Painting Tips

[jeffd1830]

ImtheTimelord requested painting tip from me in this thread: http://www.thezombiegame.com/forums/Thre...NoE-Heroes

So, I decided to make a new thread specifically for painting tips:


TIP #1: USE GOOD PAINTS & PRIMER

You should invest in some moderately good paints. While you can use Apple Barrel or cheap artists acrylics from a craft store, the consistency of the paint is so much better if you go with a quality paint. I started painting my D&D miniatures with cheap paints before I moved to doing LNoE minis. Cheap paints tend to clump and leave streaks, and will obscure some detail.

So what am I using?

I purchased this exact set:

http://www.amazon.com/Vallejo-Basic-Colo...B009162PWU

They are worth every penny. I utilized EVERY color in this set in the process of painting my LNoE minis. Purple was the rarest color, which I used only on Jade. Even with this many colors, I still had to do quite a few mixes to achieve the desired results (i.e., zombie flesh made by one drop of black, one drop of white, one drop of green... I'm not sure if that's my exact formula, but you get the idea.)

Vallejo paints are convenient because they come in dropper bottles so you can easily dispense a drop onto your palette without having to clean a brush and dip into a paint pot.

They are also already pretty thin. I never added water to Vallejo paints (other than to extend the life of the last bit as it's starting to get dry), except to do wash coats. When I was using cheaper artist paints, I was constantly having to thin them down with varying results.


You also need to use the right primer. I've used horrible primers in the past, and finally settled on using automotive primer which seems to do the trick. This is the primer I'm using, which I was able to find on a shelf at a local store:

http://www.zoro.com/rust-oleum-automotiv.../G1090433/

NOTE: Sandable primer is good, but "filler/primer" is bad, it is deigned to fill surface imperfections and will obscure the detail on your miniatures.

In addition to primer and paints, you will also want a good varnish to protect your work. In my opinion this is very important for game pieces! Not only will it protect your work, but it will keep paint from rubbing off onto the game board, and will help keep the minis from transferring paint to each other if they are stored together.

Here's the varnish I use. It's a brush on product and I have felt very confident with the results achieved:

http://www.amazon.com/Liquitex-Professio...B001US2NY2

Liquitex also makes a matte varnish which could be applied on top of the gloss varnish to knock out the shine, if it bothers you.

My friends have a 2 year old, and I would never let her touch my painted minis before they are varnished, because she might have wet/sticky fingers from food and it would ruin them. With the varnish on, I feel like I can let her play with them without damaging them (as long as she isn't too rough.) I can't emphasize too much how important this stuff is if you want your paint job to last.


TIP #2: GOOD TOOLS

Get some brushes. You want something like #3 for most of your work and #0 or smaller for finer details. Be sure to get a couple of each size brush as you will damage one at some point. Brushes come in different shapes too. Round and flat, basically. You might want one of each especially in the smaller size. Also, get an extra #3 or #4 brush you don't care about and designate it as your varnish brush. Liquitex varnish will wear down your brush faster than paint and make the brush less suitable for doing detailed work.

A proper palette could be nice to have but a styrofoam or plastic disposable plate can work in a pinch, too. I saw a plastic palette for a dollar or two next to the brushes at my local craft store so I grabbed it. In the middle of a serious painting session, I've used every well in the palette for something and dozens of extra dots of color end up on every surface even outside of the wells. Having a lot of palette area lets you keep your colors organized and lets you work longer without having to stop to clean up.

Also, get a craft knife, ilke an Xacto type thing. You SHOULD use this to carefully trim off mould lines before you spray primer on your miniatures. I skipped this step on all my work because I was in a hurry to get started, and I regret it now. Do what I say, not what I did :-)


TIP #3: PATIENCE IN PREPARATION

Trim the mould lines off of your minis.

Next, give all of your miniatures a bath in warm/hot water with some dish detergent. Scrub them gently with a spare toothbrush, then rinse thoroughly with clean pure water. You need to do this to eliminate any traces of the mould release agent used in the casting process to make the minis. If you don't do this, the primer won't adhere properly to the plastic, and your paint will chip off too easily.

After you've given your minis a bath, set them out to dry. I had some nice sunny days and I was able to put mine outside for a while. If you notice a water drop caught in a crevice on a mini, a quick blow of air will knock it out before leaving the minis to dry in the open air.

After the minis are completely dry, stand them upright, shake up your primer, and give them a light coat of spray primer following the instructions on the can (mine said shake 1 minute and spray from 12" distance.) Spray in a stroke from side to side. Start your spray off of the minis and stroke through/past them then stop. The reason for this is some spray nozzles will be uneven or lumpy at the very beginning of the spray. You want to get any oddities out before any paint hits the fine detail of the miniatures.

