Starting over

[AlanYork]

With an upcoming move to the States I've decided it might not be a good idea to risk getting my 15mm Macedonians smashed up in transit so I may well be leaving them here to use on my return visits to the UK. So.......

That means painting up some new armies in the US and it's a long, long time since I painted anything, all my Macedonians were painted for me, well most of them. There's lots of 'em too, I shudder to think what they'd cost to buy painted now!!!

Thinking back to the dim and distant past, I seem to recall that black undercoat on 15s was the way to go, but I always found the paint didn't adhere properly. I usually ended up with a blue, green, red or whatever stain on top of a black undercoat and it looked horrid. Has that been resolved by new and better paints or is it still a problem?

Also, whats a quick way to paint faces with the black undercoat? I seem to recall I struggled with that too. I ended up with something resembling, well...a mess really. Which bits should I put flesh on and which leave black?

I guess what I'm driving at is can any of you recommend a quick and easy technique for painting 15mm figures using black undercoats, especially faces, for a wargamer of 39 who hasn't painted anything for years? Some feedback on materials would be great too.

I never enjoyed painting when I did some back in the 80s, but as US Immigration say I can't work for at least 90 days, I have plenty of opportunities to get some stuff done and hopefully not spill the paint on my American lady's carpet. Texans are big on guns I believe!!!!

I should say that I don't want to achieve prize wining standards, just paint in the right places with perhaps a bit of basic shading and highlighting without, and this is the key for me, being bent double over masses of metal for hours on end.

[miros]

Some painters use a black undercoat, then drybrush the figure white before applying colors. It's not my favorite method, but some people like it. Perhaps you could give it a try?

Jason

[Ivan]

Alan-

Good luck with your painting!

But if I were you I wouldn't be afraid of bringing your figures! I have transported 10mm and 15mm armies across the Atlantic many times.

Wrap each element seperately in several layers of tissue paper. (Toilet paper actually works very well.)

Find a box that is just big enough to hold all the elements once they are wrapped up. Pack them in snugly but gently. Then fill up any excess space with more tissue paper. This way they cannot shift around and damage each other. Obviously, it is better to put the figure in your carry-on, say in a backpack. Don't worry too much about space, those overhead bins on the big trans-atlantic planes are actually quite large.

There is a very good chance you will have your carry-on searched, but don't be afraid. I've had mine searched many times. It never takes longer than 5 minutes. As long as you are on time for your flight, you will be fine. Just explain that they are toy soldiers for a game, made of pewter. Put your figures at the top of you bag so it can be reached easily.

I've never had any problems of any kind, nor have I suffered any significant damage doing it. I've travelled with minis many times after 9-11, even with the increased security it has always gone smoothly.

[ January 18, 2005, 17:39: Message edited by: Ivan ]

[AlanYork]

Well I had thought of carrying them on as hand baggage but was warned off it as an officious official might not understand that the pikes and lances are not dangerous and have them slung into a cargo hold.

My friend thought he packed his minis well when he returned to Virginia but had some damage to fix on his return, you couldnt tell to look at them now, but it took him a lot of work to fix them. They had made the journey in the hold, were well packed and had "fragile" plastered all over the boxes. I'm really loathe to risk it. If I leave them here I will have an army to play with at my local club when I visit home. I know this may sound silly but these figures have great sentimental value to me and I'd rather leave them here than get them wrecked.

[Matthew Bailey]

Originally posted by AlanYork:
With an upcoming move to the States I've decided it might not be a good idea to risk getting my 15mm Macedonians smashed up in transit so I may well be leaving them here to use on my return visits to the UK. So.......

..snip..

I never enjoyed painting when I did some back in the 80s, but as US Immigration say I can't work for at least 90 days, I have plenty of opportunities to get some stuff done and hopefully not spill the paint on my American lady's carpet. Texans are big on guns I believe!!!!

I should say that I don't want to achieve prize wining standards, just paint in the right places with perhaps a bit of basic shading and highlighting without, and this is the key for me, being bent double over masses of metal for hours on end. So, where are you moving to in the US...From your comment about TX I thought that you might be moving here (to TX)...If so, where in TX...

I know a lot of gamers in TX in the larger cities (Dallas, Austin, and Houston)...

I also know of a REALLY good way to transport minis, but it does require a lot of prep. The minis are absolutely GARANTEED to stay put and even if the box is thrown they will stay intact and the paint undamaged...

You will need a LOT of twist ties though.

[AlanYork]

Houston, Texas. I'd really like to bring them across if at all possible, but either way I will be wanting to do some painting of 15mms so I'd still really appreciate the advice.

[<Giovanni>]

Hi! i have sse your message, i think you could paint your figures using inks. You can get a good result just undercoating the miniature in white paint, applying basic colors and then just give a wash of inks with the appropriate color (greeen=green wash, red-brown wash etc,) that would save you time and the result is not too bad !!!!

