Miniature Stamping?

 Fashion Nail Stamping for Miniatures?

Greetings Adventurers! So, I saw this on YouTube. Man does it look cool. I read an article about this and how it will change the hobby. You know I’m a sucker for making my mini’s life easier. Back in the day I bought those water transfers for fantasy miniatures from The Armory. 

You know the ones! Like you used plastic model airplanes? The ones you dip in water and transfer to a plastic model you built? They don’t scrunch down right and look all jacked up, right? Those ones. They rip, don’t transfer correctly and fall off or get touched and come right off. Yeah, those. Back in the late 80’s unless you were some sort of art savant and expert painter with a hand so steady you could make G. Gordon Liddy (look him up kids he’s famous for a lot of stuff least of which was his steady hands) blush there was no way you were going to paint a skull on an orc or a King Richard lion on a shield. The thought of putting stripes by hand on a mini or a model, let alone a pattern? NO. WAY. Well, now you can. You don’t even have to use those troublesome wet transfers that you had to clear cote, varnish and seal with a bazillion products. FYI, I even bought some “snuggle down” a product designed to make the little buggers lie flat. It sort of worked. Check out this knight my greatest success with these.

Not bad. The Dragon looks pretty cool for a wet transfer.

There is a new kid in town. Stamping. Stamping came about in the fashion nail industry, putting tiny intricate designs on lady’s painted nails to make them look cool. It started out with stickers but those were junk and came off. Then someone got really smart and developed a way to “ink” a transfer of a pattern on nail polish from a metal plate to the human nail on a finger. Vola! An industry was born. So, some guy (it has to be a guy right?) saw his girlfriend do this and thought “What if I take one of those patterns and put it on my miniature figure?” I bet it was a warhammer guy. Some of those guys who do kit bashing make some really cool stuff and are very innovative. Anyway. Zingo Zango tiny image perfectly put onto a shield. So, I saw this and I’m in. I’ve got to do this. I have several minis with shields and flat spots that just are dying for this. Well, along came two mini’s guys who formed Goblin Hobbies and took the nail stampin stuff and made the plate designs specifically for miniatures. They sold out like the first iPods. I missed the bus. Well, I got on the mailing list and Bingo Bango they are available again. I went all in (like my usual, some call it lame-brained self) and now I’m the proud owner of the “All-in Stampin’ Kit.”  

Expensive. Perhaps, but boy do the designs look cool. TEN, count them, 10 gleaming plates chock FULL of designs! There are like 50 or more designs per plate! Flaming skulls, web patterns, ancient texts, runic symbols, numbers, heraldry, zodiac, lidless eyes, a crazy amount of different skull designs, sci-fi, fantasy, historical, another crazy amount of patterns (like zigzags, squares, writing, etc) symbols of law, neutrality, chaos, and so so much more. More than I’ll ever really need but they look so cool. I got a double-sided stamper, a square stamper, and six colors (Black, White, Red, Blue, Yellow, and Grey) and all sorts of accessories. 

Let’s see how these come out. 

I followed the instructions included and watched their videos on YouTube. I did a few practice runs on paper to get the hang of the stamping process. 

I know white on yellow paper but you get the idea. 

I have a monster with a cool orange shield I painted about ten years ago. He needs his belt painted and some final detail work but basically good to go. All except his boring orange shield that has been sitting unfinished because I had no idea what I could put on it. None of my “model transfers” fit a monster. They were basically all heraldry stuff. On to it. 

I hit up my mini with the stamp...and I messed it up, of course. But I used a tiny bit of acetone, and it cleaned up the not yet so dry white mistake. It only took off a negligible amount of orange paint. I didn’t even have to touch it up. I tried again and…STAMPO!

Wowie Zowie that looks good. I can’t believe how good that looks. Only my second try and it looks like I’m Squidmar or Ninjon! Look at this skull! So cool. That is not a sticker, folks that is nail polish paint. I sealed it all up with varnish (only two coats) over the shield and he is ready for the table (once I finish his belt and a few small details, of course.)

Check out this Warhammer practice shield

and this Viking.

Before

Whoa!

This Knight.

With the terrible wet transfer and varnish

The new hotness with Greyhawk inspired heraldry (Mountain Lions) and speedpaint chainmail touchup

Oh boy. I’m really in on this. I just watched another of Goblin Hobbies’ videos where he uses silicon tape with a crafting tool to get into a hard to reach spot. I’m going to have to get some of that. There are some really cool designs on my plates that have runic and magic writing that I want to get on this scroll. 

