Just looking for advice on repainting.

I know there are topics but I figured a lot of people around here that do it, and are very experienced

1) How important is it to remove the default paint?

2) What do you use to remove paint? I've read some say they use brake fluid. That doesn't hurt the plastic?

3) Which type of paint do you use? How many coats?

4) What is a good buy not overly expensive paint brush do you use? Good to do fine detailing?

5) Do you do things like cut out a design and place it obey the mini and paint, or use painters tape so you keep your paint from going out of the area you are intending on painting?

6) How long does it take to do something like an xwing? Firespray? Shuttle?

And lastly.

If anyone knows a really good site that gives designs and tips can you please post a link.

I saw someone that did a shuttle all black with a red windshield which looked really bad ass

KRYNN,

1. I have not found it necessary to remove the factory paint in any of my repaints, I simply treat it as the primer/base coat.

2. If you must remove the original paint, I have had success using a bath of "Simple Green" (24 hrs, then clean with an old toothbrush under running water) or brake cleaner. The first is generally the safest, the second may work for tougher paint... or it may melt your model, that is why I usually just paint over the factory paint.

3. I use a variety of the available acrylic model paints (Valejo, Citadel, etc...) plus the occasional "hobby paints" such as are available in craft stores. Thinner coats are better than thick coats, so make it "just thick enough".

4. I avoid the brushes available from game stores (GW brands) and get the ones from craft stores like Hobby Lobby or Michaels (in USA). Generally, the smallest I recommend is a 000 brush as they keep a good point longer than the 5-0 or 10-0 brushes. Also, pick up a somewhat thicker brush like a '1' (useful for area painting, washes, etc...) and a wider/flat brush (for dry brushing/weathering).

5. I primarily rely on my eye and a steady hand but I have also used painters tape (as a straight edge) or lightly penciled line. Another trick I have picked up is to save unused decal scraps, trace and cut out my design, then paint the decal, finally applying it like any other decal- this I have used for some stuff there is no way I could have painted free-hand.

6. How long? Depends on complexity, number of coats/colors, etc... Goes quicker if you use the assembly line method with several models. Average time for my custom "Red 1, 2, 3 & 5" about 15 min each simply by painting details over the factory paint. A complete repaint of a Firespray-31 I did in the colors of Kath Scarlet took about 4 hours of work over three days, starting with a white base coat and working my way up to details, weathering and... as always... a protective clear top coat (clear gloss spray first, followed later by a matte finish/Dulcote).

Hope it helps,

Chris

1) Don't bother, unless you have a good reason to. The paint is really thin.

2) I never have yet, so this would be news to me.

3) Citadel for most, but I can get away with normal acrylic paint. Coats depend on the strength of the colour I'm using, and what effect I'm attempting. Usually one with a quick coating of water afterwords of the first coat drying to help hide the brushstrokes.

4) Just don't buy from Wal-Mart or the dollar store and you'll be good. Don't spend a mint, but buy brushes with brushtips that -look- good. You want something smooth, delicate and even.

5) Same as above. Just being really careful, and TAKING MY TIME . I also know when peak times to paint are, so it helps when I know my hands are steady and my eyes are focused.

6) Since I haven't painted any of those three yet, I can't say for certain. It depends really what you want to do! Simple base coats don't take too long if you have smoother surfaces to work with (A-Wings, B-Wings, Shuttles, Firesprays) while those with rough or complicated surfaces take more patience because of wanting to avoid paint pooling (HWK-290's, YT-1300's, Y-Wings, most TIE's).

• I have some advice: don't use too much paint at a time. You'll be surprised how little paint you actually need on the brush to do fine detailing.
• Wet the brush with your spittle before working: this will guide the brush into a desirable, more stable shape.
• Keep some water on hand at all times: you will need it. Have it be warm, not cold.
• When doing washes, wet the brush very gently with water, then add a small drop of paint. Alternatively, try to find small disposable containers or surfaces to mix washes or mixes. I use 1oz disposable sauce takeout cups from a local restaurant.
• Take your time and practice, and also try to have fun with this! It's easier to paint something than to have to repaint something. Patience is your friend and ally.

KRYNN,

1. I have not found it necessary to remove the factory paint in any of my repaints, I simply treat it as the primer/base coat.

