Advice to beginner painters - the collective wisdom ofthe site

[John Cook]

About the same time as me then.  I can't remember how many times matt spray varnish has frosted, two or three I suppose.  Once is too many, bearing in mind the time and effort put into painting the figures in the first place, and I've never managed repair the damage entirely satisfactorily.  So it is a risk I don't take anymore and warn against its use.

[steve_holmes_11]

That equates to 60 man-heights - roughly 10 yards.
   William Takeda Francesca?

Missed a zero.

[kipt]

For the couple of times my spray cans have fogged the unit, I just wait until they dry and then respray. Clears it up at that point.  Worst is grabbing the wrong spray can and hitting the unit with primer instead.  Did that once - keep your cans separated!

[paulr]

Washes
Washes will settle into creases and lines picking out details, giving depth and shadows
Washes will mute the underlying colours so use lighter and brighter colours if planning to use washes

Dry brushing
A heavy dry brush over a base coat can shift the colour and give a worn appearance
For example I used a gray dry brush over a dark blue base coat to give the look of 'Oxford mix', a dark blue-grey

A very light downward dry brush with a light dusty colour will help highlight edges

[Orcs]

Just six?  The more I thought about it the more points that came to mind.  I'm also going to make the assumption that our newcomer has discovered the various magazines out there, and already visited their local club.

1.   GENERALITIES.
a.   Bear in mind from the outset that Wargaming is not a cheap hobby.

Really? I think it's a very cheap hobby, especially when you work out the cost per hour.

[fsn]

Wargaming is one of those hobbies that costs as much as you want to pay.

You could start a Persian army for £36.
You could put together a WWII infantry platoon and a troop of tanks for £20.
You could put a skirmish between British Riflemen and French Voltigeurs for £12.   

You can make buildings from simple card templates; make trees from dried twigs and some railway scenic materials, and there's the good old books under a cloth for hills. Roads and rivers can also be coloured card.

For years I had an emergency wargames kit. It comprised 30-40 Western figures, some collapsible card adobe buildings, dice and a ruler. Everything fitted into a sandwich box and cost pennies. After reading the Military Modelling Annual 2 (or 3) I created another with medieval figures, collapsible wattle-and-daub buildings, dice and a ruler. These got me through some long summer holidays. 

Granted you need paints, brushes and basing, but the point is that you can start simple and small and stay that way or get very, very sophisticated and big.


     

[Raider4]

No tips myself - I'm with Last Hussar on my love of painting - but I like this video:

A lot of what he says has already been posted by others here.

[hammurabi70]

1.   GENERALITIES.
a.   Bear in mind from the outset that Wargaming is not a cheap hobby.

Really? I think it's a very cheap hobby, especially when you work out the cost per hour.

I suppose it is all all a matter of comparatives but I struggle to think what is less expensive, perhaps a soccer ball and outfit.  My father's golf club has a £2,500 joining fee and £2,000 annual fee; remember to add in green fees and equipment.

[John Cook]

Oh that is pricey.  My local golf club charges a joining fee of £500 and £1075 full playing membership for full year round usage with no additional costs, and access to all club facilities. Participation in most sports like football, rugby, cricket, and athletics are cheap at the entry level.  How about rock climbing, bird watching, stamp collecting, train spotting and angling?  I'm guessing that all these are cheaper than wargaming. I knew somebody who collected airline sick bags - unused of course - cost nil.
The cost of a hobby is relative as you say and wargaming is certainly cheaper than Polo.  I also concede that what may be expensive for one person may not be for another but the brief was advice to a newcomer. 
I see that I spent £1,131.70 with Pendraken alone in the last 12 months, add to that figures and vehicles from other manufacturers, battle mats, buildings, magazine subs, books, paints, paint brushes and so on and it is a little over £4000 and averages at approximately £340 a month.  It has always seemed to be an expensive hobby to me, even in the days when I used Airfix models, but I only earned £7/10s/6d a week in those days, so after I'd give £2 to my Mum, a half a crown box of Airfix ACW figure was a major outlay.  Happy days.   

