Episode: 2588
Title: HPR2588: Miniature painting
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2588/hpr2588.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 06:15:36

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This is HPR episode 2588 entitled miniature painting.
It is posted by Tutoto and is about 29 minutes long and carries a clean flag.
The summary is Tutoto rumbles about how to paint miniature while painting some toy soldiers.
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This is Tutoto and I want to talk a little bit about miniature painting.
I am actually painting those miniatures as I am recording this episode.
I like playing miniature games and currently I am working with a 50 mm engine pretense for the DBA.
The method of how I paint them is pretty simple.
The first is to clean up the models because these are metal models.
After they have been casted they are usually a little bit of flash, little bit of seams and such.
Then they need to be taken off.
I use small files to file all those things away.
Basically I just go through the whole bottle and see if there are any pieces that need to be filed down.
After that the next step is base coating.
I have tried to several different ways of base coating.
The reason why I base coat the models is that I find it generally easier to paint when there is a uniform color under the paint.
And there is a little bit of rough surface so that the paint sticks to it better.
If I have tried to paint directly on the metal but that doesn't really work well, the paint doesn't seem to work particularly well on there.
So for base coating I used to do spraying spray paints but that was a bit messy and the results weren't that good in the end.
Then I started using Gesso.
I am using Taylor Robney Gesso primer.
This isn't actually real Gesso but this is one for the acrylics.
And I bought this shoot up from the art store because usually the Gesso is used for framing or carnivosis before painting.
But I bought that from art store and directly using that doesn't work.
That's the way to see if it obscures the details and makes it too textured surface.
But I found that if you thin it a little bit with water, it took a bit extra amounting to find the nice formula for thinning it.
But I thought it would be the experiment it worked out.
And the Gesso is really good because you can generally when you thin it a little bit you can just liberally slap it on the model with a paintbrush.
And it doesn't obscure the details.
It might seem that it obscures the details but when the Gesso tries it shrinks a lot and all the details are again visible.
The main thing while doing that is to make sure that if there's a...
How do I explain it?
If there's a, for example, between the legs of a model if you put on the Gesso it uses sometimes a form of film.
Film the videos of the surface tension.
And if you leave that film there it will cry on and make a bad looking.
Bad looking sort of wet surface where there shouldn't be anything.
So that's something that you need to pay a little bit attention to.
But another thing is that if you...
If you thin it too much it might not cover enough.
But that's a less of a problem because then you can just wait for the Gesso to try.
Usually it tries a lot quickly like 10 to 15 minutes and then just apply another coat.
And after the models have been primed I go through them once more,
check that all the nooks and crannies, all the little hide hidden away details have been covered so that the whole model is uniformly covered black.
And at this point I might still use if I find a spot where there isn't uniform, uniform black color I might use a Gesso to fix that.
Or if that area is really small I just use the regular black paint.
After that there's a time to start painting.
Nowadays I use the Army paint.
But this is the Army paint swap paint.
These are little crop potatoes.
They have a nice selection of colors.
And I'm very happy with the quality of the paint.
Some colors, some lighter colors especially.
Don't work that well on top of the black because they don't cover it in one coat.
So you have to either paint multiple coats or start with some color that covers the black data.
And then work from there towards the color that you want.
For example if I want a yellow, this one is called demonic yellow.
I wouldn't paint that directly on top of the black because that would mean that would become really many coats.
But I could start with a light gray.
For example I have a stone column or uniform gray and paint that on top of the black.
Because that covers the black slightly better than the demonic yellow.
I might start with the uniform gray and on top of that put the stone column and on top of that put a one or two coats of demonic yellow.
I have found that that method works pretty well.
And I think that I like about the paint that they are in the world is translucent or transparent.
I always mix them.
But I like that they don't cover, not all colors cover that well.
Because sometimes it's really annoying when you are painting on top of the black.
But sometimes that's really useful because you can easily mix the colors while painting on the model you can paint one color with it.
You can try and then paint another color and the first color shows through a little bit so you can create a nice, nice blend and different colors without needing to mix the paint.
Mixing the paint isn't that bad.
So I, because the distance I have in a crop of those like I told, they have a little crop and you are supposed to crop that paint on the palette.
And on the palette you can of course mix.
And I use a red palette for painting.
That's just a small plastic box with some tissue paper in it that has been moist and with liberal amount of water.
And on top of that paper I have a parchment paper.
And on top of that parchment paper I drop the colors.
The idea is that the moist mixture keeps the parchment slightly moist and that keeps the parchment in turn keeps the paint moist.
So they don't try that quickly.
Now that it's summer day of course two still try eventually but during the winter time when it's not so hot I can mix colors on the paint on the palette.