2. If you must remove the original paint, I have had success using a bath of "Simple Green" (24 hrs, then clean with an old toothbrush under running water) or brake cleaner. The first is generally the safest, the second may work for tougher paint... or it may melt your model, that is why I usually just paint over the factory paint.

3. I use a variety of the available acrylic model paints (Valejo, Citadel, etc...) plus the occasional "hobby paints" such as are available in craft stores. Thinner coats are better than thick coats, so make it "just thick enough".

4. I avoid the brushes available from game stores (GW brands) and get the ones from craft stores like Hobby Lobby or Michaels (in USA). Generally, the smallest I recommend is a 000 brush as they keep a good point longer than the 5-0 or 10-0 brushes. Also, pick up a somewhat thicker brush like a '1' (useful for area painting, washes, etc...) and a wider/flat brush (for dry brushing/weathering).

5. I primarily rely on my eye and a steady hand but I have also used painters tape (as a straight edge) or lightly penciled line. Another trick I have picked up is to save unused decal scraps, trace and cut out my design, then paint the decal, finally applying it like any other decal- this I have used for some stuff there is no way I could have painted free-hand.

6. How long? Depends on complexity, number of coats/colors, etc... Goes quicker if you use the assembly line method with several models. Average time for my custom "Red 1, 2, 3 & 5" about 15 min each simply by painting details over the factory paint. A complete repaint of a Firespray-31 I did in the colors of Kath Scarlet took about 4 hours of work over three days, starting with a white base coat and working my way up to details, weathering and... as always... a protective clear top coat (clear gloss spray first, followed later by a matte finish/Dulcote).

Hope it helps,

Chris

Just wondering, what do you mean by saving you decals and trace then out?

You trace them out on the ship and then paint the ship?

What's a way to add weathering?

I haven't painted minus since I was a kid, and I didn't go that much into detail lol.

Acrylic piant seems the way to go then

So you guys just paint over the original paint

That's good. Little less work, and I don't have to worry about destroying the ship, but when you have the green on a Firespray, and want to paint Yellow, the green doesn't blend in with the yellow making it look blue or whatever.

When painting the Firespray kath colors, you paint the whole ship white, then Color over the white with the red and etc?

To the other poster, by wash, do you mean when washing the brush when changing from say blue to yellow? Or is the term wash some sort of effect your using?

Sorry if the questions seem dumb, but as you can tell, I'm very new to this.

Can't wait to start. Hopefully in the next couple weeks when the store gets more in.

Allow me to explain: I build/paint/play with other models for other games. Many of these models require decals to be applied. Many commercial decals have the decal material applied only to the image area, while a lot of after market decals are printed on a sheet of decal paper; that is, the entire sheet is made of the decal material, including the "white" space between images. I save the scraps/edges from these decals (or just buy decal paper at the local hobby shop) for later use. Now, say I want to do an intricate pattern (like I did on my B-wings); I want them to be crisp, precise and identical. Here is what I did, step by step:

1. Stuck a piece of clear tape on the model and sketched the pattern onto that.

2. Peeled off the tape and stuck it to a piece of card stock (index card), then redrew the pattern, neatening it up a bit.

3. I cut out the card stock pattern and saved it as a template.

4. I found enough scrap decal paper for my purposes, stuck them to a piece of scrap paper with some blue tack/poster putty and put that in my (spray) painting box.

5. I spray painted the decal paper with my choice of rattle-can spray paint. Use several light coats.

6. When dry, I trace my pattern onto the painted decal paper (being sure to flip the template so I have patterns for both sides of the model) and cut them out.

7. Prep the model with a coat of clear gloss spray so the decals have a smooth surface to cling to.

8. Applied the decals like I would any other decals, either using decal solvent like Micro Sol and Micro Set or just use a brushed on coat of clear acrylic floor polish like Future. The painted decals will be thicker than normal printed decals so my not sink into a highly detailed surface like the commercial ones.

9. When done, I top coat with a coat of the clear gloss spray and finally finish off with some sort of spray matte finish. Any shiny areas (like the cockpit "glass" on Kath Scarlett's Firespray) I paint over with a coat of clear acrylic floor wax, to give it some shine!

