Paint
Brushes
Hobby Knives
Paint
Primer
Glue
Plastic
Flock
and other train supplies
Pencil
Sand Paper
To start off I want to acknowledge
to you all that I am only a hobby enthusiast. Everything presented in these
painting sections are my opinions. What I present here are tricks and skills
I learned through long hours of painting. Some of my other skills were gained
through reading and then trying those tips for myself. I hope what I present
here will help you become a better painter.
Paint
Brushes
This is your single most important tool
for this hobby. The better your brush the better you will paint. Cheap brushes
have a tendency to fall apart quickly making your job difficult. For inexpensive
brushes testors Model Master line are probably the best for the job, but I
would suggest at least owning a few nice brushes also. Also buying a
set of $.99 Testor white handled brushes is highly recommended. These brushes
are great because you can do anything to them and not waste your money or
your brushes. To let you in on how you get brush sizes 0 is the standard.
Numbers greater than 0 indicate the brush is getting larger while if the number
has a slash and a zero following it then brush is getting smaller. Hence a
1 brush is much larger than a 3/0 and a 18/0 is smaller than a 3/0.
Beginning brush set
White handled Testors Brushes
#1 brush
#0 brush
#3/0 or #5/0 brush This is up to preference.
Advanced Brush Set
All the brushes in the beginning set
including both of the optional brushes
#10/0 brush
#18/0 brush (great for eyes and line
detail.)
Hobby
Knives
A good Hobby knife is important. My
preference is X-Acto knives. When you buy your knife handel buy the X-Acto
Gripster because it has a rubber sheath on it and it prevents your hand from
slipping while you're working with it. I also have the lage X-Acto knife set.
altough there are many tools in it I never use there is one in there that
is indespensible. It is the mini sawblade. It is great for conversions. I
jusy use it to cut away all the unneccessary garbage on the mini i'm converting.
One thing that all hobbists should buy is the fifteen pack of blades that
way your knife will never go dull.
Paint
This will be the most important decision
that you will make. My preference is Ral Partha Paints. Why? Because it has
a nice look to it. It comes out with a nice flat appearance, and their mettalics
are vibrant. GW paints are ok, but they tend to look a little waxy. However
I do use GW inks because they have a rich look when I use them. I will present
the colors in basic terms because all the paint companies have different names
for colors. However I will use some names. Any painter can get by on the beginning,
but they will eventually want to delve into the advanced.
Beginning paints
Black
White
Red
Blue
Yellow
Green
Purple
Orange
Brown
Flesh
Silver
Gold
Liqutex Acrylic matte varnish
Liqutex Acrylic Gloss Varnish (both
of these can be bought at art supply stores)
Advanced Paints
All the above paints
Varrying shades of all these paints
Full set of GW inks
Shades off paints from other companies
(Believe it or not paint companies formulate their paints differently. If
you use paints from other companies you will get colors that are slightly
different from what you're using. This way you can delve into the nuances
of color and paint truly spectacular models.)
Spray paints in your Chapter Colors,
or the Testor spray paint set. (it makes bottled paints spray paints)
or Model master spray paints.
Primer
My choice in primers is Armory brand
primer. I use White and black. I also use Krylon Sandable Gray Primer for
vehicles. ( Mostly for my Armorcast vehicles, but it works well on GW vehicles.)
If using Spray on primer is a problem for you because of circumstances GW's
Smelly Primer is a great alternative. It is a white paint on primer. White
primer makes colors vibrant while black makes metalic paints vibrant and colors
very dull. Gray makes the colors natural looking neither vibrant or dull.
Just natural. So depending on the look you're after choose your primers. In
the painting sections I will discuss what primers I use on which models.
Glue
I'm just going to list what glue you're
going to need. Trust me eventually you will use everything I list here.
Glues
Testors Cement for plastics
Super Glue (cyanoacralate. Keep it in
the fridge and the nozzle will not harden with glue)
Two part epoxy
Elmers white glue
Wood Glue (for Balsa wood projects)
Wood Land Scenics Scenic Cement
Wood Land Scenics Hobby Tac (Both of
these are needed for scenery and terrain)
Plastic
Sheets of white plastic that can be
bought at your local hobby store. I'll explain more in the Vehicle Assembly
Section.
Flock
and other train supplies
I personnally prefer to use Woodland
Scenics for this because they have the best supplies when it comes to terain
building. Also their flock looks the best. With what you use it is al personal
preference. But I deffinatly feel that their green turf blend looks best on
your miniature's base. It also speeds up the time spent in painting your model.
Pencil
Believe it or not this is a very important
tool when it comes to painting. If you have noticed in current editions of
White Dwarf there has been some examples of sloppy painting. (look in WD220
& 221. It is in the section about building bretonian armies.) From a distance
it looks ok, but up close the lines and all look fairly sloppy. This problem
can be eliminated by simply penciling in your desgn over your primer coat.
Then you can easily paint your design with neat crisp edges. This way chevrons
and checkered paterns look neat and will impress most of your fellow players.
And this will all be due to the fact tht you took an extra step by drawing
out your designs.
Sand Paper
This is great for sandinding rough spots
and small mold lines. Testor makes a model sandpaper set that includes multiple
grades of sand paper all for models. This sandpaper set costs just a couple
of dollars so it is well worth your money. If you need something for metal
get a file set this will be indespensible for your needs.