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What's your one painting or modelling tip for the day? if you had just one pice of advice to give? Think of this like your tear-a-page calendar of useful thoughts.

Doesn't have to be an advanced or technical idea... It's easy to get weighed down on the heavy stuff, but sometimes the little fixes and thoughts are worth remembering.

My thought for the day: If a pet hair or bit of fluff is stuck to your paint or primer, get the tweezers out and pluck that thing before the paint dries.
Waiting until after is easier, but you quite often snap the hair and only get half of it off.

drunk painting is fun, and may be educational, but don't paint anything you can't write off.

- Don't use PVA glue for water effects. It looks fine when you first do it, but over time it can go yellow and/or cloudy (particularly in a humid climate), and will eventually shrink and go concave.

Wasn't GW's liquid water effect very similar to PVA? Seem to remember it could be watered down in a similar way.
I wonder what it was made from.

If a weapon snaps don't just glue it back. Gently file down both ends and then glue it back. There will be a large contact surface for the glue to bond and the weld will be stronger.

I personally use woodland scenics for my realistic water effects.

My tip is watch where you are putting your paints down, and don't let a wash mix with your layer/edge by mistake messing up a mini.

Uh... where to start? I can't decide what to choose and what not to so I am going to narrow it down for myself with a few.

Don't forget your long term goals in favor of short term excitement/ideas over new kits.

Though it has been said before, always have bandaids and liquid bandage available/use sharp hobby blades to avoid getting cut.

Lastly, whatever you do, don't touch a fogged miniature from clearcoat as it will strip all the layers beneath it through your touch.

Train someone nearby like your children or your GF to base coat.

Base coating models is half the battle gone. Your painting time after the initial investment will increase as you focus on details and so on.

^Or you could use sprays to basecoat. I use Corax White and Army Painter Pure Red.

It's amazing, hnng. Though family servants are valuable, I agree. A king must have peasants. (I'm joking here, please don't get mad.)

After cleaning mold lines off of models and priming, be sure to inspect the model thoroughly for any missed mold lines that might have been overlooked. I find I pick them out much easier once a layer of primer is on the mini generally speaking.

That's my tip. Hope it helps.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

 Stormwall wrote:
^Or you could use sprays to basecoat. I use Corax White and Army Painter Pure Red.

It's amazing, hnng.

I meant for the base colours, like when the armour is red, the cloth is blue and the flesh is fleshy colours. But yes I also agree.

Like train them to do the first layer of paints that require nothing more than not painting over the lines.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Stormwall wrote:
^Or you could use sprays to basecoat. I use Corax White and Army Painter Pure Red.

It's amazing, hnng.

I meant for the base colours, like when the armour is red, the cloth is blue and the flesh is fleshy colours. But yes I also agree.

Like train them to do the first layer of paints that require nothing more than not painting over the lines.

Oh.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Stormwall wrote:
^Or you could use sprays to basecoat. I use Corax White and Army Painter Pure Red.

It's amazing, hnng.

I meant for the base colours, like when the armour is red, the cloth is blue and the flesh is fleshy colours. But yes I also agree.

Like train them to do the first layer of paints that require nothing more than not painting over the lines.

Make sure if you do that, you explain what your end vision for the model is...
I asked my partner to do the gun-greys for my mordians that I'd painstakingly airbrush-shaded and highlighted to have white uniforms. Bear in mind this was a far more experienced miniature painter, than me, so I assumed that it was clear that getting mess on unpainted areas was fine, painted areas, no.

About six guns in I get asked, "What colour are the jackets going to be?"
"White."
"..."
"You didn't."

That did not save me any time.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Stormwall wrote:
^Or you could use sprays to basecoat. I use Corax White and Army Painter Pure Red.

It's amazing, hnng.

I meant for the base colours, like when the armour is red, the cloth is blue and the flesh is fleshy colours. But yes I also agree.

Like train them to do the first layer of paints that require nothing more than not painting over the lines.

Make sure if you do that, you explain what your end vision for the model is...
I asked my partner to do the gun-greys for my mordians that I'd painstakingly airbrush-shaded and highlighted to have white uniforms. Bear in mind this was a far more experienced miniature painter, than me, so I assumed that it was clear that getting mess on unpainted areas was fine, painted areas, no.

About six guns in I get asked, "What colour are the jackets going to be?"
"White."
"..."
"You didn't."

That did not save me any time.

I consider that part of the training

"You can match it in."
"Pfpfpfpfpfgghff."

Cleaning your tools is a full half of the hobby. $30 brushes and $200 airbrushes will last forever if you look after then, or will be worthless in no time if you don't. Additionally, working order tools make the job fun, you've got to fight the paint for light and shadow, don't fight the paint brushes too!

