Why It's Smart to Paint BORING MINIS
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ธ.ค. 2023
- It's hard to practice painting on models you really like - especially when you're not sure of yourself.
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Best bit of advice I got this year was "Be brave enough to suck at something new". Once you get that in your head, you won't quit when your minis don't match the box art. Great video!
Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.
Back in the day when I first started painting miniatures. I practiced on plastic green army man and the plastic bags of cowboys and Indians. You could get these at almost every toy store anywhere and they were dirt cheap. I would go to yard sales and try to find RISK board games. The older games of RISK had miniatures in them. They had artillery, infantry and cavalry figures. I would pick these up at yard sales and practice painting on those also. It turned me into a painter. I was never a good war gamer. I never did find a game that I liked. But to this day I still paint all kinds of figures because I enjoy doing that part of the hobby.
D&D helped me here a bunch. Someone has to paint all the bad guys. Whoever does ends up with the best looking mini for their character.
You are going to need a dozen or more goblins, orcs, skeletons, zombies, wolves, rats, etc., etc., etc.
After all that, my little dwarf warrior was a snap, and didn’t look half as bad as the goblins that I got my feet wet with.
This is actually one of the things that Warhammer: Fantasy Battle was really good for back in the day. Since you would have blocks of chaff, for lack of a better term, it gave you plenty of time and chances to practice on figures that you would still use in your army, but could be hidden fairly easily on the tabletop, before you started on your character figures.
It's still that way in Historicals. Look at how many figures you get in a box from Victrix , Perry or Warlord and compare the price point.
Love the tips. 100% agree with starting simple. I had some models set aside for months as I built the skill to paint them at least decently.
1 warning: Wizards “Pre-Primed” models are not. They are just a plastic that doesn’t fully reject paint. One of my friends thought they were a terrible painter for MONTHS because their minis look awful. Then they actually primed a Wizards mini and their painting drastically “Improved”.
Handy to know, Ty!
I try two wizkids models and quickly bounced off them because they felt terrible to do. Good to know a simple primer will solvr it! They make good cheap side-projects!
It’s funny you mention the person who gets complicated models right away.
Let me share my story.
Last year…I saw a few paint schemes for Lady Olynder and I was completely in love with that model and I knew I wanted one but I had never painted a model before.
So I developed a plan.
I bought a cheap resin printer and I taught myself how to use that and set it up so it’s safe.
I started painting 3-10 miniatures a week. Super basic stuff. MZ’s 3d print models for D&D were a great and valuable tool. Just enough detail to be understood, and were easy to print.
I also only used folk art craft paints until about 3 months ago because I wanted to have and learn to use the variance of colors right from the get go, but also learn painting by using the worst possible paints.
This allowed me to not only appreciate miniature paints, but actually understand the flow and pigmentation of these pricier lines.
I’ve got easily hundreds of hours now. I’m still going. Every time the goal is to learn something I didn’t know before, or to practice that thing I did last time.
Lady Olynder is my white whale, and one day I’m going to paint her. I don’t know when that day is, but I’m going to buy her at the start of the new year and leave her sealed on my shelf in the event she gets discontinued.
Idk if any of this means anything and I’m sure it’s wildly inefficient to some or wasteful to others but I have genuinely improved at a rate that a year later has left me floored. I never thought I would be this good at skill like painting, and I know I have so much further to go but I’m proud of myself none the less.
Your plan is perfect. Your method is time consuming but then Lady Olynder is worth it.
A good practice fodder kit IMO is still the Runtherd and Gretchin box- £15 from GW directly [cheaper elsewhere] for 11 fairly detailed minis, £1.36 per model, and some of them don't even need assembly.
Just over a year in and this advice is great, as always. Things I’d add, if I may: it is very, very difficult to mess up a model so badly that it’s wrecked - even before you even need to think about getting out stripping materials - so don’t be afraid to just dive in and try.
Second: I’d actually also recommend the opposite of this video as well (as well, not instead of): try something new on every model you paint. I got into this mindset early and it was great for learning. I started painting some Ogors from AoS and decided on each I’d try different skin tones or techniques. Some have light skin, some dark, some have tattoos, some have battle damage, some were wet blended (sort of!), some were chunky highlights…my point is, models that excite you shouldn’t be reserved for when you’ve got it “right”, but you should use that excitement to drive improvements, use that motivation to experiment.
