I have been painting miniatures for a good while now. It has been an interesting journey to say the least which has taken me into multiple games I wouldn't have gotten into if I didn't paint.
With Fantasy Flight Games releasing Star Wars: Legion we are seeing a lot of new interest in the hobby. The game is well refined with a good rule set, and is easily accessible. The biggest factor that keeps people away is the need to assemble and paint the models.
Good guy FFG was nice enough to do a few basic articles on starting with the hobbiest side of the game but where do you begin? Hopefully this series will help you with that.
First thing I will say is go ahead, dive in, it is not as challenging as you would think and the result is very rewarding. Your first model may not look great but the more you do the better you will get. Sometimes I go back through my older paint jobs to reflect on the journey.
Let's cover a few questions I get from people looking to start:
What do I need to begin?:
I'll try to keep this one simple. people tend to go overboard with this, I like to recommend a minimalist approach. All you really need to start is a brush, paint and something to paint bit I will expand a little on the idea.
Brushes:
Just starting out there is no need to go out and buy the best of the best, when learning you will likely spoil a few getting the hang of things. Your best bet is to go to your local craft store and pick up a pack of synthetic acrylic brushes. As long as you have good tips you are good. 90% of my painting is done with a no. 2 but having a variety is good for niche applications.
Paints:
This one isn't as simple but I will keep it as simple as I can.
Some people will say to go buy cheap acrylic paints to get started, while you could while on a budget I personally do not recommend this. The pigments in cheaper paints do not hold up well to thinning and tend to be thicker overall leading to a lot of loss of detail or lack of coverage on your model.
There are plenty of high quality lines of acrylic paint designed for painting minatures. I personally don't really use one over the other as each have their own benefits and drawbacks but getting started a few to look at that I personally use are Citidel, Valajio, and Army Painter. They can be purchased at most FLGS or hobby shops, just starting out you can get packs that include everything you need for a specific color scheme
Palate:
You will want to transfer your paint to something to mix and thin colors especially if you opt for dropper bottle style paints. I was really bad for painting from the pot with Citidel when I first started. It led to the paints drying out faster and me regularly spilling them. you will want one with round wells, trust me.
A container for water:
When I first started I would take a random glass from the kitchen and clean my brushes in it, I have wrote off my share of glassware doing that when I forget to dump the water at the end of a session. Do yourself a favor and go to the dollar store and get one to dedicate to painting, dried paint is not fun to remove from containers.
And a roll of paper towel:
This one is simple. its to dry the brushes off after you clean them.
I will cover some more advanced tools of the trade in a later post but this should cover everything that you need for your shopping list to get started.
In my next post I will cover some basics of working with your materials to get the best possible results starting out.
Thanks for reading and happy painting!
With Fantasy Flight Games releasing Star Wars: Legion we are seeing a lot of new interest in the hobby. The game is well refined with a good rule set, and is easily accessible. The biggest factor that keeps people away is the need to assemble and paint the models.
Good guy FFG was nice enough to do a few basic articles on starting with the hobbiest side of the game but where do you begin? Hopefully this series will help you with that.
First thing I will say is go ahead, dive in, it is not as challenging as you would think and the result is very rewarding. Your first model may not look great but the more you do the better you will get. Sometimes I go back through my older paint jobs to reflect on the journey.
On the left is one of my latest paint jobs, on the right was the first model I ever painted.
Let's cover a few questions I get from people looking to start:
What do I need to begin?:
I'll try to keep this one simple. people tend to go overboard with this, I like to recommend a minimalist approach. All you really need to start is a brush, paint and something to paint bit I will expand a little on the idea.
Brushes:
Paints:
This one isn't as simple but I will keep it as simple as I can.
Some people will say to go buy cheap acrylic paints to get started, while you could while on a budget I personally do not recommend this. The pigments in cheaper paints do not hold up well to thinning and tend to be thicker overall leading to a lot of loss of detail or lack of coverage on your model.
There are plenty of high quality lines of acrylic paint designed for painting minatures. I personally don't really use one over the other as each have their own benefits and drawbacks but getting started a few to look at that I personally use are Citidel, Valajio, and Army Painter. They can be purchased at most FLGS or hobby shops, just starting out you can get packs that include everything you need for a specific color scheme
Palate:
You will want to transfer your paint to something to mix and thin colors especially if you opt for dropper bottle style paints. I was really bad for painting from the pot with Citidel when I first started. It led to the paints drying out faster and me regularly spilling them. you will want one with round wells, trust me.
A container for water:
When I first started I would take a random glass from the kitchen and clean my brushes in it, I have wrote off my share of glassware doing that when I forget to dump the water at the end of a session. Do yourself a favor and go to the dollar store and get one to dedicate to painting, dried paint is not fun to remove from containers.
And a roll of paper towel:
This one is simple. its to dry the brushes off after you clean them.
I will cover some more advanced tools of the trade in a later post but this should cover everything that you need for your shopping list to get started.
In my next post I will cover some basics of working with your materials to get the best possible results starting out.
Thanks for reading and happy painting!
Good article :)
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