I hope everyone has had enough time to prepare and prime a miniature and is ready to slap some paint on it. Not everyone has posted a picture yet, so if the next step is too soon, please speak up so I can give everyone enough time to catch up. As mentioned earlier I guess we have to find out on the fly what the best speed will be :)
Before we get to the basecolors I want to say a word or two about thinning paints. Always thin your paints. There are a few exceptions, but almost always I thin my paints at least a little. To thin my paints I use distilled water almost exclusively. Distilled water because tap water can contain chalk and other stuff which can have a undesired effects on your paints.
Now you probably want to know, how much I thin my paints ... honestly, I can't give you exact formulas. I thin my paints differently for different applications (basecoat, shading, wash, ...) and always until I feel it is right. Sometimes I use drops of water from a dropper bottle, sometimes I just pick up some water with a brush (yes, this can even be my painting water at times). When I started painting I used think in exact ratios, but to tell the truth it was liberating to stop thinking about painting as if it was a rocket science. Same with mixing paint, but more on that during later stages. The amount of water to thin paint to behave like you want it to can actually vary from color to color even when from the same brand. A pigment rich color might have to be thinned more to be applied as a wash than a color with less pigments. And to make it even more complicated there isn't only "not thin enough", there is also "too thin". So in the end it does all come down to experience, experimenting and practice.
I know this doesn't help much, so I will try to give approximations when possible. But don't take those approximations (or observations in some cases) as exact ratios.
Acrylic paint gets more transparent the more you thin it. This characteristic will come in very hand in later steps and we will rely on it heavily. But we want a more or less opaque basecoat to work from so I don't thin the basecolors that much. I'd say not thinner than 50/50 paint water.
Maybe now is also a good time to loose a word or two about brushes. Brush size doesn't matter. It is all about the tip. You can paint the finest detail with a size 1 or 2 brush when the tip is perfect. A too small brush (smaller than 0 or 000) can actually cause more problems than it is worth. The tip won't be finer than of a good size 0, but the body will hold much less paint, meaning you have to pick up paint much more often (which you don't want when painting a freehand for example) or in the worst cause even mean the paint dries on the brush before hitting the miniature.
Sable brushes hold the best tips. I have never had any luck with nylon brushes as they don't hold the tip well and usually end up with a bendy tip sooner rather than later. My preferred brushes are from Da Vinci (I think it is series 10, but I will have to look this up when I am home). They are expensive, but they last a long time even when you don't treat them well (which I don't ...).
I usually use brushes size 1 and 0. Sometimes I use a size 2 or even a flat brush to apply a basecoat and in very rare cases I use a 000. The Mjolnir was completely painted with brushes size 1 and 0.
But let's get to the miniature ...
First we take a look at the description for the Republic Standing Guards scheme as per Field Manual 3085:
"The basic color scheme of militia units is olive drab with maroon highlights on prominent areas of the unit."Step 3: With this in mind my basecolors are:
- Vallejo Model Color Reflective Green for the green parts - a nice olive green, not too dark, but not exactly bright and vibrant either.
- Reaper Master Series Mahogany Brown for the maroon parts - if you google for maroon you get a wide range from bright to dark red-brown, but a relatively dark reddish-brown seems to dominate. Mahogany Brown is a very rich color, maybe a bit on the brown side, but we can adjust that later.
- GW Boltgun Metal for all metallic parts - hammer, elbow joints, "disks" on the outside of the knees, laser barrels on the right and arm and torso and the jumpjet exhaust ports.
- Vallejo Panzer Aces Dark Rubber for fingers and the "vents" on the wings (head) - not part of the scheme description, but adding little things like this adds interest and detail to a miniature. I also often do this on joints where there seems to be some sort of (rubber) cover instead of bare metallics.
As mentioned above I thinned the basecolor not more than 50/50. I applied each color in maybe 2-3 thin layers.
When working with thinned paints it easy to pick up too much paint which then will flow freely on the miniature. To counter this I usually lightly drag my brush across a tissue (paper towel) after picking up paint and before hitting the miniature.
The coverage of the basecolors is not quite, but almost, opaque and relatively even. You don't have to be super neat at this stage.
Some areas were painted black (cockpit, bars at the cockpit, "disks" on the outside of the hips). These areas will get some special treatment during later stages (warning stripes and canopy). Also, while I had black on the palette I painted the borders of the base with it. This is of course purely optional at this stage, but I like to frame the miniature.
It might be of note that I painted the metallics over the light primer too. Often you hear that metallics cover better on dark/black surface. While there is some truth in that, I find that 2-3- thin coats over a light primer cover equally well, or at least well enough. I did paint the metallics first though as they can be very messy. I highly recommend using a dedicated set of brushes only for metallics. Nothing can be more frustrating than getting a smear of metallic pigments on the miniature with the last glaze you apply. And there
will be metallic pigments left in your brush, even if you clean it thoroughly. Also change your painting water after using metallics before using another color or you will get metallic pigments all over the miniature. Better yet, use an extra cup of water only for metallics (I don't, but really should ...).
At this stage the miniature looks like a piece of poo and it will continue to do so for quite some time ... to tell the truth this is the part about painting miniatures I hate most: starting a new miniature and literally fighting through the first painting stages. I do have many miniatures in one of the early stages sitting in my cabinet of shame ... :-[
Anyway ... I wasn't quite happy with the green color so I decided to tweak the color a bit.
Step 4: Mixing Reflective Green with a dab of black I prepared a wash for the green parts. For a wash I thin the paint quite a lot so it has a very watery consistency. Applying a wash often means more or less flooding the miniature with paint, allowing the paint to flow into recesses and the like. I didn't do that in this case. You can almost say, I only glazed the dark green on. To have control over a wash it is very important not to have too much paint on the brush. So after unloading the brush on a paper towel I applied the paint in controlled strokes, painting from light to dark, literally pushing the paint into the recesses. I completely covered all green areas that way. Looking at the pictures you can see that I only got a bit of definition, but that the green has been darkened very evenly. Goal achieved.
This step is optional. Had I chosen a darker green as a basecolor I probably wouldn't have done this. The only purpose was to tweak the green.
At this stage I also washed the metallics with black (watered down black paint). Here I just slopped the paint on, not caring about neatness, even application or pooling. Looks quite messy, but it is easy to clean this up later.
Phew, this post got much longer than I planned and we still haven't done much painting ... sorry and sorry for the wall of text (I still feel, I forgot many things...). But I think it is important to get the basics down and to give you insights into what I am doing and why so you understand how I do things.
Now I am looking forward to your basecoated miniatures and questions should you have any :)