Bones: The First Coat is the Difference

[Wren]

shadowstich - The glass and tile medium I tested was the second one you listed, product #869 on the Plaid website.

 

I am unfamiliar with the third product you listed, and the only way to know if it would work as a primer or wash medium would be to test it. Since it's for enamel rather than acrylic paint, I would not expect it to work mixed with the type of craft or miniature paints most people are using for Bones. My guess would be that a regular flow improver/aid would also not work for a wash straight on Bones since it contains a lot of water.

 

Returning after a few moments... I decided to test my guess, and I am wrong! I tested Golden flow aid undiluted (bravely ignoring the label's admonishment to always thin product with water), and Reaper's Flow Improver as wash mediums. I had two of the original skeletons remaining, so the products were tested on the same batch. Both performed very well in terms of not beading up, and in acting like a decent wash. They're a little slower drying than some of the other products, and are drying with some sheen. I think they're also more expensive than the Glass and Tile medium if you were going to be doing washes in quantity.

 

I thought flat and matte were equivalent terms, so I'm not sure what to tell you there. I have found painted Bones sturdy enough that I haven't really been too motivated to test sealers yet. And I'm saying that as a person who normally paints display miniatures that I have had to find increasingly arcane methods to package safely for travel. The Bones case or the most minimal of protection like keeping the figures from rubbing against one another like sheets of bubble wrap or paper towel is probably all you'd need once the paint has a few days to fully cure. I toss all these sample figures in a baggie or box together without a second thought both for home storage and to cart them to conventions.

 

The other reason I haven't really tested sealers is I don't have as many of those at hand to test, and while I was willing to buy a few products for the sake of the experiments, my wallet thinks I shouldn't go too crazy with that. ;-> I am hoping to try Future, Testors Dullcote and Future + Testors at some point. (I don't mix Future with paint anymore, but I keep it around for protective gloss sealing and to shine up water effects and such.) I think I also have a can of art store archival spray kicking around.

[Doug Sundseth]

I thought flat and matte were equivalent terms, so I'm not sure what to tell you there.

 

Yeah, sometimes they're completely synonymous and sometimes matte is a bit more glossy than flat. (For example.)

 

Depends on who you're talking to.

[Wren]

As far as sealers go, I was under the impression that Dullcote was as flat as it gets?

[Doug Sundseth]

That's the one everyone swears by (and occasionally at). I don't know of a flatter surface coat.

[happycamper]

Bottom line, if I wanted to just "dirty up" some undead skeletons, would I need to base coat with pure Reaper paint (white or bone white?) and then do the dillute wash type thing to bring out some details? Or do you recommend that dillute with Reaper sealer + 1 drop of water thing you post for your own skeletons?

 

As a total painting newb (I did try to "spruce up" my War of the Rings game, to poor effect) I'm looking to figure out what sort of minimal effort I can put into painting to get maximal effect.... for monsters and such I'm hoping for that 20% effort to get 80% of the effect... once I'm practiced and maybe have a main character I want to paint I could go into more details....

[ShadowRaven]

with skeletons. Any of the main white colours will do, then a dilluted was with brown will both bring out the details and darken and dirty the bones. For minimal effort, maximal result, I would suggest you look at the army painter dip method.

 

 

and if you can stand the "Julia Child" knock of voice

[happycamper]

with skeletons. Any of the main white colours will do, then a dilluted was with brown will both bring out the details and darken and dirty the bones. For minimal effort, maximal result, I would suggest you look at the army painter dip method.

 

 

That doesn't look that much more work than doing a diluted wash with something dark... is dip nice because it also seals it or something?

 

and if you can stand the "Julia Child" knock of voice

[ShadowRaven]

yeah, it seals and protects the minis with a urethane coat, and with the dunk and shake method in the second video, you can knock off whole groups of figures in a hurry.

[Dibbler]

yeah, it seals and protects the minis with a urethane coat, and with the dunk and shake method in the second video, you can knock off whole groups of figures in a hurry.

 

I read this as "knock out whole groups of fingers" and watched the videos to see what the danger was. I need to trust my first read trough less when I'm tired!

[Wren]

You can go either way, especially for skeletons. You can base coat with an undiluted white or bone colour and then do a wash thinned with water. Or you can use a wash thinned with Reaper Sealer or one of the other substances I mentioned working directly on the Bones material.

 

If you have a few skeletons, try a few in one and a few in the other method? It'll be a nice way to practice different techniques and materials and get a feel for yourself how they work on Bones, and then you'll have slightly different looking skellies for a bit more variety on the table?

 

Bottom line, if I wanted to just "dirty up" some undead skeletons, would I need to base coat with pure Reaper paint (white or bone white?) and then do the dillute wash type thing to bring out some details? Or do you recommend that dillute with Reaper sealer + 1 drop of water thing you post for your own skeletons?

