[Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by hepcat »

Blackhawk wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 10:31 am I hate my brain. It's pretty much a textbook example of maladaptive perfectionism. I set unrealistically high standards, and when I realize I can't reach them, I avoid doing whatever it is entirely in order to avoid failing to achieve those standards.
You're not alone. I have had the same issue. When I saw that my figures look nowhere near as good as what I see online, I would get discouraged and give up. However, with the contrast paints, I'm able to get at least a semblance of mediocre and I'm learning to live with that. I'm actually pretty happy so far with my Descent figures. After I'm done with these, I'm going to tackle either Middara or Core Space (I want to get back into that one as the new set is arriving soon).
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Malificent »

hepcat wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 11:20 am
Blackhawk wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 10:31 am I hate my brain. It's pretty much a textbook example of maladaptive perfectionism. I set unrealistically high standards, and when I realize I can't reach them, I avoid doing whatever it is entirely in order to avoid failing to achieve those standards.
You're not alone. I have had the same issue. When I saw that my figures look nowhere near as good as what I see online, I would get discouraged and give up. However, with the contrast paints, I'm able to get at least a semblance of mediocre and I'm learning to live with that. I'm actually pretty happy so far with my Descent figures. After I'm done with these, I'm going to tackle either Middara or Core Space (I want to get back into that one as the new set is arriving soon).
Oddly enough, something that helped with me was showing them to my wife. I would look at a mini and in my head think "look at all the flaws". She looks at it and goes "This is amazing." It helped my brain realize a little that even if I didn't hit my standards, I was still producing something that someone loved.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

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You got yourself a good support system there, Mal. :D
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by baelthazar »

This is likely an unpopular opinion, but I am not a fan of highlights, particularly in some colors. I prefer that my minis act as actual objects and that highlights come from real-world lighting instead of painted on lighting. Yes, this does obscure some of the details. Yes, my painted minis are darker than those you see in professional painters' examples. But I usually don't have the time for all that highlighting and this strategy works for me.

Now, I have mitigated this some by switching to color shift paints to make my work "pop." I love the effect that TurboDork paints gives me. It works best for metallic surfaces (like the armor of the Purge, mentioned above) but a dry brush here and there on other types of surfaces (like monster skin or cloth) acts similar to a quick highlight.

Alternatively, I get more aggressive with my drybrushing game - choosing to drybrush in colors far lighter than I would have in the past. If you work carefully, this achieves a good enough highlight for me. For example, drybrushed (or even airbrushed) orange highlights red pretty well. You likely want an orange with more red in it than yellow and be sure that it is thin enough not to "cake" and be semi translucent even drybrushed. A quick wash after drybrushing can "soften" those contrasts, if you wash in something closer to the base color.

In fact, before contrast paints, I was going a hand-version of what I can now do with my airbrush. Start with a base coat (like Mephiston red), then hit it with some Nuln oil or even a red wash. Drybrush again with the basecoat color, to soften those highlights. Then drybrush again with a much lighter color, in this case even a pink or orange (pink is lower in saturation - like under florescent lighting, orange is brighter like simulating sunlight). You could even drybrush a third, lighter color, if you want - but sparingly, only hitting high points. Lastly, if you want to soften it again, make a glaze of a middle tone of red (3:1 - 4:1 water to paint or glaze medium, if you have it) and paint the highlights. I really like the effect.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by YellowKing »

Malificent wrote:Oddly enough, something that helped with me was showing them to my wife. I would look at a mini and in my head think "look at all the flaws". She looks at it and goes "This is amazing."
I had a friend come over the other day and he noticed the Zombicide figures I was painting - rushed hack jobs that I considered pretty much garbage. And he would not stop going on about "how much my painting had improved" and how skilled it was. He was genuinely impressed.

Sometimes we have to get out of our own heads and realize that we're our own worst critics.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Zarathud »

I learned painting Zombicide zombies, but my wife kept encouraging me to do more details. If those stripper zombies have fishnet stockings, she wanted me to paint them in. Then I realized she was messing with me.

