Looking to start painting - have a few questions

[chibi-vampire]

Got into some kickstarters recently and am going to be painting them in a few months when they arrive, but I would like to start practicing on less sentimental mini's now. I have absolutely no painting supplies as of now and I would like advice / links for some. (Will be brush painting, not airbrushing)

1. Starter paint kits (preferably a lot of colors). I have decided on either Vallejo or Reaper Mini paints and would like a good starter set for these two options only (don't want any choices right now so am sticking with one of these two till I get better)

2. Brushes. (mid range price wise preferably)

3. Wet Brush vs. dry brush. I hear almost unanimously that wet brush is best, but what exactly does that mean, Do I just keep the brush wet ?

4. Washes. I hear and see about washes, but I've never actually used them. Is it better to make your own washes (I would like to but don't know the best way) or just use the ones that come with the starter paint sets.

5. Primer. I would like to use a can spray primer, have decided on white because the figures are anime theme and I would like them to be bright. Any recommendations here are appreciated (except Krylon), I have been leaning towards Rustoleum ?

 

[Bailey03]

Welcome to the hobby!

There have been a couple other threads recently on similar topics (new to painting, what do I do?). It will probably be helpful to check them out:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums/showthread.php?52555-Super-noob-paint-supply-question
http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums/showthread.php?52527-What-things-do-I-need-to-paint-high-elves
http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums...ting-Any-Help-Is-Appreciated-First-Submission

1 - As for a starting paint kit, both Vallejo and Reaper are good choices. I prefer the dropper bottles to paint pots (like GW and P3). I personally like Reaper better. They start out a little thinner, so I find they blend better for smoother transitions on the mini. That also helps them make good glazes or washes if you add more water. Another helpful thing about Reaper is their organization. A lot of colors come in groups of three with a mid tone, shadow, and highlight. For example, you want to paint the skin on an elf you could get Fair Shadow (09046), Fair Skin (09047), and Fair Highlight (09048). When you shade and highlight you don't need to stick with their sets (for example, I use 6 or 7 colors when I do skin not just those three), but they are a great place for a beginner to start. The downside is they are hard to find (at least near me in the US), so I have to order them online. CMON carries them or you can order direct through Reaper. In the US, orders over $25 ship free. Vallejo paints are organized a little differently. You'll have to pick out your mid tones, shades, and highlights yourself. But, at least near me, they are far easier to find as a lot of hobby stores carry them. In the end it comes down to personal preference and what's easiest for you. Either one would be a good choice.

You might also want to consider creating a wet palette when you paint. You can buy them but they are very easy to make yourself. Here's one simple example for how to make one at home http://www.fullborerminiatures.com/articles/wetpalette.html

2 - Check with your local art stores. A good starting set of sizes would be a 1, 0, and 000 or 3/0.

3 - Not sure exactly what you mean here. There's a technique called dry brushing where you get just a little bit of paint on the brush (almost dry) and then brush it over the figure so it just hits the high points with paint. This can be an easy way to paint chain mail for example. But I wouldn't dry brush an entire figure. There's also wet blending which means painting different colors on the figure while they are still wet and then blending colors directly on the figure (instead of on the palette). This is generally considered a more advanced technique that a lot of painters don't mess with
.
4 - Making your own is as simple as adding water. I've had an easy time making washes out of Reaper. I bought a cheap watercolor palette at my local art store, put a drop or two of paint into one of the little cups, and then start adding water until it's at a thin enough consistency. You can get by with a few ready made washes... but in the end you're limited to those shades. Mixing together different paints and adding water gives you the freedom to make any color wash you can come up with.

5 - For the primer you might want to look at Dupli Color. I use that for my white priming. It's very smooth and doesn't obscure details. However it is thin and can take several coats for complete coverage. I found GW's white primer to be far too grainy for my tastes. No experience with Rustoleum so I can't say much there. I'm sure others will have their favorite primer brand.

 

[chibi-vampire]

Thanks for the advice. The links are helpful for newbie me

For point number one I was really looking for a link to a good starter set. I know I want either vallejo or reaper, but I don't know what set to get that has a good variety of color for price. Any help here is appreciated.