This, 100%. I'm at the point where I'm experimenting with washes and dry brushing. Its cathartic to try something new and push the perfectionist in my head aside with "well... not what I expected, but that's kinda neat. On the next one I should try..."
Sage advice as always. I got back into the hobby with the consistent drudgery of painting all of Imperial Assault's stormtroopers. The merciless precision needed for black and white minis did wonders for my brush control and gave me a new appreciation for the rest of the color palette.
At one point I amassed 100 Ork boyz for my Ork army, and knowing that I’d be painting that many I allowed myself to make mistakes. In the end these mistake wouldn’t even be visible in big groups of boyz. Plus, most of those minis were secondhand, so they weren’t my pride and joy after hours of building them. I had a blast blasting through those models and the end result, seeing 100 painted orks in a big mob, was amazing!
I’ve used the Army Painter color primers on Reaper Bones. I can confirm that they work pretty well. Hit the finished model with a varnish and the stickiness is minimal. Basically, they will stick to each other, but not to your fingers.
I use them for wargaming armies and it’s pretty awesome. You can toss a whole army of varnished Bones miniatures into a plastic tub with no padding and travel to the game store. No problems and no breakage.
I’ve used their Bones Chronoscape line to create a Space Marine army of several thousand points. And their fantasy line has created a human army, including infantry, cavalry and war machines. Thanks so the Bones material I never have to worry about spears, lances, or swords breaking.
Highly recommended!
Great advice! I’ve learned that practicing all aspects of the hobby helps you get your own style too. My best “win” was practicing magnet sheets for mini storage. I modified the “rare earth magnets” to washers on bases connected to magnet sheets in a container. It’s my favorite practice makes perfect moment for me.
Just recently got into mini painting, and I definitely agree and recommend getting models you enjoy but aren’t too worried about messing up. I bought the cheapest set of tyranids at my local tabletop store, and some commando droids for Star Wars Legion. Every model I want to try different techniques and color schemes. All of my minis are extremely colorful now lol. Planning on getting some space marines next, I really want to try out some techniques on bulky armor.
Been at the hobby for two years now and I'm only just really feeling that I'm not completely terrible at painting. One of my first sets was 9th Edition Elite box, the paint job I did on both the necrons and the Space Marines was horrible, I recently stripped and repainted them and the difference between the original jobs and new versions was like night and day. I think having some space marines is a good idea, lots of flat panels but with good spaces to try edge highlighting (though I still struggle with that) and free hand when you build confidence. Also going to an event and picking up loads of super cheap 3D printed models is also a great idea. I think scale is a big thing too, I wish I'd started with the Sisters of Battle rhino instead of the Horus Heresy Rhino as my first vehicle, or even jet bikes. Painting a rhino one or two colours is a long and dull experience that almost stopped me from buying more vehicles. Start small and build to the models you really want.
I've recently got back into painting by studying on TH-cam and practicing on my old models; 3 years in and I'm now starting to paint mostly new stuff and with actual mini paints. Everything is Practice 🙂
I agree. Practice on dumbies. Then branch out and experiment with minis. Somthing iv noticed seems to be a trend that myself and several friends of mine have done, is get into 40k. Buy all these minis paint them. And since you literally start your painting career with the minis you wana use they look terrible. All un uniform. And generally just kinda crap. Once you get to the point you are kinda happy with your skills your out of minis. And your whole army looks crap minus one or two you just are starting to be proud of. So naturally you buy a different army and THAT ONE. that is the one that you will put your skills to work on. Really make it look smoking hot. I did the process 3x. Started with ultra marines. Went to space wolves. Then to crimson fists. And I'm happy to say my crimson fists look freaking great. My other friend recently did the same going against what I tried to tell him. He started with chaos space marines. Went to imperial guard. And now wants to go to space wolves. That is a ton of wasted money.
