Hells_Clown

Why is it that if acrylic paints are water based that added water to thin them causes them to seperate? I don't suppose there's a way to thin paint without causing it to break up? One of the reasons I don't like thinning my paints is I spend too much time stirring it to reblend the colors and it seems to seperate while I'm putting it on my brush. Are some paints better and staying together than others?

Actually black is not the best color to use if you want to hide in the dark. Dark blues or grays work better. I'd mix up some dark blue and black and use that as a base then highlight with the dark blue. I'm trying that with a horse I'm working on. Hope that helps.

I AM in Texas! When, oh Mighty One, is this club meeting? I'm in Houston, I might be able to plan a day trip for such a purpose. But I don't think 10 hours would be enough. 100 hours and I'd just be starting to almost understand. When 900 years you have reached, understand maybe I will.

Nah, nothing has complex as all that. I'm currently working on Lorielle the elf archer babe. The biggest problem I'm having it detailing her left gauntlet and the flat areas of her chest plate (the breast area isn't too bad, again a raised area gets highlighted, etc) where the straps are, etc. From the pic in the showcase area I see the fold on the side o the glove is highlighed. I didn't even notice that on my figure! I'll have to go back n check. It doesn't help that there's a lot of white on my version and I've prolly painted it all too pale so will have to go back and darken it up a bit and rehighlight it Of course anytime you wanna provide examples I certainly wouldn't mind checking them out. Though based on past examples I'm still unable to draw some of your (going into Dr Evil mode) "mojo" and duplicate what I see in the pics (harkening back to the highlighted metallics thread). But I persevere and march on. Thanks all for the advice, keep it comming. Someday maybe it'll make sense!

In an earlier post I grumbled about not quite understanding how to highlight things. It occured to me just today that the problem I have is highlighting/shading flat surfaces. With a cloak for instance, when there are folds, one highlights the raised parts and shades the recesses. Same with muscles, highlight the big bulging parts, shade the parts in between. But with flat surfaces, like a shoulder pad or a slender thigh...well there's nothing sticking out to highlight. Nothing deep to shadow. It's all the same depth. Sooooo...what, oh might paint gurus (bowing low), is the secret? How does one show depth on a surface which has none? I yearn for an answer.

No, actually I didn't. We're not all as popular as you are.

In my (limited) experience, SG will pretty much take everything off given enough time. For really stubborn stuff, like glue or putty, a soak in nail polish remover for an hour or so will take care of that. I use SG more often due to cost (SG is cheaper, I haven't seen bulk npr) and it doesn't smell as bad. Now if it would only get the paint out of the nooks n crannies w/o having to get a needle or toothpick.

I've started using parsley. It rarely gets used and looks like old dried leaves and debris. I have a small bag of it along with regular flock, static grass, etc. I like the mustard seed cobblestone idea, I'll have to try that one soon. PS Enchantra, did you get my message?

The Evil Gaming Empire's Inquisitor game uses 54 mm figures as well. Andrea and Pegaso both make fantasy figures in 54mm in addition to their historical lines. Expensive, but nice figures. They also come in quite a few parts, some as many as 15 pieces! I have enough trouble with pinning an arm. Though if I had the $$ I'd get a few anyway.

Oh I knew it was, I just wanted to get in on the convo again as well as getting in a comment on that interpersonal dynamic so to speak. I see things a bit differently than the Wiz does apparently. HC *A guy who likes to be on Top of things, if ya catch my meaning*

Not meanig to hijack the thread but when people talk about "thin paint" what do they mean by "thin"? People keep saying to get good results one needs to thin their paint (esp Vallejo) waaaaaaaaaaaaay down. How much? 1 drop paint to a gallon of water? That's purty thin! Usually I do 1:1 paint to water and sometimes (depending on the color) even that is too much. It gets runny and is nearly ink like. This is using plain water, no future or anything. It also doesn't cover in one coat meaning I have to wait a while to paint a second, even third coat. That and the color seperates, requiring constant stirring. So, what's the secret here folks? How to keep the paint from pooling, keep it under control, etc...?

It's a good thing I'm ugly as sin or I'd take offense at that!

sheesh, then I'll have to start replacing all my Vallejo with the new Reaper that I was replacing GW, Reaper, Testors, Tamiya and craft paints with. Though I do like the shading/highlighting scheme. I'd buy that for a dollar. Any word on how much for how much? As for color range, they should just basically copy Vallejo. They have some great colors there. SS Camo Black-Brown, Black-Red, Black-Green...