That is basically it. I find this useful for creating stripes and geometric shapes that need to be crisp and precise. Of course, the preferred method would be to use my computer to design my decals, then print them out on decal paper. Unfortunately, my skills are in painting and improvising, not in computer graphics.

Chris

Yeah, there's no reason to strip these. I've done it successfully on X wings using brake fluid (no sucess with simple green ... 48hrs + toothbrush and only the wash came off) with about 20min of soaking plus some scrubbing with a tooth brush. Note that if for whatever reason you decide you want to do this - the plastic peg needs to be removed as it doesn't like the brake fluid at ALL. Note that the X wing plastic is actually beige, so the base color won't change.

I use Polly Scale paints, or at least used to... I've been replacing them with Model Masters since Polly Scale no longer exists. I use them though because I started my painting hobby on models instead of minis, and those are the paints that ILM used to paint the models for the movies (or at least they used Reefer White and Caboose Red for the X wings from Polly Scale). I haven't had any issues with them painting minis or models. As for number of coats, that's a bit more complicated of a question.

I typically do a gray/white base coat with an air brush to get it "mostly" uniform. I don't mind if you see some of the darker colors showing through as it ends up adding to the paint job without having to do extra work. The one ship I didn't do this one was my Green A wing, where I just hand painted over the red with two shades of green. I probably did about 3 coats of a dark green to set the base as green, and then probably 3-5 coats of a quite watered down lime green to provide a bit of highlighting and depth. But the detail on other ships (unless it's yellow) only need 1-2 coats since they have a solid base coat that's easy to cover.

As for how to do detail - I'm not good enough to do the really small symbols and what not, but for straight edges, the best thing I've found is to have a beer about 20min beforehand. It greatly steadies the hand. Then if you use a long bristle brush and stoke in the direction of the line, it'll be much easier to control it to make it straight.

Once I'm done with airbrushing the base coat (I hate this part, and it takes quite a bit of time to do one at a time, but doesn't really take any additional time to do 2 over 1, so I've started to batch them) I turn the tv on and over an evening or two I'll finish it all up. It really depends on how much you're planning to do to it and how many areas you can work on while other areas are drying.

Y wings are relatively easy since you have the cockpit and the stripes by the cockpit... and then any pipes that you want to paint, all of which can be done while the other areas are drying. Plus there's not that much to paint. I'd say you could do that completely in about 2 hours... not all of which would be spent painting either, probably only 15-20min of painting.

X wings take a relatively long period of time because there's no way to hold it without messing up what you just did (I mean, there is, but it can be troublesome) so often you have to do the top wings, wait for them to dry, and then flip it over and do the bottom wings.

Note, I still consider myself a rookie, but I'm much better than when I started. For comparision, here's the first X wing I repainted, and one I repainted a few months ago to replace it.

Can you tell which is which?

Just looking for advice on repainting.

I know there are topics but I figured a lot of people around here that do it, and are very experienced

1) How important is it to remove the default paint?

2) What do you use to remove paint? I've read some say they use brake fluid. That doesn't hurt the plastic?

3) Which type of paint do you use? How many coats?

4) What is a good buy not overly expensive paint brush do you use? Good to do fine detailing?

5) Do you do things like cut out a design and place it obey the mini and paint, or use painters tape so you keep your paint from going out of the area you are intending on painting?

6) How long does it take to do something like an xwing? Firespray? Shuttle?

And lastly.

If anyone knows a really good site that gives designs and tips can you please post a link.

I saw someone that did a shuttle all black with a red windshield which looked really bad ass

1) Except for major projects, it's not in for these mini's. Stripping is important in, say, 40k because hobbiest applied paint is fairly thick and you will can lose significant detail. The factory applied paint an FFGs mini's is no thicker (and often thinner) than most primer coats, so you can just paint right over it.

2) Depends on the model. Brake fluid is popular, as is Simple Green (a common household cleaner). But, again, largely unecessary.

3) Any hobby of art paint (NOT craft paints, too thick). Just make sure to THIN YOUR PAINTS!

