Just about everything I learned about painting miniatures comes from my buddy (and now brother-in-law) and former WotC co-worker JD Wiker. An article on his miniatures-painting class is on the WotC web site, here:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=minis/mi20010312i
I haven't read any books on it, everything I've learned has been based on something I learned in JD's class, something I picked up by practicing and experimentation, or something I tried based on someone else's online tutorial or photographs of their minis.
Mini painting is simple, it just takes a steady hand, and you can do a lot with the two basic painting techniques (drybrushing and ink washes, both of which are explained at the above link). Heck, my girlfriend Jodi's only been painting 6 months, and she's already cranking out stuff like these:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=148408&id=530091951
(Hopefully that Facebook album is public, else it won't work for you.)
And if you're really looking for a book, I'm sure Games Workshop and Reaper both have starter books that walk you through the basics. :)
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I can't speak for SKR, obviously, but here's my reason.
Black gives you a good base line, background color. You don't have light pastels bleeding into the upper layers of paint. This works great in WARMACHINE, WH40K, or any time you want metallic looking parts. For cloth or other lighter materials, white gives you a bit of an easier time. Also, with a black undercoat, you don't need to "line" your finished color-field; maintain that clean black outline and you don't have to redo it.
With white undercoats, its easier to get light colors evenly applied, without 4+ coats. Yellow, orange, and red are notoriously lightly pigmented paints. The 1st time you try to get a smooth white, cream, or yellow coat over black primer is the last time you'll want to.
WWW.brushthralls.com is an excellent resource, as is
WWW.coolminiornot.com, especially for inspiration.
Finally, don't get hung up on perfection. If it takes you 4x as long for A+ work as B work...that's 3 table quality pieces worth of your time. Most of the time, you'd need a magnifying lens to see the difference anyways.
-t
Black: If I am lazy or rushed I'll use black, if I end up missing a spot with regular paint (like in the armpit) it's not generally visible, while white would be.
White: If I want to see what I'm painting, I'll use white (or gray, if white is unavailable). Black can obscure small details, to the extent that you may not realize "oh, there's a skull there" until you've already painted over it with some other color.
I've known some painters to prime one squad with black and another with blue, as if you paint it right the blueness is barely visible and helps tell the squads apart. Also, if most of the mini is one color (such as a mid-brown for skeletons, which you'll drybrush over with bone), you can just primer them with that color to save time.
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Why do you use black and when do you use white primer?
It really comes down to personal preference. I've found that black spray primer doesn't really cover everything, and I have to go over with black paint anyways.
I much prefer gray and white primer. Gray, these days, seems to allow me to see the details better than white.
As for the OP, I highly recommend Reapers Learn to Paint kits. They've got a selection of paints, a couple minis, a brush, and written instructions.
But there's enough resources on the web that you should be able to find any basic information you need with a few clicks. I'm a big fan of the forum at Reapermini.com.
The best advice is to DO and PRACTICE. You won't win any medals for your first miniatures, but a little skill is all you need for passable gaming minis. Trust me, as someone who's been painting for over 20 years, most gamers are just impressed that you can paint. The only person who noticed that I put eyeshadow on the latest female mini I completed was me. :)
Why do you use black and when do you use white primer?
No paint is 100% opaque. If you're aiming for high chroma, use white undercoat. If you're aiming for a 'muddier' and 'dirtier' feel, use black.
In 99% of the cases, a skilled painter with high quality paints can achieve every finish with white undercoat; hence many methods (especially older manuals) will demonstrate with white base-coating. But if you aim for low chroma in the first place, you can save a LOT of time and work with black base undercoat.
I haven't painted minis in a long time, but I've been doing a fair bit of stage and props painting recently, and the difference is clear as day and night.
'findel
If i may i would recommend the following site. They have a ton of very good tutorials:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/
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I mostly use the Citadel/Games Workshop line of products and have had some excellent results. My current favourite technique is using the Foundation Paints and Washes together. Foundation paints are nearly 100% opaque, so they cover over black in one coat! The washes are basically that Future Floor Wax and pigment stuff, only mixed for retail sale. Cannot say enough good things about them!
