Painting Minis
I've been thinking about paining my BattleLore minis for a few months now. I've been so busy and distracted, however, that I haven't been able to move on it.
My time is opening up slightly now, however, and so that excuse is fading.
Now I'm confronting the enormity of the task. It's quite daunting, probably more than I want to try to tackle.
But the other day I found a link to Wonder Wash. This might be just the thing to get the base set done quickly. It's available in various colors, so I could wash the green units, blue units, and red units. It would add some color to the board while improving the details a lot, and it would still be fairly quick and easy.
Once the base set is done, I could acquire and paint expansion sets slowly.
Anyone had any experience with painting minis? Anyone? Steve?
Thoughts?
Labels: battlelore, insanity, painting
posted by Ted @ 8:39 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Two words: Sri Lanka
I would never personally attempt to paint bendable plastic figures, but obviously some folks have succeeded with very nice results.
If you find an online technique you think will work, try it on any spare figues you got in the Battlelore box first. If it is resilient enough and you are happy with how they turn out, you can then confidently go on to your other figures.
Storage might then be a new concern. I use the metal base/magnetic stand solution, but there are many alternatives. I just fear that storage like most of us currently use (baggies and the like) will lead to constant paint chipping off. I'll be glad to show you how I store all my stuff, as it might give you some ideas on how you'd prefer to go.
Sri Lanka can do a nice job at a more than reasonable rate, if you provide them with clear pictures of what you want. But for the money you could have one kick ass Hundred Years War metal army that could be used in Battlelore and a host of other games. Or maybe that's just me trying to steer you down a path from which you might never recover. Fun miniature wargaming opponents are hard to find.
I missed Monday gaming because we needed one more taxi driver tonight to get my daughter to her dance classes. But between pick-ups I watched the football game and got a lot of work done on my big Battle of Chaeronea epic. How Oliver Stone failed to see this as a critical moment in Alexander's life is beyond me. The book The Virtues of War nailed the story IMO.
I have to find a small model Acropolis.
Companion Cavalry vs. Sacred Band would be fun to play.
I've painted (poorly) a bunch of Minis for BloodBowl (league soon?) and Clan War. For the most part, they've been metal. I mainly use primer + base coats + dry brushing for details. Once you get in a rhythm you can usually do a squad fairly quickly. Washes and inking can do better, but I think they take more skill to use well.
Games Workshop uses hard plastic for some of its models, and they take paint perfectly well. But this would have been far too costly for Days of Wonder.
Brian's method is an excellent and well established approach. And, if you paint lightly, you can always touch up things you don't like later.
Some soft plastic painters swear by white glue as a great undercoat/primer.
Sri Lanka does have pretty good prices considering the work involved, but it's still quite a bit more than I'm interested in spending.
Poking around the geek, I found a few other ideas for quick and easy ways to get some color on the board: paint just the shields or just the bases.
One guy used just a dark wash to heighten the details and make the minis looks better.
Another guy solid painted his. So a heavy cavalry unit became solid red, for example.
While I'd like to do a nice paint job, I'm really just looking for something simple. What is the highest "value-add" I can do?
I think it might be shields + bases + wash. After that, I think the effort goes up while the incremental improvement starts to flatten out a bit.
I'll keep researching this and throw up an occasional post as I start to get things figured out.
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