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Hi.

I have a slight crisis, which I am trying to solve, and it is about painting. I have painted minifigures for 2 years/over 2000 hours. I have learned that utter basics can be learned from youtube, but all these small nuances, which makes difference between amateur and Golden Demon winner, nobody talks about them or masters don’t want to reveal any of their secrets. I am not talking about revealing artistic features and morphologies, but how to actually do flawless paint job through layering and blending. There is a small difference, which is quite large actually, in how to consider the painting is ruined or the job is flawless. Some of these secrets come to your head automatically through training, and you form up theories, which is a delightful experience. Some secrets keep haunting forever, which one is going to be the subject right now.

Whole 2 years I have been painting, there is one constant problem, which I haven't been able to figure out. Let's say we apply a base coat for a paint job (to a very small area like 3 millimeters square), which is applied with thin layers so the coat is flawless and extremely even. No brush strokes or lumps can be seen on the surface. Then we start to block out our blend areas with layering. When that is done, we start to smooth those borders whatever method you can think of (glazing and layering primarily). My setup consists of two DragonLight brand light bulbs, which are kind of strong lights (CRI 80, etc.). Their distance from the model is sub 30 centimeters. Now, the blending looks good and we can't see any grading between layers. When we start to tilt the model vertically in the light (over 90 degree), we start to see, that the blending is not working, there is grading or the blending is off. Then we repair the blending and tilt the model to the original angle, the blending is off again. This starts a vicious cycle of hopeless repairing, which accumulates layers and soon (after 2 hours) there is so much layers that the paint job is ruined. I have tried to use smaller brushes, like smaller than Winsor & Newton 000 brush, which actually might be the answer. With smaller brushes than W&N 000, I can apply glazes with stippling and other brush strokes far more accurately, so there won't be grading for a naked eye no matter what angle you look at it. It is kind of laborious work, when we look at the model closer than 5 centimeters away, our eyes crossed heavily and 2 hours later our eyes are strained.

I asked this problem from a Golden Demon winner and a couple Tubers, but they never answered. The Golden Demon winner, let's call him Mr. F, replied something like this “why should the blends look distorted by tilting the model? A properly painted blend should work from all views.” I don’t know, but pretty sure, he didn’t understand the question. But there is this inwardly grown and glowing elite hemisphere, which are so afraid to share their knowledge, that they think it is a threat to them, and they don’t want to help people, who need fact checking. It is like I'm not trying to steal their ideas from their perfect cozy world, I have my own morphology and designs, which I want to express via models. All there is these small nuances, which nobody talks about, but are certainly important things to acknowledge.

I'm not a demon winner but I've won 7 finalist pins, and I must admit Im a little confused by your scenario... you're saying you want it to look perfect from every angle? I don't think that's possible to be fair. I would advise painting to the angle you want the model viewed from. If you are entering into competition the judges will be able to see where this is, provided you pull it off of course. Don't fixate on getting every angle to look perfect because you'll tie yourself in knots, as it seems you are at the moment.

Here is some pictures of the problem. It is already ruined model and illustrates the dilemma perfectly. These low level blends are made W&N 000 brush, while the "new generation" is used with worn out, thinner version of W&N 000 and Kolibri 10/0 brushes. Unfortunately i could not get better pictures with my camera.


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 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I'm not a demon winner but I've won 7 finalist pins, and I must admit Im a little confused by your scenario... you're saying you want it to look perfect from every angle? I don't think that's possible to be fair. I would advise painting to the angle you want the model viewed from. If you are entering into competition the judges will be able to see where this is, provided you pull it off of course. Don't fixate on getting every angle to look perfect because you'll tie yourself in knots, as it seems you are at the moment.

Nice to know! These angle scenarios started to feel little bit paranoid to the extreme, almost to the point where cant sleep at nights.

If you are just talking about gradients, have you ever tried spraycans & zenithal painting techniques? Or airbrushes?

If I understand you correctly, you have a hard time creating seamless looking gradients? Are you using blending techniques, or applying static colour values of mixed colour without trying to "tie the colours" to each other?

I'm not certain of what I should look out for in your pict attachments? The colour gradients between red and purple?

"If you are just talking about gradients, have you ever tried spraycans & zenithal painting techniques? Or airbrushes?

If I understand you correctly, you have a hard time creating seamless looking gradients? Are you using blending techniques, or applying static colour values of mixed colour without trying to "tie the colours" to each other?

