Highlighting and Final Detail

For those of you just stumbling across this page, this blog was a project I did for a college course. It is left here in it's entirety in the event anyone is interested in how I paint (or at least how I used to). I hope those who find this page can get some use out of the basic painting techniques I outline here, but it is not meant to be an exhaustive guide, rather it was made to fulfill the requirements of that course.

Have a nice day!
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After finishing your basecoat, you may be wondering what else there is to do. But when comparing your new model to those that are professionally painted, you may find it looking a bit flat. This can easily be fixed by painting highlights on your model.

When light hits something, you are likely to see it the sharpest on the edges of an object, rather than on the smooth surface. To mimic these highlights, one must simply paint a lighter color on the edges where the light is caught. It is also important to use a lighter version of the color in which you base coated with. As you will see in the pictures below, for the maroon edges of my "finished" stealthsuit I used a brighter red, and on the black edges I used a blueish grey. Often you can use opportunities like this to really make your miniatures "pop" and stand out from those that only have a base coat. While it can be tempting to use a very small brush for these highlights, sometimes the best highlights can be done using the tip of a larger brush and slowly dragging it across the edges and places that stick out. Here is what a finished model should look like.

The lenses were done with a white tinge in the top left corner to show the light's reflection on them, as well as a orange followed by a yellow highlight in the opposing corner. Then the lenses were lightly touched with a gloss varnish to give them a sheen.

The white lines found on the gun, as well as the suit's head are called "sept markings" and denote which squad the team member is from. When painting your tau, you should take care to make sure the entire squad's markings match, and that they are done in the traditional color of the sept you wish to paint. They are purely for decoration purposes and as long as they are kept consistent you can have fun with them. Remember to practice your sept markings on your palette or a scrap piece of plastic before proceeding.

Lastly, it is often not a bad idea to take pictures such as these to help catch problems you may have missed with the naked eye. For example, I see numerous highlights and mistakes that could be touched up! This is common and is not something to fret about. Good luck, and happy painting!

Basecoats

Now the real meat of miniature construction begins, with applying a basecoat. This can easily be the most time consuming aspect of painting the miniature, as well as the most tedious. It is important to plan what color scheme you wish to use beforehand, as you want the models to fit with the rest of your army. The most striking army to face is not a jumbled mess of colors, but a uniform color scheme that is followed throughout your entire military force.

When painting your basecoats, I highly recommend thinning your paints on the palette with a small amount of water. I simply place a blob of paint on the palette, and a drop of water from my glass near it. Then, touch your brush to the water for a split second, and mix it with your paint. It takes practice to achieve the perfect consistency, but you will quickly learn when you have too much water, or too little. I do not recommend mixing your paint within the bottle itself, as you will often need varying consistencies when painting. Use a medium brush if possible, and apply the paint in long, smooth, purposeful strokes, rather than quick and little ones with a detail brush. This helps the coat to stay smooth and keeps the paint from clumping. It is also important to rinse your brush every once and while even while working with the same color and especially between colors. Model paint dries quickly and can easily clump up in your brush, leaving hardened blobs on your coat of paint.

A basecoat should look something like this.

You may need to use a few coats when thinning your paints, but it helps to keep your models smooth looking and sleek. This is simply adding a dark red to the chassis of the suits, gold to their stabilizers and antennae, and bright red to their lenses. You do not need to go out of your way to add details until the highlighting and detail step, which we will cover next time.

Painting Bases

A drybrush, as well as a few paints are required for this step of painting your models. Painting terrain (as well as the model itself) is done in layers. This layering is done by starting with the darkest color, and then moving up until using the lightest color. Using my my stealthsuits as an example:

I want my bases to look like an arid, rocky landscape, so I started with a dark brown for the rocks, and a dark green for the grass. If I had wanted my grass to be dead however, I would have likely started with brown for it as well.

I then moved up to a dark yellow foundation paint for the rocks, and lightened the grass a little with a brighter green.

Then finally I lightly added a khaki color over the rocks to brighten them, and added just a touch of yellow to the top of grass to make it look slightly dead. It is a desert after all!

When using your dry brush, it is important to dip your brush in your paint, and then brush out the majority of the paint onto a paper towel until the amount you want is achieved. This may sound silly, but when working up to a brighter color with a drybrush, we want some of the previous layer to show, so one should use less paint with each layer, lest you lose the layer before it. The harder you press with the brush, and the more paint you leave in it, the thicker the coat. It takes a bit of practice to achieve the thickness of paint you want, but once you master drybrushing, you will find that it is quite easy and useful to use in many situations.

Priming Miniatures

Priming your miniatures takes only a short amount of time, but is one of the most important steps of painting your miniatures. Without a solid and smooth base coat, your models will come out looking clumpy and paint will have trouble sticking to them.

Before priming, it is often a good idea to wash your miniatures under water and lightly go over their bases (after the glue has dried of course) with an old tooth brush. This ensures that extra flocking that is not sticking to your base comes off and rinses away, rather than coming off during the painting process and ending up where it shouldn't be. Let your models dry, ensuring that there is no water in any crevice before proceeding. If you are in a hurry, note that this step is optional.

When choosing primer, I highly recommend sticking to one brand of paint for the entire model. I only use official Games Workshop paint from start to finish to ensure that the textures of paint go together. Under no circumstances should you EVER use spray paint from a store, or anything that is not intended for miniatures as it will often damage or seriously ruin your models, in addition to making paint unable to stick to it.

A solid method of priming is to lie each of your miniatures on their backs, about two or three inches apart, in a straight line like this...

