Layer Up Kit and Newbie Questions

[sgmustadio]

Hi all! I'm just getting back into mini painting after a 12-year hiatus, and it seemed like a good thing to do during quarantine (and to reduce my screen time before bed). I had forgotten how much fun it was! I am very grateful for the Reaper Learn to Paint kits--I think they're incredibly well designed to teach someone the basics or to take painting to the next level. I remember being able to drybrush and wash decently, but I never got the hang of layering, so the Layer Up! kit was a perfect fit for me.

 

Upon receiving the kit, I noticed it was missing the wizard figure. I sent an email to Reaper, and their amazing customer service got back to me right away and sent a replacement. Good customer service always makes me a fan of a company, so I'm going to support them where I can (e.g. buying more Bones miniatures to paint directly from their website rather than Amazon).

 

Even though I was supposed to paint the wizard first (according to the guide, which, by the way, is very well written and laid out--many kudos to Rhonda Bender for the excellent tutorials!), I couldn't wait, so I jumped to painting the gnome character (once again, super happy about a non-hypersexualized female character...I mean, who goes adventuring in a bikini?!?).

I followed the guide for the bulk of the painting (cloak, skin, blue accessories) but deviated some to try out new techniques (basing, leather highlights, gems, non-metallic metals). She turned out much better than any of my previous miniatures, so I'm really happy about it. I'm starting to understand how layering works! Some things still need a lot of work (such as my attempt at NMM, which is way trickier than I thought it would be).

I still need to add varnish and some grass tufts, but here are some photos of how she turned out:

Now, on to my questions (which is why I'm ultimately posting this in the Tips & Advice section):

 

1. Any tips on sanding, filing, or scraping away mold lines and flash in areas of fine detail? I read a bunch about how the Bones material could be cut with a hobby knife or lightly sanded. I did my best, but I still found some in the finger grooves or by the right ear of the figure. If I sanded/scraped too much, it ruined the detail (which is why I'm not showing the right ear...she no longer has a right ear).

 

2. I did as the guide instructed and painted a base layer directly on the miniature with no thinning or priming (and after scrubbing the miniature with soapy water and a toothbrush). I noticed that the paint has a grainy or bumpy texture to it as a result (see the arm in the close-up photo). Any advice on getting a smoother texture from the paint?

 

3. My brush is starting to look pretty rough after painting only one mini. I've been following (as far as I know) all the best practices: don't get paint in the ferrule, wash regularly, use special soap to clean after a few painting sessions, don't use for drybrusing, etc. Any idea what might be causing a brush to get worn out so quickly?

 

[Serenity]

Nice work!

 

This post may be of help to you.  It was made by Rhonda Bender, who wrote the Learn to Paint Kits.

https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/48668-bones-preparation-glues-putties-mould-lines-etc/

 

When a mold line is hard to scrape or file or sand, covering it up with acrylic medium (like Reaper's brush-on sealer) is an option.

 

Rhonda Bender's blog covers a lot of painting topics, and well worth the read as you progress: https://birdwithabrush.com/

 

Grainy texture is often caused by dry bits of paint.  If you are repeatedly having that same problem with the same paint, I suspect the paint is defective.  This is rare in my experience, but possible. 

 

I'm not sure you're doing anything wrong with the brush.  Some brushes, whether synthetic or some kind of natural hair, don't hold up very well.  If you want a long-lasting brush, try a good-quality sable brush.  Reaper sells some of their own (the ones with black handles), and you can get other brands like Raphael, W&N Series 7, DaVinci Maestro, and Rosemary & Co. These brushes are sold by art stores (like Dick Blick) and Amazon.  Rosemary & Co. sells their own lines.

[ManvsMini]

That's a nice job after a 12-year hiatus! Quite the testament to both your skill and Rhonda's instruction. You even got the eyes looking good!

 

Those are some good links above to check out. Some of them can have a lot of information that you need to sift through. Everyone has their own opinions on how to do things, so I'll just chime in with mine. Rhonda does show up here on the forums periodically/sporadically/whenever she wants (her username is @Wren) and she will answer questions, it just might take her a while to get to them.

 

1. I've always found the white Bones material to be too soft and finicky to sand, even lightly ("lightly" is a ambiguous and relative term anyways). The only reliable way I've found to remove mold lines is by cutting with a hobby knife and avoid scraping motions. I use the tip of the blade for very delicate areas, always making sure the blade is sharp (I have a sharpening stone). And if places require me to use that sharp knife anywhere near my exposed finger-tip flesh, I put on a sewing thimble so that finger now has plate armor.

