Do's and don'ts when painting

Welcome to the Dark City!
There are some things that are essential for painting a miniature.
This topic is for those things, in case GW salesmen forgot to tell you as you bought your paint.

Here we go:

For beginners, mandatory Do's:

1. Prime your Miniature, use a spray, much easier than primer from the pot, and better.

2. Use a wet palette. If you don't know how, google it, it's not hard, and makes painting so much easier.

3. Thin your paint. Paint as you buy it is too thick, resulting in a structure on your miniature where none should be.

4. Clean your brushes, often. Better also get a block of soap to clean them with every once in a while, it will keep them usable much longer.



Don'ts:

1. Don't let the paint reach the cramp of your brush, more or less instantly ruins it, as it makes the tip frail, and can't really be cleaned. Unless you use the soap block on it asap.

2. Don't forget your Army Case in a public transport, speaking by experience, it's NOT funny...

3. Don't attach parts to your model that will hinder your painting.
For example i don't attach the gun holding arms of Kabalite Warriors before having finished painting the whole breastplates.

That's all for now, hope it helps.
It would be nice if one of our Authority could sticky this.
Also everyone is welcome to add Do's n' Don'ts or correct me if i'm wrong.

"Advanced"

Do
1) Buy an airbrush with a double action trigger, especially for vehicles. Double action is important as it allows you greater control as it regulates airflow and paint so that you can go lighter or heavier as you want as well as adjust how large of a spray you want, a wide spray or a fine line, just by adjusting your position on the trigger.

2) Buy the paint thinner from the person who produced the paints you are thinning for use in an airbrush.

Don't
1) Buy the cheapest airbrush you can find, it is worth it to spend that little extra for a better quality one. Many people go out and buy the cheapest airbrush they can find. The problem is that they are low quality, tend to have issues and then put people off using them. But on the other hand you don't have to invest hundreds of dollars to get one that you will find useful. A $20 airbrush is most likely just going to frustrate you, buying one for say $60 USD or more will usually give you something that you will have little problems with and do the job without needing replacement after only a short amount of time.

It just makes doing larger projects easier and in the case of vehicles helps with keeping a smooth paint job and the use of stencils allow from easy flames and other decorations. Is it mandatory no, but it does help a lot. For those with the skills a combination of airbrush and hand painting can make for really great pieces as there are things that are just better if done by hand and visa versa.

Edit: Copy that.

You could always have a 'beginner' and 'advanced' section in the OP. It seems like this will be a very helpful thread and could easily be stickied if it takes off.

Combined with previous post.

Indeed! Good idea.
Edit:
@CurstAlchemist: Nah it's cool
Just didn't know how to deal with it but cavash enlightened me.
Hope it's okay how i put it into the OP. Had to edit it a bit but only for format.

Probably very obvious but
Don't:
Sit in gloomy light painting with a frayed brush and gunky paint.
I started out painting under a small halogen bulb with the GW "brushes" and undiluted paint straight from the pot. Do this and you will end up with models painted to what e-bay likes to call an "acceptable standard".

Having proper tools will have a great impact on the result.
Do:
Invest in some good brushes.
For instance: http://www.winsornewton.com/na/shop/brushes/for-water-colour

Nice brush you've got there. It would be a shame if something were to... happen to it.
http://www.generalpencil.com/the-mastersreg-brush-cleaner-and-preserver.html
Even if you have the GW "brushes" you need this^

Get a proper lamp. Tall, bendable, sturdy and with a standard socket.
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20370383/
These particular ones are so cheap that you can get two if you have room for it.
Use LED bulbs for this^. No overheating of your work area and they lasts forever...ish.

Experienced painters:

If you do not already, learn to love the Lahmean medium.
With it you can; thin regular paints, make tasty glazes or paint it directly over decals to remove the shine.

Very good. I've got a daylight lamp from philips, quite expensive but easy on the eyes.

Edit: Took out the quotes, i felt i'd have to edit too much. Painters might as well read all the posts.
Or what do you think?

PS.: Sticky?

Marrath wrote:

[b]Don'ts:

1. Don't let the paint reach the cramp of your brush, more or less instantly ruins it, as it makes the tip frail, and can't really be cleaned. Unless you use the soap block on it asap.

