to me off the shelf. I will be looking into "P3" paints by "Privateer Press" and maybe even "Reaper" and "Vallejo" paints in the future, not anytime soon though since I have enough for the time being. Once you figure out what the paint scheme for your army is going to be, you can start buying the colors (Remember: only the ones you need!). I recommend buying your paints in triads, meaning you buy your base, mid tone, and highlight colors all at once. I know "Reaper" sells their paint in a triad package if you are going that route, for ten dollars. You could buy a starter paint set from GW but it may cost you more money in the long run. The picture above shows the color triads for green, red, and blue.
* DO NOT USE "Testors", "Apple Barrel" craft paint, industrial road paint, or latex house paint to paint your miniature. They are too thick, too harsh, or too shitty for the intricate details of our expensive models. If acrylic based model paint is out of your price range, only buy the base colors for your paint scheme from a company that makes paint for painting miniatures. Trust me, even this small amount of miniatures model paint will make your miniature look 100% better than the other types of paint I have warned against. It is also hard to strip "Testors" off of models without using solvents. If you want to repaint them later or get resale value for them, then only use model colors.*
Brushes:
It is important to use a quality, non synthetic hair brush when painting miniatures (unless with metallic paint). Use a brush that uses real animal hair because synthetic hair brushes will sometimes pull the pigment of the paint along, instead of laying pigment down as you make brush strokes. With that said, I am not suggesting you go out and buy $7-$15 brushes, but what I am suggesting is to buy any natural hair brush that is on sale. The brushes shown in the picture are my favorite brands of brushes all found at my local art store. I usually stock up on brushes twice a year when art stores have brush sales. A good time to start checking art stores is mid August to mid September because people are going back to school and there are usually good deals. I was getting $7-$15 brushes for $1.50- $5.
The numbers on the paint brushes are supposed to represent the diameter of the line created when you brush stroke, but may also represent the circumference of the bristles where they are glued. The brands I use are "Black Gold by Dynasty", "Windsor & Newton" synthetic ( if you have to go synthetic, and use only with metallic paint if you have natural hair brushes) and the art store brand of brushes. The sizes I use (in millimeters) are:
Flat brushed:
3/8 - 1/4 - 4
Round tip:
2 - 1- 0 - 2/0 - 3/0 - 5/0 - 10/0
Drybrushes: The only brushes I buy from GW are their drybrushes. They are the best brushes I have encountered for drybrushing.
Micron Pen: Permanent marker with a very small tip. I use a 0.005 tip for detailing and free hand work.
Other Materials:
Here is a quick rundown of the other materials I use, i will go into depth on these in Part 2.
Disposable plate or Wet Pallet: Something to mix your paint on or in.
Distilled Water: Do not use tap water when diluting or mixing paint. There are hard minerals in tap water that can get into the paint as you're painting. Since we are not drinking it you don't have to worry about it expiring.You can get 2 liters or more for $3 dollars from any pharmacy department.
Tape: For masking off areas.
Sticky Tack and Mini holder: Put sticky tack under the base of the mini and attach it to something you can hold comfortably in your hand. This way you don't have to handle the mini while you paint it. I use an old superglue bottle with a childproof cap so I can just turn the cap when I need to turn the mini.
Decal System: A product used for model airplane decals called Micro Sol, and Micro Set.
Painting Mediums: I use "Liquitex Slo-Dri Fluid Retarder" and Citadel Gloss Varnish for acrylic paint.
Dropper Bottles: One filled with pure fluid retarder, and the other with a mixture of distilled water and a few drops of fluid retarder. The Water mixture is what I use to dilute paint, while the fluid retarder is for making washes or painting an area in many, many thin layers.
Brush Case: Something to store your brushes in to protect the tips.
Brush Restorer: A product you can get at the art store to clean acrylic paint out of your brushes, even if the paint has hardened. It also has a hair relaxing agent to keep the points on the brushes from bending or fraying.
Sealer: The spray varnishes you can buy from GW are really expensive, and I don't recommend buying them if you don't have to. Testors paint is no good for minis but their sealers work great. I use "Testors: Laquer" which is for giving model cars and airplanes a glossy waxed/buffed look. I use this first after the mini is painted, and then go over it again with "Model Master Flat varnish" to bring down the shine. You can also use "Testors Dull Coat". Be careful to just use a thin coat of this because it will dull down all colors and metallic paints if applied too thick. You can get these at your local hobby store. (Maritime Hobby)
Medicine cups: I save these up from cough medicine or buy them from the pharmacy.I use these to mix large quantities of paint or clean brushes with Brush Restorer.
These books were also very helpful to me when I was starting out and still useful today. If you were curious if they are worth it, I would have to say they are. Also there are lots of tutorials on Youtube to check out if you are looking to do some further research.
Avoiding Painters Burnout!
The first thing I can suggest to avoid getting burnt out, and not feeling like ever painting again is to go slow and don't start model hoarding. Buy what you need first to play the game and don't buy anything else until it is painted. I didn't do this and here is the result; tons of minis screaming to be painted, staring me in the face all day. If you cant resist and want to start tons of armies and get into new games, then you have to make some decisions. Do you want to just get them painted so you can get them on the table as quickly as possible or do you want to spend hours and hours on each mini. If you want to speed paint, then by all means buy everything you want. If you want to make everything look as good as you can get it, then I suggest you start slow.
Take Breaks: Take breaks while you are painting, this will stop your back from aching and keep your eyes from bugging out. However, If you find you're painting and not really felling it, then stop. If you are painting and would rather play xbox, then play xbox. You have to be into doing it at that particular moment and willing to continue for at least an hour or more, otherwise don't bother. You will get sloppy, cut corners, and do things half ass if you are forcing yourself to paint when you'd rather not. Same applies to when you are tired.
Assembly Painting: If you are wanting to do a big block of models instead of completing one model at a time, pick one step and do it to all of said models each day. For example, today you could do all the boots from base to highlight, tomorrow do all the skin, the next day do all the armor, etc till everything is done. If you are just painting that one thing, and then you grow tired of painting it, well, that's awesome because tomorrow you will be moving onto something else. Once all the parts are painted you will have a full unit completed, and will have hopefully avoided burnout. I found I looked forward to completing the small goals each day, rather than trudging through one model at a time.
Hide Them: If you have a lot of models like I do, just pick one block of troops and put the rest away, out of sight, and don't bring out anymore till the ones you have out are done.
Play: Nothing will motivate you more to paint than playing the game. Every time I finish playing I have a deep drive to paint. I hate looking at my unpainted minis battling it out with painted minis.
Next up: Painting Basics 2 where I will go into more detail on the products and show you how to make a wet palette. Until then, happy slaying.
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