 

2. Alas, I am not an expert with Reaper paints, as I could never master them. My main issue is the one you are experiencing; sometimes the lighter color paints dry either chalky or bumpy (for me it was the lighter flesh tones, as you have pictured). You could always try what has been suggested for stubborn mold lines, which is to brush over the bumpy areas with some gloss varnish (it will form a shell over top of it and smooth it out, but you might need to do more than one layer), and trying again, but if the issue is with the paint, it will take someone who uses them regularly to provide that insight. I will say, I haven't had that problem when mixing those flesh paints with different color paints to change the skin tone. It might just be certain colors that give off that texture?

 

3. Did that brush come with the kit? Sometimes you just get a bad brush. It doesn't look horrible, but you could take some brush soap, put it on the bristles, reshape the tip and let the soap dry. It'll help get the tip to stay sharp. Just rinse the soap off before you begin painting next time.

[Gadgetman!]

I find that particularly the lighter skin tones will 'misbehave' a lot and go chalky.  

I often use Palomino Gold as a base for these colours, which seems to work for me.

 

And while Bonesium supposedly doesn't need priming, it's also known to not like water-thinned paints in the base layer. 

 

Reaper's Brown or Gray liners work very well as a first layer. 

I usually thin it with one drop of water to two drops of liner, without no ill effect. 

 

As for brushes, absolutely NO ONE will ever get to use my Rosemary&Co brushes. You want to try them, then pry them out of my cold, dead fingers... 

 

What kind of special soap did you use?

 

[SparrowMarie]

I've found the fair skin triad has the problem of going chalky often. Some of the other lighter colors will do this as well but I can't think of what off hand. 

 

Rosemary & Co. are my go to brushes. I really like the Series 33 sables and the Eclipse series for flats, filberts, etc. The Eclipse are synthetic but they stand up to a lot of abuse that I put them through. As @ManvsMini mentioned above try letting some brush soap dry in the bristles. I find that even with all the cleaning and good care I take of them they still poof out when dry without anything in them.

[sgmustadio]

@Serenity - Thank you for the thread and blog links--those are incredibly helpful! I've bookmarked them for future use. Once I'm done painting a few more minis, I'll look into upgrading my brush.

 

@ManvsMini - Thanks for the tips! I'll have to give them a shot. Good to know about the knife being really sharp for the mold lines. I'm glad I'm not the only one that's seen the "bumpy" paints before. I also picked up the Vallejo starter paint set, so I'll try the skin tone in there to see if it has similar issues (I do like how the Layer Up! kit has multiple skin tones, though). And that is the #1 brush that came with the kit. I'll have to try the soap trick you mentioned.

 

@Gadgetman! - I'll experiment with adding a base layer of different colors under the skin tones, thanks for the tip! This is the brush soap I got: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0027AEANE

 

@SparrowMarie - Thanks for the brush recommendation! Do you have a recommendation for skin tone paints for fair skin?

 

[SparrowMarie]

33 minutes ago, sgmustadio said:

Thanks for the brush recommendation! Do you have a recommendation for skin tone paints for fair skin?

 

I like Rosy Skin triad for a pinker skin tone but tones trending towards a browner tone I'll use the Golden Skin triad.

[Al Capwn]

Wow, you did awesome for coming back from 12 years - exceptionally well done!

 

In regards to #1, as others have mentioned, the default bones material is very soft, so it takes careful slicing. Abrading the surface tends to just kinda gum up if anything. Can sand metal and resin, but the bones stuff is just a wee bit too soft for that.

 

In regards to #2, 

Reaper has some great minis and some great paints, but I have found their brighter skin tones (Fair, and even Rosy to a limited extent) problematic in the chalky texture department. I actually hate to say it, but of all the paints I have tried or own, GW is probably my suggestion when it comes to generic Caucasian skin tones.

 

I have been using FW Daler Rowney inks a lot lately, and that has been a key addition to getting smooth skin tones that don't chalk up. You may want to consider adding some White Ink into your tool kit. In my experience, it is the smoothest White I have used, so it is very useful to highlight colors, and it is naturally thinner consistency, so you don't really have to think about thinning it. A really great deep skin shadow color is Reaper Burgundy Wine.

 

In regards to #3,

Looks like the brush you got just is a bit of a dud - which typically does happen in a lot of starter kits. You can try leaving a bit of the Masters soap in the bristles of the brush and form the tip, and that will help it hold its shape a bit. That being said, I would suggest picking up a good quality sable brush in either a size 2 or size 1. There are a few great brands out there and I think all the big players have been mentioned already. I like DaVinci Maestro's smaller size and snap for fine detail work, like edge highlighting in narrow/cramped spaces. However, because the belly on them is a little small, they tend to dry out faster. Raphael 8404 is another popular one, and they tend to have a much bigger belly to them. They can hold more moisture, but they are a little softer (less snappy). W&N Series 7 is probably my new favorite, as it tends to have a balance between DaVinci and Raphael; larger belly than the DaVinci, but has more snap than the Raphael.

