"2 Handy Painting Tips I use." Topic

Mods, if this belongs elsewhere, then feel free to move it.

I paint a LOT of ancients. Mostly Macedonians and Greeks, and that means lots of spears, pikes and javelins.

I prefer to use the Northstar wire spears and pikes. They are strong, have a nicely-shaped point, and are reasonably inexpensive. Painting them was a chore, until I thought of this:

Take a piece of balsa wood or expanded foam insulation, and place all the pikes/spears point-down into it. Push them in gently but far enough to cover the entire blade. Now use a can a spray paint to do them all at once. I paint a unit (or more) at a time, and most of the pikes I paint a rust-brown auto primer color. Looks nice, hard to scratch, inexpensive too. Some I paint blue or red or purple for special units. The spears/javelins I paint a tan primer color.

leave to outgas for 24 hours and you're good to go. VERY easy to do, and you get a whole lot of them done at one time. You could get the same effect with an airbrush if you wanted to.

Second, is painting large numbers of shields. I try to prime/basecoat them for the entire army at once, so I can pull them as needed as I paint up each unit.

Take a strip of foam core and run 3-4 strips length-wise down it of double-sided tape. Now place all the shields face down onto the tape and spray the backs. I use, again, a rust-brown automotive prime ($1/can at WalMart) on the backs as it makes a nice basecoat and I can either leave it and stain it later, or add another color over top, etc.

let them set to outgas, then flip them all over so the shield faces are up. Since I use LOTS of LBMS transfers, I routinely paint the shields with a matte white automobile primer. Again, let these outgas and you're good to go. If you are using other transfers, or hand-painting, you can also spray them in any base color you like. For example, for the WF Republican Romans, I spray the shield faces with a medium red to match the dry-rub on transfers included in the boxes.

Anyway, that's a couple of hints from me that I found work well for my style of painting.

V/R

Thank you for sharing. : )

@ TKindred
Do you have to scrape back to bare metal, for gluing at the adhesion points, or do you glue 'as is' and hope the paint doesn't peel?

What is your preferred method for painting cavalry figures?

Glue the rider to the horse and paint both together, or paint each piece individually and glue them together afterwards?

I have had success with gluing the painted pikes/spears directly into the painted hands of the minis. I use Loctite Gel super glue for almost all joining, except for plastic to plastic. It comes in a larger sized bottle, with a better control for applications, and doesn't dry out nearly as quickly. With the gel, you can put a dab directly into the hand of the mini and then hold the weapon in place for a few seconds. I usually just count to ten while I am holding it in place and by the time I get to the end, it's hardened.

For cavalry and other mounted troops, I paint the horse and rider separately then use the same Loctite Gel to join them. I have only very rarely have them separate after gluing. But, I prefer to do it this way do to the style of painting I prefer.

While I am at it, for basing, I prefer to use Aileene's Tacky Glue to attach the mini to the base. Mostly, I play Impetus and it uses a 120mm frontage base for each unit. I use Litko 3mm wooden bases for this. I run a thick line where I intend to attach each rank of minis, or horses, etc. A wide and thick line works best. Now, just press each mini into the glue, twisting it gently to make certain it's settled well. Once the base is full, I set it aside for 24 hours to dry.

Once the glue on the base is dry, I use thinned down PVA glue and brush it over the entire base. I then add some large Talus from Woodland Scenics, sprinkled on by hand here and there. Tip the base to the side and gently tap to remove any that didn't stick. Now, I use a large sifting jar of Woodland Scenics Fine Ballast and sift it well all over the base. Again, tip the base to the side to tap off any loose ballast, and let dry for 24 hours.

Afterward, I paint the bases with a thinned coat of whichever color I am using for that army. For the Macedonians, I use a Craft Paint shade called Golden Brown. It's a sort of medium ocher shade. By using a thinner coat of paint, the dark grey ballast shows through some, and it also makes natural shading on the white Talus I use. I've attached some pics of a base of Greek Peltasts (Essex) to show how the base color looks when done.

Lastly, I use a couple of plastic trays, the kind that ground meat or steaks/chops come in. These have about a 1"-2" lip. I wash them thoroughly and they work great for applying ground foam, ballast, Talus, etc. By using one tray for each material, when you are done you can easily pour the leftover material back into it's container.

Greeks:

Great tips! Many thanks.

When you paint the rider and horse separately what do you use to hold the rider?

I usually clean the base of the feet very well, then use a couple small drops of super glue to attach him to a 20mm/25mm square slotta base. He's easy to remove after painting and then you can just touch up the bottoms of the feet/boots/etc.

FWIW, for painting, I use the Tacky Glue mentioned above to attach the horses and infantry to square plastic slotta or plain bases. The glue holds them well for painting, and they are easy to pop off later. Out of the last 150 or so minis, I only had one pop off it's base, and that was because I accidently dropped him onto the floor.

I buy square and round plastic bases, the kind Games Workshop uses with their minis, by bulk from sellers on ebay, or an online place called Hoard O' Bits. They buy GW and other maker's sets, and bitz from other gamers, and resell them by type.

I find that the GW bases are perfect for painting minis, as hey give you a lot of area to hold and maneuver the mini while painting, and still don't take up much room on the painting table.

After I glue the minis down, I let them dry overnight, then spray them all at one time with a white automobile primer.

here's the link to Hoard O' Bits.

hoardobits.com

For painting riders separately, I use a six inch nail (or dowel) and glue with a spot of UHU or similar all purpose glue. Its strong enough to hold for painting, yet pops off easy when you've finished. The unpainted, glued area is hidden as soon as you attach to horse (plus you get a stronger bond if unpainted).
Some drill holes in the underside and attach nails. I'm too scared of dremeling through my thumb to do that.

JezEger wrote:

Some drill holes in the underside and attach nails. I'm too scared of dremeling through my thumb to do that.

As someone who has done this with a Dremel tool, I fully support your caution.

Gluing to a nail works well too. One thing to consider is that, if you do this, you can also use a chunck of expanded foam insulation to push the nail into while letting the mini dry. I used to do this, only using a small lump of Blu-Tac putty to hold the mini in place. Like you say, the unpainted section is hidden by the horse once you attach him. If you really are worried about bare metal being seen, you can always run a coat of matte black over the are before gluing him onto the horse.

Good ideas, mate!