Paint on one evening and then continue on the next evening using those same colors they don't try.
Which is really really nice.
It also says a little bit of paint because usually when I crop some paint on the palette I fail to estimate how much of paint I actually need and use a little bit too much.
For the brushes I'm not very very critical about the brushes.
Some people have really strict preferences.
I have heard that Colin's skill.
Sable brushes are really cool.
Really great but I haven't tried those.
I don't think that with my skill painting skills those high end brushes would be wasted.
I still manage to do this including paint.
Painting I stay inside of the lines most of the time.
But I'm happy with the next using Armored Painter paint process nowadays.
And I have the character process for the pigstuff and then I have this another one is called detail.
This one is for the small stuff.
They are even, even, even tickle ones.
But those are way too big for the photos models.
Because they are like 50mm models.
And you have a food soldier that is 50mm tall.
And you are painting the helmet, shoes and such.
You do need a relatively small brush.
One of the most annoying things I did recently was painting a early Imperial Roman army for the DBA.
And that meant painting tons and tons of Roman sandals.
So first you paint all the skin that is showing, ready to cry.
And then you paint the leather sandals or calicular.
And that gets old relatively quickly.
I usually work on the models.
They usually are some surfaces that seem to be the hardest away.
Like sort of base, base, base of the model like this horse.
I'm currently painting.
I started with the body that I'm painting a light brown.
And after the body has been finished, I will add the, I will probably paint the main and the tail.
Then the hooves harnesses.
All those little details, the final final step will be painting socks and the markings on the horse.
That thing I like about painting horses.
Even if you have plenty or so horses in your army, you can just paint them each of them to look individual.
Like they have slightly different colors, slightly different kinds of markings.
And then there's of course a whole thing between the, I think they're called bay and something else.
There's different types of color rings that the horses have.
And I was painting the ancient Roman, that early integral Roman army.
I actually went and researched on where the Romans of that time got the horses.
What kind of preaches they used and what kind of color colors those preaches usually had.
And then painted the horses using those colors.
And then I painted for each horse different, different kinds of markings.
That was pretty interesting.
One, one big thing about the miniature painting for me is doing the research and trying to figure out what kind of colors, colors,
if you need to have on the army.
And the horse prey has nice books about, about different kinds of eras and nations and such.
That usually have nice pictures where you get painted inspiration.
I was thinking, and of course you can take the inspiration wherever.
I was thinking that at some point when I'm painting my next army of Romans of different eras,
I'm going to take the colors from the aesthetics.
So dark frame, tunics and blue shields.
After the models have been painted with the colors, I usually apply shading on them.
Because they are small, you don't want, at least I don't want to, for example, paint the eyes of the models.
They are very, very, very, too small.
So I just paint the whole face to skin color.
And when it's dried, they are these quick shades.
These are just the translucent shades that you can just color, cover the whole model or part of the model.
And when it dries, it shades the model in a way that recesses get darker than the raised surfaces.
So that means that you automatically get darker eras and the model has eyes and that looks pretty, pretty reasonable.
Because the fact is that if you are looking a face of a man from a couple hundred meters, you don't see the eyes, you just see the shadows.
And then your mind feels in that, okay, these shadows mean that there's eyes.
So the models on the table top works in the similar way.
After that, after I have shaded the thing, I usually just go through the model once more,
maybe take up little details, maybe add a little highlight to the end, generally make sure that they are what I want them to be.
After that, I add a varnish to protect the paint coat.
When I was painting plastic models, I didn't do that because plastic is a...
For some reason, the paint stays on the plastic a lot better than on the metal.
If you drop a plastic model, you usually don't chip the paint, but if you drip drop a metal model that hasn't been varnished.
And at least I usually lose something with that point.
Then it means that I have to do some repairs.
So I won the models.
So far, I have been using a...
This is called Game Varnish.
I actually don't know.
Ah, this is Vallejo.
I mean, this is manufactured by Vallejo.
It's a really good, really good polish.
I'm really happy about that because it's a very matte.
It doesn't create a fine surface.
Sadly, that bottle is about to run out.
So next I'm going to try the arm paint, the anti-shine matte polish.
See how well that works.
Part of the hobby is experimenting with all this stuff and trying to find out what things work and what things don't work.
And talking with the other hobbyists and trying to exchange ideas and learning from each other.
It's pretty interesting.
After the model has been varnished, the model itself...
I couldn't stir really at that point.
But that doesn't mean that it's ready on the table top, because on the DBA,
you have multiple models on a base.
For example, if you have an elephant,
it's just a single elephant.
Because they are so huge.
Same with the artiller pieces.
Like a cardboard list and such.