Also, a solid dark base colour like caliban green, and an off white like palid wych flesh are the only two paints you need to blend and highlight all the way from shadow to highlight, sure you can augment with other colors, but this trick saves a lot of time money and effort.

Finally, buy paints as you need them. I've got about 50 paints I've never used that I'll probably throw out one day. I also shouldn't have bought all gw paint. Buy the right paint when you need it (and sometimes gw is the right paint, but no brand is perfect)

Agree on the washing. I think it was Talys that piqued my interest about brush soap. It's cut my frustration down massively.

On the subject of tools... "Buy cheap, buy twice." holds true for so many things.
I was exceptionally lucky and got great advice on airbrushing from someone who grew up as the technology changed. he convinced me to buy a good brand as my first, and upgrade the compressor to suit use. I'm still using that airbrush,(plus one from the 70s) and the quality and ease of use have saved me so many frustrated moments in comparison to trying to use the various Chinese ones that came with my compressor.

kb, whilst the artist in me agrees on hand-mixing, if you're army painting in the 30s and 40s of figures, I'll argue for pre-mixed shades and triads.
If I grab another squad in a month's time, I don't want to be trying to match paint ratios I wrote down.
Until I started playing 40K, I mixed pretty much everything myself, because I could spend a week just doing a nice batch of minis.

Excellent addition;

If you want a consistent look over a whole army, use pre mixed colours. I do this with ultramarines (imperial blue, French blue, glacial blue)

I think i just wanted to touch on the cheaper side - you CAN paint anything with a palette of 5 colours, and that is absolutely how you should start painting.

On the note of mixing for shades and highlights, it pays to have both 'cold' and 'warm' highlight colours. Instead of adding white to a colour to brighten it, have a light grey and a light brown/sand on hand. You can get totally different tones to a mini just by varying the highlight mixing colour.

Eventually, you can move on to highlighting with all kinds of colour mixes, but to start, I'd say both sides of off-white are essential.

Have your brush washing water in an obvious container in a specific place on your desk, and always keep it there. Do not put your tea/coffee/water/lemonade/whisky/whiskey down anywhere near it.

Enjoy it, and be honest with yourself. The second you're not enjoying it (ie actually disliking doing it, rather than finding a particular task a bit boring), then you won't do good work and you'll be disappointed with the result. Stop, do something else and come back to it in a better frame of mind.

SCRAPE OFF MOULD LINES

mockingbirduk wrote:
Have your brush washing water in an obvious container in a specific place on your desk, and always keep it there. Do not put your tea/coffee/water/lemonade/whisky/whiskey down anywhere near it.

Learned that the hard way =p

My tip would be... a little superglue goes a loooooooooooong way. It's a pain having to chip off old superglue when you've stripped down a model, or if you use too much and have to sand down again on a new mini.
*cradles old metal Repeater Bolt Thrower*
Spent hours yesterday taking off massive chunks of superglue where the ex thought it was necessary to coat inside, outside and just about everywhere possible on joins >.>
A little dab is plenty! ^^ (and less risk of glueing yourself to assorted tools, self etc ^^)

Oh man that is another one, keep a clean, shortish bristled brush with clean water nearby - this is your quick load brush

A lot of GWs decals wont stay on with water alone (no idea if thats the idea - I never researched it). So always apply a light dash of PVA glue to keep them secured.

Practice, always try new techniques but never overwhelm yourself by trying to take on too much too fast. If you can manage to give yourself a challenge with each new squad or project, look back after a year and be surprised at how far you would have come.

Learn to take criticism, constructive though, so you can pick up easier on what you need to work on.

Buy some flow improver. The positive difference it makes in the way acrylic paints behave is huge.

My thought for the day: Learn the multiple uses for everything you own.
For example:
Varnish is not only a finishing touch, it's an excellent midway step to preserve your work.
Scalpels work as a far subtler tool when stroked away from you, along surfaces with the blade angled towards you.
Pins can be used as writing utensils for scrollwork if you struggle with brushes. It takes a very long time, but you can treat them like a pen nib without fear of smearing.

Take things apart. Learn them intimately.

"Never paint in something you are not willing to get paint on."

 Paradigm wrote:
On the note of mixing for shades and highlights, it pays to have both 'cold' and 'warm' highlight colours.

Not just highlight colors, but shades, as well. You can achieve some amazing lighting effects by manipulating color temperature, having barely even changed color 'brightness.' Some minis that would look flat in a greyscale photo really pop in full color, thanks to that temperature manipulation.