Miniature Painting

Chersk said:

I'm looking to get back into painting mini's for KT. I have a ton of citadel pots that have been sitting for about five years. I'm going through them now and finding most have a layer of moisture on top and the pigment is all at the bottom. Are these things salvageable if I just shake the fuck out of them?

The way I was taught was with citadel paints, washes, and highlights. Should I just dump all this shit and learn a better technique? I'm definitely a painting noob but I think my stuff came out non-embarrassing when I was doing it.

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Some can be reconditioned but it's not worth it if you are looking to remove barriers.

IMO, get some new paints and use the techniques you know to get back into it. There's nothing wrong with washes, edge highlights, dry brushing, etc. Though I wouldn't be afraid to try other paint brands. Whatever is available nearby is probably best. Vallejo is always a good bet an is easier to find at hobby shops.

Watching some slap chop videos.

I threw out all of my old pots. Figured I make enough money to not fuck around with shaking 50 of these things for 15 minutes each.

Chersk said:

Watching some slap chop videos.

I threw out all of my old pots. Figured I make enough money to not fuck around with shaking 50 of these things for 15 minutes each.

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Oh if you make enough money let me tell you about airbrushing.

hah...

I’m giving the ole slap chop a whirl first. Ordered a bunch of Vallejo’s xpress stuff. As long as nothing is delayed I should be painting this weekend.

Props to this site: Gnomish Bazaar

Shipped my order fast and emailed me today that they put it in a smaller box than the system guessed the order would need so they refunded me a couple bucks.

Regime said:

Keep me updated. My time is limited and I wouldn’t mind doing that with imperial guards I got. I wonder if airbrush can be used alongside the slapchop.

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It can. You can do zenithal or volume highlights with ab. I have been doing this with inks forever. However if you don't have good control, dry brushing might be more effective at simple raised area highlighting.

So here's some basic TT quality DW.

These were done with limited tools since most of my stuff was packed. Dark brown spray primer, zenithal white spray. White ink, oil wash before varnish (wanted to tint white to bone). Pigments for basing and mud.

Regime said:

Looks great. The varnish on the left pad to bring out white or is that the white from the airbrush and you left it untouched?

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On apothecary shoulder I didn't use oils until after varnish and then only sparingly, mostly white ink glazed. While it's true that oils are usually pretty decent because white spirits doesn't reactivate acrylic medium, they will stain if enough is applied and left on unprotected dried acrylics.

Keep in mind typical characters have full armor colors (white apothecary, blue librarian, black chaplain, red tech marine, etc.) But I was doing this army a bit more blanchitsu so decided to keep them all DW white and do just shoulder.

Palum said:

On apothecary shoulder I didn't use oils until after varnish and then only sparingly, mostly white ink glazed. While it's true that oils are usually pretty decent because white spirits doesn't reactivate acrylic medium, they will stain if enough is applied and left on unprotected dried acrylics.

Keep in mind typical characters have full armor colors (white apothecary, blue librarian, black chaplain, red tech marine, etc.) But I was doing this army a bit more blanchitsu so decided to keep them all DW white and do just shoulder.

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Soo.... do commissions?
Been lurking since before you re-appeared, but got a collection of a smattering of models that I wanted to just get painted and stay shelf queens since I havn't played in a decade.

Though still also searching trying to decide on chapter/paint themes, since it doesn't have to be unified as it's not a playable army.

Sludig said:

Soo.... do commissions?
Been lurking since before you re-appeared, but got a collection of a smattering of models that I wanted to just get painted and stay shelf queens since I havn't played in a decade.

Though still also searching trying to decide on chapter/paint themes, since it doesn't have to be unified as it's not a playable army.

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Unfortunately this is more complicated than some other side gigs, and it's an interesting issue broadly as 40k becomes more popular. I ran the numbers on this a few years ago because I sometimes get asked. To be clear I don't consider myself competition level painter and really don't "enjoy" single model endless hours stuff, but I am decent at cohesive army painting and have spent a lot of my time developing ways to do better things at a faster pace.

The reality is, time and materials vs what I'm willing to charge for the range of quality I feel I can commit to just never quite matches up in my head. Even if I were happy with say $10/hr, I think my DW army would have been say 60-70 hours all in for 46 models. So by time you factor supplies, figure $800 (including test paint scheme work but not including kits, or building and conversion work). Obviously if I decide to value my time at even $20 an hour, then that gets even more ridiculous. Then if you consider a "risk" factor (person isn't happy, shipping damage, person charges back via PayPal, model it has a broken part and it was bought on eBay so GW won't replace so there's an argument about it, etc.), you need some room in all this. Then there's taxes that maybe enter the picture depending (good and bad because hobby income).

So all in, is someone willing to pay 2 grand for me to paint their small model count infantry only army? Maybe 3k if it's got tanks or like 4k+ if its stupid swarm shit with eyeballs like guard?

For example I had someone look at my marine army below ask if I'd build and paint say a tank for them for like $50 which they felt was fair, when honestly just building and paint prep is maybe 3-4 hours to get it all done (sanding gap fill magnetization etc.) and primed. So expectations tend to be orders of magnitude different from reality. That makes sense in the context of people who don't know how it all works not thinking hourly, but just WAG "personal value". That gap between perceived value and actual work effort needed is often huge in my experience, and also probably why there's seas of grey plastic out there.

Anyway that's my story. Also I'm shit at photography.

If I didn't enjoy the assembly and paint aspect, I don't think I would be into the tabletop at all. But, I get why people who are more into the game aspect would pay for commissions. Its very time consuming, especially when I only have 20 minutes to an hour per day for it.

I did my first kitbash this week. I converted a Sorcerer Lord in Terminator armor to Thousand Sons Sorcerer in Terminator Armor/w combi-boltor to lead my Scarab Occult Terminator unit. I'm not entirely pleased with the neck, so I it will get some sanding/trimming before I paint it.

Regime said:

Ok cool

yeah I like the quick airbrush method.

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IMO the best bang for your buck is something like this:

Airbrush prime black
Airbrush zenithal or volumes
Airbrush inks, contrast or similar to tint base color
Paint details, edge highlights/blends/etc. as desired
Gloss varnish areas for decals
Decals
Battle damage
Airbrush gloss varnish
Oil washes, oil grime, pigments, etc.
Attach to prepared bases
Airbrush satin or matte varnish finish coat

However, the problem with transparent paints is they can be really tricky to fix if you screw up, this is why yellow is always a pain. So you can replace the entire zenithal and ink process with a two or three color spray. I've settled mostly on two for opaque schemes, so I will prime a dark color, block in main color without really saturating the dark areas to leave them and then volume or zenithal the highlight color directly.

My favorite technique video for this style. Marco is really freakin' good.

So I live in a small town outside a small "city" in middle of nowhere Sweden. I have to order everything online and know zero people enjoying tabletop gaming/magic/painting.

All of a sudden some youths are opening a small store right next door for nerds to get together to buy/play/paint.

I love that this hobby is still going with all the things going digital. Will need to support them when they open up by buying some kits.

I know 40k players are supposed to hate Tau, but these fish-commie models are fun to paint. Pin-lining the panels is some satisfying shit. Also, free-hand squad marking that you can easily cover up your fuck ups because it's just random geometric shapes.