My comparison is the collectible D&D Icons of the Realms plastic minis. I can do a better job even if my lighting and shading is off. And little highlighting. My goal is not art but tabletop. Grubby is realistic, not sloppy. Washes, inks and shaders have been amazing help.

It took painting my Car Wars cars to highlight my weaknesses.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

The thing is, this wasn't a problem for me before I had broad access to the internet. And it wasn't that I started comparing my work to others No, the problem now is that the instructions on how to achieve those results are out there now. I can go read them, and I can implement them. Right now. And that's the problem. Before I could see the quality the pros achieved (usually in game manuals or White Dwarf magazine) and either dismiss it as beyond me, or work to replicate it. The only option I had was to practice! Now, though, I know the right steps. All I have to do is start by giving myself an autodidactic education in art theory and technique, providing myself with the equivalent of a college degree in art, and my art will look so much better! That was out of reach before, while now in the age of YouTube, ebooks, and online classes it is absolutely not. Want to paint amazing miniatures? Step #1, spend a year doing Drawabox. Step #2, take an online class or figure drawing. Step #3, take any of several online classes on shading - there's a great one on shading organic forms. Step #4, take a class on the implementation of color theory, and read Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter.

Now you're ready to paint a miniature.

That level of preparation just wasn't possible prior to the internet, not unless you had lots of time, money, and happened to live near an art school.

And a corner of my mind tells me that since I can get the kind of results this would lead to (and anyone can), if I paint without doing all of this I'm somehow failing. And so I don't start. Ugh.

The common sense approach is to either just paint and strive, picking up tips as I go and practicing them, or actually doing (some of) the above - while I paint and do fun things, too. But that's to reasonable, and everything I paint before I'm done will obviously be ruined due to the inferior paintjob. Ruined, I say!

So, yeah - that's why I always got burned out. It's why I was always so frustrated despite getting good results in my attempts. It's why I never got things done - I just kept setting unrealistic standards and then refusing to settle for anything less. :oops: :grund:
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Zarathud »

Try Goobertown— he’s the Rob Ross of mini painting.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by baelthazar »

What helps my brain is to realize that these artist painters, like Angel Giraldez, take 5-10 hours or more on each model. This is what he does for a job. Now I doubt I would ever be as good as he is, even if it were my profession, but if I gave myself entire days for one model, I certainly could do better. But since this isn't feasible, I have to change my metric. It isn't really about knowledge to me, it is about time.

Speaking of speed, if you haven't seen this video it is an EXHAUSTIVE look at the new Speed Paints. Around the 3 minute mark, he even does a speeded up video of how the paints dry. It is wild.

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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

I came across a technique that I thought I'd share for prepping 3d-printed minis.

A year and a half ago or so a kind OOer printed me out a few pieces, fantasy-themed Christmas ornament miniature (an orc, goblin, and troll head, each wearing a Santa hat, all in ornament scale.) I really wanted to get them painted, but could never find a good solution to the layer lines from the 3d printing. I took a couple of other, sample pieces and tried sanding them (would have been a massive task), I tried layering on clear acrylic, all sorts of things. Nothing made them smooth enough for a paintjob that wouldn't have included all of the lines. I came across something the other day that was completely unrelated, though, and decided to give it a shot.

I mixed up some epoxy resin, took an old brush, and painted it on them, then let them dry. The result was perfect. I primed them when I primed the zombies, and they're as smooth as if they were molded. The whole smoothing process took maybe five minutes, including mixing up the resin (not counting the drying time - I left them in my drying compartment for several days.)

Some caveats: First, these were large pieces with large details. I haven't tried it with standard 28mm miniatures to check for detail loss (although it would certainly work well for printed terrain.) Second, I already had the resin on hand, as well as the tools for using it and some amount of experience working with it (including the safety precautions - a respirator and gloves are a must, as is ventilation.) You'll also want to be very careful with drips (they drip slow, and dry rock hard on lower surfaces), and exercise caution if you sand them afterward (resin sanding dust is toxic.)

