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A Closer L |
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| Miniatures
add a whole new dimension to Role-Playing. Recently, die hard Role-Players
are even branching off into the realm of whole miniature battles, a hobby
that has been around almost as long as man first began to go to war. As
more and more people use miniatures with their RPG's, more and more people
want their miniatures to impress their fellow gamers as well as show the
marching order of a party, where the orcs are attacking from or who's looking
where. I hope that as this column appears, I will be able help show you
some of the techniques I have learned over the past few years so that your
pieces can make people want to pick them up to get a closer look.
Starting Up The very first thing you need to do when you get a new miniature is to gather some supplies. Supplies You can't paint without paint , right? A good sharp hobby knife and a few extra blades would probably be a good place to start. Right now you're more than likely thinking to yourself, "I thought we were talking about painting here." Well most models come with a little extra metal attached so you'll want to get rid of that right away. A set of needle files from the local five and dime would be helpful as well. If you have a miniature that comes in more than one piece, some epoxy putty (Milliput or Testor's body putty for example) will help you fill in the gaps left after you Super-Glue the pieces together. By carefully preparing your miniature before even looking at a paint brush you'll get a much better piece when you are finished. More on that later. Paints Now select your paints. You'll eventually want a wide variety but at first just think of the colors you want your first piece to be. You'll want to get some basics anyway like: red, blue, green, yellow, brown, black; white and flesh. You can buy paints designed for your miniatures at your local game store, but often these are more expensive and come in relatively small containers, try an art supply store and check prices. Most experienced modelers will be quick to point out that those enamel paints you used to slop on plastic model kits are out. Most artists and painters now-a-days only use acrylics. Acrylics are based in water so they blend easily and clean up with the stuff that comes out of your tap. When they do dry, acrylics are also waterproof, so don't forget to wash out your brushes when your done with them. Let's see, we have everything to put the miniature together, paints... oh, yeah. Brushes Brushes come in a gazillion different sizes. The better brushes have numbers imprinted on the side of them which represents their size. You should look at sable brushes size 3 and smaller (000 or 10/0 is as small as you should get). Sable brushes can be found at gaming and art supply stores, but the latter usually does not carry the very small sizes. Look at getting four good brushes of varying size. Where to Work You'll also need to set up a work area. A table in front of a window that gets a lot of light is best. Alternatively, arm lights can help brighten your work. Cover your area with a piece of posterboard or some old newspapers. You'll need a container of water to clean your brushes as well as some paper towels or rags. I like to place my paints on the far side of my work area so I can see what colors I have and reach them easily. If you can leave your area permanent, great! You can keep all of your supplies in one place and have an area for your miniatures to dry. Before You Paint As you rip open your new blister pack, take a good look at your model. Most miniatures have a mould line running around them (Mithril and Thunderbolt miniatures are usually an exception but take a good look to make sure). Carefully cut away any extra metal or "flash" and file and sand the mould line smooth. Always remember to cut away from yourself. Some miniatures come with spare or separate parts molded in plastics, some miniatures are entirely plastic. These pieces should be clipped from the sprue, not torn. Tearing these pieces will usually take more of the part than you wanted. Cleaning these pieces is often easier than the metal parts and also easier to take off more than wanted, so be careful. When you glue pieces together, try to fit them together several times first. Look at the join from different angles to make sure it going together properly. Some miniatures contain several parts and no instructions as to how they fit together so take your time. Make sure you trim all parts so they fit snugly. Apply only small drops of super glue to metal to metal joints and metal to plastic joints. By applying small amounts of epoxy putty around the joint and smoothing with an old damp brush you can make the join look non-existent. Plastic pieces should be joined with polystyrene cement, which produces a strong bond with plastics, but is useless with metals (it actually melts the plastics together). Sometimes you may not want to attach a piece before it is painted. If a piece will make it too difficult to paint behind it, leave it off. Paint the piece separately and then attach it and touch it up afterward s. It is very frustrating to put a miniature together then fight to get a brush behind its arm. Some pieces may be very heavy and awkward for the miniature to bear. By taking a small drill (a Dremel tool is perfect but a large investment for just miniatures) and making a small hole in both pieces, you can place a wire pin between them and strengthen the bond. A small piece of paper clip is good for this and can greatly reduce the normal strain on the model. Once you have the miniature together, you'll need to apply an undercoat to it. Undercoats are usually white, but for metallic and darker colors you may want to use black. An undercoat allows the paint to stick to the miniature and saves you from using a great deal of paint to cover a small area. Mithril Miniatures produce their miniatures with light gray undercoat making things easier on us painters, but if you had to trim along the mould line you'll need to touch it up. If you have several miniatures that you are going to paint (armies of ninjas or orcs for example) you may want to get a can of spray paint and apply a couple of light coats, being careful not to cover any de- tails. After the sprayed coat has dried, touch it up with a brush. You are now ready to go at it and produce some truly high quality miniatures. Here are a few things to remember to keep your expensive supplies around as long as possible:
If you have any ideas or can expand on some of the things I talk about write in to Players and I'll include your letter here. If you want me to write about certain things drop a line and I'll get to it as soon as prudent. Next month, I'll take a closer look at the different techniques for painting metal armors. Talk to you then. |
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