 

I have not personally used them, but I have heard great things about Rosemary and Co as well. These brands are all great, and quite honestly, you will likely only notice the differences after painting for a while and if you switch brushes. My personal suggestion would be to start with a W&N Series 7 in size 2 and then if you don't like it, you now have an idea as to what other brush/brand might better suit you.

 

Oh, one final note on brushes - get cheap synthetic brushes for base coat work and save your nice sable brush(s) for the details. This will give your nice sable brushes an even longer lifespan to them. You can snag a cheap pack of #8 craft brushes from Hobby Lobby (the James Wappel brush) or Wal-Mart and use those to block in colors.

 

Welcome back to the hobby, and a great start back into it!

[sgmustadio]

23 hours ago, SparrowMarie said:

 

I like Rosy Skin triad for a pinker skin tone but tones trending towards a browner tone I'll use the Golden Skin triad.

 

Good to know, thank you! I'm finding it difficult to get skin tones down, so I'll keep those in mind.

 

Thank you, @Al Capwn. Doing surface mount soldering for the past decade has definitely helped with brush control, and I've learned to appreciate things like good lighting. I also recently discovered the wonders of using a mini holder (after reading a ton) while painting, as it allows me to brace my hands against something. 

 

I didn't think about using inks to help with consistency, so I might have to invest in some. Appreciate the other tips as well! I didn't know about the differences among the high-end brushes, and so I can see why most people recommend the W&N Series 7.

Edited August 9, 2020 by sgmustadio

[Wren]

I'm glad you're having fun with the kit! I love the base you made for her. NMM is an ambitious technique. I think you did pretty well your first time out. It benefits from a wide range of contrast. Pretty much you have to have black or near black and white or near white, and if you can put those adjacent to each other on different planes, the more of a 'shine' effect you create. It's also demanding in terms of blending since doing the layers with a high range of contrast (black to white) is tougher. There's a pretty good video explaining how to decide where to put highlights on NMM on various shapes. Also note that you can do a similar thing with metallic flake paint. You use the metallic flake paint for the midtone and highlight colours and use layering to paint darker regular paints into shadows. So you create both the shadows and areas that shine less. You can practice the principles for where to place shadows and highlights but it's a bit more forgiving from the blending stand point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zux0HAS8pAw&list=PLfC81fmjjA3dhfTUcvKSaVh8GWW6qI8Nr&index=12&t=91s

Classic Bones miniatures are a great material from the POV of being inexpensive and super durable for games. But they are hard to prep to the same level as you would be able to with a metal or resin figure. I think of them as being for practice, study, testing, game playing, and quick paints, but if I am going to want to prep something to the very highest standard and paint it for a long time to a high standard, I'm going to go with a metal figure if I can. Note that as a painter you are going to see little bits of mould line left under an armpit or in other out of the way locations much more than a viewer will. So it's a balance between the end use for the figure, how much effort you're willing to put in, and how much you're willing to spend. Bones black are a little harder, so scraping as you would on a resin miniature works, but not quite as easily or cleanly as on a resin figure.

Scalpel blades work better than hobby knife blades (also a number 11, and you can put them in hobby blade handles.) You want diamond files not regular files, or something called sanding sticks. And then you file with a SUPER light touch. Like you could do it on your eyelid and it wouldn't hurt lightness of pressure. Filing in just one direction helps as well.

That graininess really does look as if something got into the paint on that section at least. I'm not seeing it on the rest of the figure, the cloak looks really smooth. The face doesn't look like it has chunks and it's the same colour. I see a few possibilities:
 

* It isn't the paint, it's the surface you put the paint onto. Is this an area where you tried files and maybe the Bones plastic got a bit roughed up? 

* Something got in your paint. In the old days you'd get little bits of paint that would dry on the lid and fall into the paint. You're using dropper bottle paint, so that's not it, but are there are ways things could have gotten in your paint? Like did you have paint dry on your palette, and then you put new paint on top and stirred it and you possibly stirred chunks of old dry paint into the new one? I had some miniatures that had a lot of fibres in them, and it turned out that I was pulling fibres up out of my wet palette paper by stirring with a toothpick. If you use a wet palette and leave it out and you have a lot of dust or pollen or whatever that's another way stuff can end up in your paint. 

