Hells_Clown

I bought a quart o Woodland Scenics Burnt Static Grass on the advice of some painter woman on one of these forums. :p I had previously bought some GW SG and it was very shiney and didn't look good at all. I am more satisfied with the WS stuff though it still looks a bit shiney. I also bought some dead grass flock and mixed some of it with the dark green I already had. I gives it a more realistic look. I'm still not totally thrilled with how my bases have been comming out, they don't look all that real to me. Mayhaps when Anne's got an extra nano second she can write up a basing tutorial for we the unwashed masses. :D

Ok, I'm sure I've asked this before, but I'm dense and have a bad memory. Thinner Vs Flow Aid: What's the difference? It seems to me that thin paint would flow better. Or is it that surface tension thing?

I've never understood this. I paint with my Vallejo from the bottle all the time. I don't see a problem. I use water and/or future wash when I'm trying to get into the nooks n crannies or to layer, but I still use it from the bottle as well. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. I'm no Rembrandt when it comes to painting, that's for sure. Though I do like dark colors. ;)

Hrm hrm hrm... Yes, I can see how that would work. Next time I'll have to spend some time mixing and see what happens. Thanks for the advice folks.

I'm working on that metallic shading deal and not quite getting it. I'm working on a sword blade and I have three colors I'm using, all Vallejo: Oily Steel, Natural Steel and Silver. The biggest problem I'm having is it's hard to tell if the lighter colors are going over the darker. It all looks the same. Am I not using enough light color? Is there some light technique I should try (I try putting my hand behind the figure, and sometimes I can see a minute difference and others nothing)? Or am I doomed to have only one color steel bits? Ok, it's late. Bed time. :sleepy:

This might be a seperate thread topic but since it's about pinning I'll put it here. Do you good people clip your pins THEN put them in the hole or glue the pin then cut? I can't seem to get the right length by the 2nd method. I ususally end up with a nub that is way to short.

Remember, pewter is a soft metal, so it's not toooo difficult with a lil elbow grease. As for what I use: stick pins. Found a pack of a thousand at a dollar store. For larger pieces, paper clips. I've considered brass rod, is it really any better?

Also beware of friction. Wet the bit before doing any serious drilling, it's amazing how quickly those things heat up. I was quite frustrated when I first got my pin vise. Then one day while I was using it I noticed that when I spun it so that the spiral was moving up that little ribbons of metal would be "spat out". I had been using it so that the spiral went down into the hole I was trying to drill. After this discovery my drilling became much easier. I'm less put off by having to use my vise now than I was at first. Now if I can only get my glue to co-operate... :oo:

I'm wanting to paint some fur a brown color with gray streaks shot through out to give an aging look (just so folks won't think I'm making age jokes, I myself have salt-n-pepper hair - at 32!). I tried painting my base color then thinning down some gray and spreading it around here n there but it didn't look good at all, it looked very washed out and dull. Has anyone done this technique successfully?

Wow, someone other than myself as see that movie. Good call dude. I thought that movie was kinda cool myelf. I remember seeing it in the theater not long after I'd first gotten glasses. I wasn't used to wearing them and forgot them. I had to sit reeeeeaaal close to the screen in order to see what was going on. :cool: Ah memories. I'll have to watch that episode of X-Files for all the role play stuff. Though I would have NO idea about when the minis were made and catching the MERP character sheet...wow, I am in awe of the geek level in that room. I thought I was the only one who bought those rules. Never played them, way too complicated it seemed. That and I hadn't read LotR at the time so had no idea (beyond basic knowledge of the books) what was going on.

I hate to resurrect such an old topic, but Jordahn, where did you get that little black carrying case for the figures you have in the Art Bin? Looks like it's perfect for carrying just a few figures around, like for skirmish games n such.

Another vote for Simple Green. A tip when using it: don't dilute it. I've put figures in that stuff and after a couple hours, have been able to rub the paint AND primer off with my fingers. For the more stubborn places use an old toothbrush. You can get it in gallon jugs at places like Home Depot for about $9 U.S. That should last you a long time. In my experience it doesn't affect glue (if I put a mini in with the base glued on it tends to stay that way) so your figs should stay based.

