PaintNinja

Primer- I almost exclusively use citadel spray primer. The tub of smelly primer is best used for priming areas of an already painted mini, when adding a conversion piece, etc. When using spray primer, always space your mins at least 6 inches apart. Failing to do so often ends up with a grainy primer coat, as the drying primer dust settles on nearby wet primered minis. Keep the can at least 6 inches away from the mini, and keep the coat light, you can always add another. Too much primer will obscure detail, and the mini will have to be stripped. I experience very few problems spraying minis now, even special characters that I intend on doing a spectacular job on.

Stripping- To remove a paint job that you're not happy with from a mini, be it plastic or metal, an old pan with about an inch of brake fluid works well. Leave the mini in overnight, and most of the paint will come off with an old toothbrush and a vigorous scrubbing. Be sure to wash the mini with soap before painting, scrubbing with the toothbrush to get all the brake fluid off. For stubbborn paint on a METAL mini only, you can get a spray can of graffitti remover....WARNING- this will eat plastic, including your old toothbrush and minis, so use this tactic only when necessary, and dont get this stuff on yourself, It burns a lil' bit, I know......

Tip # 1- I call this tip #1 because probably the most important aspect of painting a mini is realizing what amount of paint on your brush will achieve what effect. I almost never dip into the paint and go straight for the mini, if I do, it's when I am painting a tiny line, and the bit of paint on my brush will dry very quickly. Most of the time I drag the brush on paper to get the globs off. Globs are not good. Even when coating a large area, the can collect up in cracks, or start to dry and make a streaky coat. Then of course, there is highlighting. I use several different levels of dry-brushing. For rune armor, I undercoat black, take a barely wet meduim size flat brush and drag it over the armor(using snakebite leather), then use a still dryer coat of bleached bone, then a proper drybrush of white.

Drybrushing is done by getting paint on the brush, then wiping it all off on a bit of paper or tissue. There will still be some paint in the bristles, which will get pulled out by raised edges of the mini. A lighter color of whatever color the base coat is works best to bring out the details. On red models, use a light orange or dark yellow, because pink just doesn't work well on a killing machine :)

Tip #2- Coating..sigh..Sometimes it is a pain when a coat of say PURPLE! will not coat smoothly and dark the first go-round, i.e. you can see various shades of the primer through it. Don't get aggressive with it, do a light coat, LET IT DRY TOTALLY, and apply another. Always let the previous coat dry before adding another. This avoids a streaky, gummy, mini. Some colors just arent opaque enough; I've had lots of trouble with most purples. Lighter colors with white in them tend to coat the best.

I hope I don't come off sounding like I think I am Paint God. This is my first attempt at writing this down. However, I have taught several people who thought they could never paint minis, to do decent work, as most aspects of mini paintinng CAN be learned. Experience will help a lot too, so just paint, and paint some more. (I am not Paint God) he lives in Maryland...