I don't mean to make it sound like working with resin will kill you, by the way, but it is like working with strong lacquers - you want to take precautions until everything is set and dry.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by hepcat »

Welp, lesson learned: contrast paints need special attention when applied to flat surfaces. A robe on one of my descent characters is covered with splotches from pooling. Apparently the preferred way to apply them to flat surfaces is to wick away the pools after doing downward strokes to make them do so in a manageable fashion.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by baelthazar »

Blackhawk wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 10:50 am I don't mean to make it sound like working with resin will kill you, by the way, but it is like working with strong lacquers - you want to take precautions until everything is set and dry.
I mean... it CAN... :lol:

Epoxy of all sorts burns my nose. I think having a good venting system is probably a per-requisite, right?
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Zarathud »

Goobertown vibes on the time to paint a single mini and experimenting.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Smoove_B »

hepcat wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 12:31 pm Welp, lesson learned: contrast paints need special attention when applied to flat surfaces. A robe on one of my descent characters is covered with splotches from pooling. Apparently the preferred way to apply them to flat surfaces is to wick away the pools after doing downward strokes to make them do so in a manageable fashion.
At the risk of sounding like I'm actively promoting a product, Uncle Atom just did a review and he points out that (for him) the Speed Paints seem to dry much "smoother" without that weird splotchy pooling that occurs with the Army Painter stuff.



But yes, I've noticed exactly the same - large flat areas are the natural enemy of Contrast Paints.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

baelthazar wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 3:23 pm
Blackhawk wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 10:50 am I don't mean to make it sound like working with resin will kill you, by the way, but it is like working with strong lacquers - you want to take precautions until everything is set and dry.
I mean... it CAN... :lol:

Epoxy of all sorts burns my nose. I think having a good venting system is probably a per-requisite, right?
Resin is nasty while it is curing. You want ventilation, a painter's respirator with N95 or better particle and organic vapor filtering, and gloves (it can be absorbed through the skin.)

For me, I set up a rubber seal across the bedroom door and mounted an exhaust fan in one window. I wear a 3M respirator (they're not hard to find or that expensive), gloves, and dry the pieces on a shelf in a bookshelf that I made a semi-sealed cover for.

Of course, this is the same level of protection you're supposed to be using for a lot of solvents that the hobby uses, despite a lot of people not doing so. Even airbrushing acrylic should be done with particle filtration. Using it without occasionally probably isn't an issue (but still isn't smart), but using it regularly is setting yourself up for some hurt.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

Smoove_B wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 8:32 pm

At the risk of sounding like I'm actively promoting a product, Uncle Atom just did a review and he points out that (for him) the Speed Paints seem to dry much "smoother" without that weird splotchy pooling that occurs with the Army Painter stuff.
I've seen a few videos, and that is a standout feature (although you still don't want to leave it puddled.) But as it is I've got both Contrast paints and the Scale75 Instant Colors. I don't have the money to spend on yet another set.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Smoove_B »

Understandable. The video is also good because it reaffirms what I discovered on my own - that dry-brushing after doing the contrast paints makes a huge difference. I thought I'd ruined my Nemesis queen with contrast blue, but after hitting it with a dry brush, it looks much better now.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by hentzau »

I’ve got them pre-ordered at my FLGS.

I’m weak…
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by baelthazar »

I may be a crazy person, but I also use a 3M full mouth and nose respirator for my acrylic airbrushing. I look like Darth Vader acquired a mini collecting habit.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by hepcat »

Just about finished with the crews I have for the first core space game and the cygnus crew expansion I got. Then I'll start on civilians and the galactic police pieces. Hopefully by the time I finish, the humidity will drop and I'll prime the new stuff from first born.

They don't stand up well under scrutiny, but I'm actually fine with that. They look better on the table than unpainted. Plus, I'm knocking out one every half hour at this rate. Much better than my 3 to 4 hours per miniature for mediocre at best.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

This was useful for me:

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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by hentzau »

Layout for The Cairo Caper, Chapter 2 in the Tomb of Serpents for Pulp Alley.

Image

Image

Image

Image
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

Is that a leather river? I love that.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by hentzau »

Blackhawk wrote:Is that a leather river? I love that.
Pleather. It’s an old chunk of vinyl that was labeled “Rhino Hide” because of the texture. It’s way too blue for water, but it gets the idea across.