I'm not certain of what I should look out for in your pict attachments? The colour gradients between red and purple?"

Yes, gradients are what I am trying to figure out. In the pictures, red to black, light blue to black, and in the armor yellow to red. The cloak painted red-black and blue-black was primarily made of a combination of layering, glazing and stippling. The light blue to black gradient was made with blocking blends to swatches. Swatches sounded like a great idea to isolate certain states of a gradient in a wet palette, so it would be logical to select what blend to apply to smoothen the result. For example red to black contains 6 swatches. Blue to black 8. And the blue to black did not contain any base coloring, so the color areas were blocked straight to the spray base. Then there was a part where colors from swatches did not serve the smoothness purpose, so I started to make glazes from these swatches.

Inspected Mr. F wet palette in Instagram, I came to the conclusion that it would be better to mix colors dynamically. For example, trying to make a color transition gradient, we just apply a little bit of another color to the blend when needed. This way maybe we can mix in other color elements to make color schemes more vibrant and interesting, so it won't look so boring/dull. And the base color was back on business, because blocking straight to the base spray would affect later color rendering. In later state, I am trying to tie the colors/blends together by glazing extremely thin layers and small brush.

Question is, because we can't see the reality of elite painters models in real life, to closely inspect what is going on in the surface of the model, so when enough is enough? Watching these works around the world, all I can figure is that “they” use glazing and stippling to form smooth gradients. You can see the stipples occasionally, when downgrading images does not conceal reality.

First off, definitely bin off looking at the model from below. No one is going to be doing that, and you're going to mess up your tones trying to work top to bottom and bottom to top simultaneously.

What is the problem you're having with that rotbone mini? It doesn't look that bad. Main issue I can see is his armour is going to be the same colour as his cape? Edit, just read the last post, I'd reconsider the colour choices for the different elements, as the cape is going to look too similar to the armour as I say. So are you trying to get red and blue onto the cape?

Best thing to do is pick a main light source and stick with it. You will of course need to add some secondary lights in order to highlight details on other areas that would be in pure shadow on real life but still need to be seen on a model. I generally just wing this until it looks right, but this may not be best for you.

That said, some areas do need to be in shadow. You need dark areas for the aesthetic to work.
You may get some benefit from checking out a guy called flameon miniatures. He blocks in his highlights and light tone areas with pure white first. It might help you get an idea of highlight placement and give you more confidence leaving necessary areas in shadow.


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I just read what you've said about brushes, honestly, in my opinion your brushes are way too small. I use a 2 for literally everything. Basecoats, layers, highlights, freehand, eyes, edging, stippling, blacklining... literally everything barring bases really. A good quality 2 is all you need. Going too small won't allow you to get enough paint into your layers for nice transitions, whereas a 2 will give you a much broader range of paint loading options.

Also, bear in mind that you are examining every surface up close on your model. In reality people are usually going to be looking from a foot or so away unless closely inspecting, so it's more important for it to look good at this distance. The key is getting the elements to come together with your eye at this point. You could put your eye 2 inches from a Michaelangelo, guaranteed you're seeing brush strokes, textures, rough blends etc.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
First off, definitely bin off looking at the model from below. No one is going to be doing that, and you're going to mess up your tones trying to work top to bottom and bottom to top simultaneously.

What is the problem you're having with that rotbone mini? It doesn't look that bad. Main issue I can see is his armour is going to be the same colour as his cape? Edit, just read the last post, I'd reconsider the colour choices for the different elements, as the cape is going to look too similar to the armour as I say. So are you trying to get red and blue onto the cape?

Best thing to do is pick a main light source and stick with it. You will of course need to add some secondary lights in order to highlight details on other areas that would be in pure shadow on real life but still need to be seen on a model. I generally just wing this until it looks right, but this may not be best for you.

That said, some areas do need to be in shadow. You need dark areas for the aesthetic to work.
You may get some benefit from checking out a guy called flameon miniatures. He blocks in his highlights and light tone areas with pure white first. It might help you get an idea of highlight placement and give you more confidence leaving necessary areas in shadow.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I just read what you've said about brushes, honestly, in my opinion your brushes are way too small. I use a 2 for literally everything. Basecoats, layers, highlights, freehand, eyes, edging, stippling, blacklining... literally everything barring bases really. A good quality 2 is all you need. Going too small won't allow you to get enough paint into your layers for nice transitions, whereas a 2 will give you a much broader range of paint loading options.

