Beginners Guide to Miniature Painting - Your First Mini (Priming)

Welcome back.  If you missed the introduction, this is my beginners guide to miniature painting.  You can find it here.  I'm now going to cover priming and getting your first mini painted.  Given the length of the post, I'll split it into two parts. 

You've got your paints, brush(es), water, paper towel, palette and somewhere comfortable and light to paint. Hopefully you've also got some minis to paint, choose something with few moving parts different areas, and hence few different colours. 

Before actually putting paint to mini its a good idea to wash the mini.  This removes any of the oils used to make sure the mini doesn't stick in the mould, plus any sticky fingerprints from fellow hobbyists.  Simply use warm water and a little washing up liquid (dish soap).  A good scrub with a toothbrush will help, then allow it to dry before applying paint.

Why Prime?  Back when all miniatures were lead or pewter (or various alloys of them) you needed a coat to prime the metal for the paint to adhere to.  Now-a-days some plastics (notably Reaper's 'Bonesium') claim not to need it, and some miniatures come already primed, such as the various Wizkids minis.

Unless the mini is pre primed I'd recommend giving it a coat anyway.  Although dedicated primers/undercoats are available, for now just use your white paint.  If you're painting a Reaper Bones mini, make sure that the paint isn't watered down for this; the plastic repels water and makes it very difficult to get paint to stick (that's one of the reasons we are priming it). 

Priming. Drop a little bit of the white paint on your palette.  Dropper bottles, such as Army Painter, Reaper or Vallejo make this easy, otherwise you'll have to use a brush or something like a cocktail stick to get the paint out of the pot.  If you're using a brush, only use the tip of the hairs.  You should NEVER get paint more than three quarters down the hairs, so aim for half way as a maximum.  If you feel you need more paint on the brush, use a bigger brush instead (those multi packs of brushes are useful).  Priming doesn't need a small brush anyway.  I find holding the brush about two thirds of the way down the handle is about right for priming, or indeed any large areas such as on terrain.  You can get nice broad sweeps with the brush this way. 

While you're undercoating the mini take a good look at it. Decide what colours you want where, believe me, it helps when we get to the next stage.

A good sized brush for priming, and a good brush hold for coverage.

When you've finished the priming coat, have a good look at the mini, you might spot bits you've missed, and its always easier to touch them up now rather than later.  This check is very good practice for when you are painting the mini (what they call round here 'a coit o' looking at').  Once you're happy, give the brush a good swill around in the water and dry it off on the paper towel by drawing the hairs gently through the paper towel from ferule to tip.  Clean?  Well do it again, just to be sure.  The white paint might not show up too well, but once we get on to the other colours, you'll see some paint still coming off apparently clean hairs.  Dirty brushes don't last as long as clean ones, they don't come to a point as easily either, and there's a risk of transferring pigment onto the model.  When you've finished painting, make sure the brush is clean.  If the hairs are starting to splay out, gently form them back into a point again (lips work well for this), and store it away with the protective collar on.

Once you've finished, give the primer plenty of time to dry. If you're not sure, check the paint on your palette. 

Examples. I've chosen a very old Games Workshop hard plastic goblin and a Reaper Bones monk. Both have very few different areas, and are ideal for our limited starting colours (though we'll cheat a bit with this as you'll see).

Here they are already undercoated. 

Next time we'll get the basecoat done, and you'll have finished your first painted mini.