Verdict. This product is cool. Very cool. Expensive? Yes. Worth every penny? For sure! I now have a lifetime of designs that I wish I had 30 years ago and the ability to use every color known to man (nail polish color selections are virtually unlimited and span every color in the universe and then some.) I’m going to practice with this a bit and really get down the process. Once I’ve got it, I’m going to go through ALL my minis (yes, even the ones that are already painted) and redo every shield and design that I botched and thought “Eh, good enough.” I’m even going to add as well as fix some patterns and the like to some areas that I “freehanded.” This product needs more media/press and more publicity. Other mini painters need to know about this.  I mean check out this Warhammer Knight, mounted and unmounted.

 

Speedpainting Woes

Greetings Adventurers! As I am experimenting with Speedpainting and the Army Painter Speedpaint 2.0+ line. I’m beginning to understand how the paints work as well as what techniques really work and what doesn’t. I’m still on the struggle bus with some mini’s taking me an hour to paint (my success with the Zombie Ogre) 

and others well… really no different than with my acrylics, sigh. I’m stuck in the loop of painting the base coats then switching back and forth to other minis to use up the paint. Then I go back to do the details with acrylics and trying to use the paint on my wet palate, so I don’t waste this expensive stuff I go back and forth between minis. This back and forth is really eating up time, I need to find a sweet spot with Speedpainting the base colors and just using acrylics with washes for the details. Also, I need to do ONE mini at a time so I can actually finish one!

Now on to my biggest woe. Zenithal Priming. I was watching a bunch of ‘how to’ videos on YouTube and almost everyone was saying that this Zenithal Priming is the “thing.” So, I figured I’d try it out. Now, most of my mini’s are all primed either with a grey primer or a white one. My newest purchases were primed with white and my oldest with a darker grey, and some in between were primed with a light grey. I found out that a light grey (as opposed to the darker grey) works best so that is what I’m going to go with in the future...but more on that in a little bit. Unfortunately, I don’t have any ‘new’ minis that need priming, and I don’t just want to re-spray already primed ones with a black primer (whew I’m sure glad I didn’t do that!) and do double work. Ok. I'm weak. I bought a few minis on Amazon that I wanted to replace my original Dungeon Dwellers that I had lost or actually threw away (Ugh, I threw away the Thief and the Elf because the casting was so awful and I really wish I hadn’t done that. I lost the Wizard.) 

The Heritage Models "Thief" and a far better casting than the one I had.

So, I picked up replacements from the Reaper official Dungeon Dwellers modern re-launch line. They are extremely well sculpted re-dos that basically have pretty much the same poses as the original Heritage ones. I got some metal ones, plastic ones, and even a cool Hyborian Sorcerer that was a 3d Printed one (yeah, I got one or two that I just thought were just cool and maybe not exactly Dungeon Dwellers. Like I said I love minis.)

Back on track, I promise. I assembled what needed to be assembled and read the backs of the cards. Hm. Some of them said they are good to go without priming? Ok. Strange because they didn’t look primed like the Nolzur’s. Ok so no matter, I hit 'em up with some black primer then dry brushed them white (well, I didn’t wait long enough to dry with the thief, so he got a little grey. More on that in a bit). I followed the Zenithal Priming instructions and hit the highlights real good with the white dry brush. They looked like the videos so I began with the Hyborian Sorcerer and a plan.

I grabbed the colors I wanted to use and set them aside, this was a new process for me. Usually, I start with one color then hunt and pick the others. This time would be different. I knew I wanted a cool red robe thing as base so I’ll Speedpaint that (I did some color testing and found that Fire Drake was actually brown and Bright Red wasn’t really bright but it WAS the color I wanted: a sort of dark red), my Vallejo Flesh (called Bronze Brown 72.036 for those who are interested in THE best flesh color ever! Near perfect with a flesh tone wash), Gold, Silver, Black, Fire Drake (the brown for the booties), Skeleton Bone for the skulls, Emerald Green Metallic for the Skull’s eyes, white and some flesh wash and strong tone, for the skulls and chain. Ok I figured 30min to get this guy DONE. Well, I found out some stuff.