Also, bear in mind that you are examining every surface up close on your model. In reality people are usually going to be looking from a foot or so away unless closely inspecting, so it's more important for it to look good at this distance. The key is getting the elements to come together with your eye at this point. You could put your eye 2 inches from a Michaelangelo, guaranteed you're seeing brush strokes, textures, rough blends etc.

Thx for the supportive response. Glad to hear the realities at this point. I totally agree with you that you can't zoom in forever and examine results from obscure angles. Magnifying glasses and one hair brush would go too far. The model suffered some damages already, when trying to cope with top to bottom and bottom to top preoccupation, because paint accumulated too much.

The lighting model was going to be like this, the whole model. Thought it would be cool, but easy enough to test some fine smooth blends. He is a guy from the Halt and Catch Fire series.

That's a difficult light placement. I personally wouldn't try something like that without a surrounding diorama showing the light source. Without that it would look very odd.

Generally lit from above, slightly offset to one side, with a focus on framing the face is a good way to go. Without knowing your experience level or what you're working for, my advice would be to focus on nailing basic top down light, and getting basic layering with high contrast down. Once you have these comfortably down, different light placements and colour combinations can be experimented with much greater ease.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
That's a difficult light placement. I personally wouldn't try something like that without a surrounding diorama showing the light source. Without that it would look very odd.

Generally lit from above, slightly offset to one side, with a focus on framing the face is a good way to go. Without knowing your experience level or what you're working for, my advice would be to focus on nailing basic top down light, and getting basic layering with high contrast down. Once you have these comfortably down, different light placements and colour combinations can be experimented with much greater ease.

Good advice. Most painters also seem to rely on natural daylight simulation, because maybe it will allow them to use a much greater range of colors in materials. May I ask what size brushes you use, what is the smallest one?

Another topic to this original subject, about these trivial questions, angles, layers, usage of brushes etc, there should be a manual, a 1000 pages size instruction book, which tries to answer all questions there is. Even those people are uncomfortable to answer. It needs scholarly skills to manufacture such things and think of all the details. Probably a collaboration of a massive amount of painters, top tier, but also those who are newbie with fresh questions.

Thing is, art is an individual process. I truly believe learning as you go is one of the best ways. Sure, apprenticing with a tutor or taking lessons are still good things, I still don't think an instruction book for this sort of this is possible or even desirable really. I feel that the learning process is part of the joy. Try not to get frustrated with the learning process. Lean into it and use it to develop. Having these forums is great in that you can share your troubles and have people help out.9

Anyway, I have a range of brushes. I normally don't go outside the 00-3 range, with 2 being the absolute workhorse as I already mentioned. Very rarely does anything else come out. I have other brushes for drybrushing and basing etc. I generally go by you want as large as brush as possible for the task. That doesn't mean going massive, it means picking the largest brush that can perform the task, then going down if necessary. This is because larger brushes hold more paint for longer and thus are more forgiving. This is of course predicated on the brush being good quality, mainly having a good fine point. This is how people paint eyes with a 2. Sure you could go to 00 but you'll likely find it more difficult as the paint will dry much quicker on the bristles.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Thing is, art is an individual process. I truly believe learning as you go is one of the best ways. Sure, apprenticing with a tutor or taking lessons are still good things, I still don't think an instruction book for this sort of this is possible or even desirable really. I feel that the learning process is part of the joy. Try not to get frustrated with the learning process. Lean into it and use it to develop. Having these forums is great in that you can share your troubles and have people help out.9

Anyway, I have a range of brushes. I normally don't go outside the 00-3 range, with 2 being the absolute workhorse as I already mentioned. Very rarely does anything else come out. I have other brushes for drybrushing and basing etc. I generally go by you want as large as brush as possible for the task. That doesn't mean going massive, it means picking the largest brush that can perform the task, then going down if necessary. This is because larger brushes hold more paint for longer and thus are more forgiving. This is of course predicated on the brush being good quality, mainly having a good fine point. This is how people paint eyes with a 2. Sure you could go to 00 but you'll likely find it more difficult as the paint will dry much quicker on the bristles.

True, and believe me, I was in an Arts Academy for 4 years till I graduated. Probably people would wonder that there is an extensive guidance for a majoring subject, but actually there was not. The four years was a dedicated time for a student to teach himself, of course with resources of the school. That was the coolest thing about it, that gradually, with courses etc. you put pieces together and learn something and hopefully master it in the end. And the cherry on the top, nobody would enforce their morphologies and ideals to a student.

