Building and painting questions

[Gavin]

I dropped out of sight for a bit, closed my paints in a tin, closed my hard case on my mini's and lived at work and school.

I'm back now, paint tins and hard case opened... and the questions are returning to haunt me.

 

I've seen a lot of AWESOME models painted and I'm wondering...

 

1) For fine details like painting lips or eyes the fine detail brush from GW is adequate, but it seems like the tip as fine as I keep it... is still a tad bit too bulky. I realize there are finer brushes on the market, but is there a 'common' brush that people agree on using for something so fine, or is it a whatever works type of deal?

 

2)Does anyone use a lighted magnifying glass on a stand or headband style magnification? How do they work for you? I'm entertaining thoughts of getting one to try and see if that helps me see the details better, but I'd rather not spend money on something that isn't useful.

 

The last thing is a modelling question.

 

3) I'm planning on doing an ornamental Honor guard or 1st company unit entirely with power swords and storm shields in power armor rather than Terminators. I'm thinking of making all of the shields kite shaped. I'm curious to know if anyone's made their own shields and what the best material would be to make them out of. I'm looking to put a slight curve to them and was dabbling with the idea of using some plastic from an old 'for sale' sign I have or if rolling out flat pieces of green stuff and bending them slightly as they dry would be better.

(I'm not entirely sure if this would even be legal for game purposes, but I just want to build it as a novelty thing for myself.... being able to use it would just be a bonus.)

 

Thanks in advance for all of the feedback and input!

[Tranc]

1) I don't believe there is a fine detail brush that people would agree on as the "standard", so it's whatever works for you. I personally like LOEW-CORNELL's size 18/0 liner brush (note this is different from their Script Liner brush which I find too supple for the control I need to do fine details).

 

2) I've never used any kind of magnification to paint miniatures. My opinion is that it's much harder to control the brush/paint to that fine a detail than it is to see said detail, so unless I can control much better than I do now, there's no point to magnifying what I can't already see.

 

3) I think scratch-built parts are generally accepted as legal in even the strictest gaming/tournament scenes, so I wouldn't think you'd have problems there. I've never created my own shields, but I think Plasticard would be a suitable material. You could also use micro-beads for rivets on the shield.

 

Don't Bretonnian knights come with kite shields? That would be another option.

[Vincent Black Shadow]

1) What he said. Go to an art store and see what you can find. Sable brushes are good, but expensive. I use a winsor & newton sceptre gold II 4/0 brush for my detail... it has a sable body but the tip is synthetic. They're cheaper, and they are just as fine a point as a smaller brush. It's like having a tiny synthetic brush that actually holds paint.

 

2) magnification, naw. I agree with Tranc on this one too. If you can't paint the details without a magnifying glass, you won't be able to paint them with one. Though I do recommend getting up and looking off in the distance every hour or two, otherwise you end up with crossed eyes.

 

3) as long as it's based on a GW mini, you can add whatever else you want to it and even GW official tourneys will let you play with it. A little epoxy or plastic isn't going to ruffle any feathers whatsoever. That said, be sure to take a glance at the rest of GW's range as well as other mini manufacturers, shields are incredibly common in mini world.

 

For example:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Link 4

[Ironwulf]

1) There are many different brands of brushes that are good for fine details. Tranc mentioned Loew-Cornell (of which I have a few), but there are also very good brushes by Windsor-Newton, Scharff and many others.

 

2) I'm going to state the opposite of Tranc and Vincent Black Shadow on the issue of magnification. Sometimes, the difficulty with painting the details is when your eyes aren't doing their best. This is a particular problem as some of us are growing older and our eyesight changes. Many painters I know use the headband-style magnifiers, like the brand name Optivisor. As I have been getting older too, I have considered investing in an optivisor, but first I tried a much cheaper method-- cheap reading glasses. These worked pretty well, and gave me 3x magnification for about $10. I also have a lamp with a ring-shaped fluorescent bulb surrounding a magnifying lens, but I never use the magnifier. It just doesn't work that well for me.

 

Now, I will state that if you're young and just starting out painting, your level of detail may not be to the point where you need any magnification in order to get those results.

 

3) There isn't much I can add to the modeling question, aside from the fact that the official GW tourneys I have played in (and the Golden Demon painting competitions) wanted GW-only parts, or components that you sculpted yourself using putty and/or plasticard.

[averykess]

just a comment on question #2:

 

When you think you are done with a model, snap a couple pictures from all angles with a digital camera. You will see some areas that you need to touch up that your brain will miss when looking directly at the model.

[Gavin]

Thanks for the input everyone!

 

I'll dig around and see what I can find for art stores to look for other brushes.

 

I've needed glasses for about 20 years of my life and have been a professional welder for about 10 years now so I think it's more an issue of simply not being able to see the detail and I was thinking that magnifying it would help me out. I guess I'll try getting a cheap headband one and see if it helps me.

Lighting might be an issue for me as well. I hadn't thought about it. I use an adjustable light that's got a halogen bulb in it, but it's more of a brazier style light where it deflects the light to the ceiling so it's diffused light. I'll try grabbing another lamp and trying that as well.

 

Thank bunches for the micro-bead and shield links. At a glance I didn't see exactly what I was looking for, but I did see some that I may like for other projects I plan on doing.

 

Thanks for the tip about the pictures. I'll give it a try. :(

[Tanhausen]

I'm a noob painter too, just my 2 cents:

 

- At most decent art stores, you can get more than decent brushes at some 1-2 Euros a piece. The smaller the better... until you have a proper skill and can skip small brushes and use the tip of bigger. I use 3-0, 2-0 and 0.

 

- Light is one the single most important things! Specially not casting shadows, because then you mess up thinking the mini has shadows and when you put it on the table, it doesn't! I use a ringed magnifying also and while its hard to get used to, its actually awesome to spot flaws.

 

- Shields, if the "for sale" sign is flexible enough, then its probably plasticard (polystyrene). If its the case, its easy to cut and bend... worth trying out. Just be careful with the blades!

 

Hope it helps :jaw:

[ShadesOfGrey]

1) From what I understand, the trouble with small / fine detail brushes is not that they are not small enough, but rather *too* small. Smaller tipped brushes tend to have smaller resevoirs especially not so great quality ones like GW, and that tends to dry the paint very fast. Dry(ish) paint needs a lot more force / pressure to get from the brush onto the area, which means you dont have a lot of control and you have messy results.

Higher quality / more expensive brushes are better, but there are some ways to try and get around.

 

2) I've experimented a bit with some magnification a while back, using one of those soldering clamp / magnifying rigs I had lying around. My biggest problem was that it led to worse results rather than better, because depth perception suffered quite a bit. I might want to try it again with a binary system, something I can wear on the head rather than something static. But not sure where to get it, and it's probably going to be quite expensive.

In the end, good lighting is a lot more important.

 

3) If it's only the shields and the rest of the models are 'official', you'll be alright.