Basically, all you have to do to get a really good result is to prime your mini (black works for me just fine, and I find the colours to be rich and lush), lay down all of your base coats in Foundation Paints, then apply the Washes.
The brown wash is a good all-rounder, as is the black, but you can do some funky things with purple and green too (purple over red gives a deep crimson with awesome details, green over metallic gold gives a tarnished bronze). The trick with washes is to start in a deep recess to pool the wash and then pull it out onto the mini from there. Really brings out the details and leaves very little in the highlight areas.
Once the wash is dry, just pick out some highlights and details, and coat with clear (satin or matte) varnish.
With this technique, I cut the time it took to paint a mini in half and got twice the payoff.
Next thing I'm gonna try is dipping for a large Ork army.
Great tips, Xuttah.
I started double priming. First black primer, then overprime w white. This way you get a good prime layer of black, while the details are still light enough.
If you want a dark miniature, choose only black primer w dark colors added. For a 'light' miniature (flesh tones, yellow, white) use white primer (but this is basic stuff everyone knows by now).
Double priming - haven't heard of that one. What primer do you use for this? My concern was that unless one was using a high quality/fine pigment primer, you could find yourself spraying over fine detail. Has this ever been a problem?
AJC
For an actual book, I recommend How to Paint Citadel Miniatures (links to item in Paizo store).
A very nice, comprehensive book that shows some nice, basic and advanced techniques. Despite the title it's obviously useful for painting miniatures other than Citadel's. And since it's a book, you can have it with you at your painting table.
All the sites listed of course already are useful.
Starting advice I would give would be to get used to painting in thin layers from the start. New painters often like to gob on paint thickly--which is easy and you get good coverage, but you obscure details and it makes it harder to learn some advanced techniques like blending later on.
Re: primer. Some prime white, some black, some grey.
White provides better coverage, but it's hard to get into white crevices, leaving spots on the piece. It's especially MUCH easier to paint reds and yellows over white, as those paints have thin/transparent pigments.
Black you can leave crevices black and it looks fine, but you often have to layer up a bit from dark to light. It can, but not always, be a little more time consuming to paint a black painted model.
Grey is sort of the best of both worlds, though some find the neutral palette to just create a dull background, with neither the nice shadows nor the brightness that black or white provide. (I've never tried this myself)
My personal preference is black primer (I use black acrylic gesso rather than spray paint). If I am painting something a bright or light color, I drybrush that area with white after priming. That leaves the crevices dark while bringing up the surface.
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OK so does anybody use standard spray paint as primer rather than the $15/can mini primer stuff? If so what kind (flat?, gloss?). I've read in some other threads that people are using any ole acrylic paint @ $1/container rather than $5 for a drop of citadel paint (which I plan to do ), but i didn't see anything about primer.
Thanks
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I don't use the specific mini primier (or for that matter know anyone who does). Though I am a big fan of a grey undercoat, which allows me to use metal primier, which comes in spray cans and is normally grey, cheaper than the Citadel stuff but a little bit more that the normal spray paint. I do however spend a little more on my overcoat and use Testor's Dullcote.
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I don't use the specific mini primier (or for that matter know anyone who does). Though I am a big fan of a grey undercoat, which allows me to use metal primier, which comes in spray cans and is normally grey, cheaper than the Citadel stuff but a little bit more that the normal spray paint. I do however spend a little more on my overcoat and use Testor's Dullcote.
Do you just use standard spray paint (glossy-ish) or do you use a flat primer type?
I don't use the specific mini primier (or for that matter know anyone who does). Though I am a big fan of a grey undercoat, which allows me to use metal primier, which comes in spray cans and is normally grey, cheaper than the Citadel stuff but a little bit more that the normal spray paint. I do however spend a little more on my overcoat and use Testor's Dullcote.Do you just use standard spray paint (glossy-ish) or do you use a flat primer type?
