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My partner has decided to start sticking her toes in the water when it comes to the hobby and she's a big one for resource books.
I'm familiar with the AK Interactive books but I'm curious about what y'all would consider the best.

I like this one.

It's big, full color, and even has some earlier work by Duncan

Figopedia is a good all around theory book, and the Tank Art series are amazing when it comes to painting and weathering vehicles

I definitely recommend Figopedia; however it is more for theory and techniques for display painting than table-top wargaming style stuff.

Arises and Angel Giraldez also have some books that are quite good and could be worth it if you are interested.

She found the GW one next to useless but 'Figopedia' looks fantastic and I might have to grab a copy for her!

Depends on what she wants to paint.

For general painting, Angel Giraldez Masterclass Volume 2 is probably the best. They're currently between the pre-order and regular release, so it's listed as pending restock at some web stores. If you aren't aware, Angel does the studio models for Infinity and is work is in a class by itself. I don't have this book yet, but it's on my short list.




For armor painting, Tank Art volumes 1-4 by Michael Rinaldi are, in my opinion, the gold standard. They're also pretty affordable compared to many other books on the subject. I have all four volumes and they're packed with modelling goodness and cover everything from basecoating and weathering to advanced oil paint techniques.

 Nodri wrote:
For general painting, Angel Giraldez Masterclass Volume 2 is probably the best. They're currently between the pre-order and regular release, so it's listed as pending restock at some web stores. If you aren't aware, Angel does the studio models for Infinity and is work is in a class by itself. I don't have this book yet, but it's on my short list.

I don't know if I would go so far to say that; yes Angel is very good, but his books are specifically designed to teach people his painting style which is incredibly airbrush intensive and so if you aren't able to do that, or into that then it would hold little value.

From what I have seen his second book is definitely better than his first, it's much more of an all-rounder of a book, but it is still specific to the Angel Giraldez paint method AND Infiniti models too. It primarily focuses on them.

I had a dig through some other recommendations from people and came across these titles:

The Rise of Fantasy: How to built fantasy scenes - Juan Barrena

Modelling stories in Miniature - Antonio Fernandez Lizaso

Massive Voodoo: Figure art - Raffaele Picca and Roman Lappat (this is an artbook though, so no tutorials but lots of inspiration)

Building and Painting Scale Figures - Sheperd Paine

Ravage magazine (It's in french, but is apparently quite good)