Beginners Guide to Miniature Painting - Tools and Materials

Well, since you ask me for a guide to painting minis, it just so happens that I might have something that could help you...

Some of my daughter's D&D group want to try painting minis, but although there is a lot (A LOT) of advice online, if you've never put brush to mini before, it can be overwhelming.

So this is my guide, which hopefully won't be scary, won't assume you have instant access to a million different paints, but will teach you enough to get you going.  I'm not aiming to teach award winning painting techniques, I will teach you sound basics that allow you to get some minis painted and then decide how much of the hobby you want to do.  

Paints.  I'm using just nine paints to begin with; red, yellow, green, blue, black, white, dark brown, bronzed flesh and a steel for armour and weapons.  We'll mix any other colours or shades we might need from this lot.  Eventually we will need a few more colours and maybe even some washes etc, but for now this is plenty.  I'm using a mix of Army Painter, Vallejo and Games Workshop, just to show that it doesn't really matter what make you use, just choose medium or light shades for now.  All painters have their favourites (mine is Vallejo, or Reaper if I can get them), but just get what you can and make your mind up yourself what works for you.  It's best to get dedicated miniatures paints, they are formulated specifically, and things like the pigment grain size and amount of flow medium are carefully balanced.  You can get by with craft paints, but they are harder to use on minis, and are best kept for terrain and other, larger projects.  You should be able to get all these paints in hobby shops (Warhammer shops should have a huge range of the Games Workshop paints, independent games or model shops are are likely to stock the other ranges) or online, and some are available in starter sets, such at these from Army Painter, Vallejo, or Reaper .*

Starter paints; GW black, Vallejo metal and brown, Army Painter red, white and flesh, VGC yellow and green and AP blue

Brushes. These are just as important, and a good brush is well worth looking after.  However, for your first painting, you can get by with most hobby brushes.  I got a value pack of  Royal and Langnickel camel hair brushes, which seem OK and contain several different sizes.  If you got a starter set of paints it may well contain a starter brush as well.

Other Tools. You'll also need some sort of palette. These are readily available in craft shops, but to begin with any waterproof low walled container will do, as will a take-away tub.  I often use the bottom cut from a yoghurt or butter container.  White plastic helps show up the paint colours.  

  

You'll need something to protect the surface you are working on, a pot to hold clean water both to wash brushes and to dilute your paint, and a cloth or paper towel to dry your washed brush (and clean up any spills). 

I recommend using a small cap or lid, such as from a drink bottle with bluetac (poster tack) to hold your mini and protect your work as you paint.

Finally, find somewhere to paint where you are comfortable.  You'll need a good source of light, daylight is best, but you can supplement it with an LED lamp.  I find I have to use a magnifying visor, but then my eyesight isn't what it used to be, hopefully most of my readers will be fine without.

Miniatures. You should now have everything you need apart from minis.  I'm aiming this particularly at people using minis in role playing, which means lots of different manufacturers, and lots of different materials.  For examples I'm choosing some of the most common and easily found ranges and looking at hard plastic, such as most Games Workshop kits (and lots of other ranges like North Star's Frostgrave range), Reapers own soft plastic minis ('Bonesium') and the plastic minis from Wizkids.  

As an important part of learning is practice, so its worth getting a few cheap minis just to practice on.  eBay has lots of options, such as random selections from Chinese suppliers, you can even try some board game minis, and these are sometimes available cheaply in random lots.  

When choosing, try and find minis without a load of fiddly details.  We are starting at first principles here, and there's no point making life difficult by having lots of equipment, belts, weapons etc to paint.

Set up ready for painting, note vitally important mug of tea (sadly empty)

One final thing that's very useful, especially if you go on to paint a lot of minis, is a notebook, but it's not necessary at the beginning.

I'll let you collect the stuff you need.  Next time we'll actually get our first minis primed.

*If you can find the Reaper Learn to Paint kits they contain three miniatures as well as instructions and paint, and are an excellent introduction, I recommend them. I'll be taking things a bit steadier though, none of this fancy shading and highlighting stuff for a while yet.