Welcome back to part two of my mini painting for beginners series, in the last article I covered everything you would need to start painting miniatures. Now that you have everything lets get into how to get the paint on the miniature.
This article will cover basic housekeeping practices and ideas that will preserve your equipment and achieve the best possible quality from your paint.
Your brush is going to see a lot of mileage and you will likely end up with some dead brushes (don't throw them out right away, I'll tell you why later.) but with proper care a brush can last you a long time. I want to cover brushes before paint so you can be aware of what to look out for.
Lets start with Brush Types you will likely use. My go to is a no. 2 round, it is large enough to give control but fine enough this is the size I use for 80% of my painting.
A no. 0 liner is good to have for fine details like freehand letters or symbols but usually your no. 2 can do most things a liner can do.
A square Shader or or Square comb is great for any kind of dry brushing
its good to have a variety of brushes for niche applications but these three should cover most beginner techniques.
As far as Natural Hair vs. Synthetic it will all depend on application, most of my personal preference is in Synthetic, they don't last as long but I prefer the tip for precision work. when it comes to dry brushing I prefer Natural hair, they flow a bit freer and give smoother gradients.
Brush Cleaning:
Two main things you want to achieve to keep your brushes good are to keep paint out of the ferule (the housing that binds the bristles), and to maintain the tip of the brush. The easiest way to clean your brush is in warm water with a little bit of mild dish soap to break down any dried paint. you don't want to put pressure on tip so what I do is work the side of the brush on the side of the glass containing the water, don't apply too much pressure and let the water and soap do its work. (Try to avoid leaving the brush in the water as the weight of the brush will deform the tip.) when the brush looks free of paint wipe it gently with a dry paper towel again not putting direct pressure on the tip. once the paint is removed moisten the bristles slightly and reform the tip using the crease in your palm, twisting the brush while you pull it to reshape a sharp tip.
You wan't to do this any time you switch colors but you also want to get into the habit of doing this every so often when working with one color for extended periods so you do not end up with dried paint on the bristles.
Thinning your Paints:
If you have seen anything else regarding miniature painting or even followed the hobby you have likely seen someone somewhere say "Thin your Paints". In my last post I talked about using a palate and having water nearby, here is where both of these pieces are important. With higher quality acrylic paints the pigments are fairly strong leading to a thicker paint, the good thing about this is they can be easily thinned with water and still maintain their color. Using paints straight out will usually lead to a loss of detail on your figure and a mucky appearance, It can also lead to issues down the road when you start shading and highlighting.
Thinning is easy, Transfer some of your paint into your palate (remember when I told you to hold on to your old worn out brushes, use one of those for transferring paint from pots and for mixing colors) or use a few drops if you are using a dropper bottle, then add a ratio of water to your paint and mix it together with your old brush. There is no real set ratio for thinning paints as each color and line will have its own thickness. I will usually thin until the paint gives coverage but doesn't clump, You can test this on your palate on the upper edge of the pot. I personally keep a small dropper bottle of distilled water at my station to make this a little easier, with this you can easily measure the portion of water you use.
Loading your Brush
Now that you are familiarized with cleaning and thinning its finally time to put some paint on your brush. going back to my previous point the focus here will be avoiding paint from getting into your ferrule and maintaining your brush tip.
When loading your brush you want to load the bristles from the side while avoiding getting paint into the ferule, you never want to dab the tip in the paint, this will usually lead to a blob at the tip and eventually warp the tip. Going back to my previous article again where I recommended picking up a palate with circular wells, having this type of well will make loading the brush simple, you simply drag the brush along the side of the well allowing the bristles to fill with paint (Stressing again not to allow any of the paint to absorb into your ferule), twisting it as you pull to maintain the tip. once its full lightly drag the bristles on the dry top of the palate to eliminate pooling at your tip. now your ready to paint.
This article will cover basic housekeeping practices and ideas that will preserve your equipment and achieve the best possible quality from your paint.