Make sure you prime on something you do not need, such as an old piece of cardboard or a box in a well ventilated area (I always prime outside for safety purposes). The method I use is to spray the models from each corner of the box (or from each 45 degree angle if you aren't using something square), holding the can about a foot to a foot and a half away. Then, after a few moments of drying I flip the models on their fronts and repeat. Then I stand each model up on their base to ensure I did not miss a critical spot, and then leave them to dry. The models are able to painted about twenty minutes after priming, but I usually wait at least eight hours so the paint can fully set and dry.

I cannot stress the importance of being careful during this step. It is better to have too little primer on your models than it is to have too much. Places you missed can easily be covered with a touch of paint, but when too much paint is applied detail can be lost. Your miniatures should look something like this.

Next time we will cover the painting and drybrushing of bases.

Flocking Miniatures

Flocking your models is easy, and takes only a few moments to create some wonderful scenery for your miniatures to be a part of. While some miniature painters often skip this step, I feel that it is vital to creating the image that your miniatures are on a war-torn battlefield, rather than a black circle base.

To flock your miniatures you will need different materials depending on where you wish your miniatures to be. Are they on an icy, snow covered planet, or a scorching desert? Are they fighting for their lives in the harsh jungles of an alien homeworld, or the mangled streets of an Imperial palace? This is something you need to consider when creating your army, but today we will cover the basics: rocks and grass.

Basing your miniatures in this style is done in layers. I start with a mix of very fine rocks I picked up from the hobby store, and a more course style of rocks intermingled. I then add blobs of grass on top of the rocks, and even pieces of pine bark if I wish to have large chunks of flagstone. The color of your flocking does not matter, as it will be primed and painted over.

To start, I take one miniature at a time, and using either a toothpick or an old blade, I spread super glue all over the area of the base I wish to cover with the first layer of rocks. Take special care to make sure that you get as little on the legs or treads of the miniature as possible, as the flock will stick to your miniature's legs! Once your glue is spread (and you don't need very much), simply dip your mini into your rocks and swirl it around. Pull it out, tap it with your finger over the bag to remove the excess, and then quickly remove anything that is stuck to the model itself.

These stealthsuits are a great example of what your bases should look like. If you are using patches of grass in your terrain, you do not need to worry about a few small holes here or there that did not get filled, as you can easily cover them with the next layer.

For grass, simply place a dot of glue where you wish your grass to go. Then, take a pinch of the grass from the bag and push it down onto the spot. Hold it for about five seconds, and then tap it to remove the excess (I prefer to just take a deep breath and blow the extra from the base).

Once you reach this step, you can add any wreckage or other optional bits you wish! On larger models I prefer to take advantage of their larger bases by adding battlefield wreckage such as sand bags, abandoned weapons, or even pieces of fallen foes and destroyed vehicles! By taking a few simple moments and scrounging through your bits box, you can tell a narrative with simply the ground on which your troops are standing.

Assembling Models

When buying a unit for your army, if it is plastic it will come on a plastic frame (or sprue) similar to this:

The pieces on the frame must individually be clipped off and then assembled with either super glue or a plastic welding material.  I personally prefer the Plastruct line of products as they actually fuse the two pieces of plastic you wish to bond together, and also can be removed easily if improperly positioned. The company even makes a non-toxic version if you don't mind waiting a bit longer for it to dry.

However if your model is made of metal it will likely come in a significantly smaller number of pieces and must be assembled with a hard super glue and a modeling hand drill.

The first thing I do with my model if possible is glue it's legs to the base and work from the bottom up. This allows you to map out the mini from the ground up and can lead to a much smaller number of miniatures that you find yourself unhappy with. Gluing with plastic weld is easily, and only needs to be held for a short period of time before it sets.

Once the miniatures are built you will need to check them for places where they have lines leftover from the casting process, as well as smoothing over the places where the frame met the model. This leftover plastic called a "mold lines" and needs to be removed before going any further. Nothing ruins a great paint job like ugly pieces of plastic sticking out from the model.

Here is an example of a Tau Stealthsuit Team I built recently.

For these models I used plastic weld, and worked from the bottom up.

Next time we will cover flocking and priming your models.

Welcome

Hello Everyone, and welcome to my painting blog! The purpose of this blog is to share the knowledge of assembling and painting miniatures. Let me first state that while I do things a certain way on this blog, it does not mean that my way is necessarily the only way these things can be done. If you disagree with my methods, go ahead and do it your way if you like it better! Painting miniatures is an art form, and I only wish to help those who are not well versed in the hobby.

The focus of this blog will be on the race of aliens calling themselves "The Tau Empire" from the tabletop miniatures game, "Warhammer 40k" produced by Games Workshop. The purpose of the game is to purchase and paint miniatures to build an army to field against your opponent in various missions. These missions could include capturing strategic points, assassinating an enemy's powerful commander, or even trying to simply destroy your opponent with superior tactics and military might.

To get started with the hobby, you will need a few things, including:

• Plastic and metal miniatures for your chosen army.
• Your army book for your chosen army.
• Paints for the color scheme you intend to use, including canned primer.
• Hobby tools (A hobby knife, clippers, and drill).
• Plastic glue, as well as super glue.
• Terrain for your miniature bases (hereafter refered to as "Flock").
• A variety of good quality brushes.
• A sectioned box to keep spare pieces.
• A paint palette (Personally I use a square piece of plastic. Just nothing that will soak up paint.)
• Two cups of water; one for clean water and one for rinsing brushes.
• A few paper towels.
• Some free time and a good light source! 

While this may seem like a long list, most of these are essential to starting the hobby. Many of these can be purchased from places other than hobby stores, but generally I find that name brand hobby materials tend to last longer than those from a dollar store.

Next time I will discuss miniature assembly and how to properly glue your new models together. Welcome to the hobby!