General painting guide

I like to think of figure painting as five stages: prep, base, wash,
drybrush, spot. 

Prep

These tips assume the use of acrylic, water based paints. Games Workshop
puts out an excellent line of acrylics in its Citadel paint line, as does
Ral Partha. Art stores also carry extensive selections of acrylic inks that
work very well, but can be a tad pricey.

Nylon brushes formulated specially for acrylics work best. Sable and other
natural hair brushes really take a beating from acrylics, plus I do not find
them 'stiff' enough for applying acrylic paints. Get #10/0 and #5/0 spotter
brushes, and a #2 fan brush for applying paints to large surfaces.

It is a good idea to wash plastic models in warm, soapy water and thoroughly
rinse and dry them. Some residual products from the plastic molding process
can make it difficult for paints to flow smoothly onto the surface.

Flashing can be removed with a sharp knife and jeweler's files. A small,
fine file makes life easier when trimming pewter. It doesn't take much
pressure to file pewter, so use a light touch when starting.

Next, prime the model with white. There are primers specially formulated to
adhere to pewter, but in a pinch you can use plain old white. Without
priming, they grey of the pewter or plastic will show through many colors
giving a dirty appearance. Acrylic primers, and especially acrylic whites,
should always be slightly thinned or else they will cake up while you are
applying them instead of giving a smooth, uniform coat. You can use a dab of
water, but arylic 'extender', which extends the drying time, works best.

Base

Next, apply the base colors to the model. The colors should be selected to
compliment the next stage (wash) so you should decide on the base and wash
colors at this time. It is best illustrated with an example.

I am painting elf sword masters. For the armor, I select a base color of
silver and a wash color of black. For the gauntlets, epaulets and
breastplate I select light brown as the base and dark brown as the wash (I
want to simulate leather.) For the face i use flesh as the base and dark
brown as the wash. For the hair I use yellow as the base and dark brown as
the wash. For the robe I use off white as the base and light grey as the wash.

I now proceed to paint on all the base colors. Assume the model is naked and
'dress' it by painting on the base colors in the order you would put on the
clothes. This minimizes the times a stray brushstroke will place a color
where it doesn't belong.

Wash

A wash is a thin paint that washes into the nooks and crevaces of the model
and tints the flat areas. It adds dramatic depth to miniatures. Prepare a
wash by adding 2 parts thinner to 1 part paint. Again, acrylic 'extender' is
ideal for this. Water works too but tends to give a 'spotty' appearance.

Dip your brush into the wash and dab it onto the model. You should hold the
model surface horizontal so the paint washes smoothly off high surfaces and
into the crack and low points of the surface. Let the wash dry. You can
always add a 2nd and 3rd wash if the initial wash was too light.

When trying to decide on a wash color, first determine if the base color is
'warm', like red and yellow, or 'cool', like green and blue. Dark brown
makes a fine wash for warm colors. Black does a good job on cooler colors.
For cool colors, you can also select darker shades of the color. For
example, light green as the base and dark green as the wash. This usually
does not work very well for warm colors.

Drybrush

Just as wash adds depth to the low areas of a model, drybrush is used to add
height to model edges. The technique itself if simple. Take an old brush and
dip it into the paint, then wipe the brush across a paper towel until only a
faint line of paint comes off the brush. Now gently brush across an edge or
hipoint of the model. You repeat this to build up hilites on the model.

Going back to the example of the sword master, I based the gauntlets with
light brown and then washed with dark brown. I can now drybrush the edges
with light brown to bring out even more detail. You can also drybrush
sections of flat surfaces to add the illusion of reflected light, but it
takes a light hand and some practice to get a good effect.

Some colors are a bit transparent and so do not drybrush very well. For
example, flesh colors. The face based in flesh and then washed in dark brown
will lack detail in the high areas like nose, eyebrows and cheekbones.
Drybrushing directly with flesh would require many layers to overcome the
dark brown wash. What you should do is first drybrush with white. White
acrylics hide dark colors very well. Now lightly drybrush the white hilites
with flesh and you have a dramatic looking face.

Spot

Spotting is the direct application of paint to low and high areas of the
model in order to increase depth and detail. For example, I may paint the
inner folds of a white robe with dary grey, or edge a black sword with a
streak of white along the cutting edge. Most models look great without
spotting, but if you have a talent for it, spotting can really add extra
excitement.

In the example of the sword masters, I can spot the bottom edge of each tiny
plate of the armor with a dab of white. It sounds tedious but it actually
takes very little time to do with some practice, and the effect is well
worth the time, IMO.

Odds and ends

When your model is completed, you should protect the paint job with a
thinned coat of acrylic matte varnish. There are many sources of information
for decorating the base on which the model is mounted. Everyone has their
favorite technique and color scheme. Most involve glueing fine sand to the
base then painting and drybrushing. There is a technique called glazing
which has a variety of uses, so keep an eye out for information on it when
perusing modelling books.

Written by: Carmen A Tanzio