Im not a very good painter, I got some experience but I just don't have the talent. I also got way too many projects and half painted miniatures to start yet another never ending project.

But I really wanna get my Runewars stuff painted and have decided I might just go for some simple table-ready level and leave it at that just to make sure I actually get it done. And with expansions coming, and miniatures breeding, it would make certain I can "quickly" paint up additions as they come.

So if anyone know of any good tutorial on how to, as quickly as possible, paint miniatures like the ones in Runewars I'll love you!

Best speed painting advice I can give.

1. simple schemes. The more colors/complex, the longer it'll take
2. batch paint 5-10 at once
3. all base colors
4. quick wash with a black wash
5. drybrush areas
6. pick out details

No fancy hilighting, transitions, blending. Just block colors out, wash the whole thing, drybrush a bit to pull some detail, pick out details like eyes/etc.

I roughly use the "Army Painter" method though I do it on the cheap.

1) Assemble miniatures

2) Pick a predominant color to spray as a combination basecoat and primer. I use Spray paint from the hardware store. Ideally I'll use one of the flat camo colors but I'm using a satin green for the Daqan.

3) Block paint in the basic colors. Don't worry about any details (tiny buckles, eyes, etc..) that won't be visible from 3 feet away. Just get the basics. You can usually get away with 5 colors or less. For fast tabletop painting like this, cheap craft paints (I like Delta Ceramcoat) are all you need. Also, if you find yourself using less than a size 1 brush (I do almost everything with a 2) very often, you're probably painting too much detail

4) Paint the miniatures with a layer of Minwax Polyshades Antique Walnut. This is the equivalent of using the "Splash" method with Army Painter Strong Tone.

5) Add any additional drybrushing. Usually just for fur, hair and possibly some metalics.

6) Paint or spray on Matte varnish to cut the shine from the polyshades and done.

I've done this for hundreds of minis and the results are actually quite good. Also, by using hardware store spray, Minwax polyshades and craft paint, you can probably save yourself 50 bucks or more on materials.

My Brush-Dip tutorial is here:

https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2012/01/16/with-liberty-and-brush-dipping-for-a/

I'll have an additional blog posts about my block painting and basing of the Daqan up soon.

There's also a nice official Army Painter tutorial that someone will probably be along shortly to post. It outlines the process pretty well.

One more thing. Sometimes you can get away with using paint pens for some parts of the painting. Make sure you're using a fine point pen and/or your painting in areas where any spillover will be covered by another color of paint.

Tnx a lot guys, sounds like some solid advice much better then the "speed" guides ive come across that seem to span from a reference frame im not sharing

eilif those minis look great! If I can get an army anywhere near to that im more then happy!

Yeah, focus on the big picture stuff on the model, do a quick wash/shade of some sort then pick out some details then move on. If you're pretty clean with it you cn always go back and do more detail work later.

51 minutes ago, Soulless said:

Tnx a lot guys, sounds like some solid advice much better then the "speed" guides ive come across that seem to span from a reference frame im not sharing

eilif those minis look great! If I can get an army anywhere near to that im more then happy!

You're very welcome and thanks for the kind words.

Note that most of the figs in that post were painted for small warbands (6-12 figs per side) for Song of Blades and Heroes so I spent a bit more time block painting the details. For ranked figures in larger wargames you can get by with considerably less detail work. Here's some Chaos Warriors (old GW/Battlemasters figures) that I painted up for a Kings of War army.

Up this close shows how simple they are, but when ranked up they look pretty good. It's just a base of cheap flat black spray paint with 6 nicely-contrasting colors (Brown, Metalic grey, Metalic Bronze, Yellow, Ivory, Red) and a brush-dip for which I used Minwax Polyshades "Tudor" a color very similar to Army Painter Dark Tone. These guys painted up really fast and IIRC, the only drybrushing on these is the basing which is another super easy method. Premixed concrete (comes in a tub, great for texture) with thin pieces of bark pressed into it, painted dark brown and then drybrushed.

Best of luck with your figures. Just have fun and don't sweat the small stuff!

As I told someone else on these forums: Even if it's a very simple tabletop quality, if you can achieve a fully painted army you're already aesthetically far ahead of 75% of the armies you're likely to see at your FLGS.

Here's my speedpainting for the smaller, rank-and-file guys:

Oathsworn cav, spearmen, Ardus Ix’Erebus:

Army Painter plate mail metal color primer (I taped off the bases, some fit too tightly in the trays, so even a thin amount of primer was bad! That adds a lot of time though)

Pick off the non metal bits with a few colors, mostly browns: horses, cloth (I just did gray or beige, nothing flash), faces, gloves, boots. Optional: wash those parts in their matching colors: brown washes with brown colors, etc.

Wash whole figure with Tamiya X19 Smoke. This is a black wash that works well on Army Painter color primers, which are sometimes hydrophobic and don't like normal washes (or even acrylic paints sometimes!) It's glossy, so: optional: varnish with matt varnish

Base with Vallejo Sandy Paste, dark earth. Let dry. Wash with Games Workshop Agrax Earthshade and drybrush with tan, light gray, or light brown

DONE!

