Transcript
That’s amazing. A freakin’ work of art! That should be in a museum! Look at the detail. Do they use microscopes when they paint these things? How do they do this?! So cool!
You’ve seen miniatures, you’ve seen terrain, you’ve always wanted a cool mini for your character on the table – or a group of minis for your fellow players. And if you’re a DM, you might have always wanted to slap down an awesome monster mini so you can tell you players that yes, yes it does reach you with its flying speed. <eee face>
Okay, I don’t know if you’re a player or a DM. I don’t know how old you are, I don’t know how long you’ve played DnD or other tabletop RPGs. The only thing I might know is you’ve always, somewhere in the back of your mind – or right up in the front of that thought-cage – you’ve always wanted to paint a miniature. Or at least flirted with the idea.
But you haven’t taken the leap. You’re standing on the edge of that diving board and looking out at the great big Olympic-sized pool and it’s a little bit overwhelming. Where do you start? You know you need paints, that’s obvious, but … what paints? How many paints? What paint brushes can paint something so small? How do you even see that tiny-assed miniature in your hand? How much money does this hobby cost anyway? What if you suck at it?
You’re asking all the questions and I can promise you one thing, and one thing only: I’ll have SOME answers. Let’s see if we can get you started on one of the most rewarding journeys a tabletop gamer can take.
INTRO
Greetings good humans and welcome to Tabletop Alchemy, where sometimes we tackle an iceberg one boat at a time. And we thank our patrons for supporting such dark humor on a protracted basis, much appreciated, kind humans. Or should I say “enablers”?
So you wanna paint a miniature. Or you dream about painting a bunch of miniatures. Or “minis”. Mini is the technical nomenclature for what used to be called, by my group of nerds anyway, back in the previous century, “figures”. As in, “leave me alone, I’m painting figures!”
But you’ve never painted one. In fact, you may not have ever painted anything in your life! Just like me when I started painting figures.
So, let’s talk about what exactly one needs in order to paint their first miniature. And how much stuff costs and give you some options on how to jump into this big old pool.
I’m gonna go with a plug-n-play, modular sorta package approach to this whole endeavor, hopefully that’ll make things clear and informative and reinforce the idea that these are all just suggestions and you can make any combination work.
I’ve got three tiers plus one that I’m gonna break everything down in. And already you’re like, dude, three plus one, it’s already confusing! I get it, but you’re gonna get it in just a second. The tiers are “Dipping A Toe”, “I Think I’m Gonna Like This”, and “Cowabunga!” plus “Capital B Basics”. Which is the tier we’re kicking things off with. ‘Cause this is the fundamental gear you need regardless of whatever else you decide to purchase, beg, borrow or steal.
Tier Zero, Capital B Basics starts with Number One: A place to paint. You’re gonna need a desk, table, porch, TV tray, sideboard, card table, stack of bricks, clearing in the pile of laundry on your bedroom floor, whatever. You need a place to paint. Think about whether or not you’re going to have to pack your stuff up in between painting sessions or if you’ll be able to leave it all set up. If you’re gonna have to pack it up, which is sometimes unavoidable, maybe keep one of those Amazon boxes I know you’ve got, and you can put all your stuff in there in between painting sessions.
Number Two: Lights. You gotta be able to see what you’re doing. This sounds like a giant duh, but it’s not. You’ll need some sort of desk lamp, something that can get a light source close to your miniature, unless you’ve got like industrial overheads in your house or garage. There are lots of lamps out there and a lot of them will work just fine. Investing in a cheap extension cord is highly recommended too, just to make things a little easier on you, give you some flexibility. The only real factor you need to try to get is cool or daylight colored bulbs or LEDs. You CAN paint under tungsten light – or “warm” light, which is typically labeled as 3000k, which stands for kelvin, and now we’re balancing on the edge of a rabbit hole we’re gonna refuse to go down – but if you have to, you can paint under warm light. But daylight – or cool light or 5000 kelvin – is much better at rendering color for you. Warm light will cause colors to look a bit different than what you expect, that’s all.
Now there’s a ton of minutia we could go into about light quality, but right now, we’re just talking Capital B Basics. These are the lights I’ve been using for around six years. They’re relatively cheap and the long bar format means that with two of them you can get some decent coverage across your painting area. If you’re gonna use a light with a standard lamp socket, consider picking up the highest wattage LED bulbs you can find – within reason! – they’ll give you a lot more light than the typical 40 or 60 watt equivalent bulbs.
