In the first of an all new series of videos I take a look at what you’ll need to get started painting above average gaming miniatures with a minimum of start up costs. Stay tuned as every couple of weeks I’ll delve further into the hobby with tips and techniques to producing minis you’ll be proud to field on your gaming table without a lot of muss or fuss.
Founder/Editor-in-chief of The Gaming Gang website and host of The Gaming Gang Dispatch and other TGG media, Jeff tackles any and all sorts of games but has a special fondness for strategy, conflict sims, and roleplaying games. Plus, he's certainly never at a loss for an opinion...
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Hey Jeff, great video! I’m looking forward to picking up some tips on mini painting. For what it’s worth, I have to say I didn’t enjoy mini painting as much until I bought some high quality brushes (Winsor & Newton Series 7). What a huge difference that made! It was like moving up to a fine quality writing tool after using the equivalent of crayons. But, I completely agree with you that newbies should start out with a minimum investment before they put down a lot of cash in a hobby they may or may not stick with. I’m still not great at the hobby but I have fun with it and my painted minis look so much better on the game table.
Brushes really are amazingly important (as, eventually paints are as well) but for those starting off I never recommend investing too heavily until they get a hang of painting and decide they want to really get into it. I’d say the main brushes I use now run around $100 for the sizes I lean toward and they have to be replaced often enough where you’re looking at probably $300 to $350 a year if you paint even fairly regularly. That’s a serious chunk of change for a newbie to dish out – the $100 – so I just point those folks to the much more inexpensive nylon brushes until they get their feet wet.
But David is right on the money, relying on cheap brushes and expecting stunning results is truly unrealistic. You can get good tale quality minis but you might face a bit of frustration when it comes to brush control as those tips just never stay crisp enough.
this is from 5 years ago, was this painting series continued?
My history – I started back in 1977 with Heritage Knights, lol. Won awards with 25mm, 15mm, 54mm. Met Uncle Duke and he taught me his system in 1980. We must have spent over 6 hours together and learn I did. After that, that’s how I paint, not caring about contests anymore, just enjoying the time I paint.
My background movie is Blade Runner original. And yes, I can quote that movie. LOL.