How to Paint Better

I’ve recently had quite an education on how to paint better, and I would like to share my knowledge.  By better, I don’t just mean be able to paint more cohesive armies or more detailed figures or more neatly, but also to paint more quickly and just generally get more painted.  Now, I admit I'm not going to be competing for any Golden Daemon awards in the near future, and I'm not about to start a painting service, but I’ve made amazing strides, and I think they may benefit you, even those veterans out there. 

Even before you begin painting, there is a task you must complete.  Check the figure carefully for any mold lines or flash leftover from the molding process.  Smooth these down using a sharp modeling knife (on plastic models) or a file.  Be delicate and remove just a tiny amount, as you don’t want to ruin the surface of the model.  I have been spoiled in this regard, as my Dark Eldar and Tyranids barely had any flash or mold lines on them, but I’ve seen them quite a bit on other figures.  Those barely noticeable lines will really stand out once you have painted the figure, particularly if you use drybrushing or washes.  Take some time first to clean the models up, you’ll thank yourself for it later.  The good thing about this, is that many of your models will be of the same kind, so they’ll have mold lines and flash in the same places, so you really only have to give them a quick look after you’ve found the usual suspects.  Individual models you’ll have to devote a little more time to, but you usually won’t be painting an entire army of individual models!  Now that the model is clean, we get to begin the painting.

First, do yourself a favor and find a spray, at least for the primer, if not the basecoat.  The spray will save you a lot of work and hassle.  Let technology do your work for you.  When using a spray, however, use it in very short bursts, just a little “pfft” with each pass.  Think about letting the tiny dots barely connect with each other, rather than getting a heavy coat all at once.  Not only does this prevent over painting, where you might obscure some of the details on the figure, it also allows it to dry faster, meaning you can get down to more painting while you are still enthused about doing it.  While I'm on the subject of sprays, make sure you either use some sort of backstop to prevent any overspray from getting on something you don’t want to be that color, or use a tray, to hold up the model and spray into the air, where there is nothing to be painted.  (be aware, however, that you will tend to get some on the arm that holds the tray, don’t say I didn’t warn you!)

Now, to the paint.  I recommend getting a ceramic tile to do your painting on.  They are handy because you can just wash the paint off them when you need them to be fresh.  They are also handy because paint won’t leak through them and ruin your table.  Take the paint that you need and shake up the bottle to make sure it is thoroughly mixed.  Uncap it and, using the non-bristle end of the brush, dab a bit from the cap to the tile.  Repeat until you have a small puddle of paint.  Don’t make a large puddle.  A large puddle is more likely to be bumped and make a mess or to dry up before you can use it all.  You can always go back and get more, so be sparing for now.  Most paint, unless you have some specific idea in mind that requires it to be very thick, will need to be watered down a bit.  This will thin it so that it won’t obscure details, and will allow it to run into crevices, giving you better coverage.  You might even consider thinning it further to give you several smoother coats, rather than a single, rougher one.  (I’d leave that for your character models, or large flat surfaces-areas that are more likely to bring out minor changes in pigment, myself, part of this article is how to get more painting done, remember?)  While I'm on the subject of paint, here is a tip for making it easier to open your paint, and to keep your paint fresh longer.  Lube it or lose it.  Seriously, get a bit of vaseline and put it on the screw part of the lid.  This will make a better seal and prevent your paint from drying out or leaking out if it gets turned sideways.  So, now we have a mini standing on a ceramic tile, nearby a small pool of watered down paint, now what? 

