New to figure building

First...Welcome aboard. Whew! Where to start. I would say, see if you can pick up a guide of some type on how to build figures. I use two How to Paint Realistic Military Figures by Finescale and Building and Painting Scale Figures by Shep Paine. I dont know if either are still in print, but you may be able to pick one up used on-line somewhere like Amazon.com. Personally I prefer Finescale's because it speaks more to the technique I use for painting but I still find uses for the other. Bottom line, find a guide first as it will be able to explain in great depth the basic tools needed, the different types of mediums you can use, as well as application techniques. If you have a group of hobbyists close by, I assume your in NZ based on your name, you should hook up with them as they will be a superb source of info. Again, welcome and enjoy.

Thanks for the help i'll get on searching for those books right away. Appreciate it

mrsuperkiwi;

Welcome to the forums! Lots of good advice can be found here.

So you want to be a figure painter. Well there are many books that can guide you, however nothing works better than practice. I started out practicing on cheap figures to get the paint skill right on the cheap ones before attempting to paint a costly figure.

In addition to the above two suggested books. You can also look for back issues of Fine Scale that cover figure painting.

Other books you can source out from eBay or the like.

Look for the following publishers

Schiffer Publishing - Type "SCHIFFER" in the search bar
ALMARK - Type "ALMARK" or "ALMARKS" in the search bar

Each of these two publishers have numerous books on various subjects of modelling and figures. Some are long out of print but the lessons contained in their pages is pure gold.

Another source of information is other magazines like FSM

(Sorry to the editors for mentioning these)

Military Modelling - U.K. Publication
Military Modelcraft International - U.K. Publication
Tamiya Model Magazine International - U.S. Publication
Military in Scale - U.K. Publication

And last but not least back to eBay and search for

Military Modeler - U.S. Publication (Out of Print) Type "Military Modeler" in search
Scale Modeler - U.S. Publication (Out of Print) Type "Scale Modeler" in search

These two magazines ran monthly from 1966 - 1998 (Scale Modeler) Military Modeler 1976 - 1994 (Merged with Scale Modeler 1994 - 1998 as one magazine)

The last area you can check is the Internet itself. There are plenty of International Plastic Modellers Society pages with lots of information on figure painting. As well there are private edit and postings on the subject as well.

Also enquire at your local hobby shop and see if there is a club or group of similar minded modellers near you. Sometimes you pick up great help right where you live.

I hope this helps. Best of luck to you. Happy Modelling!

Cheers;

Gregory

Wow lots of great advice to start with. Thanks guys. =)

Lots of great articles over at Armorama. Look here: http://www.armorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=listarticles&secid=11

For Anime look at these sites ...
http://www.hobbyfanatics.com/
http://www.e2046.com

The e2046 site also has a nice forum and gallery section. The Hobby Fanatics site is also linked to a store .... http://www.hobbyfan.com

Welcom to the forum and to the Dark Side.
Check http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/ go to "Model Color" in the drop down menu and find the tutorial at the bottom of the page. Another good how to reference is figure international from Andrea Press as well as their CD Rom available from http://www.squadron.com as are back issues of FI.

The best way to learn is to find a mentor who lives near you who can guide you. If that's not possible, post either here or at Armorama for pointers and guidance.

I've been doing this for years and still feel like a newbie. More so after having seen the work of the world's best at World Expo earlier this month.

Shep Paine's book is a great choice. The FSM book I don't have, but I've looked through it and it is also a solid choice. I recomend this book http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1930607334/qid=1122596929/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9016214-8668939?v=glance&s=books to new painters. It is a great resource for techniques if you are new to figure painting and want to try using oils. Velinden's technique is a no non-sense method that uses a basic array of colors. Once you get the hang of blending, which is extremely easy with oils but still takes some practice, you can start playing with the mix ratios on the colors to get different skin tones and such. Verlinden uses oils for all skin tones and Humbrol enamels for uniforms, equipment, weapons ect. I follow along those lines though I've moved on to more complicated color combonations and also use acrylics for a few things, including my base coats. I also use oils for clothing if they are colorful. I only use enamels and acrylics for clothing on modern subjects, and even then I've been known to use oils there as well.

Pick peoples' brains about it whenever you can. You can learn something from everyone. Try different types of paints, cross techniques, whatever. Everyone has a style that works for them and you'll need to find yours. Some like oils, some like acrylics, some like enamels. Others use them all.

Good luck, and enjoy.

For Anime figures your best bet will be a quarterly magazine called:

Replicant

from japan. It is now issued quarterly and has LOTS of reference pics and each issue has also articles for finishing kits. Yep, in japanese but the articles can be easily understood without having to know japanese.
Best source for the mag and anime kits is: http:\\www.hlj.com as the kits are directly from japan and are all originals.

Tips for assembly and painting:
Those will vary according to subject, scale and materials that you use.
For skin-tones you will NEED an airbrush other colours can be handpainted.

One word of warning, most bigger scale resin/vinyl kits DON'T provide colouring instructions and you are pretty much left on your own.

If you got the money also try to get hold of the "Model Mania" Video series, well worth it for the 4 tapes and it will show you how to do finish the kits the "American" way.
For Anime figures a Company called VOLKS has also a few tapes out but those might be a bit harder to get hold off.

HTH.

P.S.: Practice painting anime eyes on a piece of paper, those can be tough to master.