I have used both Army Painter White and Armory White spray cans for priming Reaper Bones minis. To counter any stickiness I let the sit/dry after priming for several hours and use Vallejo brush-on Gloss varnish and Army painter anti-shine. They come out non-sticky and a little more durable for gaming.
You don't need to prime reaper bones at all, that's the whole thing! I sprayed painted bones models with a varnish and it made them forever sticky, but those were the older white bones. The newer stuff doesn't seem to react in that sticky way to the varnish. The bones models are a bit hydrophobic though. Using super thin paints would probably not be a fun time without priming first.
The bag of old tactical marines used for test is a staple of my hobby, kindly nicknamed ''Test-itcals'' marines. Great vid as always!
LA Totally Awesome and Simple Green taught me that no miniature can be permanently "screwed up". If I totally botch something I know I can strip it and start again knowing what I did wrong. Someone I believe once said knowing is half the battle lol. 😉
Stripping the paint off the mini and trying again is also great practice. Thanks for watching!
Thank you for this, I have been painting the minis I like and doing a bit like you warn, messing them up, meanwhile I have several boxes of already primed 3d prints of patreon stl space marines, mechs and a ton of other misc ones I have put away because I finally settled on a game system that was not them and began painting that. I am going to dig those out to have to just fiddle around with. Considering the total cost of a resin printed mini is about 20 cents it will be little pressure to 'get it right' and just explore and learn on.
I didn’t mention 3D printed models in the video since I figured a new painter probably wouldn’t have access to a 3D printer, but that’s also a great place to get boring models. Thanks for watching!
I've been painting about 5 yrs now, I'm not as good as my friends think and I'm not where I want to be, so I have bought a cheap lot of minis that I am going back through and watching vids and practicing the basic techniques, and working my way up to glazing and wet blending with practiced hands and mind, I hope to get better and build a new lvl with my fundamentals, Unc, you, Vince, Sam, Scott and Jon have become teachers and mentors in a world I never knew I could love, Thank and I look fwd to going back to the basics with all of you all over again!
Oh man, this resonates with me. I first got into Middle Earth Strategy Battles Game as my first Wargame. I bought a full Rivendell Army. I tried painting a single elf and the results were pretty disheartening. So i went out and bought some Orcs to develope basic techniques on, since it was both more in-character for them to be sloppy, and I cared less.
LOL. I feel ya. My first army was Skaven. Yeah, it is okay if they look a little rough.
The best mini painting advice I've gotten was "buy some green army men or other small set of toys to practice on". I found a bucket of small dinosaurs that were perfect for practicing Nids.
When I got back into hobby miniature painting after decades of not doing it, I agree to pick up a fantasy painting miniature kit to get used to it. It wasn't great minis but a great guide to learn the basics.
I agree on it's a great resource too for just wanting a break from 40k to just paint up a wizard or knight, when at a friendly local game store to get some warhammers or paints, get some fantasy minis to just paint up to use as NPCs, tokens, repaint into statue terrain or try out some contrast paint.
Even more fun are some game stores with so many minis they might have random box/bags of individual mystery minis to get some fun assorted ones to try out or see if there's a game to use them.
My first models were Plague Marines.. wish I'd started with Space Marines or Necrons.
Yet another use for the excellent stargrave boxes.
Great advice, as usual! I like to keep a couple of metal minis around for testing/practicing. Especially ones that are cast in one piece, they are infinitely repaintable. They are easy to strip when you need to.
That said, for anyone with a backlog of unpainted minis, I suggest just setting your expectations a little lower and paint your "real" minis. Most miniature collections have rank-and-file basic troops or generic adversaries that you'll want a bunch of, and won't ever be showcase models. Just paint those, and don't worry if they don't turn out to be your best.
They'll probably be better than you think, and definitely better than still sitting in the box. If you get through all of those (you probably won't), you can buy more minis (you probably were going to), or better yet, you can treat that first paint job as a base for painting over with your mad new skills.
Paint bravely!
I have two types of minis I keep around for testing techniques and paint schemes: a big lot of deadwalker zombies from Cursed City box splitters, and some historical Dark Age warriors.
The former are great for contrast paints and skin tone tests, since you can try pretty much any colour and 'deadify' them with glazed shades afterwards.