The skellies were even easier:

Army Painter necrotic flesh

Paint armor and weapon silver (not the shield though)

wash in GW Biel Tan green wash

dry brush with white (or necrotic flesh, if you have it, or beige)

Optional: highlight metal armor with lighter metal color

Base as above

DONE!

Do the paints stick to the minis well? The plastic in these are much softer then im used to, anything special to think about?

Paint sticks well. Raw PVC of the type that these figures are made of takes paint nicely, just like Reaper Bones.

I did notice that the oil-based spray that I used was just a bit sticky for a couple days after painting but it went away and it is a super-durable surface now.

I love the quickshade method detailed in the army painter paint guides for quick, effective paint schemes. When using quickshade, the more vibrant your base colors the better.

Remember that most people will be looking at these figures from 3-4 feet away, not 6-8 inches. Paint appropriately for your audience. Don't paint at the level of a Golden Daemon, Crystal Brush, Brush with Death competition unless you are actually entering one.

21 hours ago, Soulless said:

Do the paints stick to the minis well? The plastic in these are much softer then im used to, anything special to think about?

Generally you want to wash the plastic before you paint, that gets rid of any residual oils from the molds.

On 4/19/2017 at 0:24 PM, eilif said:

I roughly use the "Army Painter" method though I do it on the cheap.

1) Assemble miniatures

2) Pick a predominant color to spray as a combination basecoat and primer. I use Spray paint from the hardware store. Ideally I'll use one of the flat camo colors but I'm using a satin green for the Daqan.

3) Block paint in the basic colors. Don't worry about any details (tiny buckles, eyes, etc..) that won't be visible from 3 feet away. Just get the basics. You can usually get away with 5 colors or less. For fast tabletop painting like this, cheap craft paints (I like Delta Ceramcoat) are all you need. Also, if you find yourself using less than a size 1 brush (I do almost everything with a 2) very often, you're probably painting too much detail

4) Paint the miniatures with a layer of Minwax Polyshades Antique Walnut. This is the equivalent of using the "Splash" method with Army Painter Strong Tone.

5) Add any additional drybrushing. Usually just for fur, hair and possibly some metalics.

6) Paint or spray on Matte varnish to cut the shine from the polyshades and done.

I've done this for hundreds of minis and the results are actually quite good. Also, by using hardware store spray, Minwax polyshades and craft paint, you can probably save yourself 50 bucks or more on materials.

My Brush-Dip tutorial is here:

https://www.chicagoskirmishwargames.com/blog/2012/01/16/with-liberty-and-brush-dipping-for-a/

I'll have an additional blog posts about my block painting and basing of the Daqan up soon.

There's also a nice official Army Painter tutorial that someone will probably be along shortly to post. It outlines the process pretty well.

I would highly suggest against using craft paints like Ceramcoat or Apple Barrel. The pigments are too thick for miniature painting, and when you thin them out you will see chunks of pigment floating around the size of a model's eye. Miniature paints aren't much more expensive than craft paint these days, $3 for a bottle rather than $1. You will like your paint jobs much more if you make the larger investment.

Best way to improve your speed it to not worry about those small slips and just get on with it.

4 hours ago, shoeshine said:

I would highly suggest against using craft paints like Ceramcoat or Apple Barrel. The pigments are too thick for miniature painting, and when you thin them out you will see chunks of pigment floating around the size of a model's eye. Miniature paints aren't much more expensive than craft paint these days, $3 for a bottle rather than $1. You will like your paint jobs much more if you make the larger investment.

I disagree. Just to remind folks, the topic at hand is "Speed painting".

If you're going to be doing alot of blending, NMM or other advanced techniques you might need something finer, but if you're doing a speed painting job and/or the dip there's really no reason to invest in miniature brand paints. You might find some additional ease of applications (though Delta is pretty smooth too) but with basic and speed painting techniques there is just not much to be gained in the final results by using a higher "grade" of paint.

As for price, there is a huge difference. You can pay 3 bucks a bottle for half an oz (or less) of model paint or one buck a bottle for 2 oz of craft paint. That's right, miniature specific paint is 12 times more expensive than craft paint.

As for the "might" that I started with, here's a counterpoint. Check out the work of this fellow who get's great painting results using almost nothing but "Americana" brandcraft paint.

http://mdarrow.blogspot.com

Doesn't look like his paint jobs are suffering much.

3 minutes ago, eilif said:

I disagree. Just to remind folks, the topic at hand is "Speed painting".

If you're going to be doing alot of blending, NMM or other advanced techniques you might need something finer, but if you're doing a speed painting job and/or the dip there's really no reason to invest in miniature brand paints. You might find some additional ease of applications (though Delta is pretty smooth too) but with basic and speed painting techniques there is just not much to be gained in the final results by using a higher "grade" of paint.