Number Three: Paint water cup! For rinsing brushes while you paint. You could fork out some ducats for some dumb thing marketed as an actual “paint brush cup” or you could just be normal and grab a glass or jar out of your kitchen. Just make sure you consider the “tip-over” factor of any vessel you choose. You’ll want something with a flat bottom and, preferably, bottom-heavy. I’ve used plenty of different containers, but the one I currently use has been my favorite. I think it was originally sold as one of those glass vases (or vahzez) home decorators fill with glass beads or decorative rocks or something. It’s square, which adds to the overall stability, and it’s relatively heavy too. Really, though, you can use anything that’ll hold water.
Number Four: Paper towels. This isn’t exactly eco-friendly but then neither are plastic miniatures and all the packaging they come in, right? Tabletop Alchemy, where we call things what they are. Sometimes. And you’re not gonna go through paper towels at some kind of crazy rate, you just need ‘em for wiping brushes on. I prefer the type that are perforated into half-sheets, this is the perfect size, for me, to fold in half and in half again and you can use all four sides as you fill it up with color and water and it’ll fit right next to the next thing in the Basics list –
Number Five: Paint palette. You don’t want to paint right from a paint pot, or more likely, you’ll have a dropper bottle that you’ll need somewhere to drop paint onto and thin it with a little water. Or mix colors or whatever. If you’ve never painted miniatures, you can find a ton of videos on why you want to avoid putting undiluted paint on a model. But we’ll cover that in a basic painting tutorial at some point too.
Now, your palette can be literally anything that doesn’t absorb water. We’ll talk about wet palettes in a bit but you can absolutely use a cheap plastic palette from Hobby Lobby or a piece of tinfoil or a ceramic or glass plate from your kitchen or a piece of glazed tile from a hardware store. This one costs like a dollar.
Number Six (optional): Eye-aid. Or focus aid. Or magnifiers for your peepers. If you have good eyesight, get outta here, I’m jealous. But if you do have good eyesight and can see sharp enough to paint a mini unaided, then I recommend doing so. But if you need some magnification – like I do now – there are all kinds of flawed headset things out there, contraptions can you strap to you face but I’d recommend starting with reading glasses. You can get super cheap non-prescription glasses on eBay up to +6.00. I’m currently using a pair of 4.5s but I have 5s and 6s on hand. Regular glasses are just way more comfortable than the headset things, unless you need like some crazy magnification. You can test out reader glasses at most drugstores and get a sense for what power you might need. Bear in the mind though that most retail stores aren’t gonna much beyond 3.0s.
Number Seven: Glue. Super glue, AKA CA glue, is a pretty universal staple in any tabletop hobby endeavor. And medium viscosity is totally fine, whatever you can pick up from wherever. You may also want to have some PVA glue that can be useful for certain things but if you have to assemble a miniature, you’ll use the super glue. We’ll touch on specific plastic glue later on.
Number Eight (another optional one): Hobby surface. You’ll want something akin to a desk blotter to work on. Desk blotter. I bet you have to be of a certain age to know what that is. Basically you just want something you can put down to protect whatever surface you’re working on. A piece of cardboard, a chunk of foam core from the dollar store, an old wood plank, a piece of craft paper, whatever. I mean, you know what you have, if you’re okay with possibly spilling paint on it, then carry on soldier. A lot of us use cutting mats, which is a nice way to work but it’s not a necessary expenditure. At the basic level this is just about protecting your work surface.
Number Nine: X-acto knife. And replacement blades. Don’t touch the pointy end and be deliberate when using one of these ridiculously sharp tools. They are extremely handy and you’ll probably definitely want one of these in your gear box.
So, I think that covers the Capital B Basics. Now we’ll get into some cost plus enthusiasm-based tiers. Again, one thing to keep in mind is that all the elements of this breakdown are mix-n-match, everything’s optional and really just suggestions. I’m just trying to give you an idea on how to begin.
Tier One – Dipping A Toe
This is for those of you out there either on a super tight budget or uncertain about whether or not you even like the idea of painting a miniature. Or both.
First item on the list is, of course, a miniature. I would suggest a plastic miniature from Reaper Minis or a 3D printed miniature from Etsy. The main reason for this is the likelihood of getting a miniature that doesn’t require assembly, other than maybe gluing it to a base. But, you know, find a mini you like and take the plunge. There are links to some miniature manufacturers below but you can also maybe visit a local tabletop game store to find something you can look at in person and take right home and get to work.