And the latter have big flat areas that are good for getting a feel for coverage / glazing.
Ikeep them by the painting station. If I need to test something, I'll grab one and put the colour down. Over time, they get fully painted up, so I finish any bit remaining and they go into use as AoS or Frostgrave minis.
That way nothing feels like wasted effort!
This is a great idea.
This comes the morning after I started a project I’ve been mulling over for more than a decade: painting the pieces to my Axis & Allies game. Perfect.
Fully agreed. I bought cheap d&d minis when I was starting out go get an idea of things before I worked on something nice. And I still buy a few to test out new colour schemes before I paint up my nice models.
I've had no issues using Chaos Black from Citadel and Army Painter Matt White spray cans on Reaper minis.
This is fantastic advice. When I started painting, I began with an old 40k ork grunt box from like 2002 that I didn’t care about and I learned so much in that time.
This year i made it my goal to paint as much as possible and try different things. Luckily i had quite a large backlog of game minis to paint so lots of material. I started with troopers and other generic things and moved on to characters and super heroes from MCP. I have taken some of the things you said to heart, like the thought of "how much do you actually practice painting" well this year it was a lot :)
I have got a lot of comments on my painting this year which feels great, and when asked about how i got better the answer is always the same, i put time in. This year i painted just around 275 models, that volume has even just changed the way i block colors and how i think about orders. Doing that volume exposed me to so many situations it not only improved my physical skill but the thought process as well :)
Long story short practice practice, practice!
multipart Northstar stuff is always great practice! not unnecessarily detailed, lots of opportunity for all skill levels to practice what they need, from base coating to free handing
Also I love painting all my heads bits, it’s great practice for face painting plus whenever I finish a model’s body I don’t need to paint a head, I just choose whichever I like with it and it’s already painted
Battletech minis are great for that, you have nice hard edges and panel lines, many have cockpits that are large enough to try different ways to do color gradients. I like them as pallet cleansers because with a zenathol speed paint, and some accents you can bang through one real quick and it looks nice with just practice on fundamentals.
Agreed. And the Urbanmech Company is pretty cheap!
Necrons. To a lesser extent, Poxwalkers. As you said, Space Marines. And now, probably Tyranid gaunts. All models, mostly push fit, that you can find cheap on line, or by asking around the FLGS. I notice Warlord often has clearance models on sale.
Sadly, my retail therapy condition means I always have too many things to paint. 🤪 Imperial Guard? ‘Nuff said.
I've never had any issues priming Reaper Bones with Army Painter rattlecan primers. But I've always made a point of scrubbing the models with soapy water first.
Managed to get my hands on a lot (a BIG lot) of Descent 2nd edition stuff, core box, expansions, monster packages, etc. The minis are vinyl polymers, not the hard plastic ones but the more "bendy" kind, and while a bit of a hassle to clean up from mould lines and whatnots, they're my favorite test-bed to try new paints and techniques (Speedpaints, Xpress Paints, slapchop, wet blends, etc.).
"Older edition" boardgames are a treasure trove for testing material.
Army Painter Desert Yellow works for me on Reaper, but Army Painter Uniform Grey turned them sticky! be ware!
CMON models are great - they are cheap as hell in a big box and lots of the same sculpts so you can see improvements between start ones and end ones. They are also decently detailed (having a bad model makes beginner painting a nightmare!) for board game quality and really can show off details for those speedpaint/contrast/inks/slapchopping and make a beginner feel encouraged to keep going. Also because they are so mass market - lots of examples seeing how different creators have painted them differently (style, colors, mediums). Thanks for another positively encouraging video!
I loved this idea fom the start of my hobby journey. After a few starter kits from GW, I picked up a massive lot of rune wars minis. Super cheap, got elves, skeletons, humans and demons. Then kept practicing, and still do!
This is one of the reasons I got myself a resin 3d printer on black friday this year. I can now produce minis myself by the boatload, so I can get as much practice as I want, on a huge variety of models, without having that fear of "ruining" a model. You can always strip paint off a model, but that is generally a headache.
I came back to the hobby after 15 years, and with youtube and the internet well saturated with helpful personalities and advice I was able to combine my improved art skills in general with the tips and tricks of pros who stayed in the hobby while I was away. I'm getting pretty damn good at it now.
