 March 22, 2009 - 2:40pm | Hey, I recently aquired some Knight Hawks miniatures. I need to get some paints. Does anyone have any recommendations on where to get good paints for these guys? What do you use to attach the bases? Epoxy? superglue? Any help wpould be appreciated. At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
 March 22, 2009 - 11:36pm | I haunt a hobby store dedicated to wargaming and miniatures collecting (I'm told by a reliable employee that 90% of the profit is from the high end collectable figures that were painted with an airbrush and generally sell in the $60- $100/ 56-72mm figure. and that the wargaming & RPG side of the store accounts for 10% and they actually take a loss on RPG materials - but the owner is happy to sort of sponsor the hobby end out of the kindness of his heart) that would be the ideal kind of store to shop at. barring that there is your local craft store or the internet or a Rail road hobby store - at least for some materials. I use Zap A Gap brand superglue which is specifically designed for metal models it comes in 2 label colors Pink which is the std formula and green which is the gap filling formula- the pink is very runny and runs everywhere and screws up your paint job. Green is much easier to use IMO though I don't see why you couldn't get away with almost any super glue. Game workshop's line of citadel paints come in the classic paint pots that requires dipping a brush into the open pot. I'm not in favor of these for 2 reasons (Games workshop really ticks me off with their mismanagement and alienation of customers- my opinion and i really enjoy calling them Gouge Workshop sometimes) and because the pots are a pain to use and can be spilled, fouled by an unclean brush and are difficult to mix with other colors. To be fair I do use their inks and washes. Vallejo's model color line of paints comes in a small squeeze bottle with a dropper top that lets you squeeze out a small amount to mix or paint with and once you put the cap back on the bottle can be knocked about with out any mess. One draw back on the Vallejo is they really are a pain to shake up to re-mix after the pigments have settled so I put a small bead in each bottle after buying it to function as an agitator. Vallejo's come in a bewildering array of colors and I've never heard anyone complain about the company. and they have some new transparent paints in just primary colors but these things rock. The above are considered artist quality acrylics because they have a high pigment saturation. Stores like Michaels and Walmart have cheap student quality acrylics (lower pigment saturation) for about $1.09/ bottle and you get 3x the amount of the artist quality. however its very thick and requires thinning for you to use on miniatures. you can use water but its best to use Future floor wax (its clear liquid acrylic) and water 1:1 ratio as acrylics are pigment, acrylic, and water - this prevents you from watering a paint down to much and changing the ratio of acrylic to water over time and causing slight changes in the behavior of the paint. I continue to use these kind of paints for terrain projects as terrain can be large and the paint is cheap. Brands are Folk Art, Americana, and Applebarrel from walmart. I originally painted a Carthaginian army and a GW lizard man army with these paints but other people own them now so I not sure how the paint has stood up to use. You could get away with these paints just use a good matte enamel to seal the paint- I prefer Krylon Primer- I've tried upgrading to higher priced primer a number of times and it never worked out so i keep using the $2/can primer. I keep big and small paper clips at my workbench and do almost all my pinning with them - it does require a small pin vice drill- i bought replacement bits from Games Worshop once and they all broke within a day of starting to use them. stick to the cheaper bits that come with more in a package than GWs- they last longer. Since the KW figures are lead and the big ones are so heavy I made 2" hex bases out of MDF board greatly aided with the power saw but not all exactly uniform (1" hex bases are out their but the big ships will never stand with those). the miniature rules state the base movement is 2"/ 1 speed. so this seemed fine but when we played on the 4' x 6' tables at the hobby shop it gave unfair advantage to the Sathar as they were able to bring the UPF to range and pound them. I'd love to switch to 1" bases but many of my ships wont stand well that way. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 23, 2009 - 12:44am | My local Fred Meyers carries a slightly higher quality brand in the same size bottles as Folk Art, for about $0.50 more, and they work great. They have as high a saturation as the GW paints, and no latex in them. (Last time I used GW paints, my wife had an allergic reaction to the latex!) Many ceramics stores carry decent high-end student/low-end pro acrylics, in both the approximately 4" tall 1.5" diameter and the 6" x 3" sizes, and often for about the same prices as big box stores for the same volumes. And in some really surprising shades, too... |
 March 23, 2009 - 6:11am | I havent painted mini's in a long time, but i used the GW paints because that is all i could find in my area that were water based. I used Testers model paints from WalMart befor I found the GW stuff. It was just a pain in the afterburner to use and clean up. Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
