painting a BIG mini, any tips?

[funnymouth]

hi all, im about to start some model prep on a really, really, big mini. the largest thing ive ever painted before this was a mounted guy - so this is way beyond the size of anything ive ever tried before. honestly, its a bit daunting....i expect it to take months to finish. since ive never done anything of this size before, i was wondering if any of you that have experience with large models have any tips?

 

[Trevor]

Use a BIG brush!



I got nothing, sorry...

 

[MathewBaich]

take frequent breaks and never look at all of the mini at one timelol

 

[Ogrebane]

Sometimes I think your dipping into your own experements Trevor. One thing to do is after you give it a base cot is to work on one area at a time. If you tried to do say all the flesh it may get overwhelming so just do it section by section.

 

[Angelos3000]

If yo u are painting a variety of dark and white colours and need to paint instead of spray a basecoat water the base clour down to spread over a wider area

 

[krom1415]

maybe use a slow dry additive so you dont get dry lines on painting large areas

 

[Javi Metal]

Consider airbrush priming it giving a good base color to start with for each part (skin, cloth...).

Also use larger brushes and slow dry as krom suggested.

Try to keep the dust off your piece: it standing on te workbench for months, no matter you\'ve been painting its toe yesterday, may result on a really thin layer of dust, hardly visible but sure it\'s an annoyance once the brush gets in contact with it.

 

[matty1001]

So maybe get a tin of that air cleaner stuff? ANd give it a blast before you start painting everytime.

 

[funnymouth]

great tips guys - i think im developing a game plan. because of the \"scale\" of this project, ill be posting wips (so i dont lose perspective).

 

[matty1001]

Which model is it? Is there any photos of it on the net that you could point me to?

 

[funnymouth]

it will be a repaint of.....

mcfarlane series 2 fire dragon (doing some gs work now):

 

[demonherald]

Get some empty paint pots and mix up your highlight stages especially for the flesh..
so say make a pot with basecoat...highlight 1....highlight 2...highlight 3 etc.
Mix by adding the ratio of colour you need via syringes.
work this out by mixing on a pallette working out brushfull to brushfull ratio then use this ratio to make up your pots.
That way when you work on it bit at a time you can just reach for the pot\'s and ensure a nice consistent colour across the model.

 

[funnymouth]

oooooo great tip!

 

[supervike]

If you don\'t do that, at least take some notes.

Mark down what you mixed with what (and the ratios).

Much better than trying to guess later on.

 

[Javi Metal]

another approach to it

If money ain\'t the problem here just go buy vallejo model color specific tones, you know, those that you won\'t never ever come to use again but that will save you time on mixing (like warm and cold greys etc). Just plan i in advance and buy a rare color you might be using a lot in this model (er...toy).

Sometimes the cheapest isn\'t the best way and buying 2 or 3 not-that-basic colors might help.

I\'m looking forward this one so hope the next you post is a WIP

Good luck.