Item Two: Paints. So this is where controversy begins, but we’ll put on that +4 armor of opinion and steamroll ahead. This is just a guide from one nut’s perspective, remember. Now, from the perspective of having no paints at all, trying to work with a budget and decide what colors to buy is always a challenge. When you’re dipping a toe you don’t want to spend too many hard-earned ducats! So this is what I suggest: grab a black, a white, a silver, a dark brown, and then pick two or three other colors you might want to paint on the figure.
Now, what BRAND of paint should you buy? To be honest, at this tier level, any paint line designed for miniature painting is fine to go with. I wouldn’t recommend Games Workshop or Citadel paints but only because of their retail cost, the actual quality of their paints is decent. A lot of folks recommend The Army Painter brand for budget-conscious painters, but I personally don’t like their paints very much and you can get Vallejo paints for basically the same price. But for affordability, those would be the two brands I’d look for first. Now, all these companies are going to have enormous color charts – meaning they’ve got hundreds of colors. Just pick out a couple colors you like. Both The Army Painter and Vallejo market boxed sets, so a basic colors set could be the way to go. If you go with Vallejo, I would recommend their new formula Game Color line, because they have brighter more saturated types of colors, perfect for sci-fi and fantasy miniatures, and Army Painter does have a great selection of colors.
Item Three: Brushes. Here, for the absolute budget-conscious toe-dipper, I suggest something like this. If you can drop a couple more bucks maybe get two different sizes of these. The most important thing you want from your brush is a point! And most big box art stores – Michael’s, Hobby Lobby, etc. – will have 50% off sales on their brushes like every other week. If you’re getting cheap brushes, you can a couple different sizes just to play around with. Side note: it’s easy to think that to painting tiny details requires a tiny brush, but that’s not true – it requires a fine point on whatever brush you’re using. Larger brushes – and I’m talking like size 1 here or size 2 – with a great point are easier to use than triple zero sized brushes.
Item Four: Primer. Now this one has some variations that depend on what material your miniature is made of. If it’s metal or resin, you’ll need primer of some kind, but if your miniature is from the Reaper Bones line or is regular injection molded plastic – that usually means it comes on a sprue – you don’t even need primer. Most of us do prime our plastic miniatures but that’s almost more for visual aid and artistic choices than anything technical.
Now, most paint brands will sell some kind of small bottle of brushable primer, like this by Vallejo and this by Reaper. You can also buy a can of aerosol primer – what we affectionately refer to as “rattle can” primer. Army Painter has a bunch of colors to choose from, or you can get a can of primer from a hardware store, brands like Krylon or Rustoleum are fine. This stuff is totally usable, but if you want to pony up a few extra ducats you can get a slightly smoother result from one of the hobby brands. For just starting out, and if you only want to spend money on one color of primer, I’d recommend going with white. Black would be my second choice, colors lay down brighter over white but again, we’re just talking starting out here.
Now, you’ll only want rattle can primer if you’ve got an outdoor, well-ventilated space you can spray this stuff in. If you don’t have an outdoor space, if you live in an apartment like me for example, the brush-on primer is the way to go.
Item Five (optional): I’d recommend these three specific bottles of what we call “washes”. Again, every paint brand sells some kind of wash, which is essentially diluted paint in a clear medium. What does that mean? It just means it’ll do this cool thing of settling color down in the recesses of a miniature and leave the raised areas only slightly tinted. And the greatest thing about a wash is that you literally slap it on, no precision necessary. This is a super easy, beginner way of adding depth and shadow to your miniatures. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend putting these washes over areas of a miniature you’ve painted that you want to look “bright and clean”, but a typical way we use washes is by putting down a base coat of color, putting the wash on and then after that dries, going back with the original color to add some highlights to the raised areas. It looks pretty cool and when I started out painting minis, I had no idea what a wash was and I really wish I had learned about them sooner. So, you can make your own washes by watering down your paint but if you have a few ducats to spare, I’d recommend these three Shades from Army Painter, they are pretty great for beginners.
All right, let’s kick things up a notch. Maybe you’re like “I’ve wanted to paint miniatures for a while” and you fancy painting up minis for all your players, or maybe even some bad guys for your party to fight. This tier might set you up for success in the long run.
The “I Think I’m Gonna Like This” tier tackles some larger financial investment, but is also a bit more detailed as far as the hobby goes. It should give you a decent base from which to advance pretty quickly, along with all the youtube painting tutorials you’re gonna watch.
