Privateer Press Painting Technique-Core Techniques
Do you paint miniatures for enjoyment, to sell, your collection, or for gaming purposes? Have you been painting for a while? Feel that you have your techniques down pat? Well, think again! While many of the techniques presented in this video are familiar to all of us who paint miniatures, this Privateer presentation will teach you some new tricks and refresh some of those that we don’t use very often. I have been painting miniatures for some thirty years and found myself riveted to this video and saying,”Gee, I never thought of doing it that way.”
The presentation in this video is the work of Ron Kruzie, Studio Director of Privateer Press. In this video he shows you how to paint three miniatures, a mechanical warrior, a human battle leader and lastly a beast. While the colors used are from the P3 line of Fantasy Miniature paints, the basic ideas and combinations used are applicable to all lines of paints.
The video begins by going over the basic tools and supplies that will be required for the successful completion of these three miniatures. Ron emphasizes safe modeling by repeating that tools should be used safely and not recklessly. He shows the proper way to assemble a miniature and advises on the use of scoring parts of the miniature to increase the surface area of the mating sections so that the glue, in this case Cyanoacrylate, will form a stronger bond. My first “Gee!” He also advises that joints with small surface areas should be pinned. He shows you a unique way of locating matching holes in both parts of the joint. After drilling a hole in one side of the joint, you put a small ball of “Blu-Tack” into the joint, and then press fit the part with the drilled hole into its receptacle. This will cause the “Blu-Tack” into the drilled hole leaving you with the precise place to drill the matching hole. After the hole is drilled the pinning can proceed as usual. “Gee” number two.
Before the miniature is assembled, you are shown the proper techniques for removing “flash” and mold lines. After the miniature is completely assembled, the next step is to fill in any open spaces between the parts. They use a two-part putty to fill in these areas and sculpting tools to smooth the putty into the seams. The next step is the application of primer. The use of black or white primer coats is explained dependent upon the finished color of the miniature. For instance, if the mini has a large amount of metal to be painted, a black primer is preferred for the figure. White is used if the predominant finish color will be a lighter color or white.
After the figure is assembled and primed, painting begins. The first figure is the mechanical warrior, which has been primed in black. The first step is to drybrush the metallic items on this figure. Drybrushing is usually something we do last! The rational for drybrushing the metallic parts at this juncture is that, drybrushing has a tendency to be a messy technique, which will smear paint into the surrounding areas of the miniature. By doing this first, you will save yourself time and effort later in having to refine lines which have gotten painted over. Next of this figure is the gold accents on the armor, he begins by using a deep brown for the basecoat and layering the gold highlights on it.
Painting is divided into four techniques, the Base Coat; Washes; Drybrushing and Layering. These techniques will not be used on each miniature, every time, but will be used in differing combinations dependent on what result is desired. You are shown various color combinations to produce different effects. Painting of the face on the human figure is done over a black primer, staring with the median tone of flesh. The eyes are painted with a black background, using off-white for the eyeball and black again for the pupil. The overall effect on this figure is quite striking and does not detract from the overall effect. Highlights are applied using the Layering technique. Washes are used to deepen shadows and add additional accent color to other areas. This is used particularly on the beast creature with great effect.
After the figure has been completely painted, the base is given a coat of white glue, and then ballast followed by static grass. This rounds out the final presentation of the miniature.
While the miniatures painted in this video are of the fantasy variety, these techniques are applicable to all types of miniatures from 15mm wargaming figures to 1:12 scale busts and figures. The production quality of this video is excellent. The techniques are simple and easy for any modeler to adapt to the models they are producing. I, personally, found this video to be very instructive, albeit a basic painting video. If you can watch this presentation and learn nothing new, I bow to your advanced accomplishments, but for the rest of us this recitation of the basics is eye opening. Happy Painting.
