Slave To Painting | Miniatures, Tutorials, Accessories & Paints. - New To Painting

Getting into any new hobby is pretty exciting, but can also be really intimidating; not only are you often trying to pick miniatures that you like the look of, you are trying to work out what is the best to paint, what painting materials you need, what armies are tactically the best and which backgrounds you enjoy reading about.  On top of all this getting started in the hobby is not cheap if you just rock down to your local Games Workshop (GW) stockist and buy a starter army and all the paint materials you need.  This guide is heavily skewed to GW and is first and foremost about the painting for the armies, there is no consideration given to the tactical advantages of the armies. 

I suppose a few general (non-technique) tips I could give are:

1. Don’t worry too much about which army you pick first, if you stick with the hobby you will end up with multiple armies in multiple systems before long.  Picking an army isn’t like picking a degree at university.
2.  Pick an army that visually appeals to you, it is much easier to paint something when you like the end product you are aspiring towards.
3. Your first bunch of miniatures are going to look ‘average’…this is not meant to discourage you, but your first boxed set won’t turn out something worthy of White Dwarf or 8’s on www.coolminiornot.com.  Aim to paint really good ‘tabletop’ quality regiments first and then move onto impressing with new techniques with characters, monsters and war machines later on.
4. Start out with regiments and infantry.  Practice repeating the same thing over and over again production line style.  This might be boring but if you give a couple of months at the start of the hobby to doing this you will learn great brush control, build a good core to your army, and be able to easily see your progress.  Yes it is hard to resist the urge to rip open that huge dragon and getting going compared to a lowly swordsmen, but people are going to look at that dragon at lot more closely on the tabletop, so it’s best to have it looking awesome.

Painting miniatures tabletop style:

Please remember this is a beginners guide (i.e. just starting to swing a brush)… so no comments telling me I have missed out discussion on glazes or zenithal lighting etc. Remember this is about keeping it simple to help people enjoy the same hobby we do.

1. Tabletop is the term given to miniatures that are painted to a quality that looks good in an army on the table top.  Display quality is the other term used for miniatures that are painted to be studied in detail, up close.  The difference really comes in the level of highlights and detailing used to finish the miniature.  Fundamentally all miniatures start out the same and go through the same stages, it is just for display quality you keep going with more highlights and advanced painting techniques.
2. Painting miniatures tabletop style can be turned into a very quick process with the right techniques and products on your work bench.  The stages of painting a table top miniature can be largely broken down as follows:

• Assemble your army using good quality modeling cement (for plastics) and super glue (resin and metal). Also invest in a good set of tools such as pliers, narrow side cutters, files and a scalpel to you can tidy up the miniatures before painting.
• After assembly spray the model with primer. If you use an Army Painter colour spray primer these is no need to basecoat the model with other paints. If you prefer to use other paints rather than spray primers, the best paints for this are The Army Painter warpaints or GW foundation paints, as they have thick pigment.
• Try to use no more than 5 colours (good to set a limit to speed up the process) go over the miniature block colouring the areas.  For example silver for metal, tan for skin, brown for leather boots and belts, red for capes etc.
• Shade the miniature.  If you are using The Army Painter Quickshade this stage is easy. You simply dip the miniature and shake it off.  The Quickshade will automatically shade and darken the recesses on the miniature and naturally highlight the miniature.  If you are not using Quickshade then you will need to get some washes (either from GW, Vallejo or Secret Weapon).  You can then brush the wash over the model (it is like ink) and it will create a similar shading effect.  The difference with Quickshade is that (because of the viscous nature of the fluid) it sticks to the miniature after shaking only in the recesses avoiding pooling, whereas washes are thinner and so you cannot shake the miniature to remove the excess, meaning you will end with pooling on the miniature (little dark spots in highlighted areas). 
• Hightlights. If you used Quickshade to shade your miniature it is now a simple case of a few spot highlights and a spray with Anti-Shine Matt Varnish to protect the miniature and take the shine off created by the Quickshade. 
• If you have used inks, as opposed to Quickshade, there is a bit more work to do to get your armies tabletop. Typically you will need to go back over with the base colours on the highest areas to create effective shading.  Then after that another run through with highlights and spray with anti-shine varnish and you are ready to go.

Always water down your paints (especially with the thicker basecoats).  Starting out with a 1:1 mix is good, just to keep the water fluid when going on the mini. Try to start with dark base primers as this naturally shades the model and if you miss a little bit it will look like shading, whereas white looks terrible if you miss a bit. At first you only need 3 or 4 good brushes.  Aim for: (1) a small detail brush, (2) a large base coat brush and then something like (3) a regiment brush in the middle.  Make sure you buy decent brushes made from proper fibres (like sable hair) for the smaller brushes.  The really cheap nylon brushes are useless for miniature painting.  The fourth brush will then be a dry brush (or retire one of your initial more damaged brushes to dry brushing detail). Try to get a good mix of paints to start out with; there is nothing worse than not having that right colour for the miniature.  Starter sets can be a great way to get into painting for a bargain.  The Army Painter starter sets have an amazing range of paints, a spray primer and brushes. Face and base.  People will always be drawn to the face of a miniature first and work out from there so spend a bit of time getting it right.  Don’t worry about painting in eyes for Tabletop miniatures, if you get eyes wrong they look worse than just letting shading run into the sockets.  Always do a good job on the base, this frames the miniature and is the canvas it sits on.  Bases are also a great way to unify your army.  Slave to Painting offers an awesome range of basing products. Use the colour wheel (Google it and print it).  It is really simple, but our eyes are tuned to be attracted to contrasting colours. So pick the opposite colour on the wheel to your primary army colour and use this for spot colouring.  It will really make the army pop and unify the force even more. That concludes the New To Painting Guide. I hope it’s given you a foundational understanding of what you need to do to get your hobby started. To help you out even more, be sure to sign up for the "Thoughts on Different Armies: A Beginner's Guide" (link below). It'll give you a clear understanding about how the Armies differ so you’ll know which army to pick.

Small detail brush (1), Basecoating Brush (2), Regiment Brush (3), and Large Drybrush (4). Slave to Painting Starter Kit. An example of a colour wheel.

Happy painting,

Matt. 

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