My Bolt Action blog

[Whoisjohnny]

Hello everyone! Started this topic as my fist post to encourage myself to continue the project without breaks lasting too long. Let me explain. I found this miniature hobby about two years ago. I painted a few LotR minis and then the real life came into the way of the hobby and I had a long break lasting over a year and a half before getting back to business and into Bolt Action lately. These are my 20th and so on miniatures ever.

I’ve tried to learn especially how to paint faces and eyes to bring more character into them. So here you go, US Airborne! I’ll take better photos later without my fingers in the pic. Also how can I make the pics appear smaller? Those are huge sorry for that.

 

[Coyotebreaks]

welcome to the forum. nice work on the minis. good tidy paint jobs.

 

[gorb]

Welcome! First of all the pics are fine, not too big, just right.
Second, these minis look fantastic! You've got some nice shading in there, and like Coyotebreaks says the paint job is nice and tidy.
Especially the eyes and faces, they look super cool! Keep going!

 

[Whoisjohnny]

Thank you guys for your kind words and nice to be here!

 

[ekipage]

Welcome to the forums and nice work on the bolt action figures! Maybe only thing I would suggest is a matte varnish for them. If you are worried about size of your pics, you could always just crop out your hand some using something like MS paint or some other photo editing software. There are plenty of free ones out there if you don't have one on your phone or computer.

 

[Whoisjohnny]

Welcome to the forums and nice work on the bolt action figures! Maybe only thing I would suggest is a matte varnish for them. If you are worried about size of your pics, you could always just crop out your hand some using something like MS paint or some other photo editing software. There are plenty of free ones out there if you don't have one on your phone or computer.

thank you! Actually they have one layer of Army painters matte varnish, but that doesn’t work that well and the Agrax eartshade on the minis shines too much. Any suggestions for matte varnish? Also thanks for the tips about the pic sizes. I’ll try to find some nice photo editing software for my next pics. I’m using iPad so shouldn’t be too hard!

 

[ekipage]

I have personally been using AK Interactive's Ultra-Matte varnish, but I usually put on two to three coats so the Army painter varnish should work for you maybe just try a couple more coats of it. As for the Agrax shining too much, are you using the Glossy one or the regular Agrax? I made that mistake when I bought a bottle and didn't realize it was the Gloss Agrax Earthshade

 

[Whoisjohnny]

I have personally been using AK Interactive's Ultra-Matte varnish, but I usually put on two to three coats so the Army painter varnish should work for you maybe just try a couple more coats of it. As for the Agrax shining too much, are you using the Glossy one or the regular Agrax? I made that mistake when I bought a bottle and didn't realize it was the Gloss Agrax Earthshade

Yeah, I made the same mistake and got the gloss one.

 

[ekipage]

I believe I had to use a couple extra coats of matte varnish over that stuff to knock back the shininess of it. So I would say do two or three more coats of the Army Painter matte varnish and see if that gets rid of the glossy look. If it doesn't, I personally like the AK ultra-matte.

 

[gorb]

What ekipage says.

I have had a good experience with Vallejo premium matt varnish through my airbrush. The guy at the store told me to only put thin layers on, he was of the opinion that a thick layer will spoil the effect and bring back shine.

One thing you may want to do after is to go over any metallics that got covered in matt varnish with a gloss varnish. The matt will definitely knock down shine on those, and you may want to bring that back.

 

[Whoisjohnny]

Thank you for the tips, I really appreciate that!

Also here’s a WIP pic of a new rifleman. Unfortunately I forgot to clean the mold lines from the backpack.

 

[Coyotebreaks]

looks a good start.