But minifigure painting is my worst nightmare since childhood, because I did not understand it at all when I was under 10 years old. Still now, it is still an enormous demanding subject technically to master, mainly because it is not a flat canvas and it is in a miniature scale.

By the way, is that your showroom name in Instagram at the foot note?

Ive actually learnt more about art from figure painting than I ever did at art college. In the UK at least, art college is a waste of time. It was all 'look at this artist and do some work like theirs' they taught nothing about lighting, shading, colour theory, shaping, etc. I've learnt all this painting figures.

Umm, not sure? I can't see it on my phone. Nagrakali_love_songs is my Instagram, if that's what it says.

Well while we're on the topic, I can't help but imagine a connection between your description of your art education and your frustration at the technical aspect of painting miniatures. Using brushes down to 10/0 for blending, particularly caught my eye. I just keep thinking the paint would dry on the brush before you got it near the surface. As Queen Anne's Revenge said, bigger brush, bigger belly, good point.

My own art education was shaping up to be the same. 'Here's a project; just do it'. Which is why I dropped it at AS level. (Second level between school-leaving minimum GCSEs and off-to-university A-levels) I got way more mileage out of discovering green stuff in Games Workshop than 'legitimate' clay sculpture in school.

I also think that trying to smoothly grade from black up to a bright colour like red, in a narrow space like a cloth wrinkle, could be adding to your woes. Why so much contrast?

Honestly, my fuel to pursue greatness is pure narcissism. The force inside to study originates from jealousy, which comes from looking at the works of other artists. When something fabulous appears, it requires extensive measures to find out/research the technical secrets that other people may possess. I would be ready to jump off a tower if that is what greatness needs. It actually pisses me off to know that I am not geared to be a brilliant mind, what 10 year old psychoanalysis revealed about my intelligence (which is below average). It is like riding a broken bicycle, which occasionally can be fun. However, it is great to see what other people can do and achieve. Another important point in everything (and what we are here talking about) is that the collective human effort is actually what matters. Every brilliant mind and less brilliant somehow pushes the same wagon forward, even though some are involuntary to reveal secrets for whatever reasons, and some just will help people out. I am glad you guys exist and generally the Internet.

About art schools: They all tend to be more talk than doing, and what shades all of it, is that there is a rush to do basically anything and the schedule is booked so tightly varied studies that each of them barely just scrapes the subject. But to the contrary, those art history and philosophy courses were great, mostly because in my case there was this charismatic and knowledgeable lecturer, who knew quite a lot about legendary paintings, how to look at them and why the coloring, etc.

Now, back to the original topic:

“I also think that trying to smoothly grade from black up to a bright color like red, in a narrow space like a cloth wrinkle, could be adding to your woes. Why so much contrast?”

It is true that high contrasts are a mark of amateurism and naive sense colors. There is a sample of my recent work on the computer, the picture with a purple background. As you can see that the colors are all over the place, and basically there is no color theory. It has a naive design. This is the morphology, which I tried to bring to the minifigure painting, but it just does not bend or translate well to a 3d model.

Next picture is from the Amadeus movie. What makes this sample more potent for mini painting, is that there is a sense of materials, each separated in natural daylight, and they are shown with deliciously smooth shading and less crazy colour blends. This is rather what I would pursue more than the loose cannon morphology. Is it true that low contrasts in color blends might tell the actual skills of a painter?

Hi,
From what I've heard from these guys, is that once you're totally okay with the basics, it's a case of doing a crazy amount of glazes. I heard one guy that did hundreds to get the finished effect. Obviously they were all done with a practiced technique, but that comes with experience, not a Masonic Book of Secrets. A little tip I remember him giving is about 'micro-glazing', which I imagine is like a kind of stippling but very controlled, and with direction (as we know you push the paint towards the lighter tone when glazing). However he also did give the caveat that for most people, that amount of work is simply not acceptable. The very top tier are extremely dedicated, not hobbyists like most of us. Hundreds of hours spent on a single model is a professional asking, not an amateur one.