Good luck

Giovanni

[E_A_Lindberg]

I'm told by those who regularly mail miniatures around that the secret is Rice Puffs cereal, which are the right consistency to avoid damage, and small enough to be removed easily.

Still, I understand your reluctance. I foolishly packed my Marian Romans with my paints on a trans-Atlantic flight once, leading to disaster when a bottle of flesh-tone broke open.

As for painting over black primer, I've become less enamored of it lately, going instead with a white primer and a dark (brown or black) ink wash. The white dry-brush over black works, but is a little tedious to go through.

[Bryan@50paces]

I had some minis shipped to me packed in puffed wheat cereal once. It sounds funny but it worked well. They arrived in perfect condition and I only had to pick off the bits of kernels.
You might be violating some food transport rules though if travelling/shipping internationaly!

[Ivan]

I think there really is no need to worry. My Seleucids (which have some very pointy pikes indeed!) didn't even merit a second glance. They usually end up searching your stuff, because the miniatures look very weird on the x-ray device, not because the pikes look dangerous!

Bear in mind, they aren't looking for new things to be suspicious of, they are looking for specific things they know to be dangerous. Nerdy pewter toys aren't one of them.

If you are really worried that the pikes look dangerous, put them at the bottom, and some slingers or whatever at the top. They never bother to look at every figure, just the first two or three that come to hand.

I would advise against packing them in food of any kind though, as you technically have to declare some of that stuff, which is a whole other headache.

They used to be really draconian about pointy stuff. When I first flew about a month after 9-11, they told me I had a fingernail clipper with a pointed nail file on it, which didn't pass muster. (They made me break the nail file off!) But since then, I've flown with similar clippers and they've never even looked at them. I think the hysteria against all things remotely sharp or pointed has died down now.

[ January 18, 2005, 20:53: Message edited by: Ivan ]

[Roland Fricke]

I'v enever had an issue carrying painted figures as carry on. I would never put them in checked luggage - it gets pushed tossed, thrown and turned way too much in baggage handling - more so than the in the mail I think. Go carry on but as was mentioned below don't use food, use tissue - could be issues with food.

[Simon Miller]

If 15mm magnabasing would offer a lot of protection; perhaps with foam or beads on top of the minis... or try one of the specialist foan packing cases with slots cut for elements (Fozzbozz do them I think).

[imported_adsarf]

Originally posted by AlanYork:
I guess what I'm driving at is can any of you recommend a quick and easy technique for painting 15mm figures using black undercoats, especially faces, for a wargamer of 39 who hasn't painted anything for years? Some feedback on materials would be great too.
I'm a confirmed black undercoater of 34. I aim to leave black visible at straps and belts and at the border between clothing and flesh, using a good-sized brush with slightly thinned paint so I have reaonable control. I find precise control of the depth and consistency of the black line imposible to achieve this way, but it doesn't seem to be necessary to get complete considtency for an adequate result to 'wargames standard', and I'm definitley not up to putting the lines in after painting bith a tiny brush or pen the way some better painters do.

I find that some brands of red and yellow paint don't cover very well over the black, but most paints cover fine and there isn't any problem. Where I need to cover a large area with a red or yellow, I seek to apply several thinner coats, which isn't a huge pain for the occasional cloak or elephant barding, but I don't bother for tunics.

For the face, if it is well enough done that I want to call attention to it I will paint it all flesh and then apply a thin wash of brown ink (I have sometimes added a little PA glue to the ink wash which apparently helps it settle in the folds of the figure, but I've not seen any evidence that this actually makes a difference. I leave a black line showing only at the collar, not on the face itself because this is just too tricky for me even to contemplate. If the face is not well vast, I just leave it as a pink blob.

Other than that, I rarely shade or highlight. I drybrush chainmail textures and use the odd ink wash, but that's about the limit.

Blacklining techniques are all about calling attention to what you are blacklining, so by leaving the face (or any other part) just a plain colour, all you are doing is encouraging the eye not to look at it. I guess that (like me) you aren't going to put your models on display so this should work fine to create reasonably attractive wargames pieces.

So there: that's my fairly quick technique for fairly talentless painters to get fairly adequate results. Hope it helps.

Andrew

[Ivan]

Oh, here's a stab at actually answering your question, instead of trying to bully you into bringing your lads across the pond!

My current favorite way to paint quickly is as follows:

Spray paint the figures black. Go back with a moderately watered down black to catch any undercuts that the spray missed. (It can be a thin coat, because the areas that need to be 'primed' in order to protect them from handling wear will have been hit by the spray.)

Then, heavily drybrush the entire figure with white.