Next, you’ll want steady hands.  Mine are not particularly steady, so I force them to be.  I make a tripod.  Don’t hunch over the figure, do exactly what your mom told you not to do and put your elbows on the table.  Hold the figure in one hand and the paintbrush in the other.  Lean your hands inward until they rest against one another (either the heels of the hands or the pinkie fingers or something will touch, so they can support each other.)  Now, dip just the very tip of the brush, the top ¼ of the bristles, in the paint, and then draw it lightly on the tile, to keep from getting a big bead of paint on the end that will obscure details.  Once it is reduced to your satisfaction (if you aren’t sure, dab more off, you can always put more paint on, but it can be hard to remove too much paint.)  Then, pick an area you want to paint that color and, starting at one edge, make a series of straight lines along that area, going from one edge to the other.  Each line will overlap the next, giving you an even coat.  It doesn’t matter whether they are horizontal or vertical, but concentrating on keeping them straight helps you keep a steady pace and keep from overpainting onto areas you don’t want to paint, or from missing spots here and there.  If this is your primer coat or your base coat, you will want to gradually cover one area at a time until you have painted nearly the entire model.  The primer coat gives the paint a better surface to stick to than the raw model, reducing your chances of getting a patchy, flaky effect.  I would also recommend priming with a dark color, such as black.  That way, if you miss a patch later on, it won’t glare out at you like a white primer would.  The base coat gives your model the main color it will have.  For a cohesive look, all your models should have a similar base coat.  The same painting method applies when you get to final details, it will just be applied over a smaller area.  While I'm touching briefly on the subject of final details, I would like to point out GW’s recommended method here.  Use two and one.  Either two warm colors and a cool color, or two cool colors and a warm color.  3 of a kind is useful in cards, but it can be a bit too one-dimensional for your figures.  I'm not saying you can’t pull off that all-cool color army, but it’ll be an uphill struggle to pull it off.

Highlighting and Shading.  This is where you make the model stand out a bit.  You try to enhance the difference between the raised areas and the lowered areas, the peaks and the valleys, if you will.  For example, on a muscular Ork arm, you will want the color to be darker in the areas between the muscles, and lighter at the peaks of the muscles, making the height separation seem even greater.  You can achieve this in a couple of different ways.  You can use successively lighter shades of the same or similar colors to paint the raised areas, either by using lighter paints or by mixing the base paint with a lighter paint or even white, in greater and greater quantities.  You can do the same with your shading by using successively darker shades as you go toward the depths of the model.  These are more time consuming methods, however.  They will probably look very nice, but I want to get a lot of models painted, so I’d save them for the character models or something.  Personally, I prefer drybrushing and washing.  A drybrush works by dabbing the brush on a paper towel until there is almost no paint coming off of it anymore.  Then sweep it across the area of the model you want to highlight.  The pigment will stay on the raised areas, and it will be so dry that it won’t seep into the deeper areas.  Very Important: do not use a regular brush for this, it will be ruined, so use an old brush or a cheap brush for this, I got some handy cheap kid’s brushes at a back to school sale, and they are perfect for this.  Washing works by thinning the paint (or the ink, they do need to be thinned, too) so that it is very watery.  As you draw your brush across the model, it will run into all the crevices, tending to collect more there than on the rest of the surface.  As it dries, more of the pigment will be in those crevices, leaving them darker than the rest.  You must make sure the paint is very thin for this.  Sometimes the surface tension of the water makes it bead up on the surface, rather than flowing where you want it.  That’s where Future floor wax comes in.  When you are mixing your wash, use about half water and half floor wax.  I don’t know if other brands of floor wax would work as well, or if there’s something special about Future, but I’ve heard some big names in painting recommend it specifically, and I’ve used it and I know it works, though it will tend to give your models a very shiny or wet look.  If that’s not what you are looking for, a matt varnish or sealer over it will cut that, and is a good way to protect your paintjob as well.  A combination of the two techniques of washing and drybrushing works very well and gives you that separation you were looking for without having to mix your paint and paint all those successive layers.  It is also possible to have drybrushing and washing be your primary methods of painting, which can lead to very quickly painted armies, especially since the drybrushing needs almost no time to dry before you can go on to the next step. 