I come from a fine art background like others here, and when I first started painting miniatures a couple years back, I naturally assumed I'd be brilliant from the start, as I'm familiar with colour matching, mixing, theory etc. But I found my pieces were nowhere near the standard of GW. It's because it's different ball game. Things work on the canvas which don't work on a 3" plastic model. I know you say you've seen all those youtube vids - have you tried replicating a model exactly the way, say Duncan Rhodes or one of the other GW guys paints it? As in paint for paint, layer for layer? I found I learned a lot by doing that. Surprising things, really. Sometimes I look at a showcase model and presume I know how to paint it, then I look at the video and they've done it a completely different way. One thing I agree with you on is that they don't tell you everything, but I've noticed this is the same for nearly ALL painting tutorials, be it oil portraits, watercolours, whatever. You get a simple-sounding instruction like "Then you apply some dark red here, then mix up light blue, add it here, then add some off-white here, then voila". They very rarely tell you WHY they're doing what they're doing, and that's the bit we all want to know. I think that's because there are a lot of technical factors which aren't easily expressed in a short time. Things like colour 'temperature' and tonal value spring to mind. It took me 20 years to figure these out, because I was teaching myself. Hugely important to the final effect, but rare as rocking-horse **** in painting tutorials. A good tip I've learned is convert your image to greyscale. Do that to the guy in your pic, and you'll see the cloak has (in my opinion) too much contrast. Stuff like that will be the most eye-catching thing, regardless of how smooth your layering is. If you're going for realism, tonal value is very important. If something's too bright or too dark, it's a huge red flag for the eye. Your brain just can't let it go. It yells out 'FALSE!'

Back to your original point, I think you've been tempted to believe you can jump from a relative beginner to an amazing model painter, by applying technique. I think this is only possible for prodigies. You need to paint a ****-load more, basically. And start big - learn how dozens of glazes works on a larger model, then reduce the subject size when you're confident. I've found on a small model, I've done what I thought was a correct technique, and it's turned out bad. No idea why. But surely it's down to how small the thing is, and the mistake getting amplified.



Failing all that, grab a new style. The world and his mate is trying to perfect their glazing so they can paint like (or better than) the competition winners. I've seen a lot of respect go out for those that do things their own way. If you look at art history after all, we remember the people who did exactly that. Stylistic Flair gets big points.

All opinions of course! Good luck to you. Caring deeply about it is a good sign.

 Vermis wrote:



I also think that trying to smoothly grade from black up to a bright colour like red, in a narrow space like a cloth wrinkle, could be adding to your woes. Why so much contrast?

I have a different experience here. Virtually all my cloaks are red on the inside, and I layer from black to light red. I find it looks pretty good. It's basically how I learnt to layer.

I think that's the gist of it - experience. Time and time again, I see this desire in people to learn to master a skill, and many seem unable to accept the simple humbling fact that you need to put in the hours before you will reach any sort of mastery of a skill.

As an example, I've been making electronic music for over two decades. The music making forums I frequent are chock full of posts from newbs who are convinced that there is some "secret" nobody is telling them, and it is this secret that is preventing them from making music that sounds like the stuff their idols are releasing.. While the harsh reality of it is, people behind their favourite records have done their 10,000 hours and then some. In an age where everyone is looking for fast results, nobody wants to accept this

There's even a saying in academic art circles: "Stay on the f*n bus!", Meaning that keeping engaged at a specific task/activity will eventually pay off.. Don't get off the bus before you've reached your destination, or you'll never get where you were going.

Yup. The equivalent in weightlifting is 'your first 1000 reps are worthless' this is somewhat ironic in the fact that it's actually the reverse that's true insofar as they are how you learn, but the point is the amount of time and work required to gain proficiency in something.

Very well put.

No, I have not tried to replicate a tutorial from start to finish, only tried to understand the technical aspects, which are not told in a video.

Here is a sample:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVEHpedTct4&t=7s

I thought at one point that this was the key to greatness. So you take two colors, blend them together, make a glaze from it, apply the glaze with a brush stroke from light to dark, repeat till it reaches the desired effect. I made some notes about this method to remember some difficulties I had, but apparently I lost it. Maybe Freemasons took it. First of all the video does not explain these: 1. How much paint do you put on a brush when applying glazes? 2. How much water is optimal to make a glaze? 3. Why does the applied glaze muddle when applied to a surface?