But let’s insert a Public Service Announcement here: watching painting tutorials and actually painting your miniatures are two very different things. Watching tutorials is optional and painting minis is not – actually painting is necessary for learning and growing as a painter. Let’s not confuse the two.
Building on the Capital B Basic tier, we’ll start with
Item One: Miniatures. You might go for a boxed set of bad guys or a cherry-picked selection of 3d prints for heroes. There’s a lot to choose from in this little magical world of ours and that’s a whole video topic in itself. Maybe three or four videos. But here are some places to start for sets of miniatures. And of course links are below.
For boxed sets, you might check out Northstar Miniatures, they have a pretty big catalog in all different kinds of genres. Check out the stuff they have for Frostgrave and Stargrave and Oathmark along with all their other stuff. If you’ve got a little bit more of a budget, check out Games Workshop, and don’t miss out on the smaller boxes they sell in the Boxed Games section. Both of these companies produce plastic miniatures on sprues that require assembly and you may want some plastic glue. We’ll touch on that in a bit.
There are probably hundreds of miniature companies, so I’m sure some simple google searches for plastic fantasy miniatures will return tons of results. But when you’re searching for boxes of bad guys, you might want to search for terms like “skirmish game miniatures” or “wargame miniatures”, you’ll find things sold as “units”, which means you’ll get 20 goblins or orcs or elves in a box.
For individual heroes I tend to stick with Etsy for really cool 3d prints, just searching up race and class. But there are a ton of companies out there.
What if you’re looking for a monster for your table? Again, some of the bigger war-game companies like Games Workshop and Privateer Press have some great offerings, but you can also go right back to Reaper Miniatures of google search for DnD monster miniatures or dragons or whatever you’re trying to find. Finding just the right miniature is almost a side hobby in and of itself!
All right, Item Two: Paints. This time I’ll give you some of my personal preferences, but again, there’s tons of discussion on this topic out there and thousands of reviews and comparisons, but I’ll say this: if it’s paint designed for miniature painting, you probably aren’t gonna go wrong. The suggestions I’m gonna give you are typically easy to find in local game stores and online retailers – and one suggestion that might warrant some further exploration on your part.
Reaper Master Series, available in sets or as singles. Vallejo, especially their “New Formula” Game Color paint range. AK Interactive 3rd Gen, these have the best caps in the business, which sounds like a dumb metric, but they are pretty cool. The Citadel Contrast paint line and its direct competitor, Vallejo Express Color. These last two are a special type of paint and I think it’s actually pretty interesting stuff. Ostensibly they are formulated so you can kind of use them like washes and get pretty striking results without too much effort. They are definitely fun to use but just keep in mind that they don’t function like normal paint. It would be good to watch a tutorial or two of someone showing how they operate. Vallejo Express Colors are much cheaper than the Games Workshop paints, but Citadel’s line has way more colors. Which ultimately may not really matter. My only extra suggestion is that if you grab some of these “contrast” paints as they’ve kind of collectively come to be called, always grab a bottle or two of whatever Medium goes with those paints. That way you can thin out a color if you want to lessen the intensity for any reason. You can always put on multiple coats to build up thinned out color. But we’re rabbit holing into painting tips and that’s just not what we’re doing today. Today’s all about the gear.
Item Three: Brushes. Here we’re going to step gingerly into some more controversial – or, you know, discussion-worthy – territory. Cheap synthetic brushes are always good to have on hand, but for this tier I’m going to suggest you pick up one or two more expensive, but in my personal opinion, worth-it Kolinsky sable brushes. There are quite a few expensive brands out there that make really nice sable brushes, but my suggestion is to call up Wind River Art Supply – their site is old-school, you can’t order from it, you have to call them to place your order, but the owners are super nice and they ship stuff super fast and packed well. AND it’s the only place you can really get Rosemary and Co brand Kolinksy sable brushes here in the US. You can go directly to Rosemary and Co in Europe. Specifically I recommend the Series 33 #1 brush with the short handle, but the series 22 and series 8 are very similar.
I’ve also heard good things about Monument Hobbies special synthetic brushes but I haven’t personally tried those yet.
