Painting details

Hi, Leddy,

you may well find that the brushes you're using are too small. I know its counterintuitive, but below a certain size, using smaller brushes actually makes painting details more difficult.

The reason is that very small brushes rarely have fine points, and hold very little paint. From this point of view, slightly larger ones are easier to work with, holding rather more paint and (assuming you're using top-quality sable brushes, and if you're not, you should) forming a finer point. I rarely work with brushes finer than  '0', and prefer not to use less than size 1.

I'm by no means the world's greatest figure painter, far from it, but even I can achieve results like this Airfix 1/32 British tank commander:

and Presier 1/87 airline stewardess

using nothing smaller than a size '0'.

One further point. You may well be finding that your paint is drying too quickly, if you're using acrylics. The way round this is to add a drop or two of flow enhancer to your mix.

Finally, I'm afraid that painting fine detail on figures is not easy. It does take a certain amount of practice.

Cheers,

Chris.

This is a 54mm figure painted in Vallejo acrylics. Almost evertyhing was done with a #2 Kolinski sable brush. Kolinski sable creates a very fine point that holds its shape. Vallejo and Andrea paints are specially formualted for brush painting, as opposed to Tamiya which is really designed for airbrush use. Ths base is a two inch cube.

Bottom line, you need good paints, great brushes, a steady hand and lots of practice.

Chris,

I'll try a larger brush.  When you do details do you start with a full brush of paint or do you reduce the amount of paint on it before you touch the figure?

Thanks!

Leddy

Leddy,

I always load the brush pretty well with paint, but then touch it against the side of the tin/ jar/ pot so that about half flows back. I find about half a #1 or #0 brushload is plenty for most 54mm detail work.

Let us know how you get on!

Cheers,

Chris.