Number 1 and 3 are basically the same question. If you are operating absolutely fine layers, you take only a small amount of glaze to your brush tip and apply it with stippling or whatever needs to be done. Before you put the brush to the surface, you have to make sure there is no excessive amount of paint in your brush. You can do this by drawing the brush to your finger or a paper sheet. Skin is maybe better, because it does not dry the brush entirely, but leaves just the correct amount of glaze to operate. When you draw the brush to your finger, you need to watch how much moisture is left on the finger and draw as many times till you suspect there is the right amount of glaze in your brush to make a good glaze. If the glaze muddles on the surface or leaves a ring, it means there is way too much moisture/water on the brush. It is also important rinse the brush before you take more glaze from the palette. 2. How to determine when the color is glaze? The glaze can not contain an excessive amount of water. And the paper towel explosion is not a good way to test the consistency of a glaze. On the wet palette, the glaze should form an uniform translucent thin layer of color. If the uniform glaze on the palette is torn, there is way too much water and it is not a glaze anymore.

The “Fat glazing” method is not an ideal way to blend colors, because it has only one sample from a blend. What we have already discussed here, the optimal way to make smooth blends is to sort of layering and glazing? Mix a color with a small amount of other color, and make a glaze from it. If you have blocked the blends to the surface, you try to smoothen the borders with these glazes. Or if you have not blocked the blends with solid colors, you make layers by glazing gradually with a little bit stronger tone from the blend.

Watching the comment lines of Mr. F on Instagram, I came to the conclusion that it is better to dump all technical colors away: washes, inks(?), contrast paints, metals, etc, because all you need is the basic colors and make everything work from them?

“I think that's the gist of it - experience. Time and time again, I see this desire in people to learn to master a skill, and many seem unable to accept the simple humbling fact that you need to put in the hours before you will reach any sort of mastery of a skill.”

I do not have a problem spending hundreds of hours on a 4 millimeter tall model. But the problem is a wasted time and ruined model. Wasted time means that you spend 100 hours doing something wrong with bad ideology or methods, and that is what infuriates me mostly. That is why it is better to find the right path as soon as possible, and not after you have spent 100 euros on models and it is embarrassing to even look at them. It is a pride question. You can always look back and think: “I wish somebody had told that before…”. For example I have painted over 2000 hours and I do not have a single model I would be proud of. Just because they contain these silly ideologies and errors. The worst of it is that at some point you might think that this is top class work, until you go to the Internet and find a wrecking ball.

queen_annes_revenge:

I watched your work on Instagram and these are gorgeous. I don't know what to say.

I think you're focusing too hard on glazes. Personally I prefer to let layering do the heavy lifting for my colour transitions. Glazes can help smooth them out but you should need only one or two really... Using too many will cause problems. I tend to use glazes to add tonal variation and contrast to the main colours rather than smoothing out base tones.

Have you ever tried wet blending? It's an oldschool technique where you build up a colour gradient on the fly by adjusting the dilution of your paint and its colour mix, without letting the colours dry until the gradient is complete. When I was younger I learnt how to do it after some weeks of trial and error. I read it on White Dwarf at the time, where they wrote learning wet blending requires an intermediary stage where the results look "muddy", but I kept at it until I could pull off smooth colour gradients.

..that was 35+ years ago though. I stopped painting for more than a decade after that, and lost the ability due to atrophied motor skills and lack of practice. If I wouldn't have suffered a serious eye injury 5 years ago, I'd probably try to relearn wet blending, but now, I'm SOL. Anyways, I digress.

Another way you could try skinning the cat is to try other type of paints. Have you tried using Oils or enamels? Oils have an almost unlimited drying time, so you can keep blending your colours until the cows come home. Personally, I really love modulating colours with oils, they produce a very vibrant, rich colour compared to acrylics, and the way oils naturally create colour gradiations is awesome. However, using oils has it's own challenges, still figuring it out bit by bit.

I know how disappointing it feels to "ruin" a model. I like to practice painting on "rubbish minis", I have tons of old minis from my decades of collecting, then I can just have fun while working on my painting skills as nobody will care how the rubbish minis will end up looking like. Also, AK Interactive Paint Stripper can always let me start from scratch and try again

 tauist wrote:
Have you ever tried wet blending? It's an oldschool technique where you build up a colour gradient on the fly by adjusting the dilution of your paint and its colour mix, without letting the colours dry until the gradient is complete. When I was younger I learnt how to do it after some weeks of trial and error. I read it on White Dwarf at the time, where they wrote learning wet blending requires an intermediary stage where the results look "muddy", but I kept at it until I could pull off smooth colour gradients.