All your Base are belong to us (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)  Basing is a very quick way to enhance the look of your models.  Dip a brush (again, an old or cheap brush, as this is a good way to ruin a brush) into water, then dip it into a blob of white glue (Elmers is the most familiar brand to me, though any of them should work) and paint it onto the base.  Then dip the base into your chosen flocking material (I like the sand and gravel GW sells, but it’s your call) then remove it, tap off any excess and let it dry while you do the next batch of them.  I would recommend putting some sort of coating over the flocking, to make sure it stays on.  You can even paint it one color and drybrush it a lighter color if you want, but that seems like it would be a lot of extra work, so experiment on one or two and see which gives you the effect you are looking for.

Now, before the recap, here are some final tips for painting more quickly and effectively.  Using one major color, and two minor colors for detail work will save you a lot of time and can still look quite good.  I used this for my Dark Eldar and it worked quite well, despite my poor painting skills at the time.  (I'm much better now, but I'm still not a great painter, just better than I was)  I used a flat black over the whole model, then picked out some details and equipment in a chrome color (Chrome helmet, Chrome spikes on the boots, some chrome bitz on the rifle) and then gave them green eyes.  It made the whole army look sinister and high-tech and it painted up really quickly.  You can also spray the figure your detail color, then just paint the “base” color over it, meaning that you don’t have to do the detail work, meaning you can paint faster, since you don’t have to paint as finely.  You can also get more done if you use a larger brush.  (I know, call me crazy! But sometimes people get it into their heads that they are painting this tiny miniature, so they need a tiny brush.)  You can also get more done by making it an assembly line process.  Go through and prime all your models at once.  While the last ones are drying, start priming the first ones.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Just do one step at a time on all your similar models, so you’ll have the parts of each step down to a science, letting you cut lots of time out of the painting process.  The less you have to think about what to paint and where, the faster you’ll get the painting done.  Also, try to do large areas first, or large batches of minis first.  That way you’ll feel like you’ve gotten more accomplished and the rest won’t seem so overwhelming.  You can also make a game of it, by alternating what types of model you paint (I’ll paint a squad of Tac Marines, then I’ll switch to a vehicle, then another squad of Tac Marines, then I’ll do the bikes, then I’ll do another squad, then a Landspeeder, then another squad and a Dreadnaught…) or by giving yourself a reward for finishing parts.  (As soon as I finish this squad, I’ll check my email, or have that ice cream for dessert.)  You can also give yourself incentive by promising not to play with unpainted models.  (some stores make this decision for you, if yours doesn’t, you might use it for yourself to inspire you to paint more.)  You can also get more done by doing a little bit at a time.  If you’ve got an area mostly setup, it doesn’t take forever to do the next step on a model.  If you repeat the process for a few minutes at a time, several times a day, you’ll have gotten an extra hour of painting in at the end of the week, despite the fact that you did it in the five minutes you had to spare between one part of your day and the next.  (Five minutes when you get up, five minutes when you get home from work/school, five minutes before you go to bed, every day gives you over 100 minutes of painting a week!)  There’s one last tip I have for painting fast.  This is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but it can really encourage you to paint faster.  Don’t dab the paint off of the brush when you are painting a large area.  I know this goes against what I said earlier.  The big bead of paint on the end of your brush goes straight onto the model, obscuring all the detail.  Now you have to push it around the model as fast as you can to keep it from drying like that and obscuring the detail.  I wouldn’t recommend this technique for the most part, but I wanted to mention it for those that really need to get their painting done fast!

So, to sum it all up:  Try to make sure the model is free of mold lines and sprues.  Spray your primer coat and possibly your base or detail coat as well.  Then use drybrushing and washing to give it the highlights and shading.  Then make a tripod of your hands and pick out the details if you haven’t done a detail coat spray.  Use those straight lines to keep your painting neat.  Then base the model in your choice of flocking.  Following this system, I’ve gotten an amazing amount of painting accomplished in a short amount of time, while greatly increasing the looks of the miniatures that I produced.  If you decide to try any of these methods, let me know about it.  If you have any other secrets or methods you use to paint better and faster, let me know about it too.  Basically, just let me know, I'm interested in hearing from you.

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