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I'm not sure if its best to just get a fully painted army at a higher price, or just paint them myself, but today I got to actually see what the models look like at my local game store, and I never realized the models were this small, somehow they look bigger in videos.... Seems harder to paint the warcasters and units since I realized they are this small.

I'm just talking about a basic paint and wash, no fancy pro-painted models, but at my local game store, this person charges $8 per model to paint, but Ebay, sadly doesn't have that much fully painted armies and the price can be steep.

Um, no harder than any other model. My models haven't ran away or attacked me when I put them to the brush. Yet...

I suppose that means its easy.

PP models are a bit harder to assemble than GW minis, and you won't want to glue everything together before you paint some of the models. Other than that, it just depends on the mini. Warjacks are easy to paint, some of the infantry take a bit longer.

I have found that overall PP models have been easier to paint especially since you are talking about tabletop quality. Depending on the army, your paint scheme and speed which you paint it goes much more quickly and easy than GW stuff (99% less skulls you have to paint). My basic khador jacks take me about an hour to do since they are only three colors and a wash. You will spend more time on basing than painting.

Infantry takes a bit longer because of the more flesh tones but if you the paint in batches it makes it easier becuase normally you will never have more than one of the same unit so you will be one and done.

I think the reason you thought they were bigger is because of the large bases than GW and the smaller armies on a smaller board.

 Pipboy101 wrote:
I have found that overall PP models have been easier to paint especially since you are talking about tabletop quality. Depending on the army, your paint scheme and speed which you paint it goes much more quickly and easy than GW stuff (99% less skulls you have to paint). My basic khador jacks take me about an hour to do since they are only three colors and a wash. You will spend more time on basing than painting.

Infantry takes a bit longer because of the more flesh tones but if you the paint in batches it makes it easier becuase normally you will never have more than one of the same unit so you will be one and done.

I think the reason you thought they were bigger is because of the large bases than GW and the smaller armies on a smaller board.

Also beware because with much fewer models on the table I find myself trying to paint the every model to a higher standard. Kinda they Squad leader looking great vs the 100 SM that are just there kinda thing.

I'm trying to paint 5 Man-O-War Shocktroopers, Destroyer, Juggernaut and Sorscha.

Of course I do have the Prime MK II, in the back it shows which brushes you need and what paints, but I thought they were just trying to make it look easy for new players.

Also just one thing in painting i'm confused about, what is a wash and how do I wash the models?

 Sharps wrote:
I'm trying to paint 5 Man-O-War Shocktroopers, Destroyer, Juggernaut and Sorscha.

Of course I do have the Prime MK II, in the back it shows which brushes you need and what paints, but I thought they were just trying to make it look easy for new players.

Also just one thing in painting i'm confused about, what is a wash and how do I wash the models?

A Wash is a thinned paint that flows in to recesses to create shading. Water by itself doesn't work as it tends to bead. Adding flow improver to the water or P3 Mixing medium helps this. Once you have a color ready, apply to recesses with a brush as normal. Washes go take longer to dry.

 tdwg83 wrote:

 Sharps wrote:
I'm trying to paint 5 Man-O-War Shocktroopers, Destroyer, Juggernaut and Sorscha.

Of course I do have the Prime MK II, in the back it shows which brushes you need and what paints, but I thought they were just trying to make it look easy for new players.

Also just one thing in painting i'm confused about, what is a wash and how do I wash the models?

A Wash is a thinned paint that flows in to recesses to create shading. Water by itself doesn't work as it tends to bead. Adding flow improver to the water or P3 Mixing medium helps this. Once you have a color ready, apply to recesses with a brush as normal. Washes go take longer to dry.

Or you could buy the GW washes.

 Sharps wrote:
I'm trying to paint 5 Man-O-War Shocktroopers, Destroyer, Juggernaut and Sorscha.

Of course I do have the Prime MK II, in the back it shows which brushes you need and what paints, but I thought they were just trying to make it look easy for new players.

Also just one thing in painting i'm confused about, what is a wash and how do I wash the models?

I find that while the MKII book's painting tips can be helpful they use way to many colors to achieve the same thing you can get with one wash of a base paint job. Here is some MoW and a Warjack to show you what it looks like:





Here is a quick list of paints that I use to do my Khador. It is a mixture of P3 paints from PP and GW paints. These will work on a all the models that you have and will reduce the painting time and cost:

Red: GW Mephiston Red
Silver: P3 Pig Iron
Gold: P3 Blighted Gold
Orange: GW Troll Slayer Orange
White: GW White Scar
Black: GW Abaddon Black
Flesh: GW Ratskin Flesh
Wash: GW Nuln Oil

Here is how I paint Khador:

Step 1 - First a dark base coat of either black spray paint or in my case I use a dark brown camo color from Krylon.