..that was 35+ years ago though. I stopped painting for more than a decade after that, and lost the ability due to atrophied motor skills and lack of practice. If I wouldn't have suffered a serious eye injury 5 years ago, I'd probably try to relearn wet blending, but now, I'm SOL. Anyways, I digress.

Another way you could try skinning the cat is to try other type of paints. Have you tried using Oils or enamels? Oils have an almost unlimited drying time, so you can keep blending your colours until the cows come home. Personally, I really love modulating colours with oils, they produce a very vibrant, rich colour compared to acrylics, and the way oils naturally create colour gradiations is awesome. However, using oils has it's own challenges, still figuring it out bit by bit.

I know how disappointing it feels to "ruin" a model. I like to practice painting on "rubbish minis", I have tons of old minis from my decades of collecting, then I can just have fun while working on my painting skills as nobody will care how the rubbish minis will end up looking like. Also, AK Interactive Paint Stripper can always let me start from scratch and try again

Hey, that AK Paint Stripper sounds like a good idea to erase a work. Definitely will try it out.

Now you mentioned wet blending, can not say never understood it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70tSykWf3cY

Apparently wet blending is actually a pretty neat way to blend in things. Is this a way to eliminate layering?

What about oils, are they a health hazard? Can you paint with oils in the same room where you live? And does it need a new set of brushes, which can withstand solvents? Definitely oils sound interesting, because there is more time to operate.

I'm not a fan of wet blending personally, barring sketching out basic blends. I much prefer layering. I find it makes the transitions smoother and the layers give much more depth to the tones.

Oils are ok but they have a steep learning curve, not just with the actual painting, but with the prep. The first few times you will need to wick the paint to remove the excess oil build up in the tube. The drying times also vary between different hues. Umber dries very quickly while reds and whites dry much slower if I recall correctly. There's a guy on here who uses primarily oils, he might be better placed than I to advise on them. However I feel if you're getting frustrated chasing acrylics around then oils may prove just as frustrating, possibly even more so, because their long drying times can actually make things more difficult. Acrylics are easy to correct by simply painting over the mistake, which you can't do with oils.

They are fine to use in your house, just use a small closable container for your white spirit. I use an old gw paint pot. You will need synthetic brushes for oils also.

Kake2000 wrote:


What about oils, are they a health hazard? Can you paint with oils in the same room where you live? And does it need a new set of brushes, which can withstand solvents? Definitely oils sound interesting, because there is more time to operate.

I know oils well. You will be able to achieve better results with oils. If you are interested in glazing, then Oils is where it's at. Far better transparency there. The only thing is, and it's a big 'BUT', there is a LOT more learning to be done than there is with acrylics. And things you will only get the hang of by experience. The differences between the behaviour of individual paints is greater. The time taken to master the medium is greater. The cost is greater. The time and equipment needed to clean and maintain your brushes is greater (be prepared to be frustrated as you have to throw away another brush because you forgot to clean it properly - dried oil paint is very unforgiving and hard to shift: it's nearly impossible to get a brush back to its original quality after you've neglected it once or twice). You don't need synthetic brushes - master oil painters of the last 600 years have got on fine with natural fibres. That said, their popularity is waning due in part to the growing awareness of the way in which sable are farmed for their hair. Not exactly humane, in a lot of cases. And unnecessary, given the quality of synthetics these days.

If you go down the oil route, you may find yourself getting obsessed with it. The VAST amount of factors potentially leading to very high quality results can be addictive, as I've found. The range of colours available is huge, but can be pricey. For example not long ago there was a problem with Cadmium Ore mining (from which high quality, mainstay pigments like Cadmium Red and Cadmium Yellow are made), and you could find yourself paying £30 for a 75ml tube. That'll last you a long time, but just be warned, the costs can be high.

On the plus side, having to mix your own versions of all those well known Citadel pigments will lead to a greater knowledge of your art, and hone your muscle memory, which is always good. (As a quick aside: I hate the way Citadel paints are named. It's off-putting and aimed at younger people I think. You buy Blood Angels Red because you have some Blood Angels to paint, and then you look at the colour scheme on the box, and GW DON'T use Blood Angels Red to paint them, they use something like Mephiston Red and Carroburg Crimson! It's weird. It's like they're trying to get you to buy all the wrong paints so you have to spend more getting the right ones. But I digress). Just be prepared for a looong road of learning and mistakes with Oils. And as ever, without a tutor putting you on the right path from the beginning, you can spend a lot of time and get a lot of headaches by doing things wrong and picking up bad habits.

