Welcome back to my series on painting miniatures, so far we have covered a lot of information about prepping your work space and miniature to begin painting. In this article we will finally talk about the painting process it's self.
I will be covering the three steps to painting your model to a tabletop standard, we will talk about the base coat, shading using washes and inks, and the basics of highlighting.
What does tabletop standard mean?
You will hear this term a good bit in the world of war gaming specifically. Games like Warhammer, Warmachine and even Star Wars: Legion have an aspect of tournament play tailored towards the hobbies player who likes to take extra time and effort to make their army look especially good for display purposes. At wargaming events you will likely see additional prize support for "Best Painted Army" or "Best painted model", If you are just starting to paint it is likely that you will focused to making your army look good on the table, usually viewed from a distance.
Tabletop standard is a standard of painting mainly used to make your army stand out or be unique when viewed at the distance from you to the table usually to differentiate between the models. this can be taken as far as you would like.
As seen with the Stormtrooper unit above it is painted fairly basic, It utilizes a basic 2 tone zenithal highlighting on the white to give some depth, then using only three other colors the model is detailed very bare bones to look good on the table. With this job the client requested the pauldron on each unit commander be painted a specific color, in this case purple with helmet markings across the rest of the unit in matching colors to create cohesion. to this standard there was no need to use any shading as the base coat was plenty good to the requested standard.
Luke Skywalker was taken a bit further, naturally as he will be the front man to my army I wanted to give him the TLC he deserves. As you can see in the photo using Washes and post highlighting the model has plenty of depth. As for the base, we will talk about this in future articles.
Lets dive in:
Base Coating
With Base Coating the goal is to give your model some color, you don't need to focus too much on heavy details yet. I usually recommend blocking in smaller pieces like blasters, undershirts, belts, and faces first. this will give you some leeway to "paint outside the lines" as you can fix any over painting when doing your main fill colors.
Looking at the photo above you can see that smaller pieces like backpacks, belts, and helmets are the first to be painted. I am not being too careful there, with units of troops that follow a matching color scheme you want to take an assembly line approach, painting the same color on each model of the unit before moving on to the next. **Remember my section about brush cleaning, if you are using the same color for a while be aware to clean your brush ever so often to keep paint from drying on the bristles**
When it comes to models where a part of the model that obstructs another where the obstruction is detachable (Most units in Legion so far do this with the arms) you generally want to keep them detached until you finish your base coat and your shading. some people attach them to a pencil with poster tack to make them easier to base coat where they can be fairly small.
Once you begin to fill in your main colors the model will begin to look like it is ready for the table, as you can see with these rebel trooper captain. If you wan't you could leave it at that but why would you when shading is so easy. As you can see in the photo above, the AT-RT rider is fully base coated, he looks good but still lacks depth, so lets talk about the process of shading using a Wash or Ink.
Shading (Washing)
First of all, What exactly is a wash?
Generally an wash is a paint or ink that has been thinned very far so that it will automatically find its way into the recesses of a model when applied and pool there creating the appearance of a shadowed area. Washes are a secret weapon in a miniature painters arsenal and are very versatile as they come in many colors and shades.
There are a few running jokes behind washes because they are so effective, one in particular Citadels Nuln Oil. Nuln Oil is a black ink wash that will work on almost every color to create depth, some people refer to it as "Liquid talent".
Just like regular acrylic paint washes can be thinned for a reduced effect. The biggest thing about them is there is very little pigment in them as they are so thin and semi-transparent. I recommend using a medium such as Citadels Lahmian Medium which will thin the wash but maintain the pigment for a reduced effect.
The model above has been base coated and shaded, on the body the base coat was done in a red with a thinned brown wash to define the clothing detail, the head was base coated in a blend of green and grey, then washed in a very thinned green wash.
Be careful when selecting washes as Games Workshop just released a Gloss variant of all of their Shade products. It can be good for doing glossy leathers and metals, even mud on bases but it is very situational.
Once you have your model shaded it can be called pretty much tabletop quality but you can take it a step beyond if you feel confident enough. lets take a quick look at highlighting.
Highlighting
Remember in the article about primer when I talked about zenithil highlighting. a lot of the same ideas apply here. The idea is to think about if a light was cast down on the subject, it would cast a shadow but at the same time the areas exposed to the light would be brightened and sometimes become reflective.
You can start basic highlights by going back to the colors you base coated with and reapplying a thin layer on raised areas where it looks like light would hit. Do your best to blend this in (this is why you want to use thinner paint.). You can further amplify this by adding a drop of pure white to your color to desaturate it then applying again over the highlight in a smaller area creating the look of overexposure, doing your best to blend it in, continue doing this until you are happy with the result.
Using the most desaturated tone of the color you can use the edge of your brush to highlight any hard edges on a highlighted section to bring them out, you can almost go close to a white tone on these if you feel comfortable enough.