Anything that wasn’t white stayed black…black black. Even after a few coats. Anything that I hit with the acrylics could not AT ALL be covered with the Speedpaint, even after multiple coats. I made some mistakes with the flesh and gold metallic. As you can see they are still mistakes so I’m going to have to figure out how to color match that red to fix them or they will stay there. That black that wasn’t dry brushed white stands out. A LOT. I immediately went back and re-dry brushed all the others so that only the shadows have black in them. I was to learn that this wouldn’t even do it. The Hyborian Sorcerer is still a work in progress.  

I hit up the Thief and, same deal, that black is blacker than black. Ugh. Although, the areas that were light grey looked really good, hm a discovery.

You can really see where the "black" really stayed "black" 

Next, I tried a full Speedpaint on the Elf with two shades of green following the painting instructions I found on the Reaper website (cuz I liked his look and wanted to see what the speedpaint version would look like.) Note the "Zenithal drybrush" in the first pic. The overall result: Oh no! A big mess.

Ugh, the darkness!

Jungle Acrylic Disaster

The greens when applied were not bright, they were very dark with that black and it looks terrible. Judge for yourself.  When I did my test swatches with those colors they were bright! Then I tried to use acrylic Jungle Green to re-do the cloak. Nightmare. That black is just not letting any color work right. Lessons learned NO WAY Zenithal! I’m going with my standard. That light grey primer with no drybushing. Check out these tests. 

The first is Bright Red and the second is Fire Drake. JUICY! The pic really doesn’t do it justice. I’ve hit up some Speedpaint tests on my grey primed and partially painted villagers that I’m going to use as Zero-Level DCC Funnel minis and they look SO GOOD. 

Bright rich colors and so so fast to paint too! They are still very much a work in progress but the start looks great. That elf is going to get the spray and a redo! I completely re-did the elf with a white/grey primer and look at the results:

Much better and he is still a work in progress. Painting them first with Speedpaint over the light grey primer for the major areas then going back and doing detail work with my acrylics seems to be the winner. Everything but the flesh (again a Vallejo: Dark Flesh 70.927 not really dark but I love it for maidens, elves and gnomes) and straps is Speedpaint. I might have my solution but it just is going to take me a little bit to figure out how to use these new colors. One thing I have done is I've painted a very small portion of the tops of the bottles of Speedpaint with the color inside. This, not only makes picking out colors easy but I can see what the dried "real" results are on a dark grey (all the caps are dark grey) prime. I've also started to do this with my regular warpaints as well so I can see what the dried result will look like. I've seen many pro painters do this and was adverse to this in the beginning as I thought it looked sloppy. Function over fashion on this one. It really does make it easier. One last major woe is that if I paint a light area with the dark Speedpaint color by mistake it is very hard to fix without going back to covering the error with white acrylic then painting it with the desired lighter color. I can't even just go straight to the lighter acrylic color to cover it. Notably, I'm still trying to break my habit of one color at a time and painting multiple minis at once and not finishing any single one. Sigh. It will take time. My continuing thoughts are I really do like the Speedpaints now that I'm getting comfortable with them. I’m still very much in my “it’s new” phase with them. In my next post I'll get some pics of finished minis ready for varnishing so you can see the Speedpaint results then share my "not so final" thoughts on the Speedpaint 2.0+ line. I really do hope my investment will pay off and I can get ole Smiley to the table along with about a hundred of his friends.

“Don’t mess me up like that elf, buddy, or I’ll disintegrate you!”

Speedpaint 2.0+ My Initial Findings

Hello Adventurers! So, I just received my wonderful Speedpaint 2.0+ Complete Set (90 colors!) and

I’ve begun to paint with the colors and try them out. It is a bit of a learning curve. I’ll share some pros and cons with my actual use and beginner’s (well speedpainting at least) thoughts. If you don’t want to read further. My initial take. Yeah, I think these will work and speed up my painting times. Can I get down to under 30min a mini?…maybe not but maybe less than an hour? Not sure yet. I’m still learning. Is it worth it? Not sure. Time will tell, but I think I like them. 

Pros

This stuff flows really well. The consistency is very much like watered down acrylic paint or a wash. 

The dried coverage is unique and does a good job of acting like a wash adding depth.

A little seems to go a pretty long way. I only used about 5 or 6 drops to do the entire Ogre Zombie skin and that was with 2 coats and it is a rather large mini (almost 3 inches tall). I maybe used 2-3 drops of paint (each color) for the elf (1.5 inches tall) and I had paint left over.  

The colors look cool. Some are very bright and others are very dark. It is hard to tell which they will be from the bottle graphic, the wet liquid, or even the initial coating until they dry. Right there is the biggest learning curve especially when picking colors. 