I bought a roll of it back in the late 80’s/early 90’s. Still using it up.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

I finally got off of my ass and put brush to paint. This is just a WIP of some Zombicide miniatures. I'm just using Contrast paints and Scale75 Instant Colors and intentionally being quick, as I mentioned, to get over my perfectionism.

Image
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Malificent »

Blackhawk wrote: Thu Feb 03, 2022 12:01 am I finally got off of my ass and put brush to paint. This is just a WIP of some Zombicide miniatures. I'm just using Contrast paints and Scale75 Instant Colors and intentionally being quick, as I mentioned, to get over my perfectionism.

Image
Woot, excellent - they look great to me and I think they'll look wonderful on the table.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by coopasonic »

Yeah, I would kill (ok, maybe not kill) to have that level of "quick" painting skills.

I bought starter paints and tools and such years ago. They are all still in a bag in a bin on my shelf. It turns out I don't really care enough to do anything with them. I've sold off most of my games with minis and the ones that remain don't see much play anyway.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by hentzau »

Do you notice that the Scale 75 paints make your paint water smell bad?
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Smoove_B »

coopasonic wrote: Thu Feb 03, 2022 12:35 pm I bought starter paints and tools and such years ago. They are all still in a bag in a bin on my shelf. It turns out I don't really care enough to do anything with them. I've sold off most of my games with minis and the ones that remain don't see much play anyway.
Starter paints != to Contrast paints. If you have a local shop (or you're lazy like me) order a few of the contrast paints to see just how insanely fast you can add paint to a miniature. It sounds cliche, but they really are a game changer in terms of making miniatures table ready.

Granted, if you don't care at all about unpainted miniatures, they won't change your mind, but the gap between starting to paint and actually seeing finished results has been closed considerably with the Contrast Paint option.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by baelthazar »

Blackhawk wrote: Thu Feb 03, 2022 12:01 am I finally got off of my ass and put brush to paint. This is just a WIP of some Zombicide miniatures. I'm just using Contrast paints and Scale75 Instant Colors and intentionally being quick, as I mentioned, to get over my perfectionism.

Image
As stated above, I think these look great! Part of being good with Contrast is knowing brush control and if they need dilution. Yours are done super well!
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by wonderpug »

Is there a go-to online store for Contrast paints? Those zombies are inspiring me to get off my butt and do more 'good enough' quick and dirty paint jobs.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by hentzau »

wonderpug wrote:Is there a go-to online store for Contrast paints? Those zombies are inspiring me to get off my butt and do more 'good enough' quick and dirty paint jobs.
If I were you I would wait for another month and get the Army Painter speed paints. Same sort of paint, but literally half the cost, and if you trust online reviews in many ways better.
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

I'd agree with that. I've watched some reviews of them and they seem to be a step up from either Contrast or Instant Colors.

For reference, the typical process for a non-presentation/show miniature is (roughly):

1. Prep & prime
2. Lay down base colors (put the blue where the blue goes, etc)
3. Shade (paint in the shadows - the quick version is the 'wash'.)
4. Highlight (paint in the reflections - the quick version is drybrushing) (#s 3 and 4 can be reversed)
5. Add detail

Contrast paints and their ilk do #s 2-4 in one coat, with the caveat that they do it based on their chemical makeup, not what the model is conveying. For example, the folds in cloth will be highlighted on the part that's the highest off of the model, whereas it should be on the part that's facing the light. If you know how, you can get a much better paint job by hand, every time, but at the cost of many times the effort and time, not to mention the time spent learning the skills.

For piles of zombies that are going to be swept off the table en masse, that's plenty. In fact, step #5 can be minimized for masses like that (I'll likely hand-paint belts, some bits on a few of the shoes, and the eyes for step #5 on those zombies.) As they stand in that picture, I have probably three or four hours on all 15. Painted the old fashioned way, I'd have maybe four to that level. They'd look a little better, but the amount of time necessary to fully paint the 80ish in the box would be absurd.