And that's why I own a Resin printer and subscribe to Anvil digital forge. If the batch that you printed out and painted doesn't look right you can always just print out another batch for a new paint scheme
If it is a new Reaper 'Dungeon Dwellers', they do react better - but better to be safe than sorry and just brush prime. The propellant in the rattle cans reacts with the pvc of the older minis.
If you know somebody with a 3D printer, ask for some failed prints to practice on. They'll probably give you a bunch for free!
That’s a good point. I have a failed print project on my desk right now! Thanks for watching!
Or considering the cost of 3d printing material, minis printed for the purpose of practice.
There was a cheap game called Reign that had 30 some minis and only cost $15. I still use some of the robots as the space station zero robot sometimes!
I have some older Space Marines and Space Orcs I test, try and practice on. And then they go into my collection for skirmish sci-fi games. :D
To test color schemes and things like what a contrast will look like over a given base color or metallic, I have a lot of dollar store army men I use.
Thank You So Much!! I've been trying to figure out why the Bones minis I've been painting have been sticky for months now. It's the Spray primer! I could not find this anywhere! This was Army Painter primer I was using, and they came out sticky at the end.
+1 for watching beginner tutorials/tutorials for familiar things on youtube. I do this all the time, and I still find approaches or other little tidbits almost every time.
Given my age and the length of time I have been painting stuff, I always have bits and bobs about the place for trying something new. One of the last things I did in detail was when the GW washes and shades came out. I grabbed an old 1/32 scale French Grenadier and went to town. There is a plethora of detail to mess about with and I got a real feel for layering edge highlighting and the use of Agrax Earthshade in particular. 1/32 is about 54mm so a decent size to mess with.
Great advice! I did something similar with my cousin who is new to painting-- we painted some scrap pile terrain pieces. Painting barrels (a technically very boring model) is great for brush control! By the end he was confident enough to paint some toxic ooze leaking out of them.
I'm a veteran painter and this channel made me aware of cheap dollar store makeup brushes for drybrushing which are amazing, cheap and vastly superior to the overpriced brushes made for it. It's tips like this that bring me back to your content.
I've been to a few game stores that had bins in the back with used donated minis (mostly from games like HeroClix) that they sell for like $1 apiece, so I keep a few of those on hand for testing new techniques and materials on
Army Painter works on Reaper if you hold the can waaay back. Like, 16 inches away. I think the distance allows the propellent (what is rumored to keep the models sticky) to dissipate before it reaches the model. So, you'll need an utterly still day outside because the stronger the breeze, the closer you must be to make sure the paint hits the model.
I like priming up bits of models that I didn't use and testing out techniques on those, especially if I'm trying out new colourschemes and want to see how they look on something as close as possible to the target mini.
I started with Hobgrots. They were great practice models
To add to your comments... "Boring" models also typically have fewer fiddly details which means it's not only easier to paint but easier to see what you're doing. I think it helps you focus on the thing you're attempting to practice instead of getting lost in superfluous details.
I have a collection of Battletech models from the 80s and 90s (metal and plastic) that I have been practicing on before working on the ne CGL models. Also have the Robotech game from a few years ago that I could use but have not braced myself to build them yet. Good idea about board game models that could use some color and to practice on.
I got back into the hobby painting 1st edition zombicide and army painter starter set. Great way to start and zombies are very forgiving if you make errors.
I've been trying to get back into painting after a break of 20 years. I had a false start a few months ago and am waiting get going again; should be easier now I have a dedicated, albeit small, painting area. I'm starting off with the miniatures from the Human Interface: Be A Better Human complete set I bought direct from Post Industrial Games; trying out Army Painter Speed Paints on the 'squads' before progressing to the character models.
Practicing on a few easy to build models GW used to sell the Cadian Shock troops, Space Marines and Chaos Cultists before painting some of the new models I later bought that I really want to paint had progressed how I would paint them now.
One time I've also undercoated a sprue of Chaos Marauders shields to try a few colours and paint methods. I wanted to see what they look like in a certain colour other than the art box cover.
