How to get started painting RPG miniatures without going broke

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/16/dry-brush-r-us.html

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I very much second their suggestion to use Army Painter paints and avoid the insanely-overpriced and really kinda lousy Games Workshop paints for miniatures.

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I used to play the WotC minis game, but they came pre-painted.

Haven’t played this game, but I do have a Boba Fett from the game.

Back in the day, I used the cheap acrylic walmart paint, but good Ral Partha matt sealer.

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My daughter and I just mound play-doh onto her Sherriff Callie and Frozen figurines. It’s painting and modding all-in-one (plus snack time, if you’re nasty…)

koa%20modding

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If you want to go really cheap, just to go the dry pigment route. Use a cheap binder and you’re good to go.

We’ve always used either Testor, the stuff that you use for plastic automobile models, or my nail polish. Got a really nice pearlescent platinum blonde for elf hair that way.

Our gaming group bought teeny-tiny bottles off the guy who bought the large bottle.

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While oil based enamels are good for certain effects seriously go with the water based acrylics for most of your painting. It looks better and is just so much easier to deal with in the long run.

Also a second for the Army Painter (or Vallejo Game color for that matter) over the GW paints. 90% of this is simply bottle design.

And Krylon 1311 sealer will give your minis a clear coat that will take all kinds of abuse.

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I remember the first miniatures I painted were a blue dragon by Julie Guthrie and some Star Wars characters. I used the testors too. I ended up soaking them Star Wars ones in gasoline to get the paint off and redid many of them in acrylic. MUCH easier to get the weathering effects.

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Those Fallout minis on your article link were the same ones I used to get started (with a couple of random D&D figures for practice). Even old and non-artistic as I am, you can do some pretty cool stuff with some base colours, dry-brushing and washes.

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I will take umbrage at a lot of assembly and difficult to transport.
Yes for some of them there is enough assembly I wouldn’t give them to a novice but there are other models and choice that are not as evil. On the other hand the more complicated ones like your bog standard space marine (why they make the most popular army foot soldiers something I wouldn’t throw at a novice boggles me) are set up in a way to make it easy to reposition arms, hands, heads, etc. to really make every mini just a bit different without a lot of hard work.
As far as transport the plastic makes it awesome as they survive the random bumps and accidental drops much better and repair a lot easier. While you don’t want to just throw them in a box they are not any more of a hassle than equivalent minis.

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But on the upside, once you practice enough on Games Workshop you can graduate on to Kingdom Death minis…

KDM

(no, that isn’t my paint job although I do own that mini)

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As well as the insanely overpriced GW miniatures.

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