Don't do a very heavy coat of primer. If you can still faintly see the plastic "through" it, that's ok, but don't leave any bare spots either. I primed mine very lightly from three or four different angles to cover it all. Then, after that dries for about 30 minutes, I tipped all my minis over and did a spray up into their armpits and under-bits which weren't exposed from the other angles. The main thing is keep all of this VERY light. You don't want to overdo the primer and cover up too much detail and especially not cause any dripping.

Once the primer is dry to the touch, the minis should have a slightly chalky feel to them. That's the whole point of the primer, as it helps the acrylic paint to adhere. If the minis are completely slick, the acrylic will tend to flake off of the flat/slick areas.


TIP #4: PROPER BRUSH CARE

Use a couple of paper towels as a blotter. Always wet your brush before you begin, but blot of excess water before you pick up the paint. Only put paint on the tip of the brush, avoid getting it up into the area where the bristles connect to the metal - if paint gets in there, the bristles will begin to spread out and lose their shape. If you pick up too much paint, make a short stroke on your palette to get the glob off the brush so it is thin enough before trying to apply it to the model. Every minute or so and always in between colors, wash your brush off by swishing in a glass of water, and dab it on the side of the glass until you see the water runs clear. You don't want old paint drying on the bristles. Never leave the brush sitting in the glass of water standing on its end, this will deform the bristles.


TIP #5: BASE COAT

Start by base coating your miniature with a thin coat of color. But we've already primed? Well, yeah... There are a couple reasons I base coat though. First, applying paint on top of the primer tends to ruin the brush more quickly (if you're painting fifty minis especially) so I like to use my scrappiest larger sized brush (probably the one I use for the gloss varnish coat later) to get that first coat onto every mini. Second, as you're painting features later you may want to allow the base coat show thru in some of the deeper crevice areas of the miniature. Pick a color that could be artistically useful for this. My choice of base coat colors probably could have been better, but I chose a style and stuck with it. I did brown for all heroes, and the light blue color for all zombies. I picked light blue because I figured if it showed thru it would contribute to their sickly pale-fleshed look. A better idea might have been to base coat the clothed areas with the most prominent (but dark) clothing color of for that particular model, and the fleshy areas with a flesh color, but I just production line painted everything solid color to begin with. I don't think I really let my base coat show through anywhere, though.

Also, even though it seems silly, base coat the base on the miniature. If you don't, you'll get primer rubbing off on your fingers later from handling them much.


TIP #6: METALLIC COLORS

Vallejo paints all same to behave about the same, except the metallic colors. What I've noticed is these ones wont thin with water. Also, brushing metallic over the top of a place where I have just applied metallic that hasn't dried yet tends to take off the old paint almost more easily than it applies new paint. The metallic paints do work for dry-brushing, however! Which brings us to...


TIP #7: DRY BRUSHING

Dry brushing is a technique that allows you to highlight the detail on a model and really make things pop. You just keep your brush dry, put a little paint on it, then wipe the paint off onto your paper towel until the brush is basically empty, then you make strokes over the surface of the model, and little bits of paint that are still hiding on your brush will actually accumulate on the raised areas of the model and really pick out the features. You can dry brush two different times, before applying a wash, or to create brighter highlights, after.


TIP #8: APPLY A BLACK WASH

You might not use this on every mini. I used it on all zombies but only on some (or specific parts of some) heroes. Fill a well in your palette with clean water, and then add one small drop of black paint. (If you want to get more specific you could use dark blue paint if you're just doing a wash for a pair of blue jeans that have been painted light blue, etc.) Mix the drop with the water. Test it on a blank spot on the palette to make sure it isn't too strong, it should bring black pigment with it, but if you wipe it it should basically come clean. If it remains black, you need more water or less paint. Once you have this mixture and your miniature's previous paint has dried, you can apply it all over your mini with your brush and you'll see how it settles into the crevices and yet you can use the brush to wipe it away from the outer surfaces if it is too thick. It's like the opposite of dry brushing in a way. It tends to mute and dirty up your colors a little, making them grittier and providing more depth. I use it on many male heroes faces to provide definition to their eyes and mouth. (I tend to paint female heroes faces with more detail, adding black to the eyes and pink to the lips, but if I paint male heroes faces it seems too make-up like, so using the wash provides a nice subtle effect.)

Applying your wash on your first zombie can be frightening. You just spent a lot of time painting with great finesse, and now you're about to put a black liquid all over the whole thing. I was hesitant at first, but when I did it, I was very pleased with the result. Note, that your colors will get darker/duller, so you might want to take this into account and paint your zombies a little brighter to begin with knowing that you have a black wash in mind. You can also adjust the amount of darkening by adjusting the ratio of black paint to water.

After you've applied your wash, avoid touching the mini because you will wick-up the water and decrease the effect of the wash. You might use a dry brush to deliberately wick up some water in areas where there is too much wash, though. Like, if a heroes' face has so much black wash that there are dark lines running down the sides of the nose in addition to horizontal eye lines, just barely touch with the tip of a dry brush and it should reduce the amount of wash to be more appropriate.