I asked my friend to 3d print me dozen or so MKII and MKVI heresy era marines, I keep them on my desk and use them to test new paint schemes, new techniques. It helped me a lot.
I don't do TTRPGS but I print and paint minis and I often keep my failed prints as long as they're reasonably good (ex: a hand pancaked due to inadequate supports) to use for testing ideas and practicing techniques. There's no pressure to paint a keeper with those. There's a 3D studio that also has a free mini you can use to test your resin calibration, so I wind up with a lot of duplicates of this one little dragon guy. Those get used for all kinds of paint tests.
GW primer, I have found, works on the soft plastics.
The only really cheap 28s I've found are from Eureka minis.
I use green army men, from the dollar store, to try new techniques. They have soft details, they are dirt cheap and plentiful, and they are slightly bigger than our standard miniatures.
In the last year I've finally gotten into painting minis using Battletech models, both official models and some I've printed up myself. I've found that they're a nice starting point for painting: the mechs don't have faces, so very fine details aren't really necessary (cockpit glass at worst, and I didn't find that too big an ask). At the same time, there's enough opportunity for details if I want to go for it: plenty of armor panels and joints and stuff.
AP rattlecans work like a charm on Reaper Bones. At least since they have changed from the original “white” bones to the new Bones Black or Bones USA. I rattlecan all of my bones now. If you do get a little tackiness occasionally, then a quick coat of varnish will also help.
Great advice! Also, love the Bob t-shirt!
I don't have any practice models, I usually just go in full ball sack and it works or it doesn't. I like the idea of practice models though, I think I will try that.
No such thing as a boring mini, I paint everything- warhammer fantasy,40k,oldhammer, 1:72 scale 1: 32 scale, all that I buy from sites like Perry, Victrix, Foundry. I even paint the neighbours garden gnomes lol. I Love painting full stop...
I completely support this. I first started painting minis by painting the figures from the original Heroquest. I'm still pretty proud of some of them 8) considering that I was painting with big crappy brushes.
I even learned an important lesson: sometimes mistakes make things better. My younger brother spilled dark blue paint onto one of the mummies. I was so upset at the time. It turned out okay though because after cleaning it up a bit and giving it a bit of over painting it turned out to look like a particularly rotted area.
I definitely shared this with a few new guys to the hobby and I do agree with the idea of test minis
Best primer I've found for Reaper bones is the FolkArt chalky or "ultra matte" acrylic paint. Any chalky acrylic will work, but the folk art brand is consistently good.
Another useful tip Atom. Thanks for sharing.👍👍
Plastic RBT01 MK6 Spacemarine with a power glove... Looks like a crouching small ape marine now. But best highlight surfaces... I have painted it around about 10 times over the same paint.
Uncle Adam doesn't drop nuggets of wisdom. Uncle Adam exposes mineral veins of wisdom.
I love 3d printing for this. I haven't worried about painting since I started because I can just print another one if I feel like I need to do it over. No need to strip and only costs a few bucks at most. Great for practice
I've bought like a bulk set of Victrix warriors and it's honestly been great inbetween models.
60 viking warriors for 50 dollars (plus shipping) and they are decently detailed. I can always buy more easily and it feels nice to make progress while also trying things. I don't feel like putting much care into practice models if I don't see much use in them. I pretty much just use them for paint scheme matching. But the bulk victrix are nice and useful.
Been using a lot of them for other tabletop games and scene settings.
I did this! I bought some Reaper minis to paint and I really enjoyed the process.
Thanks, I needed this going into the new year.
Great points, its difficult to refrain from painting the "best mini ever" before practicing what you want to do. Sometimes good to jump right in but that doesn't always work (speaking from past experience) :-).
You sound like me: “There are 2 reasons…. 1) … and B)..”. Not sure if that was intentional but I loved it. Looking forward to next Friday’s video!
I will try out new painting schemes on some old stormcast eternals i collected through intro games and friends not wanted to play aos.
Using the same model as a representation for a certain paintscheme really teaches me where benefits and flaws of new techniques show up the most.
Praise “Bob”! And may your Slack floweth over!
Yes even though I’ve been doing this hobby for a while now, I’ll still always paint the coolest-looking model last. I wish I’d known that back when I started.