4) most art paint brushes are going to be fine. The big thing most people don't do is clean them with a good brush cleaner afterwards. With no brush cleaner ANY paintbrush will fray after a few weeks/months. With a good brush cleaner even cheap brushes can keep their shape. Here are some brushes you are going to want to make sure to have:

a) a fine detail brush with a point

b) a slightly larger brush, but still small

c) a drybrush. You basically have to make one of these by getting one of the slightly larger brushes and then cutting off 80-90% of the brush so you have a short, moderately stiff, flat head on it. You dip this in paint, then wipe off 98% of the paint on a paper towel. Bam: easy highlighting effects

5) depends on the effect you are going for. Painters tape is great for racing lines and checks. If you are trying to fill in a full panel you can usually freehand it and let the panel edge act as a guide. I would avoid symbols and stuff for your first outing.

6) Depends on what kind of paint job you are going for. A full repaint with different panels, highlights, washes, and symbols, special cloaking effects, or bomber art? As much as 6 hours. Possibly more. Just coloring panels on an A-Wing or B-Wing, with washes and highlights? 30min. It's worth noting the vast majority of X-Wing repaints can fall into the latter category.

Here are my top tips for getting professional looking paint jobs:

#1 THIN YOUR PAINTS! This is the biggest mistake people make. NO paints are thin enough for model painting out of the box. Not even model painting paints. Thick paints make a model look like a toy: it's lumpy, uneven, lacks detail, and can never be properly highlighted/washed. NEVER try to get good coverage in a single coat. For the best looking paint job your paints should be thin enough that it takes 3-5 paints to get good coverage. Some designs (like lightning bolts or energy effects) may have 30-40 coats. Top end modelers doing fancy effects may have literally hundreds of coats. Long story short: thick paint makes models look amateur, thin paint in lots of layers makes it look smooth and professional. THIN YOUR PAINTS!

#2 wash and highlight: This is the second thing that makes it obvious a model is a toy/not-professional. Small items don't shade the same way large ones do, and applying just a single coat of paint makes a mini look small and flat. If there are crevices you need to apply a wash to them. If there are bumps and details, you need to apply a wash and a drybrushed highlight. (again, look up drybrushing if you don't know what it is) Washing and highlighting is the difference between a model looking like a toy and an actual, tiny vehicle/person.

#3 Pigment theory: Know what are the four hardest colors to paint? White, red, yellow, and black. Guess what are the four most popular colors to paint? Here is why, and how you can avoid the problems:

Understand paint translucency: Yellow, and red are hard to color because of paint translucency. Each layer is slightly translucent. Red, and yellow pigments are particularly expensive, so these paints tend to have more translucency than most. Painting bright red, yellow, or white over black is TOUGH. To solve this problem, paint a stronger color down first: brown works great. Pink works well for red as well. Color something pink (because white is a strong pigment) then red and you can get a very vivid color.

Highlighting/lowlighting: White and red are VERY hard to highlight. For a bright, blood red there is no such thing as "light red". If you try mixing with white you get pink, which makes your model look washed out. There are two solutions: make your main coat a slightly darker red and highlight with bright red (which makes the whole thing look bright), or highlight with orange.

White has the same problem. NEVER paint something pure white. Paint it light grey, tan, or light blue, and highlight with pure white. For the most part, without something to compare it to, light grey looks white to people.

Opposite problem for black. NEVER paint a model pure black. Paint it a very dark grey, highlight with a slightly lighter grey, wash with black.

#4 Touch up: The final amateur mistake. You will make small mistakes. Everyone does. Many top end, award winning mini painters admit their mini's have TONS of mistakes and look like crap right up until the final touch up phase. It's amazing how many people DON'T do a touch up at the end, leaving little mistakes that ruin the effect of their paint job. Just accept it's something you have to do. Paint your mini as best you can, then when you are done go back over it and fix all the little mistakes.

And those are my tips. I can say that if you can master thinning paints, highlighting/washing, basic paint color theory, and touch up your models, you will be able to have professional looking models from day one. Obviously there is a lot more you can do from there (metalic effects, glowing effects, symbols, weathering, etc.) and they are fun to do, but those four points are the foundation of miniature painting, and a model can look professional with just those four skills. Hope that helps.