Acrylics have a faster drying time over Oils, but I believe that is the ONLY advantage in their favour. I have to admit I haven't tried Oils on miniatures, but it's my educated guess that you'll be able to achieve high quality blends and glazes with much less effort and far fewer passes, than the acrylic equivalent. This is due to how light refracts through the 'vehicle' (which is the oil itself that the pigment is suspended in). I can see drying time being a problem...I've had paintings which have taken months to dry between layers. But again, this all depends on how much thinner you use, which paints you use, how warm the room is (opposite to acrylics, a warm environment will keep oil paints wet for longer). It's another world of factors, my friend, which can be fascinating and/or frustrating. If you like to take your time over these things as I do, you won't mind waiting. You can have several projects on the go this way, and that can be really fun.

As for your question about 'are oil paints dangerous', no, not unless you're Van Gogh and like to eat them. Personally I've always loved the smell of oil paints and turps and all that stuff, it won't do you any harm at all. There's a brand called 'Zest It' which adds a citrus smell to its solvents, so use that for cleaning and thinning down if you don't like the smell of normal paint thinners.

Go well my friend, I'm excited for you if you choose to dabble in oils. Not enough people paint minis like that - I'd like to see more do it.

P.s: those minis you've painted above are fantastic, can't believe you've only been painting 2 years. Don't know why you think there is a 'crisis', just keep going!

queen_annes_revenge and Muzzlehatch:

Excellent responses both.

Is there a dedicated brand of oil paints for miniatures? Or is it just regular canvas oils? And what kind of brand generally is good, but not overly expensive? Oils sound actually fun to test out, and if it does not work out, you can use the paints for canvas.

“There's a guy on here who uses primarily oils”

May I have a link to his showroom?

About acrylics: At some point I tried to use glaze medium for both, layering and glazing, but I think that is a major mistake. It will make paint a little bit “slick”, but the medium will accumulate quite fast and make the paint job “thick”. Educated guess is that never use mediums in minifigure painting, because the medium won't evaporate, while water will?

I use water, mainly because I'm lazy. I think mediums are oversold. They are useful for some things, but generally water is fine.

There are oils for model painting. The abteilung range is designed for scale modellers, and there are probably more now. These do dry slightly faster than normal oils, about 24-48 hours or so.
I used windsor and newton myself, a mid range set.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I use water, mainly because I'm lazy. I think mediums are oversold. They are useful for some things, but generally water is fine.

There are oils for model painting. The abteilung range is designed for scale modellers, and there are probably more now. These do dry slightly faster than normal oils, about 24-48 hours or so.
I used windsor and newton myself, a mid range set.

https://www.winsornewton.com/row/paint/oil/artists-oil/#product-info-colours

Great catalog of colors. They surely are pricey though. Maybe it is reasonable to buy warm and cold variations of basic colors: red, blue, yellow. Black, white and brown as supplements.

I'm into military modelling products myself. For oils, I use Ammo by Mig Oilbrushers and Abteilung 502 oils. Odorless thinner for thinning. The new Citadel STC synthetic brushes are great, I use these for oils.

But don't listen to me too closely about oils, I'm an absolute newb when it comes to oils. I just use them for colour modulation and pin washes, as I much prefer the way the oil washes & filters look compared to acrylic paints. The difference has to be seen to be believed!

What I find most problematic with oils is that they look very different as they dry. The effect changes significantly over the period of, say, 48 to 72 hours. I think I will need to start using varnishes / clear coats in order to "freeze" the drying effect in time once things look "perfect", in order to prevent the oils from drying beyond that point and changing (too much)..

Another thing you should be aware of when working with oils is that oils and acrylics can go hand in hand in painting. You can paint oils on top of acrylics, and acrylics on top of oils, as long as you give enough time for everything to dry/cure properly. In fact, this is what military modelers use to great effect.

One thing I've also been thinking about are laquer based acrylics. My idol, Lincoln Wright loves laquer based acrylics. Problem is, acrylic laquers absolutely demand toxic solvents, and they are relatively rare compared to everything else..

Yeah this is true. An oil can look great over an acrylic when first applied, but then when it's fully dried you will often lose the blend and end up with visible patches as the oil demarcates.

I just saw your page on Instagram. That poxwalker looks good man! I always admire when people can get lots of different hues into a piece like that.