I hope these guides are helping you learn to be a better painter, I would love to hear your feedback about them so i can improve future articles. In my next Learn to Paint article I will take you outdoors to gather some materials then we will talk a little about texturing, weathering, and basing.
Until next time, Happy Painting!
I will be covering the three steps to painting your model to a tabletop standard, we will talk about the base coat, shading using washes and inks, and the basics of highlighting.
What does tabletop standard mean?
You will hear this term a good bit in the world of war gaming specifically. Games like Warhammer, Warmachine and even Star Wars: Legion have an aspect of tournament play tailored towards the hobbies player who likes to take extra time and effort to make their army look especially good for display purposes. At wargaming events you will likely see additional prize support for "Best Painted Army" or "Best painted model", If you are just starting to paint it is likely that you will focused to making your army look good on the table, usually viewed from a distance.
Tabletop standard is a standard of painting mainly used to make your army stand out or be unique when viewed at the distance from you to the table usually to differentiate between the models. this can be taken as far as you would like.
 |
| Star Wars: Legion - Stormtrooper Unit |
 |
| Star Wars: Legion - Luke Skywalker |
Luke Skywalker was taken a bit further, naturally as he will be the front man to my army I wanted to give him the TLC he deserves. As you can see in the photo using Washes and post highlighting the model has plenty of depth. As for the base, we will talk about this in future articles.
Lets dive in:
Base Coating
With Base Coating the goal is to give your model some color, you don't need to focus too much on heavy details yet. I usually recommend blocking in smaller pieces like blasters, undershirts, belts, and faces first. this will give you some leeway to "paint outside the lines" as you can fix any over painting when doing your main fill colors.
 |
| "Blocking in" the smaller pieces |
When it comes to models where a part of the model that obstructs another where the obstruction is detachable (Most units in Legion so far do this with the arms) you generally want to keep them detached until you finish your base coat and your shading. some people attach them to a pencil with poster tack to make them easier to base coat where they can be fairly small.
Once you begin to fill in your main colors the model will begin to look like it is ready for the table, as you can see with these rebel trooper captain. If you wan't you could leave it at that but why would you when shading is so easy. As you can see in the photo above, the AT-RT rider is fully base coated, he looks good but still lacks depth, so lets talk about the process of shading using a Wash or Ink.
Shading (Washing)
First of all, What exactly is a wash?
Generally an wash is a paint or ink that has been thinned very far so that it will automatically find its way into the recesses of a model when applied and pool there creating the appearance of a shadowed area. Washes are a secret weapon in a miniature painters arsenal and are very versatile as they come in many colors and shades.
There are a few running jokes behind washes because they are so effective, one in particular Citadels Nuln Oil. Nuln Oil is a black ink wash that will work on almost every color to create depth, some people refer to it as "Liquid talent".
Just like regular acrylic paint washes can be thinned for a reduced effect. The biggest thing about them is there is very little pigment in them as they are so thin and semi-transparent. I recommend using a medium such as Citadels Lahmian Medium which will thin the wash but maintain the pigment for a reduced effect.
The model above has been base coated and shaded, on the body the base coat was done in a red with a thinned brown wash to define the clothing detail, the head was base coated in a blend of green and grey, then washed in a very thinned green wash.
Be careful when selecting washes as Games Workshop just released a Gloss variant of all of their Shade products. It can be good for doing glossy leathers and metals, even mud on bases but it is very situational.
 |
| With this model I was just after buying Agrax Earthshade, Citadels brown wash, I didn't realize that it was the gloss variant at the time. Once It dried it had the appearance of being wet so I went with it. As Bob Ross says "No mistakes, just happy accidents." |
Highlighting
Remember in the article about primer when I talked about zenithil highlighting. a lot of the same ideas apply here. The idea is to think about if a light was cast down on the subject, it would cast a shadow but at the same time the areas exposed to the light would be brightened and sometimes become reflective.
You can start basic highlights by going back to the colors you base coated with and reapplying a thin layer on raised areas where it looks like light would hit. Do your best to blend this in (this is why you want to use thinner paint.). You can further amplify this by adding a drop of pure white to your color to desaturate it then applying again over the highlight in a smaller area creating the look of overexposure, doing your best to blend it in, continue doing this until you are happy with the result.
Using the most desaturated tone of the color you can use the edge of your brush to highlight any hard edges on a highlighted section to bring them out, you can almost go close to a white tone on these if you feel comfortable enough.
 |
| As you can see in this photo, the helmets have been highlighted to create an exposure of light effect. Also on the captains coat you will notice the edges have been highlighted. |
I hope these guides are helping you learn to be a better painter, I would love to hear your feedback about them so i can improve future articles. In my next Learn to Paint article I will take you outdoors to gather some materials then we will talk a little about texturing, weathering, and basing.
Until next time, Happy Painting!
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