I just realized why my brushes get destroyed so fast. THANK YOU.

Any tips on getting the paint from the pot to the pallet? After painting today i realized this is when im doing this most often. I wish the GW paints had dropper tops like Vallejo paints.

Glad when i can help
For getting the colour from pot to palette i take the small end of a teaspoon and use it like a spatula.
Probably not optimal but works for me.

Great stuff

@Elvellyn. I keep an old battered brush to get the paint from pot to pallet. This way I don't ruin my nice ones

Damn it, I already stuck the weapon-holding arms on my KWs... Too excited to restart modelling, hope it won't be too much of a hell to paint...

Ricardus wrote:

Damn it, I already stuck the weapon-holding arms on my KWs... Too excited to restart modelling, hope it won't be too much of a hell to paint...

Tell us how it went!

I will . I filled the shoulder holes with milliput for now, just have to prime them, will keep you noticed how hard or easy it might have been!

I still hesitate between black and white prime coat, I know it depends on how we want our models to be, I used to do it in black for my old Ulthwé craftworlders, which is quite logic, but now for my DE I would bend for a more flashy purple/dark blue rendering, hence I guess white would be better.

DO's

1) Use some brush cleaner solution, like "The Masters Brush CLeaner". It can even fix paint on the start of the brush.

2) Use good brushes, not a GW one.

3) Two thin layers is *always* better then one thick layer.

4) Thin your paint

5) Thin your paint, seriously

6) After you thinned it you can use some drying retarder solution. And/Or wet pallet.

7) Use 2 pots of water to clean your brush, one leaves too much of colored water on your brush.

Dont's

1) Dont paint bright colors over dark ones, use intermediate color. Like grey for white, light brown for yellow etc. This is the only method to work with thin paint.

2) Dont take crap load of paint on the brush, take just enough.

3) Never ever leave paint to dry on a brush.

Just a question I couldn't find an answer for, what's the best moment to prime/undercoat vehicules? especially the Venom and Raiders for if they're built before, some zones remain uncoated. Is it best to prime the pieces right on the mesh?

Same question for the mignatures, is it best to prime them before building the weapon arms, or is it best to prime them afterwards?

Thanks by advance for your eventual answers.

Prime after you assemble, because if you do so before, you will not be able to assemble plastic miniature. Plastic glue does not work through paint. You have to use super glue on already painted parts.

All the experience lead me to assemble everything then prime model. You can differentiate with vehicles, but still not more then 2-3 big blocks, say sails on raiders, crew on venoms/raiders etc. Dont leave behind small stuff, its better to just paint it carefully afterwards.

I paint Dark Eldar infantry with gun-holding arms separated to paint the awesome chest armor they have.
Also i maybe shouldn't have glued the wings to Scourges.
Will know for sure when i've finished the wings and vials...

Also everything Azdrubael said.

On a different subject:

Don't use Purity Seal on Venom's or flyer's cockpit canopies.
Seen it and it makes them milky.
Will definitely tape the canopies or not seal at all.

To address the problem of painting with the weapon(s) attached across the chest I came up with the following process:

According to my Calipers the width of a Kab Warriors chest (the arm mounting locations) is .31 Inches. Wyches, Succubi, Scourges etc all seem to follow this. So I take the Right Arm, the one with the weapon attached and using a pin vise I drill a shallow hole of .020". I insert a piece of .021" Brass Wire into this hole and Super Glue JUST THE TIP INTO THE HOLE. After it sets up I drill a hole into the Left Arm as well. I mark the wire at .31" and cut it just long enough to allow for the insertion.

Now the Left Arm can be rotated around to determine the exact spot where the hand can be glued to the weapon. At this point the weapon and both arms are a relatively sound structure that can be easily painted as can the Torso.

After finishing up the painting gently remove the wire from the Left Arm and Gently break the Super Glue bond of the Wire to the Right Arm.

A few scrapes with a #11 X-Acto Knife removes the paint from the mounting locations on the shoulders and arms. Glue in place.

Probably a "Solution in Search of a Problem" for most folks but honestly trying to glue into place on a painted model is a pain.