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Like MANY others, I jumped in on the awesome Reaper Bones Kickstarter and now have around 200 or so unpainted plastic Bones to paint in the near future. I'm very excited to get into this plastic mini painting hobby, but I'll need some expert advice :)
I've been reading up on various message boards but I have a few questions. I'll post each one separately so things can stay on topic. Please remember that I am ONLY interested in how these questions, answers and advice applies to the plastic Bones minis. I'm not interested in painting metal minis.
Onward!
I've been watching plenty of YouTube tutorials and I see various people use various different things to get depth and shading in the mini while they paint it (as opposed to after the mini is painted, such as dipping or painting on Minwax or something)
Some people use inks and/or ink washes. Others use Devlan Mud or other similar products. Others seem to use washes of darker paints ...
I even see that Reaper has their own line of inks: Reaper Inks.
Anyone have any experience with these? Since I'm going to be using Reaper paints, it might be nice to go with Reaper's inks to ... assuming ink is the way I end up going, of course :)
So, what is the 'best' and/or easiest method when painting Bones? Inks? Devlan Mud? Darker paint wash? Something else?
Thanks!!!
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I haven't used Reaper's inks but their regular paints are very good. Almost all I use anymore. So I would assume they have some good inks.
Also Devlan Mud has been discontinued by GW. There is some talk of Army Painter having a rough equivalent. All the GW washes like that were awesome and we hate that they are gone. :/
First, I hear that 'Agrax Earthshade' is the GW replacement for Devlan Mud, but I won't know how it compares until I buy some, and I still have three pots of Devlan Mud in my box. I also believe that Army Painter 'strong tone' ink is very similar to Devlan Mud.
Devlan Mud was just the name of a GW ink, it's not anything special... it just happened to be well formulated, not quite black, not really brown so it shaded pretty much everything well.
My suggestion to you would be to use any inks you like, with the knowledge that grey-brown inks work on 'everything'. Rich brown inks are good for golds and browns, colored inks work for complementary colors, black inks are great for armor, light brown inks are good for flesh tones, and oranges are nice for rust.
For painting bones with inks, I would do this:
1) Wash the bones with dish soap and water, rinse well, let dry - I've had a few bones that would bead paint until they were washed because of mold release agents, so now I just wash them all.
2) Spray basecoat color if needed - here, if you're painting something that is mostly one color (like a scorpion, or a dragon), go ahead and spraypaint it with the base color you want if possible. (I bought an airbrush for this purpose, but you can just use aerosols). If you don't have the correct spray primer, then use a large brush and brush it on.
3) Paint the various bits that need to be painted - Bags, gloves, shirts, armor, weapons, teeth, etc... try to limit the number of colors on any one model unless it's a centerpiece, and paint the entire thing lighter than you want the final to be.
4) Let dry completely
5) Coat entire miniature in a light wash of Devlan Mud/Agrax Earthshade/Reaper Brown Ink/Army painter Dark Tone Ink
6) Let dry. This time will take longer
7) Touchup any highlights. For many models you can skip this step.
8) Seal with your preferred method (a quick spray of matte sealer is easiest)
For most miniatures this works out to... Basecoat, slap 2-3 colors over basecoat, ink, seal. Works great for most monsters and mooks, looks good, and is fast. You can get really nice effects out of minimalist choices.
Given the sheer volume of minis we are getting, another important descision is to coordinate. Find minis that will share color palates and paint them together. For me at least I only paint one color on a mini at a time (when doing martials step 3) and let it dry (to prevent smudging or accidently transfering color and to allow highlighting). So I line up about 6-10 miniatures (depending on complexity) and paint each color on them together. This adds a layer of efficiency. While you wait for one to dry you move on to the next. By the time you finish the last, the first one is dry and so on. I would continue like this untill i had a batch of 20-30 to wash, then do your ink wash, then do any touch ups or highlights you want.
Having painted some of these as a test - inks don't work on the base plastic well.
More so than metal mini's you want to wash these with some soap and water then let dry - they use a compound to release the plastic from the mold and if there is any residue after you are done painting your paint will just flake off - not good - a wash keeps this from happening so it's *super* important on the bones.
After the wash I prime them with spray on kylon (krylon? sp?) - after they are primed they paint just like any metal mini - other than the fact that they can float away with a sharp breath :)
Because they are so light - you might find you like using a metal washer along with a base of some sort (glue the washer to the base - glue the mini to the base (other side)) to give them a bit of weight - they don't fall over when used without - but they are *very* light.