Ye might also try these: Jenova Project Cool mini or not Beward pop-ups on CMON though. Nasty things those.

My folks just got a digicam and I thought I'd take some pics to upload so everyone here can have a good laugh. It's a 2.5 megapixle cam with a macro mode so it should take good pics, right? Well when I try to get anywhere near a mini with it, in macro or any other mode, all I get is a blurred pic. I'm not a camera adept so with what little info I've given can anyone give me some pointers? What might I be doing wrong?

I like the one book I have from the EURO-MODELLISMO line, painting in Black & White (though there are plenty of figures in there with color other than B&W) and have considered getting the others. I bought two paint guides from Andrea press but they were more "This is how I painted this model" type books while the Modellismo book tells what colors he used, how he blended, etc. Those books have more detail and I still have questions! I'm now enlightened and I'm as miserable as ever.

I've come to realize something. I find highlighting difficult. Most How-to articles on the subject don't do much for me as they seem to go like this: "I used Color X to highlight Color Y..." but they don't say WHERE they put the highlight or why there and not someplace else. Now maybe I'm dense as a load of bricks but sometimes I just stop painting a model cuz I don't know where to go after the base coats. Highlighting a cloak isn't that hard for me, there are clear lines to follow, but on skin or a staff or an axe head it's not always easy to know. Then I have to figure out where highlights on other parts of the mini go so that they all flow and look natural n stuff. That's one of the reasons I find NMM so difficult. Yeah, I can look at pics from others, and I do all the time. I even have a folder on my computer with pics to study. But I can't always tell how a particular section was done. It looks like they just added white there but when I do that it looks terrible and I know there was more to it. That's why I want step-by-painful-step guides on how to do these things. 700 hours of close up video of Anne painting her newest masterpiece? Heck yeah! So is there any hope for me or should I burn all my paint stuff and move into a cave and stare at the wall until I find enlightenment?

The highlights on the cloak look good to me. The shadows are a bit too stark, they look like they are painted on. Try blending out the edges so it looks more like they light fades into the recesses. Hope that makes sense. Over all it looks good to me.

Consider me smacked

I think I remember being told a good example of horizon is rail-road tracks. The point at which they seem to come together is the horizon. If that's wrong feel free to smack me down. But gently, I'm delicate.

Wally world, Lowes, the aforementioned Home Despot. Any place that sells paint should have it.

There'd be no way to make everything fit perfectly, true, but they don't have to. We already take that risk when we make conversions now. We cut, file, putty, etc to get the fit we want. I just think it would be nice to have ready made bits that were made to fit Reaper figs like that Other company does. There would have to be two scales, DH and Warlord but there are already weapon packs in the two sizes. The sculptors would not have to change anything they do now. They would make the figures with the intent that they would stay as they are. If we want to convert them, that's our business. We've all seen those figures that are just about right for a diorama or a PC for an RPG but if only they didn't have that {fill in the blank} it would be so much better. This way it would be a look easier to get the figure we really want. It would offer endless possibilities for conversions as well as having the odd limbs weapons, armor, etc for battle scenes and the like. Reaper already makes things like treasure piles, I would think extra arms, legs, heads and such would be far more useful. But that's just me.

So I was painting and putting figures together and was thinking, "I have a small "bits box" with left over arms and heads and some shields and a couple bases and what not, but wouldn't it be neat if a mini company, oh say like Reaper fer instance, just sold packages of bits? Especially bits that would fit on their figures. Specially for the odd conversion where ya don't want that mini to be holding a shield or what not, but want them to have a staff or hold a severed head. Ya don't see packages of severed heads for sale often. That would be a nifty way for folks to have all the parts they needed to do this or that and not have to buy another complete figure just to chop it up to use the parts elsewhere." That's more or less what I was thinkin'. Anyone else insane like I am and think that's a nifty keen idea? B)

What I've got so far is a Litko base with Elmer's Wood Filler putty on it primed white. It already more or less looks like snow but has no depth n stuff, it's just all white. I was wondering how to make it look more like regular outdoors type terrain. That probably didn't help much, but I still don't have access to a camera!

Can anyone give me some ideas on how to create a nice looking snow base?