I tried watching several videos on Youtube to learn how to paint figurines from Descent. But they all just seemed so complicated and difficult, especially for butter fingers like mine.

Does anyone know if there are people out there selling coloured figurines? Or perhaps services for painting the figures?

The game experience increases several folds when your figurines have colour!

I am not sure if pre-painted figures are sold, and my experience with pre-painted figures is that I could have done just a great job myself (not bragging about my painting skill, but rather want to point out the quality of pre-painted minis).

Another possibility, though, is to get an experienced painter to paint your minis for you. The results will be amazing, but sadly also likely expensive..

One thought, if you live near a Games-Workshop store you can try to visit them. I have always had help about painting there, and maybe you can even get a fair-not-too-high price from them getting your figures painted.

And if you are still thinking about painting them yourself. Don't give up, it just take a bit of time to get to a level you are satisfied with. But once there, you're there

SC

Hi Stormcaller, do u paint ur figurines? I want to try, but am afraid that I will ruin everything. Is there like some special paint required from game workshops or will the mundane paint from provisional stores suffice? I have some paint from general stores used for kids in art lesson, but those might be too runny and probably won't stick. Not sure since I haven't tried, which is why I am asking for advice on this forum from any painters around.

Wanderer,

The best type of paints to use are those used for modeling plastci planes & miniatures , etc. you will also need some small brushes. I use 3/0, 5/0, and 10/0 brushes personally. Most places that sell minitures have the types of paints you will need. If you have any questions you can ask the store clerk for info. on what type of pain would work best for your figures.

I think heading to a hobby/miniature store whether Games Workshop or not is the best bet as you can get the right paints for the right job. One thing about GW (not sure if this has changed or not as I haven't been in one of their stores since I had worked there) is their support if you get the right employee's to show you tips on painting right there in the store. Also if your worried about ruining your Descent minis I would purchase a couple minis you can just practice on and build up your familiarity with the various techniques and build to your own style. We have all been there when it comes to first stepping into the realm of painting miniatures and you will pick up different skills along the way.

One rule of thumb when painting any board game miniatures that are made of plastic is to give them a nice soap scrub in warm water to clean off the mold residue so the paint with stick.. Choice of primer is anything from a dark primer for a more gritty/ grim look or a light primer for a brighter/crisp look. Then a decision on spray or brush as you don't want to put too much else you lose your details, which will vary from mini to mini. As a general rule for myself most board games I hand paint the primer on but if I was doing a rank and file type of game then I would go spray but again whichever works better for you.

Ultimately the name of the game is patience and just have fun with it and paint a bit when you have the time or feel like it. As you progress you will learn other ways to apply the paint from washes to highlights and dry brushing but those will come with time and practice. Also it depends on what type of paint job you want? I use to take my time and put hours and hours into one mini but over time I just didn't have the time to invest that time so I had to adopt a more fast and loose approach especially when it came to painting board game pieces as I moved away from the table top miniature games.

But I digress.

Once you get the hang of it and start to develop your own look and painting style you'll be having fun with it in no time. And I am sure all of us here can give you tips and pointers as you go.

Thanks for all the great tips! I tink I will try my hands on a basic figure first before asking for more help. Until den, I'll be pinning for u to still be around to advice me

Wanderer999 said:

Painting minis isn't half as hard as it looks, in my experience. It seems like you're doing such small work, but once you have the brush in your hand you realize it gives you a fairly small tip to work with. The other thing to remember is that your paint job only really needs to look good from arm's length. I few tiny errors won't be so obvious during play, and large errors can be corrected by going back over them later.

Of course you don't want to use too many layers of paint or you'll start losing detail (especially on these Decent figs which don't have that much detail to begin with), that's a matter of practice. If you were thinking of picking up a couple trash minis t practice on you should get those kinks worked out easily enough. I don't know if you have Runebound or Drakon, but if so that would even give you some duplicates of these very minis to practice on.

Wanderer999 said:

I doubt there are pre-painted Descent figures for sale (certainly not from FFG), but you could probably find someone to paint them for you if you check out local gaming stores. As for how expensive it would be, well, that depends on who you find to do it and how much they value their time at. There isn't really a standard price for this sort of thing as far as I know. I would advise against hiring someone online though - I doubt it would be a scam, but the shipping costs there and back would raise the price of getting them painted several times over.

Wanderer999 said:

This is definitely true! I would advise talking to a local hobby store about the supplies you'd need, if you decide to give it a try yourself.