March 23, 2009 - 8:27am | Any of the water based acrylics can be mixed with each other despite manufacturer. Manufacturers are often changing their formulas over time. I do aggree with rum about the fact that many of the manufacturers has such a wide range of colors available that it doesn't really make any sense to mix a color that you may not be able to match next time other than adding white to a color to do some highlights or in my never ending quest for a rust effect that I'll like. I do mix alot of matte meduim and glaze medium with my paints but that is for techniques suited to role play figures and such not really suited to ship minis. I also have a piece of clear acrylic plastic that was a light panel for a light it has 1" squares on it and a texture like metal plating for 28mm scale figures I tend to cut a square and use it for deck plating with some of my sci-fi minis though I mount it on a square GW style plastic base which gives me room to sink a pin into to hold the mini on the base (this is where you'd cut away the mini's base and make it look like their standing directly on the deck plate.) otherwise I may just super glue the mini to a metal fneder washer and build up the rest of the ground with nail hole patch or spackle (also called acrylic putty by some paint manufacturers who overcharge for it) to hide the original base. then the base can be textured with fresh kitty litter or sand or rail road ballast to look like gravel or dirt I tend to leave small areas of the spackle showing to be hard packed dirt with small areas of gravel then I dress the base after painting it with some static grass or other vegitation effects. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 23, 2009 - 9:59am | Thanks a lot for the replys everyone. Really helps. So, jedion357 do you dislike the stock KH lead 'x' bases for the ships? You recommend using the mdf hexes instead? At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
March 23, 2009 - 11:19am | What about a clear coat? Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
March 24, 2009 - 11:12am | I think I will use a clear coat also. I haven't in the past... At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
March 24, 2009 - 11:54am | Thanks a lot for the replys everyone. Really helps. So, jedion357 do you dislike the stock KH lead 'x' bases for the ships? You recommend using the mdf hexes instead? In the first box of KW ships I bought off ebay the battle ship and the X bases were afflicted with lead rot the battle ship was unsalvagable and I just didn't bother with the lead bases. I also believe that if the base is the exact size and shape of the basic unit of map space it aids in measuring and moving figures. Plus a 2 inch hex of MDF is a very stable base for the heavier KH ships. the method I use to base is I line up 2 holes for wires to support the mini or 1 for the light ships and drill the hole. then on the underside of the MDF base I incise a groove with a metal stylus starting at the hole. this lets me insert, from underneath the base an L shaped piece of paper clip which is superglued in place. then I glue the wire into its hole on the mini. dry fit before glueing is always good advice too. Honestly as to clear coat I think everyone developes their favorite. i know people who just buy the high priced Citadel spray at the hobby store because its easy to find there. I prefer to make the drive to walmart and get some Kyrlon; its worked consistently and I've gotten use to it. I had to buy another brand once at HomeDepot and it just seemed to act differently from the Krylon. In the end only results matter so use what works for you. I dont actually use a gloss clear coat I just use the matte then since I have a bottle of glaze additive (its clear by itself) I brush it onto the parts that should be shiny. that way you can have mixed effects on one mini: I did a wrecked terminator mini that I wanted to embellish with leaking oil on the ground so I used Modge Pod a thick glue like craft substance mixed with black paint and it made a nice shiny pool of oil leaking out of the robots body. The clear coat dulled it right out but 1 coat of glaze brought it right back to the wet oil look. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 24, 2009 - 6:49pm | This is great stuff guys. (/me rubs hands in anticipation of getting this discussion written up into another SFMan article.) I am not an artist by any stretch of the imagination and have exactly zero experience in miniature painting (I take that back, my only experience is making all the warriors' weapon tips silver in my Samuri Swords, formerly Shogun, game by diping them into the little silver paint bottle  ) but I had a thought about jedi's quest for a good rust color. Have you considered/tried using real rust mixed into a clear base? You can get powered iron oxide, i.e rust (we use it all the time in thermite demos ) if you want to pure reddish color or maybe keep a piece of metal out in the weather and file off what you need for a mixed color look. Mix that in with a clear base to suspend the particles and paint it on the parts you want rusted. You could even paint the underlying areas their original color and paint the rust over that. Might be an interesting effect.Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
March 24, 2009 - 7:18pm | Jedion357, At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
March 24, 2009 - 7:22pm | I think I will use a clear coat also. I haven't in the past... I actually bought my first can accidently. Grabbed the wrong can off the shelf and didnt realize it until a few days later. I had no clue what it was when I realized I didnt get the paint i wanted. All i could think of was "who the hell would buy clear paint on purpose??" A few months later I was talkinf to an art student and mentioned that the paint on my minis would sometimes rub off onto my fingers. Then I was informed what the "clear paint" is used for. On a side note, i had some Battletech mechs that I put a few grains of shutgun powder on and touched off... I liked it for my first attempt at battle-damage. Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
March 25, 2009 - 12:57am | Jedion357, I keep thinking I should do a project to produce illustrated tutorials on painting and basing but if you want to see some really cool basing check out: http://www.bluetablepainting.com/index.php His basing guide can be found here: http://www.bluetablepainting.com/gallery.php I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 25, 2009 - 4:33am | I keep thinking I should do a project to produce illustrated tutorials on painting and basing but if you want I think that is a great idea. Especially for the SFMan; and you used SF miniatures. Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
