Ok fellows...I "painted" some of my original squadrons with sharpies. They turned out ok, especially the A-Wings, but now I want to take it a step further and possibly get into actual painting. The problem is I have never really done any miniature painting before. I did some models as a kid, but they were all pretty basic.

My question to all of you fine painters is, what do I need to get started? Keep in mind I don't need the super expensive stuff and I don't actually plan on doing any ships, probably just squadrons. I would also like to attempt to keep the cost down. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Alright, weeeell the answer is of course 'it depends', but In general you'll need probably 3 paint colours (Grey/tan, black, and an accent colour like blue or red), 1 ink/wash/shade (usually black but deep brown or blue can work), and a standard sized miniature painting brush. Add in some patience and a dose of persistence, and you'll start learning and improving quickly!

You can always go 'all in' on colours, but a lot of the time you can create a base coat of colours, 'blocking' them in. That means you paint your ships with a layer of grey (be sure to thin your paints a little, add a drop or water for, say, every 3 drops of paint). You'll get less coverage but preserve detail and more importantly, end up with a smooth surface layer for your next part. After you paint in your grey or light tan, you can add the accent colour in the pattern that you want. You can fix up any awkward lines by simply counter-lining the pattern with your base colour so the lines get straighter. After it's all dry, then you can add a slightly thinned wash/ink/shade to the model. It'll be a way to blend the colours together and exaggerate the definition of a fighter. After its dry, you can do as little as painting the windows and guns black and call it a day, oooor, gain some more fine brush control by edging or lining your model. So, that line of red you painted on earlier? It'll be darker now thanks to the wash, so add some red inside that red line! Not the whole line, just in the center, it'll give you 2 shades of red for the price of 1! As for the red, you can do the same thing! You can paint where the 'edges' of the model are, at the tips of the wings, the nose, etc. It makes the colour go further.

If you want, you can keep recipe diary and add white, blue, or black to mixtures to produce a varied appearance with minimal resources. Remember, if you wanna talk about anything specific, we're always around eh?

I didn't paint until Armada either, so I started last August or so. Don't be afraid, just dive in and get to work.

My one recommendation, would be do not cheap on a decent brush, it will take you a lot further than a 5$ brush ever could. When I decided to move along from the cheapy brush to a real deal (a raphael 8404 'kolinsky', that cost me about 15 CAD all told, flown over from England) it made leagues of difference.

Other than that you can start with a rather limited palette. A red, a blue, a white, a grey, a black, a black ink/ink wash I'd say is pretty bare bones. And a primer (recommend white). If you check out my thread, you can see my de-evolution into painting, and how rewarding it can be overall. If you get into it, you'll have all the colours you could ever need anyway, so start small, acquire as required.

Thanks so far guys.

First stupid question of many: What kind of paint do I want? Acrylic, enamel, oil. Is there one that is better for thus kind of thing, or does it come down to personal preference?

Acrylic.

There are many typs, and many reasons to use the others at times. But starting out, there is the bnumber one thing about acrylics:

They are water soluable.

12 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Acrylic.

There are many typs, and many reasons to use the others at times. But starting out, there is the bnumber one thing about acrylics:

They are water soluable.

In other words...I can easily fix the inevitable screw up. Thanks.

11 minutes ago, mcworrell said:

In other words...I can easily fix the inevitable screw up. Thanks.

A damp brush (exactly what it sounds like) sitting at hand can fix many a screw up, just don't be like me and leave it too long and keep painting (I'm stubborn, and the air is dry here in Canada, esp in winter, so it inevitable dries before I give in). Step 2 is don't fret the small mistakes, most will disappear by final product

Really trial and error is where it is at, at least it was for me. Lots of error, I promise.

I was thinking about picking this up from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Army-Painter-Wargame-Starter-Paint/dp/B007SQ3C18/ref=sr_1_4?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1485827730&sr=1-4&keywords=army+painter

Thoughts?

the box doesn't look (to me), like it would have colours conducive to space ships, but it is a bargain. Army painter brushes are a bit crap imo, but gotta start somewhere.

Testors/Model Masters is a good range to start with if your CONUS based, but they are made more for display painting

Vallejo or Citadel are better IMO as they are more designed to be handled after you've finished painting - I think the Army Painter range falls into this category too

13 hours ago, mcworrell said:

I was thinking about picking this up from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Army-Painter-Wargame-Starter-Paint/dp/B007SQ3C18/ref=sr_1_4?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1485827730&sr=1-4&keywords=army+painter

Thoughts?

As a starter you probably want to pick colours you know you will need. Here is what I would buy if starting from scratch.

Brush : A sable size 1. The point at the tip of a size 1 is just as good as for tiny 000 or smaller brushes. The decent size also lets you hold a reasonable amount of paint for blocking in larger areas.

Paints : Go for Vallejo or Citadel acrylics. I use mostly citadels as I'm not that keen on dropper bottles but I own a few Vallejos (and squirt them into empty citadel pots).

Tools : a cheap craft knife. box cutter or exacto style.

To begin here is my step by step guide to paint a humble Tie fighter.

