Insights into painting figures please

One colour per session. :-) Ie, get the black out, do most of the shoes, maybe some of the bags, the odd trouser, set aside to dry, come back the next day and do all the white shirts, etc, etc. Provided that they're not all standing in one group and you do a fair number of slightly different drab colours, it won't notice that Persons 3 and 44 have exactly the same colour coat. And do what you did - paint the "inner" layers first.

R.

First thing to do is get a pair of Magna Sighters. They are a magnifying lens set that you wear on your head. I use brushes in the 5/0 to 10/0 range. I also try to paint from the body out. Flesh areas first then shirts and pants, vests and coats next then touch up any goofs. Shoes are last since all my people are off the sprues for triming and clean up. I use a pair of curved forcepts to hold them. Then I do the hair and facial features. I have painted 5-10 people an hour using each color on as many people as I felt was right, then moving on to the individual colors. I use the Ceram Coat water base paints and they dry fairly quickly

mindesign said the following on 06/10/2005 12:19:

It might be worth having a look at some military modelling websites or newsgroups, as these people seem to be way ahead of us on things like this! I believe they start off by painting the whole figure black, and dry-brushing colour over that. I'm looking at the sleeve of my light blue shirt as I type, and there is am amazing amount of shadow in all the folds, and it is only actually light blue on the "outer" surfaces, so the idea seems to have some merit.

That's a matter of opinion. They look like comic-book caricatures to me.

(kim)

Whatever you do, DON'T use gloss paints (or finish with matt varnish). I have never seen a gloss person, but loads and loads of exhibition layouts seem to be overrun with them.

PhilD

I've been known to work up at least a satin sheen when exercising. :-)

R.

kim said the following on 06/10/2005 13:41:

I must admit that I have seen some that do look like that, including a large close-up of one used in a totally unrelated magazine advert that was supposed to generate interest but made me laugh at it instead!

I have also seen some that are really effective, and I'm sure I've seen an article in a model railway magazine somewhere that shows the technique. If only I could remember where!

At a workshop, I saw a demo of how to do this. Base coat of flesh tone(s) first, then one colour at a time, but keep dabs of grey and white on your palette to lighten/darken the colour as you go (you don't want 17 guys with exactly the same shade of brown coat, eh?). Finally, after it's all dried, a light wash of dark brown or black over everything to settle into the creases and add shade effects. Very impressive results. For foreground people, add _tiny_ spots for the eyes and maybe a _tiny_ dash of red lipstick, or small dabs of brown etc for beards and mustaches, but don't overdo it. Less is more. The demonstrator used 0, 00 and 000 brushes, and acrylic paints.

HTH

Here is a link to a site with some interesting ideas on painting figures, I haven't used the technique myself so can't directly vouch for it, but the results look impressive...

On 06/10/2005 16:09, Ian J. wrote,

Ah-ha - ref my earlier post, start by painting them black. The figures on this guy's website do look good if you stand back a bit.

"mindesign" wrote in news:DP71f.2811$ snipped-for-privacy@nasal.pacific.net.au:

...

From a site that I've recently closed (hence the layout has gone to heck) I've uploaded a few pages that may help ... links are obvious but again, this is froma closed site so the layout ... well you get what you pay for. :-)

Painting figures is a nice little chore. Don't forget that people come in all colors rather than just one shade of beige. Some need to be darker and some lighter for the skin tone. Don't forget to mix the paints on a palette so that you don't have the same colors for everybody. If the color is a bit off on a figure, don't worry as the colors of clothing are all different anyway from one person to another. Basically, the more colors you end up with, the better the set of figures will be. One thing to do with all of the figures at the end is give them a light wash of thnned black color to deepen the folds and so forth in the figure. The coat should be just dark enough to be almost visible at a glance as anything more can be easily overdone. Look at the 3D cartoons that have been done and you will see one of the things that is done is to darken the surfaces that aren't towards the viewer and away from the "lighting" of the scene.

-- Why do penguins walk so far to get to their nesting grounds?

in article snipped-for-privacy@nethere.com, Bob May at snipped-for-privacy@nethere.com wrote on 10/6/05 1:24 PM:

They tried to get Amtrak reservations, but the train broke down.

Really nice reference - thanks.

WOW - I obviously hit on something a lot of folks think about

Thanks very much for all the replies ..... great web references and excellent insights/hints

Steve

The other advantage of painting over the black undercoat is that it deadens the colour placed over it, a much better effect for cloth, than the brightness white gives.

If you have children who are into WarHammer, etc., then spend some quality time helping them paint their figures. They'll probably love it, SWMBO will think you are a wonderful father and you get to practice for the ones that really matter .

Only troble is, they may want a WarHammer scene on the railway with a chobham armoured 08 shunter towing a laser-plasma thingy on a flat bed truck.

MBQ

I have to admit that in wilder moments the idea of a Dwarven narrow gauge railway scene has crossed my mind....

And the problem with that is???? I would look at it as more quality time with them on your hobby as well as theirs.