Miniatures

At first I really loved D&D's plastic mini's but money is not something I don't have a lot of. I also never seamed to get the ones I wanted and I couLd not justify spending 100s of doLlars to get it. Yes I know there is always Ebay. But I find myself looking at the metal one more and more these days. So does any one have any advice for some one new to painting.

That is why I call them "Wizards of the Cost".

With the rare factor tossed in I could easily spend more than $500 in an attempt to get a complete set of any given series. They found out with Magic the Gathering that people become obsessed over the things and will continue to buy just to try and get those few rare cards or in this case mini's. I am not much for the get rich tactics of WOC, but since they now have the D&D rights what am I to do?

ANYWAYS, about painting the metal figures.
I have been doing them since the 80's and I have found that having lots of colors readily available and some very fine tipped art brushes a must. When I started I purchased a basic paint set from a local hobby shop. The brush was too big and trying to use only one shade of green or worse still, gloss colors to paint a ranger just didn't work out.
I ended up with a two color ranger with very little detailing. In short it was the worst thing I had ever seen on the table during a game.
Over the years just due to practice I have greatly improved on the detailing and can now even put the red on the lips of some of them. A lighted magnifier and a single brush hair works wonders for that.
OH YEAH don't skimp on the brush. I have found that good quality brushes work much much better than the cheapies.

One other tip that I shall toss out there is the use of Xylol (not sure if I spelled that correctly). Some will say use water with a dishwashing liquid in it to wash the figures before painting. Yeah that works, but takes a while to dry in the crevices of many figures. I use enamels for mine and it doesn't mix well with water. Xylol works wonders at removing oils or deposits from the minis and will not mess up painting in the cracks. It dries really fast too. Rubbing Alcohol works pretty good too and is not as harmful or expensive.
BE CAREFULL WHEN USING XYLOL. It has a very potent vapor and should only be used in well ventilated areas. I have set up an exhaust fan at my work table mainly since I also airbrush model cars.

Hope that helps some. Mostly just practice will get you there. It took many figures before I started making them where I wasn't too embarrassed to set them on the table during a game. Paint Stripper can also be a good investment too.

I'm not a fan of the plastic mini's... I'm the subscriber of the lead, now metal, mini's myself. Been collecting mini's since I started playing back in 79' and have a vast army at my disposal.

As for painting, I've never been really good at it, at first. But my friend, who does some fantastic work, is giving me some pointers. So now I just need to find the time and put them to work.

Oh something to try to get the oils off your leads is by soaking them in vinegar. It eats the oils away very well. Soak them overnight. If your wary about it, use a piece your not too fond of and give it a try.

Good luck!

My only problem with metal minis is that it is hard to keep them from coming apart at the seams. Usually, if you empoxy them together, they'll stay together, but sometimes, they still split so you loose an arm or head or some other part.

Plastic minis tend to stay together better if you use a good plastic cement. That's because with plastic cement, it melts the area at the connection so that you get more of a weld than a glue point. Plus, plastic tends to hold paint better.

Course, there aren't many companies doing plastic minis. Plus, those that are doing plastics, either don't have a lot of different choices, or have pre-painted minis. Course, I've started re-painting the WoC minis to get the colors combos I want.

John

So does any one have any advice for some one new to painting.

I haven't in a while, but I used to love painting miniatures.

If I remember correctly, the best size brush was 00000 (five-oh).

It mainly takes patience and a slow and steady hand to make them decent.

The magic part for painting is to blackwash when done. You paint all the clothing and items and everything in the colors you want, and then you take a drop of water on maybe some foil. dip in a tiny dab of black and mix with the water so it's loose. Then brush it over the figure.

It will wash into the crevices creating a wonderful shadow effect and making the piece look realistic--sometimes for the first time in the whole process. Instead of black, you can darken the color of a specific item with a bit of black and use that for even better effects. So you're green cloak suddenly has dark green folds and your blue tunic has dark blue shadows.

Just avoid the skin areas with the blackwash. It just doesn't work well on skin tones. You may want to even save the skin until after to avoid any risk of hitting it with blackwash. For the skin, you have to add texture more carefully, actually lightly adding some darker tone to the shadows or washing in a darker shade of the skin color if you have it.