Thanks as always Anne for the tips. It's nice to hear from someone who's actually seen the figure so they can tell me exactly what it looks like. I'll play around with the color sometime. I went with a more normal skin tone on the figure I was planning on painting drow-ish. Seems like everytime I get a "great idea" to paint this or that fig someone has already beat me to it. :O Nice t' see ya back on the board, I was starting to worry about you! :laugh: PS Check around page 2 or so of this forum, I posted a question for you about basing materials just as you left for Gen-Con.

Any advice on how to paint Dark Elf (Drow) skin tones? I'm looking for that black-gray-purple tone. For an example check out Dr. Faust 's painting clinic. Click on the pic of his Sophie. Sorry there's no direct link to the pic.

How would one go about shading bronze with metallics? I want to simulate that light shining effect w/o using nmm. Ideas?

Don't know where you live, but if you have a Michael's or Hobby Lobby or Wal-Mart near you, go there. Plaid paints have both burdungy and champagne. Usually less than one dollar U.S.. Can't beat that, even if you don't use those colors much. Making something look like wood is much easier when that item is sculpted to look like wood. Grain is hard to fake, at least for me it is. Base coat a dark brown and dry brush or layer lighter shades here and there. Hope some of that helped.

Now that I've given advice on how to use washes to shade skin, I have a question about said washes. I have problems using ink washes (or others like Vallejo Smoke) in that even though I tend to dilute them quite a lot with thm pooling heavily in some places, and not always in the nooks n crannies. I sometimes have big spots (that I don't always notice till it's dry) on the chest or bicep let's say. I also have problmes with bubbles forming. When the burst they leave rings behind. Anyone got any good advice? Anybody? Bueller? Foerster? (Did I spell that right? :oo: )

Not quite sure if you're looking for a color recipe in general or just highlighting/shading tips, but I feel like taking up bandwidth so here goes: my basic skin tone (I think I mentioned this in another thread) is a mix of Vallejo Basic Skin Tone and Cork Brown. About 2 drops of CB to 1 drop BST gives a nice tan skin tone. You might try adding a small drop of red to the mix. From there you can add more flesh for lighter skin, more brown for darker. More red will give a ruddy complextion. As for African skin, I don't really know, I haven't tried it yet. For shading I tend to use Vallejo Smoke. It's basically a dark brown ink. I mix it with future wash to dilute it (I've started using A LOT of the future mix as Smoke is VERY thick and will obscure your previous paint job if you aren't careful). Highlights I would mix up a lighter shade of the base coat and layer it on till I got what I wanted (or as close as I can get). Hope that helps.

ttt

You could stop using your free time to post messages here and other net activities. The net will still be here when yer finished, we'll watch it for ya. :D Now get painting!

You may have succeeded in actually turning me off of painting that one. I thought Anne's paint job might do that, then having no idea how to shade all that skin, but I think this is the kicker. I'll feeling a bit ill... :O

Well, one more for the moment, how's that? What do you use on the bases of the figures in the Showcase? It looks like real dirt and grass. My bases tend to look like golf courses and fake rocks. Once again I invoke the power of the Paint Goddess to assist me. Now you'll have to excuse me, I have to give my Lightbringer and Good Priest a green bath and make them look less shoddy! :p Help me Obi-Anne Kenobi, you're my only hope! :laugh:

In the past I've used a toothbrush holder to transport brushes. Ya know, one of those two part cantainers that ya use when travelling, etc. That's probably not the best way to do it, but it worked for me and I didn't (and still don't) have any super fancy $200 hair-from-a-critter-that-only-lived-for-30-minutes-in 1762 brushes. :p

For those of you who paint at work or travel a lot (like to conventions), what do you put your paints and brushes in to get them from point A to point B? ATM I have a mixture of Reaper, GW, Tamiya, Cheapie Wallyworld and Vallejo paints though I am slowly making the switch to all Vallejo. Also, what do you keep the minis in to keep the paint from getting scrapped off?

I have a rather hard time painting skin, esp on female models. Faces aren't too bad, but arms and legs n stuff are more difficult. On male figures it's not quite as hard, cuz they all have bulging pectoral muscles and the like. But on smooth lines like, oh say, a certain gigantic succubus, it's much more difficult to bring out the subtlties. Advice? Tips? Tricks?