And the wet vs. dry issue is that I watch videos and they say they mix there paints with 1 part water or something and that is confusing me. (not washes, the base paint coat)

 

[Bailey03]

Oh, okay.

For starter sets... the most common advice is don't bother. You'll find some colors useful and others you won't touch. It's probably better to just look at what colors you'll be using and pick sets for those. If you're doing Reaper paints, an easy place to start would be their triads in their online store: http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/triad
If you're doing anime style figures I'd go with the fair skin tones set. Neutral colors gets you black, white, and a basic grey. The rest is pretty open to what you think you'll be painting. Will you be using reds, blues, greens, purples, browns, yellows, etc? There are a lot of variations of each so pick the ones that you like. Do you need metallic paints? The silver-toned and gold-toned are good basic sets... but maybe you're doing big robots and want some of the colored metallic sets. You don't need to get everything at once. If you get enough for your first couple projects you can add more as you go. After you come up with what you think you need you can check with the starter sets and see if that's a cheaper way to go.

For the wet/dry thing here's what they're talking about. The common approach to painting (though not the only one) is to start with a smooth base coat and then layer on your shadows and highlights. Each layer is thinned with water so it becomes semi-transparent and you can see the layer beneath it. This helps create the illusion of smooth transitions from one color to the next. As you apply multiple layers of shadow or highlight you'll apply them to smaller and smaller regions. The thinner you make your layers the more you will have to apply, but the smoother the transition will be. The base coat is often also thinned down (though less than the shadow and highlight layers) and applied over 2 or 3 coats to get smooth even coverage. In my experience Reaper paints are all set for the base coat right out of the bottle. Then you can add more water for the layers. Vallejo needs a little bit of water to get going and then more for the layers.

 

[chibi-vampire]

Thanks Bailey03! that really clears some stuff up ^_^

 

[Einion]

As Bailey says above, there are some recent/current threads that cover a few of the issues you're asking about pretty well. A quick search would have netted you some or all of those, showing the value of searching. Any forum that's been going a while will have accumulated a great deal of prior content and the answers you seek may be just a search away. This is a good general point for forums overall: it's always a good idea to run a search on a specific topic, see what you might find (use this Advanced Search page for best results).

Other than speed, doing this has another advantage that's not obvious in that you will often pick up ancillary information along the way from the threads you come across, which may only mention the topic incidentally rather than focussing on it. You can find out stuff you might not have known you needed to know, e.g. rinsing tips in a thread on brush selection, steering clear of sets in a thread asking about best brands and so on.

2. Brushes. (mid range price wise preferably)

If you want to go with just synthetics, accepting their limitations, then you may find the cheapest you can find will do you just as well as something much more expensive. I've picked up sets of no-brand synthetics where each brush effectively cost about a quarter and they work about as well as equivalents that cost $5-10.

If you want to buy retail then Michael's are a good bet (great token system there still I presume). Online Dick Blick are a good first port of call, although it is always worth doing comparisons at time of purchase; my recommendations for brushes from Blick are in one of the thread links provided above.

s it better to make your own washes (I would like to but don't know the best way) or just use the ones that come with the starter paint sets.

Personally I'd learn to make my own washes, since buying stuff like that just smacks of laziness and poor economy to me. Old-school guys often feel this way because back in the day everyone made their own washes since you had no choice, they weren't available commercially.

The advantage of making your own is that you can tailor them to your own tastes, and you learn how to make a wash out of anything; ditto with glazes, which are very similar or the same (you just use them differently).

The advantage of commercial washes and similar products is ease of use and consistency; you may consider those attributes worth paying for, plenty of people do.

5. Primer. I would like to use a can spray primer, have decided on white because the figures are anime theme and I would like them to be bright. Any recommendations here are appreciated (except Krylon), I have been leaning towards Rustoleum ?

If you want to go with Rustoleum then go with them, many experienced hobbyists use their stuff so quality is obviously fine. Painter's Touch is often the one specifically recommended but they make more than one suitable product.

Although you can find them cheaper online aim to spend less than five bucks per can, ideally three bucks and change.

Einion