You can also then do the reverse and highlight the piece (which does work well for creating skin tones). Here you take the color you used on the surface and add a touch of white to make it a shade lighter. Dip the brush and then brush most of the paint off on a newspaper. Then run the brush over the top surfaces.

Good luck.

-Gary

I'm going to go against the trend here and say I like the WOTC miniatures, but that's more a matter of cost that anything , not being based in the USA/UK the metal figures we get out here are very expensive , I can live with the WPTC Plastic Umber Hulk representing a Giant at the cost they are available.

One thing I have resorted to though is buying the plastic Middle Earth and Warhammer figures as they give instant access to the creatures I need at a low cost.

Cheers

Chris

I find the best place to get miniatures is at iconusa.com

Iconusa

You can buy individuals or most expansion packs.

I have a low cost alternative that I use for my board.

I love to paint metal minis but I focus only on PCs and NPCs for the board.

To create monsters or really any oppositional piece(sometimes in large groups), I use a different approach.

You will need - Transparencies, a laminator and laminating pouches, 1" - 3" dowl (wood rod), an art program like microsoft paint (usually part of every basic software package), a color printer, a razor/exacto blade, and a glue gun really helps.

1. Surf the net and down load bitmap images to your paint program. The WOTC site - art gallery - is awesome, but there is lots of other stuff out there with a simple google search like 'ogre illustration'.
2. Use the Art Software's eraser and zoom tool to erase unwanted background and leave just the image of the creature, dragon, giant, whatever. Use the select tool to surround the image and copy it to a word-processing program with the horizontal and vertical rulers 'on'.
3. Scale the image using 1" = 5'. This is easy to do by checking the MM for size. Print to a transparency, the better the print quality the more you will like the outcome, don't skimp on the ink cartridge! Print several images on a single page to save time.
4. Cut out the image and laminate a group of them together in a single laminating pouch. Again, cut them out of the laminate.
5. Cut the dowl in 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick cross sections. A mitre-box really helps but isn't necessary. Paint them to taste (or not if your in a hurry). Alternatively you can buy 1" wooden discs at just about any craft store for $3 for 26. For large creatures whose 'face' or 'profile' is greater than 5' I cut foam board to the appropriate dimension. Yet another alternative is Bicycle poker chips (they're cheap), but they are 1.5" in diameter.
6. Lay a small bead of glue along the diameter of the circle (you don't need a lot with a glue gun) and 'wedge' the image into the middle of the bead to mount it vertically. Note: this works just as good on irregular or curved bottom shapes as it does square.

The result, admitadly, is not as cool as 3-D minis, but the transparency allows the image to be seen from all angles and gives a 3-D affect. The best 'pro' argument that I can give for this approach is an example. I created a 30 orc fighting force for probably less than $3.50 and it took about an hour and a half. No doubt minis are better, I have pianted dozens of the things, but this is a low cost practical solution, and it wil give you plenty of time to get your charectors mini painted just right.

You will need - Transparencies, a laminator and laminating pouches, 1" - 3" dowl (wood rod), an art program like microsoft paint (usually part of every basic software package), a razor/exacto blade, and a glue gun really helps.

That's a great idea. Thanks for posting a well written tutorial on how you do it also!

John

I am a fairly good mini painter, my wife is even better. We use vallejo colors paints and games workshop brushes (hate their paints, they dry up due to their jar design). We mostly paint Reaper minis, they are inexpensive and have great detail.

Basic Steps-

1- Cut the excess slag left over from the mold with an exacto knife.

2 - Primer coat the mini, light coat with a spray primer. I have used regualr primer or specialty primer from Games Workshop (I really cant tell a difference).

3 - Paint the mini starting with the color covering the most area.

4 - Add detail like grass or gravel (from a model train store), I coat the base with a thin layer of white elmers glue and dip it into the medium.

5 - Clearcoat varnish the completed mini (I use matte a finish, Games Workshop brand)

Your initial investment will be a little costly but the supplies will last you a long long time. Last tip I have is to take your time, patience is the key.