Painting 6mm figures the Elenderil way

This is one of those posts which has been a long time coming, I have thought about doing a figure painting tutorial in the past but decided against it as there are so many others out there, plus I'm not painting to to anything other than gaming standard.  My mind was changed by a couple of posts on Facebook asking for advice on starting out on painting in 6mm.  While Facebook is great for instant replies I can never find a post a second time unless I remember to bookmark it, which I rarely do.  As I suspect most facebook users are the same as I am I decided that if I had a blog post I could simply link to it the next time someone asks for advice.  If you already paint miniatures then you can miss the first part of the post as its aimed at those who have never painted wargames figures before.

Before you start
I'm going to start with some comments on the basic skills that I feel are important.  First up is to develop your observation skills.  This might seem like a strange thing to say, but if you don't really know what something looks like you can't recreate it in miniature.  When I say observation I mean really looking closely at things in real life and not assuming that you know how a thing looks.  Think about a tree as an example.  Most people, if asked, would say the trunk is brown and the foliage is green, but what shades, is the trunk actually brown or is it more gray or green?  For that matter what shade of brown are we talking about?

Before you start painting figures take a look at people at different distances and start to think about the detail you can see and what just disappears into the background.  Compare that to the detail on your figure at arms length.  There will be things you can actually leave out or just hint at.  If you look at people's faces at a distance, you see a shadow under the forehead rather than eyes, perhaps a slightly lighter patch where the nose, cheekbones and forehead catch the light.  Beards may show up if dark enough but may be lost into the shadow under the chin.  The secret is to paint what you can see in reality not what you know is there when standing face to face.  You will learn a lot about what to paint and what not to paint by observing people, especially in crowds as that shows up the shadowing effect of lots of people close together.

Look at the people in the background how much detail do you see?

The next skills are all practical ones.  The first is choosing your brushes, you need to understand how different brushes work.  Riggers (the ones with longer hair coming to a point) are my go to brush for detail work.  The paint flows well from the tip and they hold a good point for detail work.  Round brushes are better for applying washes and varnishes as they get into the recesses of the models.  I'd also use them for for large areas on buildings and bases as they give a wider brush stroke.

Size wise I have given up on using anything smaller than a 0.  They don't hold much paint and wear out too fast.  Its not the size of the brush that matters anyway, but the quality of the point.  Because of that I don't like to buy brushes over the internet I like to test the point before I buy.  A good retailer will provide a small tub of water, if needed,  so you can see if it will come to a good point.  They really don't like us sucking the brush and forming a point using our tongue and if you think about it someone else might have done the same thing with that brush a few moments earlier...ughhh!

Having a range of brushes is useful.  I currently have 14 brushes on my painting table, I find I tend to accumulate them over time because when I find a brush I like I buy a couple so I have spares. Eight of the 14 are sable the smallest is a size 0 the biggest a 2 (and that's a 'round') three of these haven't been used yet.  The rest are a real mix, two large brushes which I use for painting bases, the rest are  round heads used for varnish and washes probably about size 3 or 4.  Try different brushes out until you get a feel for what you like.  Even when you get to that stage try the occasional new size or shape in case you have been missing something.

My current selection of brushes.  They all have a purpose.

The quality of the brush is not the only factor here; what about ethical considerations?.  I'm happy to use animal hair but others are not and so limit their choice to synthetic hair. I used to use these when I couldn't afford sable brushes but I don't like them. I find these don't last as well and have a nasty tendency to develop a 'hook' at the very tip of the brush.  I spent years telling myself that the cost of a sable brush simply wasn't worth paying, until I used one.  They last longer and keep a point better than any synthetic brush I have ever used.  I do still use a synthetic brush for varnishing as that really does kill off brushes so its a waste of a nice sable brush.

The next skill is brush cleaning.  Good cleaning regimes will do wonders for the extending the useful life of a brush.   Learn to wash them in a little soapy water and dry them on a cloth (not a paper towel as they damage the hair)  I use a gentle soap intended for face washing like Dove or a proper brush cleaning soap.  A drop of hair conditioner helps from time to time, but just like your own hair only  leave it on for a couple of minutes then rinse it off.

Choosing your paint is the next thing to understand.  Not all paints are equal.   I only use acrylics and don't use any craft paints at all. Although others have achieved great results with cheap craft paint I just can't get the results I want with them.  I do use some artists quality acrylics which are a slightly different kettle of fish.  My favourite of those is Windsor and Newton Galeria especially the sap green which i use on bases.  For everything else its Humbrol and Vallejo acrylic in the main with the odd GW and Revell pot.  The difference with specialist model paint is the fineness of the paint pigment and the medium it is suspended in.  These have an impact on the colour coverage and the flow of the paint.  Good paint does help you get a good result.

Paint blending and mixing is next but thats one of those skills that you develop by doing.  Initially there is nothing wrong with using just the colours that you can buy off the shelf.   It is worth reading some painting websites about the use of colour.  You can learn a lot from art pages about colour combinations and what colour to use as a highlight or a shader.  It's usually not as simple as adding white to lighten the colour or black to darken it.  Read blogs by figure painter's whose work you admire try to copy the style, there is nothing wrong in mimicing someone with good skills it helps you develop your own style.  Finally there is no substitute for actually painting.  The more you do it the better you will get.  Every brush stroke, every experimental paint job, even the ones you are not happy with, is a lesson learned.

Brushes are not the only useful tools
After my brushes, for me, the most vital tool is some form of magnification, I use inexpensive non prescription reading glasses.  After that comes a daylight lamp, this needs to be flicker free and give a good bright daylight tone. The other  tools I use a lot are files (both a large metal file and needle files), side cutters, a set of micro drills and a pin vice and probes.  A pair of tweezers are also really useful. Oh and a nice box to keep everything tidy and stop other family members borrowing things!

Let's Paint
The first thing to do is prepare the figures. File down the underside of the bases to ensure a smooth surface, remove any flash and wash the figures  to remove any mold release agent that will otherwise stop paint adhering to the figures.  When they are dry use a spot of glue (I use cheap PVA for this) to fasten the figures to a holder.  I use craft lolly sticks as they provide a good flat surface to glue the figures to and are big enough for me to hold.  as a bonus they stop figures falling over during painting.  Place a couple of three bases on each stick wait for the glue to dry then its time to prime.

There are lots of options for priming figures I prefer a rattle can of spray on automotive primer.  Some people swear by priming with black others with a mid brown.  I like white.  White helps a figure reflect the maximum amount of light and doesn't dull the finished colours.  The downside is that any areas you miss with your topcoats will standout like a sore thumb.  to avoid this I give the figures a dark wash which settles into the low parts of the casting, which are the bits most likely to be left unpainted.  This also creates a kind of pre-shading effect.

Primed in White 

And with the added black ink wash - see how the detail stands out.

You can see the difference in coverage in this shot.

The different primer colours have different effects on the next coats as you can see from the above photo.  I deliberately used yellow as an example as it always struggles to give a good coverage.  The primer used (from left to right) are black, brown, white with ink wash and pure white.  The black breaks through far more than the other colours and dulls the yellow. 

That's it for this post next up will be a review of Vapnartal 2020 and then the second part of this how to do it blog.