Now, just paint the figure in whatever colors you like, but water down you paints pretty well. You can almost use inks, and I sometimes do. The effect you are going for is to keep the paint thin enough that you can clearly see lighter and darker areas because of the white and black underneath. This will create highlights and shades, all in one quick step!

It works because the white drybushing will naturally create a range of shade from near pure white on the most raised areas, through greys on those areas that recieved less white paint, to black in the recesses where the drybrusing didn't reach.

You can try to leave black lines between different colored areas, but it isn't really necessary.

My good friend Wayne Rozier uses gouache paints to do this. They are more subtle and flexible, but I've never mastered them, and just use watered down acrylics like GW, Coat D'Arms, and Reaper.

Don't do the metallics this way though, as metallics rarely thin very well, and don't look good over white when they do. Paint them on as normal, then apply a wash to shade them where appropriate. I like using GW Flesh Wash on bronze, or sometimes Chestnut wash. Tamiya Smoke is awesome over any kind of silver paint. If you want to really go all out, then go back and highlight with the original metal color, or perhaps a lighter metal color, but this isn't always necessary.

[ January 19, 2005, 13:37: Message edited by: Ivan ]

[Cremorn]

Alan, this is just to reinforce what a couple of people have already put really well:

Fastpainting at Miniatures.de by Will Scarvie (http://miniatures.de/html/int/fastpaint.html)

I use essentially the same list of instructions for 15mm metal to good effect. I highly recommend Vallejo paints. Or essentially anything in a dropper-style bottle. They last to the last drop instead of turning to goo halfway through.

Richard.

[ January 19, 2005, 17:37: Message edited by: Cremorn ]

[Matthew Bailey]

Originally posted by AlanYork:
Houston, Texas. I'd really like to bring them across if at all possible, but either way I will be wanting to do some painting of 15mms so I'd still really appreciate the advice. AWESOME!

Houston is currently my home base in TX...

There is a pretty regular DBA day at a game shop in Houston (on the NW side)...I am also looking for opponents for ancients who want to play larger games. I currently play Hoplon, and Ancient Conquest. The DBM crowd has disappeared in Houston due to differences over the rules...

If you would like to bring your minis...I can tell you how to package them so that they will not have to be drowned in Rice cripies, or puffed wheat...

I use Twist Ties, and cut slots in cardboard. The slots are between 17 - 30mm apart. You place an element down between the slots, and then insert a twist tie into the slots on either side of it. Then twist the twist tie closed. After you have all of the elements tied down, you can then place the cardboard into a box. I recommend glouing it down, and then placing blocks of styrofoam around the edges that are the same height as the box. This wil prevent the board that the minis are tied down to from coming loose. I have packed minis like this since 1979, and I actually had a box THROWN across the dealers hall at Gencon in 1980. Not a mini was damaged.

I recommend this only for trips that are not going to need the minis to be packed up again for a while. The trip to Gencon proved that while it was a good way to get them there...Getting them packed up to go back home was a major undertaking. It will take you a couple of hours to pack up an army this way.

If you are dead-set against bringing the minis...The last few tips for quick painting are pretty good...I also charge pretty reasonable rates to paint minis and I used to be one of the best mini painters in the business. I hope to be again if I can keep up the pace I have lately been painting at...

[Simon Miller]

Re priming; I use different colour primers depending upon the main colour of the mini.

If they are in iron armour, for example, I use black; if we are talking flesh tones, white. Gray is very effective, too, for troops in general clothing colours.

[AlanYork]

Would the Game Shop be Little Wars? I've had e mails from some people who go there. All very nice folks by the looks of it and I hope to meet them and yourself too Matthew, possibly in March, failing that in September. US Immigration permitting of course. No reason why there should be any nasty surprises but one never knows with officialdom.

The advice is very useful guys. I'm taking it all on board. As for DBM fading out in Houston, it's the only game in town here but I do feel it has lost some of the simplicity of DBA and become, for some, an exercise in geometry and tortuous games where armies that conquered the world lose to armies they historically trounced. I'll learn and play any set as long as the company is good, the games are fun and played fairly.

[ January 20, 2005, 11:35: Message edited by: AlanYork ]

[Decius]

When it comes to fast painting I've settled on using a mid brown SPRAY undercoat. It leaves great shadows and is an excellent contrast with flesh/reds etc. Much faster than white and less stark than black. (I do however use black to undercoat Greek linen armour.)

Try it..

[Simon Miller]

I've had good results using a white spray primer, and putting a thin dark brown wash over it to bring out the shadows. Works very well for flesh tomes.

[Ivan]

Originally posted by Simon Miller:
Works very well for flesh tomes. Yikes!! Why would you want to paint the Necronomicon?!?

"Klaatu, Verata, Nic..cough, cough...'