Painting Miniatures: Tips, hints and tricks

When it comes to painting miniatures the best thing you can do is practice. As you get more practice you will get better at it. Your eye, your hands, and your ability to judge color schemes will all improve. Here are some tips and important things to remember when you are painting miniatures.

Here is a quick overview of the process of painting miniatures

• Takea really good look at the miniature
• Trim away any excess metal
• Prime it with several very thin coats of a primer
• Paint it from the deepest sections first
• Add texture to the base
• Seal it so it will last for years

QUICK TIPS FOR PAINTING MINIATURES

I prefer to use watercolor paints because of the ease of handling and wide variety of colors that are available. They are cheap too.

Very rarely does a section of your miniature get just one color - It is almost always two shades of the same color. this will make it look more realistic. Add white or black to make your second color.

Tools are very important in making miniatures. You should have plenty of tools for manipulating and holding your miniatures. You can make jigs, holders, and clamps yourself if you need them.

Always work under extremely bright light. Normal room lighting isn't sufficient for miniatures. Get a table lamp.

Work under a magnifying glass or lens if possible. Your ability to do really detailed work like this will make the miniature look so much better.

Be creative when working with your miniatures amd your tools- If a brush doesn't have the right shape you can always cut it with a pair of scissors. Make it shorter or thinner, or even cut it into a angular point.

Colors - I have a tremendous assortment of colors including medieval type colors like gold, silver, leather, skin, rust and others. The morel colors you have the better your miniature will look.

Clean-up and care of your materials

Your brushes can quickly be ruined if you don't immediately take care of them. I recommend you wash them in warm soapy water after use. The trace amounts of soap will keep your brushes supple. If they come with little plastic sleeves always put the sleeves back on when done with the brushes.

When done with a session of painting for the day you should always do a thorough job of cleaning everything up. Seal up all the paints tightly so they don't dry out and keep everything organized in a nice box, tool box, or fishing tackle box.

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Table of Contents for this tutorial

1. Miniature Home
2. Painting Miniatures Tutorial start
3. The Paints
4. Preparing the Miniature for painting
5. Priming the Miniature
6. What to paint first
7. More Painting and the details
8. Close-up of the completed Warhorse
9. Adding texture to the base for realism
10. Tips and hints for painting miniatures
11. Diorama and Miniature supply Store

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