Once all this is done - you will find that after painted and coated they are *much* more durable than a metal mini - you can keep a dozen of them in a plastic bag (loose) and they won't chip each other or mar the paint.
Some people have done experiments with a painted figure by running it over with a car and only had a slight mar - not that I recommend that - but that should show you they are much more durable than a metal figure.
I'm not sure how I'm going to tackle the translucents - obviously I won't want to prime them so I'll most likely be using reaper paint straight from the bottle (no thinners) to add highlights for those.
That's another thing - ink won't/doesn't work on an unprimed bones figure - and thinned out paint (using flow enhancer and water for instance) causes similar problems from the vid's I've seen - straight paint from the bottle seems to stick without an issue - but that means you don't have much time to work with the paint before it dries up on you. That's why I prefer the primer.
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GREAT info everyone!!!
I think I'll stick with Reaper and give the Reaper ink a try.
Ckorik, a couple follow up questions ...
When you say the Bones minis are very light ... do you mean light even compared to other plastic minis (Pathfinder Battles, D&D minies etc) or compared to metal?
Also, Bones supposedly do not need primed before painting (assuming you wash them well, as you and others have pointed out). Did you prime your tests anyway because it was what your were more comfortable with or did you find that, even after washing, they still NEEDED to be primed?
In fact, I think I'll make a new thread about the priming question so this one can remain about ink washes etc ...
I've never really been a big fan of using inks. They are a bit too glossy for my liking. I do find that I need to thin the ink a bit with water just to keep it from globbing up in larger recesses.
I have tried many different dips, and I dislike them all. I find them to be messy and also a bit too thick. Plus I like to color my washes/inks based on the area I am painting, so the monotone color of the dip really detracts from the appearance I like my minis to have.
Washes are my main preference. For me, it gives the best appearance, but if you are painting up a horde of troops and want consistency, washes can be a little trickier.
GREAT info everyone!!!
I think I'll stick with Reaper and give the Reaper ink a try.
Ckorik, a couple follow up questions ...
When you say the Bones minis are very light ... do you mean light even compared to other plastic minis (Pathfinder Battles, D&D minies etc) or compared to metal?
Also, Bones supposedly do not need primed before painting (assuming you wash them well, as you and others have pointed out). Did you prime your tests anyway because it was what your were more comfortable with or did you find that, even after washing, they still NEEDED to be primed?
In fact, I think I'll make a new thread about the priming question so this one can remain about ink washes etc ...
I would say they are similar (in hand feeling I didn't use a scale) to the pre-printed wizkids.
They are OMG light compared to a metal mini. Depending on your table (physical that is) and how boisterous your group is you may want to weigh them down - my table is pretty sedate other than the random runaway dice roll so it's not a big deal for me. Over on the reaper forums people have mentioned using metal washers that fit under the base to add weight to them - and they are cheap (the metal washers that is - find a size that works and typically you can get a bag for a few bucks).
As to the primer - the bones will work with paint *out of the bottle* - specifically after watching a half dozen vids of people testing out paint on them - paint out of the bottle seems to work fine - with reaper paints actually behaving better (not a surprise really - opinion only here but the reaper paints really do perform well).
The problem there is - acrylic paint dries very fast - most people will mix a paint flow medium and water to the paint - this increases the flow of the paint from the brush to the mini and keeps the paint 'wet' longer - more advanced painters even use a 'wet palette' which keeps the paint from drying out.
If you do this - your paint is thinner than it is out of the bottle - this doesn't work so well on an unprimed bones plastic mini.
So the claim is true - paint (not ink) goes on to an unprimed just fine. If you plan to thin your paint or use ink however you will find a primer coat works as well and makes the mini paint just like a metal one.
Also in case you might think the plastic gives less detail - I point you to this thread over at reaper:
http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?/topic/47477-bathalian-bones-vs-m etal-challenge/
One is a metal - the other is plastic - I'm not sure the plastic is going to be preferred for competition level painting but I don't think I will ever doubt that the bones will carry all the detail that I want/need for my gaming table. :)
Slightly off topic but I agree they are super light for minis. I superglued the kobolds to older GW bases and green stuffed pennies into the base to keep them vertical and table jostling friendly.