Preparation
It may be a cliché, but “preparation is the key”. Painting figures requires more than just paints. Here a list of things that need to be in place before you set to…
- Workspace — A clean desk or table with space for everything you’ll need ready to hand. A flat table is better than a sloped design or artists table since you’ll often want to hold your figures by their base on a flat surface for stability.
- Light — Ideally natural light, but hey when is that ever going to happen on a dull, dank, wet autumnal day. A room with good downlighters will suffice, or you could do worse than an angle poise lamp. Some people swear by a magnifying glass/desk lamp, but having used these I prefer just to get closer to my subject matter. If you are one of the former then I’m sure you can find some fairly decent ones on ebay (take a look in the electronics sections, as these night dwelling hobbyists tend to need these for their excruciatingly fine soldering jobs).
- Tools — A fine array of cutting, sanding implements are all that you need. You can get away with a scalpel or modelling knife and just some emery boards or nail files though.
- Paints — Yep, pretty obvious, but take a look at the painting section for suggestions on what types of paints to get. There’s more to this than you might imagine!
- Tissues and/or damp sponges — Halfway through painting a figure is not a great time to realise that you need a bit of tissue to prevent a disasterous drip.
Have any good tips, or links to pages about miniature preparation, then please leave a comment below!