The normal learn to paint kit brushes are the red handle synthetic series that Reaper sells on their website. Reaper does not make brushes on site, and there are occasionally supply issues with keeping these in stock. When that happens they make up the kits with brushes from a different supplier, because otherwise it might be months before they could restock on kits while they wait for the next brush shipment to come in. The one you showed the picture of looks like the kind of brush that gets subbed in. I designed the kits using the synthetic series. Natural hair brushes are great, and there are things you can do with them that are harder with a synthetic brush, but they're not quite as sturdy in some ways so they don't always hold up well to the brute force type mini painting jobs like jabbing base coats in crevices and such. (And the substitute brushes they get are okay but not amazing brushes for natural hair brushes.) 

If you have a Joann's or Michael's craft store  near you, you could try buying a white nylon or golden taklon synthetic brush from them, and it would be very similar to the synthetics you can buy from Reaper. Or if you see some that have black looking hairs that seem like they hold a nice point, there are some synthetics with darker bristles now too. It does look like Reaper is currently out of stock on the smaller sizes of their synthetic brushes. If you can, bring an unpainted miniature with you so you can judge the size of the brushes against how you'll use them. Brush number systems are not standardized across brands. You don't necessarily want only super teeny tiny brushes, in fact it's a good idea to have a decent size brush or two, but you don't want like a size 3 or 4 that's intended for canvas painting. (While you're there you can also sneak over to the floral department and see if there are any tiny dried flowers to use on bases. You definitely want a miniature in hand for that, it's so easy to think flowers are small in the store that turn out not to be when you go home and put them next to a mini...)

Thank you for the kind words on the kit, it means a lot! You really did a terrific job with this one, congrats!

Wren aka Rhonda Bender

[sgmustadio]

Thank you, @Wren! I feel like I'm learning a lot with the kit and by trying out different techniques. I used to work for an electronics company where I designed a few kits and tutorials for beginners, so I have an appreciation for all the hard work and thought process that you put into the kits! I definitely appreciate the video link--it does a great job of explaining where the light is falling on metallic objects (especially flat objects, which I'm struggling with). 

 

Also, thank you for the tips. I didn't think of watching the paint on my palette--I've always assumed I can just keep dumping new paint on old (drying out) paint, which may be the culprit. I just started experimenting with a wet palette, and I'm enjoying how long it keeps the paint wet and workable. I use a Tupperware lid with a moist paper towel under some parchment paper. I put the Tupperware bottom on top of the lid and keep it upside down in my refrigerator, which seems to keep some of the paint wet until my next session. I'll make sure to stay away from paint once it's starting to dry out.

 

I'm doing my best to just use the #1 brush that came with the kit and only use the #3/0 brush for hard-to reach details (e.g. under an arm). I was able to do the eyes and pupils with the #1, so it does seem that keeping a good tip is more important than smaller bristles (as people have mentioned). My goal is to finish all 3 minis in the kit before looking to upgrade my brush.

[Wren]

If you're pretty confident that you're going to keep on with painting, I don't see any harm in getting some additional brushes and starting to find out what you might like to use different brushes for and so on. But of course that is your choice!

 

I like to use a wet palette to keep my paint in good shape while I'm painting, but I find I prefer fresh paint for each new painting session. Sometimes I'll use yesterday's paint to do a few touch-ups, but it almost always gets more watery or thicker or falls out of suspension. With layering in particular, controlling your consistency and dilution as precisely as possible can be very helpful in making it easier (or at least less frustrating.)

 

If I am working with a hard colour or big area where I want a super smooth result, I use a welled palette. Anne Foerster uses the same one I do, and you can see it in her RTB videos on the Reaper Twitch channel/YouTube channel. It has smaller wells compared to the flower palettes or the big circle ones you can get cheap at Walmart and hobby stores. Smaller wells mean less paint and it evaporates more slowly. It may seem counter-intuitive, but I do preserve paint in those over several days by placing nearly dripping wet sponges over it. (Sort of a reverse wet palette.) I've got a picture of the palette and a better of the description of the process in this blog post:

https://birdwithabrush.com/2020/04/22/problem-solving-succubus-skin/

[sgmustadio]

I just learned about ReaperCon Live, so I made a few (read: lots of) purchases so I can participate in the classes  With that, I ordered a Raphael 8404 #1 based on many recommendations (and it was a little cheaper than a W&N Series 7 from blick.com). So, we'll see how I like it!

 

That welled palette looks like a cool idea, and the number of layered colors is impressive, going from the darkest tone to the lightest. I can see how, with such time and effort (and no small amount of skill), you're able to make super smooth transitions. Thank you for all your help, @Wren !