As promised at the beginning of RPG Week, a look at miniatures. Do I use them? Not really. I mean, I have, but it's usually a special occasion, like a big, crazy, final battle we want to visualize. And even then, every piece is a stand-in. Who has the time, foresight and resources to have all the enemies he or she needs for every possible battle anyway? DC or Marvel RPG players now have handy HeroClix which at least don't have to be painted, but you still have to collect them, and you still can't have "Your Own Hero"(TM) without a lot of work.
No, miniatures aren't for the casual gamer. In fact, I consider them a separate hobby entirely. If role-playing is a "game", miniatures are "arts and crafts". In my youth, I sat down and fully painted maybe 25 or so miniatures, with at least that number again never getting much further than primer. And while there are a couple that look to be pieces I would have wanted to use, they were mostly chosen for coolness. The monsters I found most cool, the Forgotten Realms heroes (like the inescapable Drizzt), and quite a lot of comical pieces (parodies or silly puns). Most are Ral Partha products, which were (and maybe still are) the best quality in the business.
So let's talk about the craft. The majority of miniatures I've seen were painted in matte colors. Not mine. I prefer glossy. Call me crazy but for one thing, it makes them look like ceramic pieces (pretty than painted lead or plastic), and for another, I do love monsters with glistening skin:
This mind flayer looks really slimy. Another technique I used was painting with single brush hairs. Usually to attempt eyes (extremely difficult), but in the case of this troll, to represent cuts healing super-fast.
But it's where you successfully give a character eyes that you think it's all worth it. I've botched a few, but my first and best success was Drizzt's companion Bruenor:
Now I admit that, especially in this light, there's too much gloss on such areas as the beard, but the eyes look great. Bruenor presents another technique I used a lot. I always kept a bottle of really thin black, mixed with paint thinner as needed. I would apply this "wash" on the metalic surfaces like armor and weapons and leave it to drip off. The paint is so thin that it can easily be wiped off any non-metallic part of the figure, but will get into every little crack and dry there, creating the perfect highlights. Note the chainmail above, and below on an orc's shield:
The same wash effect can be used (with different colored paints) on leather, rippling muscle and even cloth to create the proper highlights. As you can see from my holding up the orc above, I stuck green felt under all my miniatures. This allows them to smoothly glide across a table like a chess piece.
Going back to fluid paints for a second, in addition to thinned out washes, I've also experiments with mixing wet paint directly on a figure, sometimes in copious amounts, to get special effects like this one at the base of the figure:
Not quite as visible in the picture as I'd like it, the roiling air currents are simulated by improperly mixed white and blue, which gets finer detail than anything I might have been able to paint using brush strokes.
One final technique to share with you: How to make gore.
Though I clearly messed up this necromancer's face and since chipped his hair, the gore in his hand still stands up almost 20 years after application. The figure has a small heart in his hand, but I decided to get some arteries in there using my special ingredient: eraser shavings. White erasers are best for this, rubbing off into stringy rubber shavings that you can dip in paint and apply liberally. It's like you're Todd MacFarlane!
I hope you enjoyed this trip down miniature lane and that you, dear reader, learned something about this fine craft. Or maybe you can learn ME something...
No, miniatures aren't for the casual gamer. In fact, I consider them a separate hobby entirely. If role-playing is a "game", miniatures are "arts and crafts". In my youth, I sat down and fully painted maybe 25 or so miniatures, with at least that number again never getting much further than primer. And while there are a couple that look to be pieces I would have wanted to use, they were mostly chosen for coolness. The monsters I found most cool, the Forgotten Realms heroes (like the inescapable Drizzt), and quite a lot of comical pieces (parodies or silly puns). Most are Ral Partha products, which were (and maybe still are) the best quality in the business.
So let's talk about the craft. The majority of miniatures I've seen were painted in matte colors. Not mine. I prefer glossy. Call me crazy but for one thing, it makes them look like ceramic pieces (pretty than painted lead or plastic), and for another, I do love monsters with glistening skin:
This mind flayer looks really slimy. Another technique I used was painting with single brush hairs. Usually to attempt eyes (extremely difficult), but in the case of this troll, to represent cuts healing super-fast.
But it's where you successfully give a character eyes that you think it's all worth it. I've botched a few, but my first and best success was Drizzt's companion Bruenor:
Now I admit that, especially in this light, there's too much gloss on such areas as the beard, but the eyes look great. Bruenor presents another technique I used a lot. I always kept a bottle of really thin black, mixed with paint thinner as needed. I would apply this "wash" on the metalic surfaces like armor and weapons and leave it to drip off. The paint is so thin that it can easily be wiped off any non-metallic part of the figure, but will get into every little crack and dry there, creating the perfect highlights. Note the chainmail above, and below on an orc's shield:
The same wash effect can be used (with different colored paints) on leather, rippling muscle and even cloth to create the proper highlights. As you can see from my holding up the orc above, I stuck green felt under all my miniatures. This allows them to smoothly glide across a table like a chess piece.Going back to fluid paints for a second, in addition to thinned out washes, I've also experiments with mixing wet paint directly on a figure, sometimes in copious amounts, to get special effects like this one at the base of the figure:
Not quite as visible in the picture as I'd like it, the roiling air currents are simulated by improperly mixed white and blue, which gets finer detail than anything I might have been able to paint using brush strokes.One final technique to share with you: How to make gore.
Though I clearly messed up this necromancer's face and since chipped his hair, the gore in his hand still stands up almost 20 years after application. The figure has a small heart in his hand, but I decided to get some arteries in there using my special ingredient: eraser shavings. White erasers are best for this, rubbing off into stringy rubber shavings that you can dip in paint and apply liberally. It's like you're Todd MacFarlane!I hope you enjoyed this trip down miniature lane and that you, dear reader, learned something about this fine craft. Or maybe you can learn ME something...
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