I’ll be posting my progress here in the hopes that the lessons I learn and the pitfalls that I encounter may help others who wish to start painting their own minis as well.
Step One – Studying the Problem
I went through quite a few websites about miniature painting. By far, the most useful was http://www.how-to-paint-miniatures.com/
Step Two – Buying Materials
While the paints, primer, jeweller’s kit, brushes, and other various tools that I bought were useful, I am still searching for a good lamp/magnifier with a clamp to hold my minis. Right now I’m using a very, very long set of tweezers to hold a mini while I paint it.
Step Three – Prep the Minis
I had a few unpainted metal minis already and thought that I would start painting these, even though they are not really that related to my current campaigns. I washed each of them thoroughly and dealt with any extra pieces of metal or mold lines that needed to be removed.
Step Four – Primer Coat
There were two zombies, two hyenas, two goblins and a huge minotaur for me to work with. I sprayed them all with two thin coats of white primer. It takes 48 hours for the primer to dry. Patience is not one of my virtues, but I waited nonetheless.
Step Five – Dark Wash
Every mini received about three coats of a very thin, dark wash. This gave them some rather nice looking shadows.
Step Six – Paint
Better to practice on a goblin that I have no use for, or so I thought. It turns out that that first goblin took a lot of my time and effort and I probably should have just spent the time on a mini that I actually cared about. Lesson learned. After about 3 coats of thin paint, the miniature was about finished. His little goblin eyes never did look quite right. All I have left to do is give him a few highlights and coat him with a protective sealer. I’ll make sure to post his picture when he’s done!