Insights into painting figures please

Oct 06, 2005 41 Replies

So what happens to fleshtones when you paint them over a black undercoat?

(kim)

You need to be a shade lighter to compensate, but again it gives a nice matt finish. The other trick is when they are painted is to give them a good coat of hard wearing gloss varnish, then cover with a matt varnish, the gloss is much harder wearing.

"kim" wrote in news:di63dr$ofa$ snipped-for-privacy@domitilla.aioe.org:

...

More depth of colour and the features appear more distinct.

There are some suggestions here, aiming at the giving the right artistic overall impression, rather than detailed rivet-counting accuracy:

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I'd love to see the routing card for *that* load ;-). Something like:

Equipment: Heavy-duty flat-car Load: High-energy laser-plasma cannon Shipper: Gizmos-R-Us, Inc. Consignee: Dark Lord Vzyxnu, Fortress Of Doom, Erewhon Special Handling:

1) Oversize load. 2) Do NOT push the RED BUTTON while in transit!!!

-- Kizhe

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Arthur Figgis at postmaster@[127.0.0.1] wrote on 10/7/05 11:50 AM:

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Ed

estarriol wrote: [...]

There are other fantasy RRs to consider. EG, "The Forest of Boland Light Railway," by 'BB', Knight Books, 1969, long out of print I'm afraid, but I have a copy. 'BB' is obviously a pseudonym. The illustrations are by D J Watkins-Pitchford, who also has the copyright on the text, so he may well be 'BB.' The illustrations are charming, with sufficient detail to function as working drawings.

H'm....

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Arthur Figgis at postmaster@[127.0.0.1] wrote on 10/7/05 11:50 AM:

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Ed

1a) Do NOT HUMP.

On 07/10/2005 21:08, Wolf Kirchmeir wrote,

See also:

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UK or Australia? Because if it's Australia there's a DVD of an old TV series I can recommend called "Palace of Dreams" which shows in great detail how ordinary people were dressed in the 1930's. It's mostly browns and beiges.

(kim)

Thanks muchly for this link, very nice. Didn't think it had been done, so didn't google. You should _always_ google - you never know what may turn up!

For painting fine details on figures, obtain some UNCOLORED toothpicks at the grocery store. You can use an Xacto type knife to make some real sharp points on the toothpick. Then, use it like a pen - dip it into your detail color and apply it to the figure.

Good luck.

Dennis

what a bloody brilliant idea!

Just went and got some

Thanks

Steve

Hi Kim

I have heard of the show but doubt I have ever seen it - I am in Victoria. I am familiar with how drab the clothing often was and feel many of my figures will be done that way, with a few exceptions to add interest.

I will ask around and see who has the show

Thanks

Steve

If you can find the round tooth picks, the point might be fine enough as it is.

Branchline Modeller issue 2 (aka The Australian Jornal of Railway Modelling) has a good article on painting figures, refer to

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- "FIGURE PAINTING - Unpainted plastic figures are available from a number of different manufacturers. STEPHEN OTTAWAY describes how he paints them, giving a better result and at less cost than the ready painted alternative. "

Michael S.

thanks - will see if I can track the article down

Steve

In the days when friends & I used to paint lead D&D figures, our last step was a black wash over all the colors. It really highlights the folds and shadows.

On Thu, 6 Oct 2005 21:19:39 +1000, "mindesign" shared this with the world:

The painting techniques that the others have posted are a great collection, and the only thing I would add is to remove the figures from the sprues,and clean up the flash before you paint them.

This is also a good time to add or remove carried objects (luggage,tools,etc), re-pose arms and legs, or any other modifications you want to do. IIRC, there are usually a few clones in any of the larger packs of figures. (of course it might be fun to have one village populated with 40-50 of the same figure, just painted differently -- fun in a weird science kind of way)

After removing figures from their sprues, I drill a small hole in the bottom of one of their feet, and glue a short piece of steel wire into it. This acts as a painting handle, and a method of anchoring the figure to the layout once they are ready to go "on stage"

Kent

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