Couple of tips for taking care of your brushes: store them in a way that doesn’t put weight on the tip – like I used to do when I was just a savage. Do your best to not let paint fill into the ferule, this part here. Paint that gets in there will dry and force the fibers apart and eventually split the tip of the brush so it won’t be able to hold a point. And a point is the literal point of these brushes, you wanna keep it sharp and healthy. Pick up a little container of brush soap. Doesn’t matter what brand, it’s just a soft detergent and you can clean your brushes periodically, keep ‘em in good shape. But again, these are tools, so don’t be afraid to use them. But that’s also why having a few cheap synthetic brushes is a great idea, you can use those for a lot of stuff and not worry about beating them up.
One last suggestion is picking up some cheap makeup brushes from Amazon or the dollar store. You can use these for a technique called “dry brushing”, and if you google that, you’ll find a billion tutorials on it.
Item Number Four: Primer. Feels like we were just here. In fact, let’s just pull over the Primer bit from the “Dipping A Toe” tier, it’s basically the same for this tier. But if you’re thinking of painting a bunch of miniatures and you want to be able to prime them fast, you’ll want to go with a rattle can, if you can spray outside where fumes won’t kill you or your pets, OR … you might pull in the Primer Item from the next tier. But of course brush on primer will still work and remember, if you’re painting injection molded plastic miniatures, you don’t HAVE to use a primer.
Item Number Five: Palette. For this tier, I’m recommending you go with a wet palette. There are a lot of expensive ones out there that look pretty slick, and they probably are, but don’t bother with those. Jump on Amazon, pick up this Masters wet palette and a package of antibacterial sponges like these. And a roll of your preferred brand of parchment paper. When you get that palette inside your house, throw that yellow sponge away (or keep it for something else), replace it with one of your new antimicrobial sponges – and put a couple of US pennies in the corners – or if you have some copper wire for some reason, put a couple pieces of that in the palette – copper cuts down on the time it takes for mold to grow in this thing. Then cut some parchment paper into pieces smaller than the sponge, fill the palette with water so the sponge is soaked but not entirely submerged and lay down your parchment paper. Good to go. When you’ve filled the paper with paint, toss it and put down another piece.
You can always use one of Capital B Basic tier’s palette suggestions too, and you might want both to experiment with. The wet palette keeps your paint workable for a lot longer than a dry palette, that’s really the bottom line.
Item Number Six: Washes! Again, almost every paint brand has some kind of wash line or you can make your own by thinning your paints with water. That takes some practice to learn how to do just right, but it’s a thing. There’s a bunch of paint tech surrounding washes and for me, I just drop the cash for ready-made washes. Games Workshop has an excellent line of washes, and so does Army Painter. They’re just handy but not required.
Item Number Seven: Painting handles. For all tiers I recommend getting a package of these. And maybe a package of matching lids. And some poster tac. There are several advantages to these versus other types of painting handles, like the ones sold from Games Workshop – ridiculously engineered – or these other things, there’s quite a few out there. Essentially, you will want to fix your miniature onto a separate object you can hold while you paint it. The reason I recommend these little cups is they come in two sizes, they are super cheap, disposable but also comfortable to hold (for me anyway) and they are reusable. Unless you melt it with something, you can just keep putting miniatures on them and you can also of course use them as actual containers for things. I end up using them for holding basing material like flock and dirt and sand. Anyway, there are specific products out there called painting handles, just keep in mind you want something that won’t tip over when you set it down.
Item Number Eight: Clippers and sandpaper. Get a pair of clippers you can use on plastic and then don’t use them on anything except plastic. That’ll keep ‘em sharp enough for a long time and you won’t ding the blades on metal. Clippers make cutting models from sprues much easier than using an xacto knife or twisting the parts off with your dorito-stained fingers. Pick up a cheap pack of 250 or 320 grit sand paper and tear off a small square when you need some and you can use this to smooth out the miniature where you cut the sprue off, or these things called mold lines. You don’t have to do this but once you get into painting you’ll probably wish you had.
Item Nine: Basing materials! So miniatures typically stand on round or square bases and you might want to add a little bit of texture or grass or leaves or rocks. You can easily do this with some dirt or sand from your backyard or little sticks or pebbles or clean cat litter even, but there are also tons of companies that sell what’s called flock and static grass. You don’t need very much of this to start out with and you can water down some PVA white glue, put it on a base around a miniature’s feet and sprinkle this basing material all over it. Let it dry and you could even paint over it if you want or just let it be as is. Decorating the bases of your miniatures really adds a lot to their overall look. Check out the company Woodland Scenics online or in model shops, Army Painter sells flock and basing material, so does AK Interactive and Vallejo. There’s a lot of stuff out there. But don’t go ham at first, just pick up a couple things you think might work and then after you’ve worked with some stuff and done some more research you’ll start to see where you can save money from brand to brand.