Your brush is going to see a lot of mileage and you will likely end up with some dead brushes (don't throw them out right away, I'll tell you why later.) but with proper care a brush can last you a long time. I want to cover brushes before paint so you can be aware of what to look out for.
Lets start with Brush Types you will likely use. My go to is a no. 2 round, it is large enough to give control but fine enough this is the size I use for 80% of my painting.
A no. 0 liner is good to have for fine details like freehand letters or symbols but usually your no. 2 can do most things a liner can do.
A square Shader or or Square comb is great for any kind of dry brushing
its good to have a variety of brushes for niche applications but these three should cover most beginner techniques.
 |
| From left to right: Flat no.4(dry-brush), Round no.2 My go to brush(layering and detail), an older no.2 round(base coating) and my very old frankenbrush which is only used to transfer and mix paints at this point. |
As far as Natural Hair vs. Synthetic it will all depend on application, most of my personal preference is in Synthetic, they don't last as long but I prefer the tip for precision work. when it comes to dry brushing I prefer Natural hair, they flow a bit freer and give smoother gradients.
Brush Cleaning:
Two main things you want to achieve to keep your brushes good are to keep paint out of the ferule (the housing that binds the bristles), and to maintain the tip of the brush. The easiest way to clean your brush is in warm water with a little bit of mild dish soap to break down any dried paint. you don't want to put pressure on tip so what I do is work the side of the brush on the side of the glass containing the water, don't apply too much pressure and let the water and soap do its work. (Try to avoid leaving the brush in the water as the weight of the brush will deform the tip.) when the brush looks free of paint wipe it gently with a dry paper towel again not putting direct pressure on the tip. once the paint is removed moisten the bristles slightly and reform the tip using the crease in your palm, twisting the brush while you pull it to reshape a sharp tip.
You wan't to do this any time you switch colors but you also want to get into the habit of doing this every so often when working with one color for extended periods so you do not end up with dried paint on the bristles.
Thinning your Paints:
If you have seen anything else regarding miniature painting or even followed the hobby you have likely seen someone somewhere say "Thin your Paints". In my last post I talked about using a palate and having water nearby, here is where both of these pieces are important. With higher quality acrylic paints the pigments are fairly strong leading to a thicker paint, the good thing about this is they can be easily thinned with water and still maintain their color. Using paints straight out will usually lead to a loss of detail on your figure and a mucky appearance, It can also lead to issues down the road when you start shading and highlighting.
Thinning is easy, Transfer some of your paint into your palate (remember when I told you to hold on to your old worn out brushes, use one of those for transferring paint from pots and for mixing colors) or use a few drops if you are using a dropper bottle, then add a ratio of water to your paint and mix it together with your old brush. There is no real set ratio for thinning paints as each color and line will have its own thickness. I will usually thin until the paint gives coverage but doesn't clump, You can test this on your palate on the upper edge of the pot. I personally keep a small dropper bottle of distilled water at my station to make this a little easier, with this you can easily measure the portion of water you use.
Loading your Brush
Now that you are familiarized with cleaning and thinning its finally time to put some paint on your brush. going back to my previous point the focus here will be avoiding paint from getting into your ferrule and maintaining your brush tip.
When loading your brush you want to load the bristles from the side while avoiding getting paint into the ferule, you never want to dab the tip in the paint, this will usually lead to a blob at the tip and eventually warp the tip. Going back to my previous article again where I recommended picking up a palate with circular wells, having this type of well will make loading the brush simple, you simply drag the brush along the side of the well allowing the bristles to fill with paint (Stressing again not to allow any of the paint to absorb into your ferule), twisting it as you pull to maintain the tip. once its full lightly drag the bristles on the dry top of the palate to eliminate pooling at your tip. now your ready to paint.
 |
| My palate after a long painting session, as you can see I use the wells to load the paint from the side and regularly use the top of the palate to check my paints consistency. |
That about covers the topic. So now you know how to handle your materials, what now. next article I will be covering the basics model preparation and priming.
Thanks for reading.
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