Gosh yes indeed, for god's sake don't buy Citadel's. Theirs is basically Krylon Flat Black with an extra $10 added to the price just to add the Citadel label to it. And has probably been sitting on the shelf longer.
I don't use spray primer myself at the moment (I used to) so I don't remember what's the recommended outside Krylon Flat Black (I think) which is about $5-6. You'll find it in the automotive section of many department stores. You want flat, not glossy--IIRC you'll have trouble getting the paint stick to glossy spray paint.
Xpltvdeleted, if you're talking about using "any old" acrylic paint for painting minis, bear in mind that regular craft acrylic has less finely ground pigments than mini paint (which is why miniature paint is more expensive, in part for the higher quality, more finely ground pigment). You absolutely CAN use craft acrylic, but you'll want to take care to thin your paints and paint carefully, or you run the risk of obscuring detail. My 2 cents.
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Gosh yes indeed, for god's sake don't buy Citadel's. Theirs is basically Krylon Flat Black with an extra $10 added to the price just to add the Citadel label to it. And has probably been sitting on the shelf longer.
I don't use spray primer myself at the moment (I used to) so I don't remember what's the recommended outside Krylon Flat Black (I think) which is about $5-6. You'll find it in the automotive section of many department stores. You want flat, not glossy--IIRC you'll have trouble getting the paint stick to glossy spray paint.
Xpltvdeleted, if you're talking about using "any old" acrylic paint for painting minis, bear in mind that regular craft acrylic has less finely ground pigments than mini paint (which is why miniature paint is more expensive, in part for the higher quality, more finely ground pigment). You absolutely CAN use craft acrylic, but you'll want to take care to thin your paints and paint carefully, or you run the risk of obscuring detail. My 2 cents.
This is very helpful, TYVM!!
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Xpltvdeleted, if you're talking about using "any old" acrylic paint for painting minis, bear in mind that regular craft acrylic has less finely ground pigments than mini paint (which is why miniature paint is more expensive, in part for the higher quality, more finely ground pigment). You absolutely CAN use craft acrylic, but you'll want to take care to thin your paints and paint carefully, or you run the risk of obscuring detail. My 2 cents.
I use a combination of citadel paints and craft paints. you can tell the different grain after a while. I tend to notice it mostly when combining colors, Citadel paints seem to combine cleaner as a beginner (especially when trying to replicate the same color a week later). I tend to use craft paint for basecoats, highlights and shadows are done with Citadel.
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Xpltvdeleted, if you're talking about using "any old" acrylic paint for painting minis, bear in mind that regular craft acrylic has less finely ground pigments than mini paint (which is why miniature paint is more expensive, in part for the higher quality, more finely ground pigment). You absolutely CAN use craft acrylic, but you'll want to take care to thin your paints and paint carefully, or you run the risk of obscuring detail. My 2 cents.I use a combination of citadel paints and craft paints. you can tell the different grain after a while. I tend to notice it mostly when combining colors, Citadel paints seem to combine cleaner as a beginner (especially when trying to replicate the same color a week later). I tend to use craft paint for basecoats, highlights and shadows are done with Citadel.
+1 for craft paints as basecoats.
also, I use Rustoleum flat primer (have white, black, and dark grey now, been using more white than anything else lately) and have had good success.
If you're using a non-mini-specific paint, as noted above, you're gonna want to carefully regulate the consistency...water & blending medium become your friend.
For cheap supplies, you can't really go wrong with Michael's Craft Store. If there's one in your area, brushes, palettes, media, and paint are all available at very reasonable prices.
-t
No need to pay extra for Citadel primer, I just use a quality (not $1, more like $5) spray-paint as primer. I use flat--gloss means the paint has highlights, which may obscure details.
You can use craft paints. Heck, my girlfriend ONLY uses craft paints and her minis turn out awesome, because she *likes* using multiple subtle layers. I finally switched back to Reaper paints ($2-$3 per bottle) because I want to paint faster than she does (she paints for fun, but I need minis on the table for the next game), but you can definitely paint just fine with craft paints (such as Apple Barrel).