Step 2 - Dry brush P3 Pig Iron almost over all of the mini.

Step 3 - Paint GW Mephiston Red over all the areas you want red. This will take the longest amount of time.

Step 4 - Use GW Troll Slayer Orange for the eyes of the Warjack and the steam engine slates to make it look like it is glowing.

Step 5 - Use P3 Blighted Gold for any gold details.

Step 6 - For flesh use the GW Ratskin Flesh in thin strokes (watered down a little bit to give an even coat.) Then take your GW White Scar and fill in the entire eye socket on the face. Then make a single thin verticle strip of GW Abaddon Black over the white. Then clean up the eye socket with the flesh color. You can move the black lines to make the mini look like it looking somewhere other than stright ahead.

Step 7 - Go over the entire model with a generious layer of GW Nuln Oil with a wide brush. This will darken the mini a bit and the wash will help cover some of the mistakes in painting espcially in Warjacks because it will settle in the groves where two colors meet. If you want extra definition you can use the same wash a second time but use a thin brush to get into the lines you want darkened.

All three jacks up top were painted in an hour and a half. The MoW took an hour and a half also because they were smaller and had more detail. I hope this helps. PM me if want any more help.

Easier to paint I find but the mould lines on my Khador battlegroup were horrendous as well as excess material on both shoulders of the warjacks - haven't purchased anything since, hopefully it's just me with this problem

As far as painting goes Pipboy I wish my khador models looked that clean and concise aha

It just takes time and practice. But there are mistakes in those minis but the wash helps hide them. I used the same method on my Cygnar I am starting:



For the mold lines some of the plastic minis can be bad but with some work it will turn out ok. Now if the part it totally roached you can contact PP with a picture on their customer service webpage they will send you a new part for free.

Thanks for the response and those look great to - I think it's more of a case that I personally don't work well with large flat areas and don't have an airbrush! Wasn't the best idea when choosing which army to go for

Talking of mould lines how were they on the Cygnar? I haven't got any individual models from PP in a long time so I'm hoping for whatever strange reason they will be better as it was a case of cutting the lines off not scraping them

As for picturing them and sending it to PP I didn't consider it, I've painted them up now but will keep that in mind should something happen again, cheers for the heads up. And apologies for hijacking the thread Sharps

I haven't seen how they are painted in any books but if I went red I'd have built up from khorne red then washed the model before building it up, as a newish painter (18 months ish) I find it hard to "highlight" or differentiate on models such as warjacks (khador) because it doesn't look "blended" - suppose it comes with practice

Well i dont highlight except for skin tones I want lighter after the wash. Most my highlighting is taken care of by the wash. Since I am going for tabletop quality it looks great at 3' that is what I normally shoot for. The GW base color paints will help you out with those flat surfaces as it goes on even and smooth especial if you put a few drops of water into the paint pot every so often.

Find some cheap used minis on ebay or at your FLGS and pratice. After a couple of minis you will see an improvement.

Those MoW are some really nice looking models.

 Pipboy101 wrote:

 Sharps wrote:
I'm trying to paint 5 Man-O-War Shocktroopers, Destroyer, Juggernaut and Sorscha.

Of course I do have the Prime MK II, in the back it shows which brushes you need and what paints, but I thought they were just trying to make it look easy for new players.

Also just one thing in painting i'm confused about, what is a wash and how do I wash the models?

I find that while the MKII book's painting tips can be helpful they use way to many colors to achieve the same thing you can get with one wash of a base paint job. Here is some MoW and a Warjack to show you what it looks like:





Here is a quick list of paints that I use to do my Khador. It is a mixture of P3 paints from PP and GW paints. These will work on a all the models that you have and will reduce the painting time and cost:

Red: GW Mephiston Red
Silver: P3 Pig Iron
Gold: P3 Blighted Gold
Orange: GW Troll Slayer Orange
White: GW White Scar
Black: GW Abaddon Black
Flesh: GW Ratskin Flesh
Wash: GW Nuln Oil

Here is how I paint Khador:

Step 1 - First a dark base coat of either black spray paint or in my case I use a dark brown camo color from Krylon.

Step 2 - Dry brush P3 Pig Iron almost over all of the mini.

Step 3 - Paint GW Mephiston Red over all the areas you want red. This will take the longest amount of time.

Step 4 - Use GW Troll Slayer Orange for the eyes of the Warjack and the steam engine slates to make it look like it is glowing.

Step 5 - Use P3 Blighted Gold for any gold details.

Step 6 - For flesh use the GW Ratskin Flesh in thin strokes (watered down a little bit to give an even coat.) Then take your GW White Scar and fill in the entire eye socket on the face. Then make a single thin verticle strip of GW Abaddon Black over the white. Then clean up the eye socket with the flesh color. You can move the black lines to make the mini look like it looking somewhere other than stright ahead.