I’ve not had any “reactivation” issues unless I wanted them.  I even tried painting over previously painted areas after only less than a few minutes drying time (just when it didn’t look wet) and I didn’t have any bleed.

They clean up really, really well. On my dry palate, once the speedpaint dries, it becomes almost like a liquid plastic putty. It lifts right off with a fingernail or paper towel. Acrylics dry HARD on the dry palate and have to be scraped off, not so with these. 

I tried out these paints on several minis with varied primer types. I tried them on a flat white, a flat light grey, a flat dark grey, and pre-primed Nolzur’s D&D. All came out with very similar results. All of them good.

That minotaur's body is actually the "Gravelord Grey" and not the "Grim Black" but it is VERY BLACK. The "Grim Black" is SUPER BLACK. The horns, axe head, axe shaft, and base are all Army Painter Warpaint acrylic. The body and belt are speedpaint. The sandals were painted with speedpaint brown and the color did not cover and later I used an acrylic to paint the leather of the sandals.  

Cons

It does not do “coverage.” If you put a darker shade on and mess up. The regular lighter color will not cover it. I’m having to “shade” match my acrylics to the speedpaints to cover mistakes. This sea hag's brown loincloth is one coat...very white.

The colors can be really dark when they dry. Also, some can be very light when they dry. This medusa I kind of wanted the opposite of what I got. I wanted dark snakes on a light face and hands but I picked poorly. Again need to get experience as to what the final colors will "really" look like. 

You must be VERY careful with the application. This stuff flows like water and it should be put on with a smaller brush than you would think you would need with standard acrylics. 

It pools. It REALLY pools BUT it dries lighter in the pools than you think it would. 

One coat and done doesn’t really work for a lot of the colors. Especially on textured parts of the mini like fur or wraps etc. The ogre's wraps would not get darker. I'm going to have to use an acrylic and a wash to get the effect I want on these.

It’s not for detail work. Because of the flow It does not seem so great for belts, rings, pouches, belts etc. Use a small brush and be careful where you put the paint.

If you are trying to get paint into a small place (like a gash or hole) don’t think it will flow in and not leave color paint behind. Use a small brush and be very careful if the color is dark and you are painting next to a light color. Note: See the right and left gashes near the armpits.

Speedpaint dries pretty fast on your palate. Put one or two drops then add more when you need more. If it begins to dry it becomes a goopy mess like melted plastic.

Findings

The paint goes on fast and dries, looking great. Sometimes you will have to do two or more coats to get the color you really want. Detail work must be done with acrylics. 

The verdict is still out on the metallic colors. I don’t hate them, but they don’t seem to give the same intense coverage that the Warpaints Metallics line does. Maybe they could be good for armor and chainmail to create that darkness in the textured part without having to use a wash? More experimentation needed. Looks pretty good on his belt once it dried.

I got a really BIG bottle of Speedpaint Medium and a regular sized bottle. Not quite sure why they included this much “mixing medium.” I read on their website that you can “thin down” the Speedpaint but gosh it’s really thin right out of the bottle. I need more research on what the Speedpaint Medium is used for. Can I make my acrylic Warpaints Speedpaint by adding the medium? Whoa that would be cool. Stay tuned. Oh, and if you are wondering “Smiley” is still primer grey. I’ll get to him soon enough! 

NOTE: Smiley is a 1980 Grenadier AD&D lead miniature from the #2012 Dwellers Below boxed set. I have the original box, foam, insert and have 7 of the 9 miniatures fully painted. Just “Smiley” the beholder and the Yuan Ti remain unpainted. The Yuan Ti is base coated green but the rest of him is primer grey! I really want to do a good high level job on “Smiley” and decided he wasn’t a good choice for a paint experiment. 

 

 Painting Miniatures

Greetings Adventurers!

Now I’ve been painting miniatures longer than I’ve been playing TTRPGs. I started out with Heritage Models Dungeon Dwellers Caverns of Doom adventure game set that I probably got sometime in 1981.

These were LEAD miniatures and several looked like melted messes of metal rather than the superbly crafted 3d printed plastic/filament minis of today. When I started playing RPGs I also got into the miniatures hobby associated with them. I particularly liked Grenadier Models AD&D line. I also dabbled with some Ral Partha’s, Alvanco’s Wizards & Lizards and some random Armory ones among others. I started painting those Caverns of Doom figures with enamel paints (yeah yuk!) designed for plastic models and quickly learned that was not the thing. After a few play sessions most of the paint had been worn off. Also, the end results were less than ideal. I took all of my painted miniatures and dropped them in acetone and removed the paint and started over. Re-starting with Floquil railroad colors, designed for metal trains, I began to hone my craft and started painting some pretty good minis.

