#how not to paint a miniature

[willowwind78]

BEHOLD! The power of the wash! 

Ok, is it just me or has the bone sticking out of his right hand ghosted... so weird.

This is my giant in progress. All I did yesterday afternoon was add some washes to him. For those of you who are even newer to miniature painting than I am, that’s a fancy word for watered down paint. 

His skin is washed with Vallejo Nocturna 74.010 Frozen flesh. 

Loincloth Vallejo Model Color 70.9410 Orange Red. Which, incidentally, was WAY thicker than I anticipated giving the transparency of light orange and I had to not just add more water than usual but also get my brush wet, dilute it even more and remove excess.

The barrel on his shoulder, his beard, and leather were washed with my personal favorite Citadel Shade Agrax Earthshade. If you don’t own this wash, you need to.

Armor washed with Vallejo Model Color 70.994 Dark Grey which is my favorite color to use as an armor wash. It thins nicely provides some insane coverage even thinned. You will have to go back through and highlight but the smoothness of coverage will make your heart leap with joy.

I also put some Citadel Shade Nuln Oil in his mouth just for fun to see what it would do.

Ignore the padding around his waist please. Pretend you don’t see it. No, don’t scroll back up and look. Failed attempt at shading. Willowwind’s How Not to Paint a Miniature Tip of the Day: Turns out 70.885 Pastel Green and 70.897 Bronze Green DO NOT blend well together wet. They make a weird color that was not what I was going for. I made some attempts to remove it and made it worse. So... don’t look at that. Or do and pat yourself on the back that you are a better painter than I am and will not make that mess that now I have to clean up.

[shifting-fixations]

MiniGale 2.0

Finished.

And of course you can have a size comparison with 1.0! They’re both at a con with me, I couldn’t resist bringing the littlest guy.

[gorillastraylight]

God’s Most Horrible Goblin Mech

The Nightsky. God, I love this sculpt. This awful, hunched metal death machine’s primary tabletop role is to bully lighter ‘mechs to death, and boy does the model ever communicate that. Pretty happy with how the Lava base turned out, considering limited resources, but damn getting the grey how I wanted was tough. I think it’ll be some time before I try another lance of Lyran Guard.

Plus, it’s my first time jeweling a cockpit!

[thewenglishwarlock]

This lad is hanging 13 and surfing the skaventide XD

[motherbean]

a year ago i started painting miniatures for my mental health and because its fun. the blightlord terminators were the first kit i got, and i LOVE them but was pretty overwhelmed as a beginner. i told myself if i was still painting in a year i would get the kit and try again. So here they are!

i like having my crummy first minis. i like being able to see them and compare them directly to what im painting now. im still pretty sloppy, but what was super intimidating and disappointing a year ago was so so much fun to do last month.

i've had the kind of year that's left me fragile and exhausted and slow to make anything, ESPECIALLY drawing. i've found it really meditative to spend an evening with a ghoul or a little tentacle guy, and to have a creative skill to hone i havent tied my self worth to.

[knightlightminiatures]

Nothing crazy here as much as I just wanted to do a dragon and not hurt my brain on a color scheme. And ended up here!

[mercurys-minis]

Yeah the bricks yeah good omg love those bases

Thank you! The process of making them is actually really simple, which is why I've been favoring them lately. I also like how I can overhang the edges of the base slightly to make it seem more like a tiny diorama.

I start by just cutting out bricks from a cork sheet, they don't need to be precise, just close, and I superglue them to the base, and then I build up the rest of the base with more cork and bits.

After that I take gritty texture paint/paste and just smash it in there like grout, use a damp paper towel to wipe away excess, then if needed I use a wet brush to define the gaps a little more, move it around until I'm happy.

Then I paint it! The painting is pretty quick, I don't even use washes. I mix up a dark slightly green brown, because I want the road to have that "it's old and grimy but the tops of the brick face has been washed clean" look. Maintained, but not repaired. I just paint that over pretty much everything. I mix up burnt umber and a bright red to get a dark ruddy brown for the base of the brick, then I keep adding more and more red to get brighter and keep just sort of roughly stippling it on pretty thin, not quite a glaze but thinner than if you were base coating. At the end I add either a little white or orange to do a final highlight. The concrete is all just neutral gray mixed from black and white. Finally I use a little gloss varnish wherever I want to have the pooled water (make sure to do this after you spray varnish if you do that lol).

And that's it! I drill a hole all the way thru to pin my minis instead of trying to glue directly to the cork (precarious).

I really love doing these, idk if you were actually interested in a how-to but they really are simple to do if you want to try them.

Here's a few more before and after brick base photos.

[wildspaceyokel]

Eli Vanto action figure hanging out with Thrawn and their pet.

[misternohair]

Mans assembled. The Nemesis Claw has some cool bits, and I had bought a couple of Horus Heresy heads to use so I could really make this team mine. Tonight, we start painting.

[maidarlingdesigns]

Little Friend Shaped Creature is getting festive! 🌟

Painting is one of the most magical steps of the process of making little sculptures. It's when the personality of each piece really comes through!

This particular color palette was designed to be soothing and festive at the same time. ✨

If you're curious about learning more about the process of making miniature sculptures, you can find over 100 making-of videos, including articles and tutorials on here!

[willowwind78]

Did something I haven’t done before. Tried to remove some paint. Learned something new! I use The Master’s Brush Cleaner which can also serve as a gentle paint remover when you need it to. It removed the Citadel Shade Agrax Earthshade easily. It also reminded me why I love Vallejo Model Color. Vallejo dries within minutes to the touch and can be painted over but takes a little over a week to fully dry. This is a great demonstration of the durability of the color once fully dry as I haven’t worked on this survivor in months. 

I wanted to change the color of her skirt because as you can see the what I think was 70.913 Yellow Ochre on her skirt did not cover well. I had hoped the wash would smooth it out or it would have a cool look to it. Neither happened so I removed the wash and repainted the skirt with Citadel Colour Base Averland Sunset which I did dilute a little. Loving the color but I am also reminded why I prefer Vallejo over Games Workshop. The paint is naturally thinner allowing more straight from the bottle use without requiring thinning and just has a more realistic less cartoony feel to it.

One of the coolest things about painting miniatures is never forget that you can always start over when you need to. Too much paint? Remove it and start again. Bad paint job. Remove it and start again. Just be sure to use a gentle remover so you don’t damage the miniature in the process.

[lil-gingerbread-queen]

Later, Bruce finds him climbing the cave to join the bats.

[doctas-blog-of-stuff]

W.I.P Grot posting

[the-god-of-hellfire]

"The Think Tank"

[hobe-bryant]

Gobbos for today

Some of my first experiments with kitbashing, the idea of a grot carrying around the ammo for a bigger goblin and mushrooms sprouting out of a guy sounded cool so I did my best to throw something together.

[its-late-isnt-it]

A keeper of the old lords from the bloodborne boardgame I picked second hand because i like how it looked