[Laoke]

Bottom line, if I wanted to just "dirty up" some undead skeletons, would I need to base coat with pure Reaper paint (white or bone white?) and then do the dillute wash type thing to bring out some details? Or do you recommend that dillute with Reaper sealer + 1 drop of water thing you post for your own skeletons?

 

As a total painting newb (I did try to "spruce up" my War of the Rings game, to poor effect) I'm looking to figure out what sort of minimal effort I can put into painting to get maximal effect.... for monsters and such I'm hoping for that 20% effort to get 80% of the effect... once I'm practiced and maybe have a main character I want to paint I could go into more details....

 

I've painted up a batch of the skellies already, and tried a few things on them

 

Painting them with a white basecoat, doing a strong walnut brown wash over them and then lightly drybrushing them with linen white over the top gives a very 'aged bone' look. Sort of brown and grungy, like they've just dug themselves out of the grave.

 

Lining them with blue liner, painting white over the top and then doing a blue wash / white highlight gives a much cleaner looking skelly. Here's a shot to show you what I mean:

 

 

[happycamper]

I've painted up a batch of the skellies already, and tried a few things on them

 

Painting them with a white basecoat, doing a strong walnut brown wash over them and then lightly drybrushing them with linen white over the top gives a very 'aged bone' look. Sort of brown and grungy, like they've just dug themselves out of the grave.

 

Lining them with blue liner, painting white over the top and then doing a blue wash / white highlight gives a much cleaner looking skelly. Here's a shot to show you what I mean:

 

Very cool stuff. The white ones do look nice. What's lining with blue liner? You then did a thin white (to let blue through?) with a blue wash followed by a white dry brush?

[Pingo]

 

 

I've painted up a batch of the skellies already, and tried a few things on them

 

Painting them with a white basecoat, doing a strong walnut brown wash over them and then lightly drybrushing them with linen white over the top gives a very 'aged bone' look. Sort of brown and grungy, like they've just dug themselves out of the grave.

 

Lining them with blue liner, painting white over the top and then doing a blue wash / white highlight gives a much cleaner looking skelly. Here's a shot to show you what I mean:

Very cool stuff. The white ones do look nice. What's lining with blue liner? You then did a thin white (to let blue through?) with a blue wash followed by a white dry brush?

Lining is drawing a dark but thin paint into the "lines" -- the cracks and crannies that separate parts -- of a mini. Some people draw literal lines in the shadowy areas, but a lot of them, me included, let the paint wick in of its own.

 

It's a way to give definition to separate areas of a figure, especially if they are close in color.

 

"Liner" is a way minis hobbyists refer to the special thin paint that is sold specifically for lining. It's useful stuff, although I personally mix my own.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Pingo

[Laoke]

What Pingo said, basically.

 

With table-top quality miniatures, which frankly is about all I'm capable of, you tend to get better results with more contrast. What I do is I line the figures with a dark liner shade - currently, Brown Liner for organic figures, Blue Liner for undead / constructs (rule of thumb - I do over-ride this from time to time like using Carnage Red to line an albino troll). The lines are at transition points in the figures - where they go from skin to clothing for example. Then you base coat over the top of the liners.

 

It gives two things - good definition points and it also means anything you miss with the base coat for whatever reason doesn't stand out as much. I still do washes as well, but it tends to make the points of transition darker and more contrasty.

 

Although I don't bother with thin lines. I hammer it on Bones and, as Buglips says, just slobber the liner where it needs to go. Subtlety be hanged.

 

So, for the bluish skellies above, I

• Cleaned the figures before painting
• Did a heavy blue liner pass
• Base coated in Linen White
• Washed in a blue wash (Sapphire Blue, from memory)
• Highlighted up with Pure White

If I'd gone with a off-white for the highlights I think they'd be less... clean looking. And I could have highlighted up in a more subtle transition from blue to white. But I was experimenting and wanted to see how it'd turn out, and as an experiment I think they worked quite nicely. It was a fast, easy paint job that gave pretty much the effect I was looking for. I'm thinking of trying some dark green / yellow lining on the ones coming from the Kickstarter and seeing how that looks. It's also worth noting that I didn't drybrush these guys, I highlighted them instead.

 

The drybrushed white skellies with a brown wash really do look like Bone that's been buried for a while, which is a really nice effect. Drybrushing Bones that are that narrow in places can be an exercise in frustration though, you really do need to be light on the brush for them.

 

At the end of the day - Bones are perfectly suited to experimenting with. It costs so little you can afford to churn through a bunch of skellies looking for the affect that you want. So I'd recommend going nuts! Paint rainbow skellingtons! Each rib a different color! Paint them as if they're Manny from Grim Fandango! Base coat them a solid black and drybrush them up to white! Dip them in tar!

 

Well, OK, maybe not the last. But you get my point - this is the point where you can work out your own style and techniques.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Laoke

[happycamper]

Thanks for all the advice. I think I'll skip lining for now, do a white base coat then play with dirty or blue washes for old or fresh looks. A two step process sounds awfully tempting to start.