1. Clean the model with a craft knife removing mould lines.
2. Base coat the whole model with Citadel Calistra Grey. No need to undercoat as it is a base paint with a high pigment content.
3. Wash the whole model with Nuln Oil black wash. Put enough on to wet the model and allow it to cover completely and dry with more flowing into the recesses. Don't flood it too much.
4. Using Citadel Black paint block out the solar panels leaving the spokes alone. Also paint the full internal side to each panel black.
5. Paint the window section with black wash again to get the windows nice and black. This will also colour the cockpit struts a little darker grey.
6. Back to Calistra grey gently highlight raised areas and add in the spokes on the internal panels. paint the edges of each solar panel too to neaten them. If feeling flash, allow this boarder to wrap onto the side of each panel by 1mm or so.
7. Put 2 red, orange or bright green dots on the guns.

For Rebel fighters you want an off white, cream or very light grey as a base colour. Then you need your squadron colour such as yellow for Y-wings, red & yellow for X-wings, brick red, mid blue or apple green for A-wings. Do similar steps as above. Base coat whole model, paint squadron colour markings, windows black, engine exhausts deep red etc. Black wash. Then re-hilight the base colour and the squadron colour over the raised areas.

Thanks guys. Some good stuff to consider.

I get my paint tomorrow. I hope to get a base coat on some fighters this weekend. Thanks for the advice. I'm sure I'll be asking for advice and posting pictures as I finish some up.

I was in the same boat you are in a few months back. I went to Michaels and bought a 24 pack of cheap acrylic paints for $10 and it serves me great. I also got some cheap "sable" brushes. Not sure if they are authentic or not. Paid $5 in total for 3 small/fine tip brushes. Got some grey primer and a clear matte sealant to protect the paint when I finish. In total, I spent less than $30 to paint my fighters, and they look surprisingly considering my inexperience painting minis.

I mix all my own colors, and dilute it slightly with water so I'm not smearing on a paste. I keep my painting simple, with a boring base coat, either white, black or grey, and then pick 1 or 2 highlight colors. Unless they are Ties which are the standard blue/grey and black.

Don't stress too much about the fine details. You can't really see mistakes when they are on the board.

I have yet to pick up a "wash" like nuln oil, so I do some light dry brushing on the raised parts of the squads and then I seal them. I can do a squad in like an hour if I focus.

Brushes. you can get at Hobby lobby, Michael, AC more. Tiny ones.

Paints you could go to any of the above and get acrylics but really just get a box at amazon or your local game store. They are only a couple bucks each. I still mix, and use large nuln oil. Primer I get in spray can from walmart in white, black and grey. I splurged on the sealant and got army painter.

The practice, pratice. I have about 20 reaper figs and of course my ships. I went to a couple conventions and got tanks for really cheap. I have plenty to keep me going and motivated in different steps of completion.

My simple steps.

1. wash the fig

2. primer out in the garage.

3. base coat

4. nuln oil all of it

5.dry brush with base coat again

6. details

7. seal

I can't do any fancy stuff like blending or glazing but can make something im proud of. as of last week I went out and got some Citadel texture mud paints and will try them out on my non space stuff.

Thanks for all the tips guys. I had some time today and was able to do a good bit of painting. Here are my results:

A couple of thing I learned.

1. I need a better brush. I had 2 I was using and I kept getting bristles that were "flying away" and causing little marks.
2. i can't paint a straight line. I don't know how you guys do it, but mine are not great.
3. Imperial fighters are boring to paint. Gray and black, not real fun. I started a Tie, but wanted to paint fun stuff instead.
4. Nuln oil makes everything look much better.

That was fun. I'm looking forward to finding time to do more.

5 hours ago, mcworrell said:

Thanks for all the tips guys. I had some time today and was able to do a good bit of painting. Here are my results:

A couple of thing I learned.

1. I need a better brush. I had 2 I was using and I kept getting bristles that were "flying away" and causing little marks.
2. i can't paint a straight line. I don't know how you guys do it, but mine are not great.
3. Imperial fighters are boring to paint. Gray and black, not real fun. I started a Tie, but wanted to paint fun stuff instead.
4. Nuln oil makes everything look much better.

That was fun. I'm looking forward to finding time to do more.

Firstly those are great first efforts, keep it up. The crow and falcon looks particularly nice, liking to orange.

1) brushes are not to be done without
2) Neither can I, generally it involves a lot of progressive touching up
3) Mostly yep
4) personally not a fan of washes on fighters aside from occasional pin washes, find it muddies them up a touch .

Keep at it, I'm sure you'll get some great stuff done.

Thanks. I was really happy with the way the crow and YT-1300 turned out. I like the feel that the wash gives the fighters, especially the rebels, kind of a dirty beat up, we are using whatever we can find kind of feel. It also hides a lot of the little mistakes in my opinion? At the same time, if I could paint like many of you guys I wouldn't want to hide anything.

your email screwed up the image so i couldn't see everything. you know how much i enjoyed the sharpie work, but this paint job does to the sharpies what vader did to those poor rebs in rogue one. the tiger stripes on blount's z95 are way cool. you know how i am about red. all in all, great job

Thanks brother. I'm really happy how they turned out. Trying to decide if i want to try to tak the marker off and redo the old ones. Maybe after i get these new ones done I'll go back and do them.

couldnt u just touch them up with the paint?

It is a possibility. Let's be honest, it is going to take me a long time to do all my unpainted ones first.

true, u take forever to even buy anything let alone paint anything