Miniatures: 'The Hobby', 'Plastic Crack', and other tiny things
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@EdH How much time goes into each figure and is it something you do for a hour at a time or do you dedicate blocks of time towards? How much is by airbrush versus brush?
I've always had an interest in N-scale model railroading and at some point want to do a complete track layout with town and scenery. I have the space, but now finding the time is the challenge.
"I don't give a shit what anyone else is doing, we will do what is best for us and our customers" - Giles P. :)
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@goosehd said in Miniatures: 'The Hobby', 'Plastic Crack', and other tiny things:
I've always had an interest in N-scale model railroading and at some point want to do a complete track layout with town and scenery. I have the space, but now finding the time is the challenge.
So if you do come to the party in Hamburg, we will not actually see you there unless we drag you out of here? https://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/
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@goosehd I like to be able to sit a do it for a couple of hours at a time, aiming to get the same step done on all the models all at once to minimise the amount of kit I need to have out on my desk, and to ensure I’m being consistent. It depends on what step I’m at with the painting to how long I’ll need. As it’s my first army I’m ‘batch painting’, so doing the same step to every model, but for a single model I would be a lot more free-form in what I chose to tackle.
Saying that, I couldn’t get through applying a wash - really runny paint with a low surface tension that gets sucked into the recesses and corners of the model and defines all the small details - when I sat down this week and still have 9 or so to do, so that’s about 30 minutes more work. I should get pictures of that step up over the weekend.
Then I’ll be dry-brushing the armour with a bright yellow gold to buff up the spots where the wash dulled down the flat and raised surfaces. I reckon that’s about 3-4 hours work, but I’m a v slow and careful painter. Depending on how that turns out, i may then apply some more precise highlights with a normal brush, but those will be very select whatever happens so shouldn’t take too long to do that. Then the armour should be done and I think I’ll move on to the cloaks and capes, etc.
How much time is spent with the airbrush and how much with the regular brush depends entirely on the model and paint scheme, but generally you can cover a lot of ground with an airbrush quite quickly. If I was doing vehicles I’d probably use an airbrush for getting the main colour established and doing some shading on the large, flat panels. You tend to always spend more time with a normal brush whatever happens though, as that’s then used for all the small details and refining everything.
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@EdH This may be a silly question, but considering that it represents an army, should there not be battle damage to each figure that separates each of them and makes each one of them unique?
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@goosehd if I feel like doing that, it will be something I add on at the end. But as these guys are supposed to be the very elite of the elite, I’m not sure they’d have that much and I’m tempted to leave them nice and clean.
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Finally got the wash done on all the armour. Before and after photo below. I hope you can see the recesses are more defined. (There’s a reason washing the model is often referred to as talent in a pot.)
The wash has dulled the armour though, so next up is a dry brush with a yellow gold to make the raised details pop and bring back the shine on the flat areas.
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Interlude: my first Warband
It started with rats…
So in Warhammer’s current fantasy game - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar - there’s this faction of ratmen called the Skaven. I started painting a Warband from that faction because they have a variety of textures and details, from armour, fur, flesh, cloth, etc.
These were very paint-by-the-numbers. I was just starting out so I basically copied Games Workshop’s online how to paint videos for these guys without experimentation.
I particularly liked all the small details on the leader and his base. Games Workshop packs a tonne of details into such tiny models.
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Managed to get the dry-brush with the yellow gold done on all of my guys over the weekend, and made a start on highlighting the armour with a very pale gold. The jump looks stark up close, but from a few feet away - as they’ll be when you’re playing with them - it’s a subtle effect that just makes the armour pop that little bit.
Still got 15 guys who need those few highlights added, then I think I’ll move on to blocking in the other main colours, like red robes and capes, black weapon casings, etc.
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@EdH Went round to see my parents this weekend and went up in to the loft. I reckon the case has been up there unmoved for a good 15 years.
There was a bit of other stuff, including a badly painted tank which I left at theirs, lighting in the loft was shit so didn't bother photographing. There is another two layers beneath in the case but was in a bit of a rush this AM, and lighting pretty shite in my spare room, but you get the idea.
Full disclosure, all painting was done by my Dad, the few which I ever attempted, despite his tutelage, look like someone had painted them with a blindfold on.
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@AdamJ Dude that's a classic collection. Are they pewter or plastic? The Terminators (2nd and 4th images) look like they might be pewter... I think I see a couple of spots where the paint has chipped off, which makes me think that your dad might not have bothered with a primer?
With the more modern painting techniques, it wouldn't take much to elevate them, though I'd personally just strip the paint off with some isopropyl alcohol and start again.
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@EdH IIRC we'd paint them white first, let them dry then paint the base bits blue, and I'd let him do the real work! I did tell him about the spray setup you had and he laughed at how much time he'd spent hand priming with a tiny brush! Most of them are plastic, a couple of them pewter, the latter I have no memory of where we got them from!
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@AdamJ Yeah, my airbrush was a great investment for saving time laying down the block colours. (Thanks to Trump and Biden for those Covid recovery payments... about the only good thing to ever come out of being dual-national and having to file tax returns in the USA was getting sent periodic cheques from the US Treasury during Covid.)
You can achieve magic results with just a drybrush too though. I'll post a picture at some point of my sky-dwarves warband which were done mostly by dry-brushing the metallic paints. This is really effective for metallic paint because the recesses are left black, and the method really buffs the metallics to a high shine.
Edit: nevermind, had a dig in my phone, and found them quite easily.
I was quite pleased with the weathering done on these guys. I went really overboard with it, trying to sell the idea that they’ve been trapped in a maze and fighting endlessly for eternity.
Also the gems and eye lenses look great. I had to get on my magnifying goggles to do those!
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@EdH (and others), have you seen this? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-65766495
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@ARNC I did. Quite cool stamps. If I was also a philatelist I'd probably pick up a set!