As for price, there is a huge difference. You can pay 3 bucks a bottle for half an oz (or less) of model paint or one buck a bottle for 2 oz of craft paint. That's right, miniature specific paint is 12 times more expensive than craft paint.

As for the "might" that I started with, here's a counterpoint. Check out the work of this fellow who get's great painting results using almost nothing but "Americana" brandcraft paint.

http://mdarrow.blogspot.com

Doesn't look like his paint jobs are suffering much.

Actually, it does look like they are suffering. I can see specks on his paint jobs that are bits of pigment.

Look, you can use whatever materials you like to paint with, of course, and there are times that I will use one of my craft paints on a model, but telling people that good quality paints are a waste of money is not something someone new to the hobby should be told. If you use craft paints and have no idea what you are doing or the limitations of the material, your paint jobs will not come out the way you want them to. And that is incredibly frustrating for someone new.

And yes, the quantity difference makes the cost per ounce greatly different. But if you don't own anything, and you aren't going to be painting so much that you burn through bottles, you really couldn't care less about the difference in cost per ounce.

Craft paints will work, especially when speed painting but the larger pigment size will hide smaller details quickly. U will use it on large scenery but no longer use it on figures. I came to dislike the way the paint covers the model and went back and striped most of figures with credit pants and re-painted them.

To each their own.

17 hours ago, shoeshine said:

Actually, it does look like they are suffering. I can see specks on his paint jobs that are bits of pigment.

Look, you can use whatever materials you like to paint with, of course, and there are times that I will use one of my craft paints on a model, but telling people that good quality paints are a waste of money is not something someone new to the hobby should be told. If you use craft paints and have no idea what you are doing or the limitations of the material, your paint jobs will not come out the way you want them to. And that is incredibly frustrating for someone new.

And yes, the quantity difference makes the cost per ounce greatly different. But if you don't own anything, and you aren't going to be painting so much that you burn through bottles, you really couldn't care less about the difference in cost per ounce.

Not sure we've got the same goals in our painting.

-If "Tabletop" quality (looks good from 3 feet away) is your goal, then a speck of anything simply doesn't matter. Based on his posts, the OP seems to be going for just his level. I've been using craft paints for 20 years for just this purpose and they've worked very well.

-If you (as you seem to be) are looking for a higher quality of paintjob that you can hold up to your eye and admire then you may need better paints.

All this to say, use the product that meets your need. YMMV, but spending more for paints that have features I don't need doesn't make much sense to me.

Put another way, I have a hard time seeing where anyone who is dipping needs anything more than craft paints.

Indeed craft paints are good enough for a simple tabletop job. But hobby paints would make that same paint job a little nicer at no additional cost, since you don't need more than a small bottle that costs the same as a large bottle of craft paint. On the other hand, if you have kids that will use the rest of the craft paint then go for it

5 hours ago, Corto said:

Indeed craft paints are good enough for a simple tabletop job. But hobby paints would make that same paint job a little nicer at no additional cost, since you don't need more than a small bottle that costs the same as a large bottle of craft paint. On the other hand, if you have kids that will use the rest of the craft paint then go for it

Sorry to continue to strike the deceased equine, but two points of contradiction:

1) It's highly unlikely that after a dip you'll notice much/any difference in quality between Craft and Hobby paints. Dip obliteraties the fine differences between paint grades under a layer of stain and polyurethane.

2) The cost is not the same. Small bottle of model paint costs $3-4. Standard (4 times bigger) bottle of Craft paint is $1-1.25. Not an enormous difference, but it can end up being significant over time.

One additional observation. The relative cheapness and huge range of craft paint has made me more willing to experiment with different shades and colors. When -as with most dip paintjob- you're only dealing with one layer of paint, finding that right color can be rather important.

I feel like with Rune Wars, the relative difference in paint cost is not terribly relevant. A normal pot of paint could easily get you through 300-400pts no problem. The biggest thing I noticed, even when painting fairly large projects like about 3000pts of Tau for 40k was that you really don't need that much paint to get an army done, so the investment in more comes up once every 3-4 months if you're fairly prolific and even less if you're just casually expanding or playing smaller games. It's like the difference between a normal lightbulb and an energy saving one, the time between investments is so long, you really won't notice.

I'd also point out that it's too common to associate speed painting with bad painting. Speed painting is about optimizing time invested to achieve maximum results for your efforts. It's a combination of smaller techniques that allow you to produce quality results without spending all the time you could be spending playing the game.

For example:

For me, this is the result of speed painting

I used 2x different colors of spray paint to get the base colors

Then went through and just did the highlighting on all the models at once for each color

Really didn't take that long (could've done it in a day if I hadn't had to stop halfway through for adulting things) and while each model isn't exactly a masterpiece, it still looks good enough across the table. Speed painting isn't about being bad or lazy, simply about maximizing time.

55 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

I used 2x different colors of spray paint to get the base colors

Excellent work!

What spray type use it?

Thanks