Of course it's not black and white. Lots of top painters out there have taken to using contrast paints as #2 (followed by touch up), #3, and the first stages of #4. They then build up more highlight and 'nudge' it into place by hand before detailing. It looks great and still cuts painting time significantly. I will likely be doing that for the character models when I'm done with the zombies.

What Contrast paints do not do well is large, undetailed areas, such as flat sections, smooth armor, etc.
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Blackhawk
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

By the way, having used both, and having used both together now, I have a few thoughts on what each is good for.

Contrast paints generally work better as an immediate, all-in-one base coat/shade/highlight.

Instant Colors, on the other hand, are more versatile. They can achieve comparable results in more time, or they can used in other ways that Contrast paint aren't good at. They're like a combination of a wash and a glaze, while Contrast paints are more like a semi-transparent paint.

The two are fundamentally different in how they do their job. Contrast paints are built around a dye. Instant Colors are built around pigments. That changes how the work.

Paint a coat of Contrast paint and it will color the high areas and add some shadows. Paint a coat of Instant Colors and it does... the same. Add a second coat of Contrast and it will generally deepen the shadows, but not do much with the lighter areas or the color itself. Add a second coat of Instant Colors and it won't darken the shadows, but it will deepen and intensify the base color - make the red a more intense red, for instance.

That makes Instant Colors work better over non-white surfaces. It makes them better over flat/smooth surfaces, as you can build up the base color with multiple coats (although it still isn't great.) It also makes them better where you don't want to completely cover the underlying coat, such as layering colors or putting them over metallics. You can even use them over black, which tends to give poor results with Contrast paints. They also make excellent pin washes (for picking out panel lines, rivets, etc.)

But yeah - you gain that versatility at the cost of the 'one and done' speed painting that Contrast Paints offer. They're about halfway between Contrast Paint painting and traditional painting when it comes to completion time (well, maybe a third of the way - they're still very fast.)

/edit - and I forgot to sniff my water. I'll do that later. ;)
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Blackhawk »

baelthazar wrote: Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:42 pm What helps my brain is to realize that these artist painters, like Angel Giraldez, take 5-10 hours or more on each model. This is what he does for a job. Now I doubt I would ever be as good as he is, even if it were my profession, but if I gave myself entire days for one model, I certainly could do better. But since this isn't feasible, I have to change my metric. It isn't really about knowledge to me, it is about time.

Speaking of speed, if you haven't seen this video it is an EXHAUSTIVE look at the new Speed Paints. Around the 3 minute mark, he even does a speeded up video of how the paints dry. It is wild.

Part two - this one is less about testing and comparison, and more about practical application.

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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by wonderpug »

hentzau wrote: Thu Feb 03, 2022 2:46 pm
wonderpug wrote:Is there a go-to online store for Contrast paints? Those zombies are inspiring me to get off my butt and do more 'good enough' quick and dirty paint jobs.
If I were you I would wait for another month and get the Army Painter speed paints. Same sort of paint, but literally half the cost, and if you trust online reviews in many ways better.
I've been successful at keeping most of my minis unpainted for 5-15 years, so I think I'll be able to handle waiting another month!

Is there Will there be a go-to online store for Army Painter speed paints? ;)
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hentzau
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by hentzau »

Some pictures from my latest Pulp Alley game. The league was sneaking along the docks of Cairo looking for a rumored “lost relic”, following clues until they found it and convinced a steam launch to carry them to safety.

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“We can never allow Murania to become desecrated by the presence of surface people. Our lives are serene, our minds are superior, our accomplishments greater. Gene Autry must be captured!!!” - Queen Tika, The Phantom Empire
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by baelthazar »

That terrain is magnificent!
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by Smoove_B »

Yeah, that terrain is amazing. I want to play at your house. :D
Maybe next year, maybe no go
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Re: [Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

Post by hentzau »

Thanks. I’m officially running out of room for all of my terrain and projects. I’ve started boxing up some of my board games to make room on my shelves.
“We can never allow Murania to become desecrated by the presence of surface people. Our lives are serene, our minds are superior, our accomplishments greater. Gene Autry must be captured!!!” - Queen Tika, The Phantom Empire
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