Item Ten, last but not least: Plastic glue. Some people like to use superglue to glue up their plastic models, and that’s fine. You’ll need super glue for resin and metal miniatures for sure. And you can definitely use it for plastic models but plastic glue, to me, is just nicer to use on plastic miniatures. It melts plastic together. This is the brand I use, but there are different brands, like everything else. Just stay away from the thick Testors stuff that comes in tubes – their liquid plastic cement is probably fine, I just never understood the thick goopy stuff.
All right, this brings us to tier 3, the “Cowabunga” tier! You’ve got a big appetite for miniatures and you’ve got a budget to match. Although I think everyone who enjoys mini painting will aspire to this tier over time. Really, this tier is just a single big ticket upgrade: and that’s an airbrush and an air compressor.
This pair of contraptions is very useful – at the beginning of your mini painting journey it’s useful for priming miniatures, but from there you can head down the airbrush rabbit hole as far as you want. Airbrushing zenithal highlights with primer is a perfect beginner exercise for starting out and from there the sky’s the limit.
Here’s a set I recommend to start out with. Now, I’m not an experienced airbrusher by any means, but because I’ve got the compressor, I can upgrade to any airbrush I want in the future and in the meantime I can practice airbrushing as much as I want with this cheap airbrush. There are smaller, cheaper compressors that don’t have a tank like this but I think it’s worth investing the extra ducats to get one with a tank. The tank allows the compressor to run periodically rather than constantly the whole time you’re working, which in the long run is much better. I live on the second floor of an apartment building and this thing is quiet enough to not bother the neighbors.
Airbrushing acrylic paint is really tame fume-wise – and I’m pretty susceptible to any kind of chemical fumes – but I still wear a simple dust mask when I run the brush. If you’re gonna spray enamels or lacquers, you’ll 100% need either a genuine air scrubber or filter system but I’d say just don’t bother with anything non-acrylic until you’re much more familiar with painting in general. And really you could go your whole painting career without ever putting anything non-water based in the airbrush.
Working on miniatures means the overspray isn’t really much of an issue and plenty of painters just spray airbrush right at their main hobby desk. But I like to spray into a backdrop just because. I made a very simple “booth” out of foam core and tape that folds up flat for storage. You could use a cardboard box if you wanted to.
A lot of paint brands sell an “airbrush” line of paints, which is just pre-thinned paint, because you’ll always thin whatever you’re putting through the brush. But I’d suggest just learning right out of the gate how to thin your paints for spraying. Or, you know, buy some airbrush paints – you’re in charge!
You’re also gonna want some varnish, specifically some matte varnish. Clear coats can protect your minis a bit more from abrasion but one of the best things about putting down a matte coat is that it unifies the finish of all the paints and washes you’ve put on the miniature as well as sealing it. And you can always continue painting over a clear coat too, as long as it’s had time to fully dry.
I use this Mecha matte varnish from Vallejo and primers from Badger Stynylrez and Vallejo but there are lots of brands to choose from. And remember, you’ll probably want to thin any varnish or primer you spray as well, so you can get a bottle of airbrush thinner and use it for pretty much everything. There are youtube channels that discuss how to make your own homemade thinner for much cheaper, so that’s an alternative to keep in mind. Just make sure you stick with acrylic varnish, not polyurethane, which seems to be cropping up more for some reason. Unless you know what you’re doing of course.
Side note, I keep some gloss and satin varnish on hand too just for, you know, whims. You can mix gloss and matte varnish to create your own custom satin varnish if there’s a particular look you’re going for. Personally, I use gloss only as a finishing effect on certain parts of a miniature if I want that look, overall most folks would agree that a matte finish is really the best looking finish for a miniature or model.
So, I’m 100% sure I’ve forgotten to mention something in this ludicrously long video and I’m 100% sure you, as a new miniature painter – are gonna have questions. This video is really just intended to give you some clear advice on what materials and gear to collect before you start painting your first miniature, but as I’ve mentioned multiple times, you should definitely feel free to mix and match and collect stuff as you see fit or as needed.
One last piece of advice: when you paint your minis, don’t sweat making them perfect or get upset if the first few don’t turn out the way you envision. If this is new to you, it’s new and you gotta just try it out. Don’t get discouraged, everything takes practice. And perfection … doesn’t exist. Here’s proof. <snap>
So, set up your work space, grab a mini, and just. have. fun.
See ya!