Allow the washed miniatures to dry naturally. It may take a while compared to drying the previous coat of paint.

Once your miniature is dry, you can do highlights and additional dry-brushing as needed.


TIP #9: PAINTING THE BASES

Paint the bases last, and be prepared to touch up the shoes if you overshoot. The reason I say to paint them last, is that they'll accumulate a lot of grime and extra colors during the more complex process of painting the mini, so if you want a clean base, you have to do it last. You'll notice I use white bases (sometimes with a ring of color around the outside edge for identification - for zombies but not for my heroes) This is a stylistic decision that I make for a couple reasons. I want the miniature to stand out against its backdrop, and I find that black bases tend to hide the mini when you're looking down from above. Also, I play D&D/Pathfinder and a lot of our maps are drawn on plain white paper or on a light colored laminated grid that we can use dry-erase markers over the top of. I find black bases to be a huge distraction because the rest of the map is light colored, so white bases help the immersion factor for me. I realize on LNoE, the board is mostly a dark color. If you never cross-over your minis to other games, you might be better off painting the bases a brownish green color to approximately match the grassy outdoor areas, while not being too bright of a green to seem out of place while that mini is standing indoors.

Inevitably, no matter how careful you are, you will accidentally get your base color onto the shoes of a couple of your miniatures. Just be prepared to use your smallest detail brush to go back and touch up the shoes after you've done the bases. You might miss and get shoe color back on the base again... then you wait until that dries, and it becomes a back and forth game until you're happy with the result.

Oh, and paint the nurse's shoes red. I received compliments on this specifically because of how it makes her stand out from her base. My initial thought was to give her white or black shoes, but I'm glad I went with red.


TIP #10: GLOSS VARNISH

Once you're fully satisfied with your miniature, and ready to declare it done, it is time to apply your gloss varnish coat. Wait for the paint to dry first. Put a few drops of Liquitex varnish into a clean well in your palette. Remember which well this is!!! I have done more painting after the fact on another mini, and made the mistake of dropping a drop of paint in the Liquitex well since I couldn't readily see it, and wasted the paint. Liquitex cannot be thinned with water, so use a completely dry larger brush, and simply apply the Liquitex in about the same way you applied your base coat. I recommend holding the base of the miniature and applying the varnish to the rest of the miniature, then after you've allowed that to dry (at least 1 hour), hold the miniature by the top and varnish the base - including the bottom. Even though I varnished the bottom, I sit the miniature upright lightly on a paper towel to dry, and I move it around after a few minutes to make sure it isn't permanently sticking to the paper towel. The only reason I varnish the bottom is to make sure there's a good seal of varnish around the base. I found that if I only varnish the top and edges of the base, handling it by the edges could cause chipping if someone grabs it along the bottom edge.

Sometimes the varnish will pool up in areas that it shouldn't. To fix this you can dab it back out with the brush, or sometimes like between an arm and the body, I just blow some air through it and it clears up nicely.

Try not to brush the varnish too many times once it is applied. It can melt the paint under it and if you brush it after it has been on for a while it could distort your colors. Try to cover every surface, but after it has dried, if you notice a spot that you missed (easy to notice because it won't be glossy), you can apply a little more varnish there later and it will be fine.


TIP #11: DECORATE YOUR BASES (OPTIONAL)

I haven't done it yet... but:

Elmers Glue-All (white glue, but not the school glue). Construction sand (not kitty litter, as it absorbs moisture and will crumble over time!) Grass flocking from a craft store.

[ImtheTimelord]

Thank you so much for all the info and tips. My wife and I are going get the stuff we need and try to start the painting process soon. We just have to slow down on playing the game long enough to paint

[jeffd1830]

It won't be a quick process. Try to savor the process and enjoy it, don't rush it along. :-)

[mqstout]

I hate all the prep work. Trimming, gluing, washing, and (especially) priming. I wish someone would just do all that for mine so I can focus on the part I enjoy.

Oh god I hate priming. Brush-on primer hasn't yielded the same results, either.

And, Reaper Bones, while they say can take primer-free coats, they do... but it isn't quite the same.

[jeffd1830]

mqstout,

I sympathize for your hatred of prep work. But it really takes little time compared to the painting and makes your painting so much more effective, so it is ultimately worth it.

In my opinion spray primer is easier than brush primer since you can do it in batches. Well, at least it's easier if you're in a place with reasonably warm weather and there's no rain on the day you try to prime. :-) I just set a piece of cardboard or newspaper out in my yard or driveway or on the front step, and line up about 16 miniatures at a time (in a 4 x 4 array with a few inches between each row/col.) It only takes a minute to spray them, then I go inside and do something else until they're dry. Then I tip them over on their side and do one last spray to get the underside edges, wait again, then gather them all up.

[mqstout]

Days in Pittsburgh with humidity <50%/year: Approaches zero. Low-humidity days without wind? Negative.

The physical spraying annoys me. Overspray, wind, THE STENCH...