But for example, if you have a wolf hand, that's for three or four models.
And if you have a horse, that's seven models on a base.
And so I'm using a small wooden base that had been cut to the size.
Sadly, I don't remember the way I cut this.
I'm really happy about it with this.
This is a light end.
Not too thick, but thick enough that they are easy to handle on the table.
But eventually I'm going to run out of those and I have to seek out a replacement of photos.
But until then I'm keeping using those.
Mr. Base, that I got from somewhere that I don't remember any more vehicle.
I usually just take the models that I'm going to base and try them on on the base,
try to figure out what would be a good nice arrangement for those.
They isn't that much space for doing very dynamic scenes.
But sometimes it's sometimes the order of how they stand on the base makes big difference.
I usually try to avoid having two similar post characters standing next to each other.
That's one of the tropics using metal models because with the metal models having different poses.
It isn't as easy as with plastic models.
You usually have to have to have models by yourself.
There are some metal models that you need to have.
There are some metal models that you need to have to have to have an elephant carry out, for example.
The legioners, well, Roman food soldiers that I've painted, had a separate field.
So you have had to glue those, but they didn't really change the pose of the models.
But anyway, I try to find a order and arrangement how I want the models to be posed.
And then I'm happy with the idea I glue them on the base.
I'm using a log type, log type power epox.
This is a two component glue that tries in a five or so minutes.
I have found that pretty nice.
Five minutes is into all three long times, so you cannot make.
You cannot mix too much of the glue and try to base too many models at the one core,
which is a bit of a drawback, but on the other hand, if you are clueling shields or spears,
you don't have to hold the models together for long time.
A liberal amount of glue that helps their tools.
Sometimes, when I'm clueling, spears, for example, I glue them with a log type and attach them
while they are trying with the glue deck.
I had a one long, long time ago, when I was still playing the warhammer,
I had some last cannon guy who I glued with a metal huge cannon
and that glue deck thing it didn't work out.
So over the night, I was using different epoxic back then
that took half an hour to cry.
So over the night, the cannon just started slowly pointing downwards and it ended up looking kind of silly.
Paul Marvin was shooting at his feet, but that's one of those things that you do once and then you learn.
So I glue the models on the base with an epoxic back to cry,
and then I'll start working on the basing.
The basing is the fun part.
I love doing that stuff like you have so many options.
You can think about where the arm is based, like you can do a highland stuff
or you can do jungle stuff or you can do a desert stuff.
But what you have, there's endless opportunities.
For example, these ancient preachers that I'm currently doing,
I, after cluing the models, and after the models have tried on the place,
I glued some very fine sand with a PVA glue onto the base to give a little bit of texture.
And after that, that had tried, over night, then I painted that sand dark brown.
And let's try to, on top of the painted sand, I glued some batches of step across.
This is a static cross from the army painter.
I seem to be using tons of all the paint things nowadays.
So I glued some static cross.
That's a little, I think this is some synthetic stuff.
The thing is that the name comes from the fact that if you have some static electricity,
you can get that to the crash to stand up really nicely.
But it also works like if you just crop it on a PVA glue and then blow on it gently.
And I found that if you tint the PVA glue a little bit of water,
it works much better than using the straight PVA glue.
So, after that, step across, I attached a couple puffed, this is a little,
what would you call this?
Well, little puffed of crack that I had here and there.
And then I also have a little pieces of ground cork that look like a stone that I attached.
Here and there, paint with a mixture of black and uniform cray,
so that they look like a stone with interesting patterns on them.
And after that, after everything cries, the model is ready.
And then it's rinse and freebie it for the next model.
And I mentioned assembling the models earlier.
I usually like base coating the models when they are unassembled,
and then painting them and then cluing them when everything has been painted.
The thing to remember when doing that is that you have to remove the paint from the surfaces
that you are going to glue, because otherwise the first time you touch the glued piece
it will just move and rip the paint off.
The paint isn't that strongly affixed on the model after all.
So, I use a small knife to scrape the paint off from the surfaces,
surfaces before cluing them.
And well, the spheres are exceptional to that role.
Those are usually clued on the surface because they don't tend to forget to paint when they are attached.
But for example, shields, I like painting separately,
because then you can paint both sides of the shield, and also you can paint the arms that way when the shields aren't in the way.
Some might argue that what the point of painting the arms when they are mostly covered anyway,
but if you look from the certain angle you might be able to see from the unbended arm,
this part of me greatly.
I like the models to look really nice, regardless of the darks that you are looking from.
And that's a pulp, I think.
That's how I paint my little tiny tin soldiers.
Maybe the next time I talk I might talk about the TBA in general,
but that's for the different parts.
Thanks a lot.
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