The other nice thing about Reaper Bones is some of them (like Anhurian soldiers) come 3 in a box. So they are great for trying different techniques to see how they look side by side to decide which way you think looks the best.
Good advice
My practice figures are cheap plastic toys. Green Army men, Bag-O-Soldiers from toy stores, Vending machine figures etc.
They are also very useful for when I hit painters block. I can paint them in stupid colors and not feel bad. It reminds me that the hobby is supposed to be fun.
Whenever one uses spray paint (and "spray primer" is a very specialised form of spray paint, so this still applies) on plastic, two very important things need to be kept in mind. First, "plastic" is not a single material, it's a combination of a bunch of different things - thus the "poly" in "polymer." Second, in order to actually function, all spray paints have the actual paint mixed in with a "carrier medium" - which is basically just a solvent. Well, solvents dissolve things. And part of what makes plastics plastic is that they're relatively easy to dissolve. The lesson: Every Single Time you have a new combination of spray paint and plastic, test it out on scrap to make sure it will actually cure. Because you can totally have the "it's sticky forever" problem crop up on all kinds of things. And it really is *forever* - I spray painted a plastic ball silver over twenty years ago and it's still sticky.
As for test/learning models - I like to buy 1/72 or 1/35 historical figures. Admittedly, I've not checked recently, but back in the day these were widely available in any hobby shop that sold models. 1:35 is especially useful because those figures are usually cast in ABS, which is the same plastic GW and other gaming companies tend to use. Until print-on-demand becomes mostly universal (and good lord do I not understand why companies like GW are still spending money on injection molds instead of print farms) this means you're testing your paints on the same material as the "good" models - and that makes a bigger difference than some people realise. Paint is influenced a *lot* by what's underneath it.
the beauty of 3d printing allows us to use the same model as the creator or print a copy for friends and then compare the results afterwards and see what was trouble for them or cool parts you liked on it. Worst case i did a horrible job or broke it. $0.20 and 20 mins later and i have another copy to work with and try new styles
If we’re painting practice some tips on how to strip and redo might be good. Take a picture of each attempt to compare.
I was unaware of the issue with priming reaper bones with rattle cans but that is probably because I used the Army Painter spray can putely by chance.
As far as I know it is mostly an issue with the old white bones and maybe Bones Black models. The propellant and solvents in the spray primer react poorly with something in the type of PVC they use and it becomes near-perma tacky. I've seen people mention that sometimes a plethora of matte varnish will resolve the tackiness but it can take a while.
The new Bones USA line is all done with Siocast, which takes spray primer fine. I haven't heard of anyone having any issues priming Bones USA minis.
Glad that you've had success with yours!
The only sticky models I have are old d&d models from wrath of something (a red dragon), and that was because I used un wierd varnish (of brand) the bones always seemed alright to me..😊
@@Cowgirlsteve26I just got done painting a bunch of original kickstarter 1 figures, as well as some new Black figures. All did fine with GW Wraithbone (although brush-on gesso did not take, even after toothbrush soap scrub).
I have a 3d printer so I usually use failed prints for test models. They're handy!
Perry Miniatures and Victrix both make plastic historicals that cost 20 or 30 dollars for like 50 or 60 models.
Re rattle cans, in the UK everyone raves about Colour Forge.
I wish we could get them over here, I keep hearing about them. Thanks for watching!
A nice place to try are old skylanders models, big, chunky and simply detailed. Currently repainting several golden queen models for fun :)
I would also add WGA's Cannon fodder to the list good all around minis that you can practice some stuff on and they don't break the bank
I’ve read quite few times about not to spray paint RM miniatures.. But recently I spray primed few RM miniatures (plastic) with GW black primer and that went okay.. But tbh don’t recall.. but maybe I have touched up a bit with (watered down) AP matt black paint because I could not get all the nooks n’ crannies.. Still have some more mini’s from RM so I’ll be back in a few lol!
I did this with aircraft modelling.
Dedicated a year on 10+ cheap 1/72 model kits - then batch built, batch primed and batch airbrushed camo schemes.
Now can do those with eyes almost closed.