(Early Paladin work, Grenadier 1980's, notice the poofy lichen basework)

Oil-based paints were a pain to deal with and I always seemed to be out of thinner. Soon, I moved on to water based acrylic paints and started to pick up some Citadel Colors mostly made for Warhammer minis. I liked the color pigments and their thickness but the bottles they came in were pretty terrible and sometimes the paint became so clumped it was unusable. As I developed my hobby skills in painting and miniatures (like basing, kit-bashing, pinning etc.) I got rather well at mixing colors, drybrushing, glazing and other techniques.

(Re-done Halfling Grenadier 1980's)

Still, I was not satisfied with the Citadel Colors, especially for the price. A few years ago I discovered the Army Painter line of colors and really loved them. I got a mega set and supplemented it with colors that I wanted or experimented with. I really dig their Warpaints line. The big thing though. It takes me FOR-EVER to paint one mini. From the initial spray paint primer to base coat, then shading, highlights, special effects, detailing, and then on to washes and drybrushing all the way to dippin into varnish to add depth (an old tin soldier modeling trick) then spraying with a dull cote to take away the varnish shine or even skipping that whole step and just and sealing them with a clear cote spray. It’s like a few HOURS to finish a mini and that is if I know what colors I want to use from the get go!

(Reaper Elf, Getting better but basework still "basic")

My conundrum. I have a lot of minis. Most of those minis are not painted. Some of my minis from 1981 aren’t even finished. Everything is primed, but color? 

(Yep. There are more minis under that cardboard)

Nope. I even made a vow to myself not to buy another miniature until I had all the ones I already owned painted. This lasted, mostly (I bought military ones and military models), from about 1986 till I got into the gaming industry in early 2000 when I started to get some “comp” minis for free or in trade. I really didn’t buy a SINGLE fantasy miniature from 1986 until about 2000 when I broke my vow with the wonderful Reaper line of miniatures. 

(Reaper Ghost with a little too much varnish. See brown part inside of hood and on shield, Ack!)

BUT I love using minis at my table. My gaming group loves to see their battles played out on maps and want, neigh, demand that I have a battlemap for every combat encounter. I have minis for characters that were specifically purchased for games (and used unpainted) that have long since ended. Sadly, with the promise that I would have them painted “next session for sure!” I have bought whole groups of monster minis designed for encounters in an upcoming game session (usually a few sessions away!) only to paint one or two and the rest hitting the table only in their glorious primer coating. I desperately want to have my magnificent collection, now bulging with the excellent Nolzur’s Marvelous line of D&D minis (I’m especially fond of their monsters,) painted and table ready. Sigh.

(Reaper Dungeon Dwellers, throwback line, plastic spider)

I’m nowhere near a professional at mini painting. I’m not even close to some of the people who have you tube videos up there like Squidmar, Ninjon and Lyla Mev, who I’ve learned so much from. I just want to get my minis to the table and not have them with off-white or grey primer.  Now, I’ve been watching slapchop, speed paint, contrast or whatever you want to call “painting a miniature faster” videos for some years now and the results, to me, were less than stellar. I’ve stayed with my acrylic paints and crank out perhaps 5-6 completed mini’s a year (ugh, that sounds so awful.) 

(Conan still in progress, note test swatches on cardboard holder)

Well dear friends, I’ve decided to take the plunge. I’m writing a lot now and really need to have my “hobby time” prioritized. So, I have done a lot of research in the last year (off an on yeah…time is hard to find) and I think I’ve found a solution. I took the dive. Army Painter’s Speedpaint 2.0+ line of paints. I’ve ordered the “supermega one with everything” set. The reviews from all the pros are in. I’ve seen all the how to’s. They have fixed the bleeding and reactivation issues. I’ve gone to a whole bunch of websites with the sample swatches that dozens of people have painted and I’m going ALL IN. I think this might be my solution. I’m gonna paint these little buggers and get them to the table. Pros are cranking out “table ready” minis in less than 15min after priming. I’m sure I can get down to 30min a mini. I’ll keep you posted. After all, “Smiley” here has been waiting since 1982 for some paint.

"Paint me, Seymour!"