Step 7 - Go over the entire model with a generious layer of GW Nuln Oil with a wide brush. This will darken the mini a bit and the wash will help cover some of the mistakes in painting espcially in Warjacks because it will settle in the groves where two colors meet. If you want extra definition you can use the same wash a second time but use a thin brush to get into the lines you want darkened.

All three jacks up top were painted in an hour and a half. The MoW took an hour and a half also because they were smaller and had more detail. I hope this helps. PM me if want any more help.

Spray paint as in black primer or just regular spray paint? Also why do I have to dry brush the entire model pig iron? Just curious. One last thing, you always wash at the end after you paint the models, not before, correct?

I hate GW primer because honestly it is the same stuff in the $1.00 walmart store brand spray paint. I use a camo brown spray paint from Krylon. It lays a nice even coat. It will darken the metal and red paints you use just enough. A great base for skin tones. Plus it bonds to the mini to reduce chipping. Here is what it looks like:



I so a dry brush all over like that to catch all the silver metal areas evenly. Plus it speeds the process up since you dont have to be careful. I always wash after all the paints are down. The only highlighting I do after wash is on skin tones or i want things to be brighter. I do that sometimes on rivets or some well used metal part but not very often.

Even if I screw up badly, if not the worst, could I just re-spray the model and paint it again?

Yep.

I'd suggest dunking them in Simple Green/Purple Power(or whatever the purple stuff is called) instead of simply respraying over an older paint job. It's more time consuming, but the additional layers will obscure detail.

 Pipboy101 wrote:
Yep.

Well, I don't see any reason to buy painted models online, they are still steep prices such as 5 "Pro painted" Man-O-War Shocktroopers for over $200. Jesus....

I agree. There are times when respraying does work.

I would just buy new or just built stuff before buying aleady painted. Unless you are getting every unit and mini with the deal it isn't worth it. Then you are paying for what they think their time is worth. Alot of times their work is just as good as yours after some pratice.

Just to make sure, are you positive? Because yesterday at my local gamestore, the Press Ganger says if I spray it too much it will just make layers and layers of the paint, which will be harder, unless I didn't listen correctly or he is just a new painter.

You can respray if is it is thin smooth paint job before. I the paint is caked on thickly it will build up layers and you will loss detail. It can become harder to paint well over a bad paint job if it was thick and globbed on.

You can clean the paint off with simple green and a medium tooth brush in under a day. That gives it time to soak in and then loosen the paint. You can use nail polish remover on metal models only which is super quick but smells and eats the glue on the model.

The perferrd method of repainting used minis is to clean them first then paint. My cygnar above is a respray since the paint job before was smooth and thin.

It really all depends on the mini, the prior paint job and how much time you want to invest in the miniature. As a rile fore me I allow only three coats of paint to be on a mini at one time. The PG is partly correct because if you use thin layers of paint, water down the paints every so often not get that layering he is talking about. I have only seen two people with minis that had that layering like he was talking about and those were test figures for paint schemes.

I'd argue that miniatures warpainting is actually one of the more difficult things to learn how to paint compared to, say, painting on canvas with watercolors, due to the tiny canvas and the 3D texture of things. It's not too rough to get something that looks okay on the tabletop, though.

For my part, I usually use gesso to prime my models (a brush-on paint with little bits of sand that help paint grip the plastic or metal--use an old crappy brush, 'cause it'll mess up new ones). I haven't had luck with washes so far, so I find it easier to have a darkish base coat and then to highlight with a lighter color ,especially for skin. I'm still very new at all of this, and I don't claim that my paint jobs are great, but if you just want to avoid playing with bare plastic, it's not too hard to get respectable results.

Re: flash and mold lines on plastic: PP's plastics aren't the best quality in this regard. It's really not a big deal, though; a hobby knife and some needle files will take care of it just like they will on any other company's models.

I dont know if it has been mentioned, but make sure to use at least 1 contrasting color, otherwise it often ends up making the model look like some colored blob

And if I was to just follow the painting instructions on the back of the rule book , unless they look horrible that is.

 Sharps wrote:
And if I was to just follow the painting instructions on the back of the rule book , unless they look horrible that is.

I love my P3 paints and would recommend them, especially if you're doing the paint by numbers stuff at the end of the rule book.

Well, I don't even know why I want to paint them their faction colors if I can do whatever the hell I want.

Maybe put some black and silver and save some time.....

How does Thamar black, Cold Steel and Armor wash sound?

That could run the risk of looking primed and unpainted. Make sure you throw some highlights on the black. Other than that, go ahead!