Way of the Lazy Painter: Primer

This is the first in a series of articles on basic painting methods. We'll be discussing priming today, what it is, why you need to do it and more importantly how to do it. The end of this will also have a demonstration video showing how I do my priming.

What is priming?

Priming is the process of applying a thin coat on your miniature to give your acrylic paints a better surface to bond to.

Why do I need to do it?

There are two major reasons why you should place a primer on your miniatures. First as I mention above it gives your paint a better surface to bond to, this means that once your done painting your miniature the paint won't just chip off when you touch it. Second reason to primer is that depending on the color of your primer, it make painting easier. This second reason should be discussed in detail in a the later post, so just use this guide to know what color of primer to use. Miniatures that wear a lot of metal(armor, weapons, etc) primer with black, if it wears a lot of cloth(cloaks and the like) primer with white/grey.

Painting Attempts: Rangers Update

Just an update on my current work on the Rangers...

Way of the Lazy Painter: Miniature Painting's 5 Basic Techniques

I've been painting for almost 2 years now, I am by no means an expert but I do feel confident enough to write about the basics of painting. I know that there are a lot of resources on the net for these basics techniques, my hope is that I can provide help to people starting out by simplifying the explanations. Now let's get started.

There are 5 basic techniques that one will use in panting miniatures. With these 5 techniques you can produce tabletop quality miniatures, what this means is that you'll have an army that looks good when you put it on the table and look at it from afar. Techniques that allow you to produce higher quality work also have their foundation on these 5 techniques.

1. Priming - This is the application of a thin layer of primer to give your paints a better surface to stick to.
2. Base Coating - Application of color on your miniature.
3. Washing - Application of a color darker than the base coat in a medium that tends to stay in the deep sections of the miniature. This help create the appearance of shadows in the miniature.
4. Highlighting - Painting of a lighter shade of color on top of a base coat. This helps create the appearance of light hitting parts of the miniature.
5. Dry Brushing - The application of paint very thinly only in the raised areas of the miniature. This can be used to highlight and create more dynamic metallic colors.

I'll be discussing each of these techniques in detail and will provide some sample videos on how to do each in the coming weeks.

Painting Attempts: Stormlance Full Unit

As I promised, full unit fully painted.

Paint the Target is up!

Nothing like seeing your work in another man's website among spectacular works to get you rearing to paint...

So, here' what I submitted for this month...