It's a personal preference. Some people look at the color of the mini and think, "Hey, that's pretty close to what I wanted him to be anyways." and then they just paint the other non-color areas (like Ninjaman65 did with the sorc). I usually give even my dipped minis a base coat and paint everything on that, habit I guess. Either way, the results are the same. So if he wanted those parts of his sorc to be red, then leave 'em red. I probably would have painted flesh tones, but that's my preference. IMHO, I think it looks great

-shnar

shnar said:

Thanks! The sorcerer was just something quick to try the dip method. I'll probably clean him off and redo him.

I've painted all of the base set, and about half of the collected expansion minis. I'm hoping to finish them all off while I'm at OBX in Aug for a week.

Painted with my GW paints (some new, some over 15 years old), and then dipped.

Hey, how does everyone get the camera to focus so well when taking a picture of something so small? my picture are just a giant blur.

By the way, I dipped the mater skeletons, I think that they are pretty good for a first try dipping. I'll post pictures when I can get a well focused one, once again anyone able to tell me?

Thanks

There's a lot of ways to do it, the easiest though is to not stand so close and zoom in (or crop later). Most camera's auto-focus is about 3 feet from the lens, anything closer and it will start looking blurry. So, stand a few feet away, zoom in a little, then after the picture is taken, crop down to the fig.

And TheWarp, very nice! Did you use brown for all your figs, or mix black in?

-shnar

Ninjaman65 said:

Citadel paints are a well established brand, but honestly I don't like them. It seems to me like every time GW redesigns their paint pots they make it easier and easier for the lids to break off or not close properly, so that the paint will dry out and you have to buy more. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but it gets harder to ignore every time. That's the main reason I switched to Vallejo. Their colors are nearly identical to Citadel (even going as far as making similar names for some of them) and the pots are designed in a much more durable format, so they'll keep longer. The only drawback is you need a palette of some kind since the bottles only have a drip nozzle.

Ninjaman65 said:

Maybe for Space Hulk 3rd the marines are red plastic (not sure.) Blood Angels are certainly the chapter most commonly used in Space Hulk artwork. In general space marines are molded from the same grey plastic as other races, though, so I would imagine most minis get a (probably white) undercoat, followed by a basic colour coat and then the dip.

I got my image up, I couldnt get it here so here is a link to the picture on Board Game Geek.

www.boardgamegeek.com/image/767179/facepalm

I was sort of worried that it wouldnt turn out because when I dipped it it came out COMPLETELY black, but in the end it seemed like it turned out okay. I like the classic ancient look it has.

Of course after seeing some other pictures here I am starting to see that mine is almost to dark.

Steve-O said:

The most recent edition of Space Hulk (3rd Ed, came out last Sept), the Terminators were Red (except for the "dead" figure) and the Genestealers were Navy Blue. In the past, they've varied from navy blue (1st Ed), bright grey and off white (librarians from Genestealer), and "standard" grey (2nd ed). But all that's neither here nor there. The point he was making was it appeared that the dipper left the original color of the model and only painted minor bits. You /can/ do it that way, but I prefer not to.

-shnar

Yeah, I probably should have warned you that the initial dip is *very* dark, but as you shake it and it dries, it lightens up a lot.

One thing to remember is that dipping always darkens the model, so paint lighter than you would normally paint. If it's still too dark, take an old brush and "pick" at the thicker spots of the dip. If that's too dark still, you can try thinning the dip so not so much sticks to the model.

-shnar

shnar said:

I ended up picking at it with a brush, it gathered on top of the skull a lot.

facepalm said:

Yeah, it's definitely got more of the dip dried on it than most pictures we've been seeing, but I think it still looks okay. If you want others to come out not so dark, you could either spend a bit more time shaking off dip, or paint in brighter colours before the dip.

facepalm said:

I agree with everyone else about the shaking part. Hold on to it with a pair of pliers (that's how I dipped mine) and give a few hard thrashings. Let it dry for about 28 hours (what I was told) it will lighten up some. I also bought some spray on clear coat (matte finish) because its going to dry all glossy looking.

Other than that I think it looks great! Makes me want to go home and finish up my painting so I can dip them all! But I can't....stupid job.

facepalm said:

See if your camera has a macro setting. If it has one of those turn dial thingys it should be a picture of a flower. Look through your menus and settings and look for something like that or something that says macro. That will let you get up real close and the camera will focus correctly.

Ya, I used a power drill to shake it, but when that didn't completely work, I shaked the drill for all it was worth. I'll probably try adding a little more water to the stain.

facepalm said:

You can also use a dry brush to wick away any stain that is obscuring details.

Ninjaman65 said:

I did do that for the little red skull on his head and the arrow tip, but I didn't know how much of everything else should be taken off. I'll definately take more off for the sorceror and beastmen, but it doesn't seem to bad on the skeletons.

So I tried painting and dipping minis this weekend. Yeah, not my style, I painted my minis in basic colors, nothing special then bought some dark wood stain and dipped two of them. Wow...my Runewitch Astarra went from a nice female wizard to the latest victim of the BP oil spill. I also did Mordrog, which wasn't bad, but he came out way too dark. They were so bad I don't even want to post pictures.

I think I will stick to my normal routine of painting and shading using the paints and then do a wash after that. At least I got a small can of wood stain so I'm not out to much money. Anyone know a good sealer to use when I am done painting to help protect them?

Ninjaman65 said:

I use Testor's "DullCote" to coat my minis when I finish painting, washing, and drybrushing them. So far it seems to act as a good sealant and it doesn't result in a glossy finish (well, except those areas that I coat with gloss finish before dull-coating, such as swords, chainmail, etc.). Of course, I keep my minis separated in a box where they each have their own designated space so they aren't banging into each other . . . I don't know how my proposed sealant would hold against chipping if I chucked all of the minis into the same box and shook them around.

Maybe someone here can speak to whether DullCote works with the softer plastic that the Descent minis are made out of. I only started painting minis about a year ago and I've been painting all of my HeroQuest minis as "practice" before I actually spend my time on the Descent figures which I care about more :-). DullCote works fine on those minis, but they are a harder plastic than the Descent figures . . .

The main thing to keep in mind is to paint brighter than you normally would, since the stain darkens the overall figure. But eh, if it doesn't work for you, do what does

-shnar