Have you painted your figures?

[Esturk]

I painted Anderson using citadel paints... I wasn't very pleased with the outcome so i'll probably strip him eventually and re-paint him. Currently all my painting supplies live an hour and a half away from me.

One thing that really bothered me about the mini was that when he was finished he had a very glossy sheen to him that I know those paints don't usually get.

I painted him about 2 years ago then got distracted by all my other painting projects(Rakham stopped producing metal minis around that time so I scooped up a ton of those on clearance and wanted to paint them... not to mention my Vostroyan Imperial Guard project for Warhammer 40k)

Buddy of mine wants me to paint his set for him, so i'm sure once I've moved at the end of the month i'll get my painting supplies back and, at the very least, paint his minis.

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(08-17-2011 03:27 PM)munkymuddface Wrote:  I have not painted mine, and do not plan to (at the moment). Just last week, I got back into painting (after a 15 year break). I am working on some minis for D&D, but I am using SamTrevs guides that he posted. They are great, comprehensive guides. Thanks for posting them!

When I run out of D&D minis, I may end up doing the FFP ones. Though, having all the games, that is a large project....

That happened to me too, I used to play Warhammer 40k when I was about 16, stopped playing and stopped painting. About 3 years ago I picked the brush back up to paint a D&D mini... next I knew I was simply painting as a hobby...

You may not have done the same, but I know when I was young I didn't pay a lick of attention to painting well. I was simply satisfied with painting my minis better than my friends. I didn't bother to thin my paints, do shading, or pretty much anything. I was basically using my paint brush like a crayon, so to speak. Now I turn out some rather pretty stuff. In fact I'll show you an example of progression whilst hoping no one minds.

Be fore warned, the following is horrific and ridiculous. My only defense is that I was young and had no real clue as to what I was doing. My only examples of how to paint back then were the citadel pamphlets that came with the game and they were exceptionally vague.


So then, 9 years or so later the first mini I painted I decided to layer and work with shading and pay more attention to detail. I think this mini was from the D&D First Quest box, I can't recall... i just remember the plastic was purple.


About a year after that mini (and probably 40 or so minis later) I've been pumping out what I consider to be good quality paint jobs like the following ever since.

From my lurking around the boards here there's a good number of people around this forum that know how to paint well, so I'm sure you could pick up a lot of tips simply reading through threads or asking around.

My advice to someone who's just coming back into painting would be to make sure you have the proper tools, but don't buy from overly expensive retailers... any tool that will make your painting easier is worth buying, but don't let games workshop sell you a set of sprue clippers you can buy at a craft store for half the price. I remember when I started back I had nothing but a few brushes and my 9 year old paints, these days I don't know how I did it without a pallet or a proper eye-dropper. Also invest in a good light, your eyes will thank you.