Hello! I recently got the Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Board Game. It comes with a truly epic number of minis. I'm a newbie at painting anything, much less detailed work like miniatures. Please give me your tips!
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Glad to help with that. I always give new miniature painters six pieces of advice.
1: Speed paints are your friend! I personally use Army Painter speed paints and I'd recommend going ahead and getting a full set. These will provide a great base layer and to start out with will be all that you need. As you get more practiced you will need opaque paints to add highlights and shadows, but you can paint a bunch with just speed paints if you're just starting out.
2: Slap chop the bottom layer for more contrast. Slap chop is a new term for a very old painting technique. On a canvas it would be called 'en grisaille', but with the 3d nature of miniatures it makes the process so much easier. Basically, you are trying to go ahead and create the highlights and the shadows on the model before you add the colors. The beauty of speed paints is that they are partially translucent, so they allow the underlying shades to come through.
To do this, prime the entire miniature with black paint. Then, you will paint on light. Imagine where your light source will be, typically straight above the miniature, and spray a white paint from that direction. I use an airbrush, but you can also drybrush on the white paint, just go from top to bottom of the miniature, always stroking down from where the light will be coming from.
What you will wind up with is a miniature where any surfaces that the light would be shining on are brighter, and those that are hidden from the light source are in shadow. Youtube has a lot of great walkthroughs for this.
3: Choose vibrant colors unless you have a reason not to. Once your model is slap chopped, go for the turquoise instead of the navy blue, and the crimson red instead of a more muted red. You're going to be looking at these models from across the table and you want them to stand out. When painting terrain or props you can reverse this and use your more muted colors, so your models are pops of color.
4: Stay away from white if at all possible. White is one of the hardest colors to get to look right, especially over large areas of a model.
5: When not using speed paints, be sure to thin your paints, and invest in a wet pallet to keep your paints fresher longer.
6: Remember these are little dudes on a table at least arm's length away. No one is going to care if the paint job isn't perfect. The display models that you see online are absolutely stunning but you shouldn't expect those to start with. Focus on getting your models painted and on the tabletop, and with time your brush control will improve and you'll naturally begin picking up other tips as you paint. If you don't like your paint job, you can always strip it and start anew, or just prime again over it.
That's so detailed! Thank you!