Painting

        Sometimes the simplest shapes turn out to be difficult to paint because the margin of error is so small. In the last blog I mentioned that the Kren chapter insignia could be difficult to paint on pauldrons. Last night a new way of doing this occurred to me so I tried it out.

I have been known to comment that some vehicle modellers can perfectly weather a tank but are let down by the figures they place in a diorama with it.

There are many ways to do rust effects on a model. Some rely on special products. Some use hairspray, salt, ground pigments, make-up powder and so on.

        I get to see many very nice model vehicles, many of them in 1/35th scale. While many of these are very detailed it is often the figures that are with them that let them down. It seems some modellers can perfectly weather a vehicle but paint figures that end up looking like lifeless mannequins with thousand yard stares.

        I don’t believe good figure painting is that hard a skill, and was interested to see how my newer painting techniques might work with larger scale figures. I didn’t have any 1/35th scale figures handy so instead decided to try things out on some 1/32nd scale Airfix cowboys.

        One piece of advice I would give to miniature painters is to investigate a variety of paint brands.

I've never tried battery powered paint stirrers. Some of my older paints are way more solid than liquid! Someone suggested one of these. An Ikea coffee frother (300.000.41).

        Several of the tutorials I have written have included drybrushing as a technique so some further words on this may be in order.

        Recently I painted an Ambul, and not including the base/undercoat it took me less than half a day.

        I've always had a problem working out exactly what paints to use to paint "Old-style" Genestealers.

        Some time ago I was talking to someone in a shop who was planning to take up figure painting.