Don’t Think About Painting - Just Get It Done!
By Marc
Hey, a blog post that I didn’t start with a Shakespeare quote! I’m growing!
Joking aside, I have spent many years painting countless miniatures for a huge assortment of board games, wargames, and competitions. One of the most common questions we get here at J&J’s is how to get started with miniature painting.
The short answer is to just get started. Honestly, I can talk for hours about technique, paints, materials, and sources for inspiration and learning, but nothing is as good as picking up a brush and putting paint on a model.
That said, I can give some great advice about how to give yourself the best start; to maximize your enjoyment and reduce frustration. I can also point you towards some useful supplies that will make your life, and learning the basic techniques, a lot easier. Just keep in mind that there are a thousand different perspectives; all I can offer is rambling advice gathered from over twenty-ish years of experience.
The first thing you want to think about is primer. Whether you’re painting plastic (like most Warhammer miniatures, which we do offer in the store but can’t advertise online due to our rock-bottom prices), metal miniatures (like those in the Infinity wargame), or resin (if you play Battletech, or if you happen to have a 3D printer) , you’re going to want a primer!
Primers come in two major types (spray or brush), and a variety of colours. For the sake of simplicity and ease, I always recommend the Citadel Chaos Black spray primer. Citadel makes great paint, and although they are one of the most expensive options, I would argue that they’re also the best. In a future post I’ll dive into talking about primers in detail, but for now, stick with black spray. White primer will make your colours more vibrant, but it’s a magnet for mistakes (any areas missed in crevices shine white instead of simply looking shadowed) and coloured primers are a lot harder to work with. Even today I do 90% of my priming with black spray.
Okay, so you have your primer. Next, you’ll want to pick four or five colours for your model, plus a skin-tone if needed. My usual advice is to think about superhero costumes: most are three colours or less. Superman is red, blue, and yellow. Batman is black, grey, and yellow. Ironman is silver, gold, and blue. And so on. Getting too many colours will make your model chaotic and messy, and on top of that it’s way more work to paint.
Once you’ve picked your three or four colours, consider if you need any metallics (silver is a great choice, but bronze, gold, or brass are all good options too). Next up is a simple white (I recommend Vallejo Dead White) and a good black (I use Vallejo Game Air Black… I like it so much that the last time it came in stock I bought a dozen of them to keep just in case!).
Oh, I should mention: both Vallejo and Citadel produce lines of “air” paint that are designed to be used with airbrushes, but you can use them with a regular brush as well. Air paints are essentially “pre-thinned” paints. You’re going to need to practice with how much water to add to your paint to thin it properly, and the only difference between Air paints (like the Black I mentioned above) and regular paints is the amount of water you add. So if you see an Air paint you really like, I say go for it.
So you now have your palette of colours, and the only thing remaining you need is a good wash. Washes, which are sometimes called Shades, are applied on top of a painted surface to bring out the smaller details in your piece while tempering and blending colours. The hands-down best in the market, by a mile, is the Citadel Agrax Earthshade. Army Painter has some alternatives (like Army Painter Quickshade), but honestly, I’d always go with the Citadel. It’s so good that it’s usually referred to as “Talent-in-a-Bottle” among painters.
So now, armed with all the paints you need, the primer to get started, and the models you want to paint, the only two things you need are a good sealer/varnish (Vallejo has some good brush-on varnishes, like the Ultra Matte Varnish and Tamiya makes a really good, although smelly, spray-on varnish in their TS-80 Flat Spray) and a couple good brushes!
Gosh, I could talk about brushes for hours… there are so many elements to painting that I could write for months and you could do nothing but read, but that won’t get you actually painting! So for now, I’ll recommend one or two regular brushes (like, for example, a good Army Painter Regiment brush) and that you should avoid the insanely small, super tiny little detail brushes until you consider yourself at least a moderately experienced painter. A small brush in a novice’s hands makes for a frustrating experience (the paint dries on the tip really, really quickly!), so I suggest avoiding them for now.
We’re just scraping the surface, but with the tools I’ve recommended, you should have everything you need to paint a few dozen models… and honestly, I suggest you start! Take your time, paint someplace with good overhead light that is comfortable to sit at, keep your paints thinned down with a little water, and after you’ve painted two thin base coats on your model, brush a single layer of your wash/shade over the entire model.
Wait until that dries, spray the model(s) with a very thin coat of varnish, and boom! You are well on your way to mastering a deep and artistic hobby!
In future posts we’ll talk in more detail about paint colour selection, primers, washes, brush options, painting techniques… but for now, I stand by that opening statement. The best advice I can give is to get a few paints, a brush, and just get started!
Happy painting, folks!