Some picture comparisons:

thin paints, an understanding of painting white:

Drybrushing/washing comparison. Please note: those are the ONLY differences between these two pictures. It's pretty ridiculous what a wash/highlight can do:

THIN YOUR PAINTS:

KRYNN,

1. I have not found it necessary to remove the factory paint in any of my repaints, I simply treat it as the primer/base coat.

2. If you must remove the original paint, I have had success using a bath of "Simple Green" (24 hrs, then clean with an old toothbrush under running water) or brake cleaner. The first is generally the safest, the second may work for tougher paint... or it may melt your model, that is why I usually just paint over the factory paint.

3. I use a variety of the available acrylic model paints (Valejo, Citadel, etc...) plus the occasional "hobby paints" such as are available in craft stores. Thinner coats are better than thick coats, so make it "just thick enough".

4. I avoid the brushes available from game stores (GW brands) and get the ones from craft stores like Hobby Lobby or Michaels (in USA). Generally, the smallest I recommend is a 000 brush as they keep a good point longer than the 5-0 or 10-0 brushes. Also, pick up a somewhat thicker brush like a '1' (useful for area painting, washes, etc...) and a wider/flat brush (for dry brushing/weathering).

5. I primarily rely on my eye and a steady hand but I have also used painters tape (as a straight edge) or lightly penciled line. Another trick I have picked up is to save unused decal scraps, trace and cut out my design, then paint the decal, finally applying it like any other decal- this I have used for some stuff there is no way I could have painted free-hand.

6. How long? Depends on complexity, number of coats/colors, etc... Goes quicker if you use the assembly line method with several models. Average time for my custom "Red 1, 2, 3 & 5" about 15 min each simply by painting details over the factory paint. A complete repaint of a Firespray-31 I did in the colors of Kath Scarlet took about 4 hours of work over three days, starting with a white base coat and working my way up to details, weathering and... as always... a protective clear top coat (clear gloss spray first, followed later by a matte finish/Dulcote).

Hope it helps,

Chris

Great advice

Just wondering, what do you mean by saving you decals and trace then out?

You trace them out on the ship and then paint the ship?

What's a way to add weathering?

I haven't painted minus since I was a kid, and I didn't go that much into detail lol.

Acrylic piant seems the way to go then

So you guys just paint over the original paint

That's good. Little less work, and I don't have to worry about destroying the ship, but when you have the green on a Firespray, and want to paint Yellow, the green doesn't blend in with the yellow making it look blue or whatever.

When painting the Firespray kath colors, you paint the whole ship white, then Color over the white with the red and etc?

To the other poster, by wash, do you mean when washing the brush when changing from say blue to yellow? Or is the term wash some sort of effect your using?

Sorry if the questions seem dumb, but as you can tell, I'm very new to this.

Can't wait to start. Hopefully in the next couple weeks when the store gets more in.

Skip decals and symbols for now. Until you master basic panelling/lines/metallics you really shouldn't be attempting things like a rebel insignia.

Acrylics are the way to go primarily because they are the easiest. Oil paints are...well just better for a lot of things (washes and any kind of gradiant especially), but are much harder to deal with.

You are correct that painting yellow over green wont work well, and it's good you understand why. To solve this problem base over a color in a stronger color first. Paint over green with brown, then yellow over the brown. Just make sure your layers are nice and thin (THIN YOUR PAINTS).

Look up washing online. It's more complicated than that. A wash is a special kind of thin paint with little surface tension. You can either buy it (the GW washes are actually pretty darn good) or learn how to make your own (a few drops of color, a lot of drops of water, and something to break the surface tension like alcohol or soap. Again, look it up). You slather a wash over parts of your model with detail (like electronics or grills) and it sinks into the crevices to make a reverse highlight e.g. shadows or dirt. Washes are the only effect FFG uses on the models in X-Wing, so you can achieve similar levels of quality with just a wash. Highlights (with drybrushing techniques) will take you a step above FFG models. Even better, you can paint, wash, repaint (gets a cleaner look than FFG models, which always look a bit...washed dirty) THEN highlight.

Oh... one thing I meant to mention and forgot... I don't know if you drink bottled water / soda / beer, but the bottle caps make for EXCELLENT disposable palettes for mixing and diluting paint.

Walmart has a cleaner called purple power it's non toxic and about 4.99 for a gallon of the stuff. I used it to strip paint off GW models I brought from ebay. If removed the paint but not the glue. The stuff works outstanding. You soak it over night and clean with a toothbrush, I lost no detail and it did not damage the models in any way. I might get adventurous and try on a tie soon.

http://mobile.walmart.com/ip/Purple-Power-Concentrated-Industrial-Cleaner-Degreaser/16879847

For thinning paint for washes I use the soft plastic lids from Pringles tubs.

Wow, pretty intense lol

Well for my first attempt I'll try to keep it simple.

So I'm thinking of going acrylic paint.

I'm thinking of doing kath colors on a Firespray.

I figured that maybe a good starterfor beginner. Nothing fancy, nor to many colors and hopefully once I start I'll understand more of what everyone is talking about.

Can't wait to try, but now I feel nervous lol

Every time I see something like this I think I should really break out my paints and touch my stuff...

After 1750 worth of space marines, 35 points of Warmachine, and a crapload of FoW stuff, doing a little touch up on my X's and such would be cake.

But they look good enough as is I just can't find the motivation to fix them.

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/101846-my-first-repaint-d/

The only advice I have to add is to try and have reference material handy, there's normally moments when its hard to decide what should be what colour, images will help.

Someone earlier said spray white then paint red. No offence meant but if you are painting white do not use white as the base colour, use a grey/white or a brown/white. Only ever use pure white as the highlight.

Keep us informed

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/836/iq3d.jpg

Krynn, please don't take this the wrong way, but judging from your questions, you sound like a complete noob when it comes to painting. So my advice would be to not paint your X-Wing minis until you've had a chance to practice some basic techniques on something more " expendable ". I've seen some awesome repaints here and I've seen some that make me cringe.

Head to your local hobby store and buy some small scale kitsets to build for a few bucks each. Doesn't matter what they are, but small aircraft are a good start, 'cos they're going to end up in x-wing colours anyway. Practice your painting skills on those, until you're happy with the results before heading onto your X-Wing minis. One of my favourite tricks is to go to k-mart and buy some model cars from the toy section. I've got 4 Porches sitting on my desk all wearing different camouflage patterns. Once I like the colours and pattern, I head to the main model.

Try hunting youtube for model making tips on weathering, there's heaps out there. But, don't expect to get it right until you've got the hang of drybrushing. Drybrushing is a very important skill to have if you want to make your models look battle worn, but if you don't get it right, it'll just look messy. The key is knowing when to stop. I've seen so many guys try to do this and then they go that one step too far, and it looks over done. The Firespray isn't a bad choice for a starting point as it's nice and big and big models are sometimes easier.

If you are using acrylics, make sure your paint isn't too thick or it will look bad and hide the details. On the reverse, make sure it's not too thin or it won't cover properly. This is where the expendable models come in.

Don't use gloss paint. Gloss on small models never looks good and hides the details. Save it for windows and cockpit glazing only and then I'd only apply it as a varnish. Always use a matt paint if you can as then you will be able to see the colours properly. It's been my experience that the gloss colours are generally thicker and harder to work with anyway, so just avoid them. If you handle your models a lot, give them a final coat of matt varnish to help protect them when the paint job is done.

Remember youtube: look up weathering , drybrushing , applying a wash , and highlighting and you should get some great inspiration to go on with.

Good luck and I look forward to seeing some results here.

Is thinking of getting into modelin actually. Haven't done that since I was a kid, and be a good thing to do with my son who is almost 4

Your right I am a total Nob,so no offense taken

I will eventually give it a try, but maybe I'll start with something simple. Next week or so I'll head down to the local hobby store and see what they recommend

Cheap toys from the dollar store, those little army guys and the knock off transmophers are the best for practice.

I've actually learned a few things from this thread. And yes, I'm a complete noob when it comes to painting minis as well, so some of my models look... meh. But I'm still working on them! I'll add some alcohol to my washes from now on. :3

Is thinking of getting into modelin actually. Haven't done that since I was a kid, and be a good thing to do with my son who is almost 4

Your right I am a total Nob,so no offense taken

I will eventually give it a try, but maybe I'll start with something simple. Next week or so I'll head down to the local hobby store and see what they recommend

Top plan. Don't forget to post some results and we'll see if we can steer you in the right direction.