[FierceKitty]

Really? I think it's a very cheap hobby, especially when you work out the cost per hour.

Cheaper than the most popular, most expensive, and most environmentally destructive hobby, aka parenthood.

[fred.]

I think most hobbies have a range of costs - I'd put angling at the expensive end from the amount of kit I see most anglers with around here. 

Golf is probably another example with a wide range of costs - just looked at one of the local ones £230 for a round as a visitor. And the equipment costs can vary hugely - there is definitely a buy more expensive clubs to play better advertising stance. 

From the different people that I game with, I think gaming can cost what you want. For some there is very little outlay, they have a couple of armies and are happy with that. For others they want to buy something all the time. Personally I probably spend far more than I need to spend, I have lots of different rules, I have lots of different armies, and I have lots of stuff I want to paint. 

[Raider4]

I see that I spent £1,131.70 with Pendraken alone in the last 12 months, add to that figures and vehicles from other manufacturers, battle mats, buildings, magazine subs, books, paints, paint brushes and so on and it is a little over £4000 and averages at approximately £340 a month.

In contrast, I spent £358 in total with Pendraken between 2004 and 2012 then nothing for the next 5 years. Some small orders since then, and the total for this year is £31. There are also other costs for paints, glues, materials, etc.

Compared to some of my colleagues hobbies over the years - golf, triathlon*, classic cars - wargaming - to me - is very cheap indeed.


* One woman bought a £3500 bike one year, then a £5000 bike the year after, keeping the 'old' bike just for training.

[mmcv]

For the couple of times my spray cans have fogged the unit, I just wait until they dry and then respray. Clears it up at that point.  Worst is grabbing the wrong spray can and hitting the unit with primer instead.  Did that once - keep your cans separated!

Been there... 

I tend to use paint on for primer but spray can for varnish, for the main reason being I can't get spray cans delivered and don't particularly like going to an actual shop to buy it. Plus for small batches, paint on primer is probably as quick as getting things set up for doing the spray can. Whereas with varnishing I tend to do the whole army or division or whatever all at once.

[steve_holmes_11]

Been there... 

I tend to use paint on for primer but spray can for varnish, for the main reason being I can't get spray cans delivered and don't particularly like going to an actual shop to buy it. Plus for small batches, paint on primer is probably as quick as getting things set up for doing the spray can. Whereas with varnishing I tend to do the whole army or division or whatever all at once.

Horses for courses.

I'm the opposite: Priming from a can and priming by brush.

It takes me about an hour to arrange 100 - 120 figures on the bases I use for priming, but that owes a lot to beng practiced, prepared and having all the materials to hand.
Priming itself takes about 15 minutes for up to 4 sheets (Up to 400 figures).

A fair comparison ought to consider the 2 days I allow for the primer to cure.
Also the 2 - 3 hours I spend transferring the primed figures to painting sticks.


The economies of scale in my batch production methods drop off rapidly when I'm prepping a bag or two of figures bought at a show.

[steve_holmes_11]

On cost, It's pretty much as expensive as you're prepared to spend.

At one end, a couple of boxes of plastics on a table.
At the other, a permanent clubhouse similar to Little Wars TV.


I've heard said of other hobbies: It's affordable - until you add digital photography.

[Orcs]

I agree you can spend loads on this hobby - and I probably do. However I am in the fortunate position that if I want something I can just get it.

My wargaming spending has dropped off a lot in the last couple of years - I have more than  enough stuff for what I regularly game in, and loads to paint.

I am trying to finish projects so that I stop buying stuff for that period/army.  It has sort of worked, but I often end up buying stuff  to finish the project.

My other main hobby is shooting and that varies from cheap £2 for an hour target shooting with a .22 to expensive 100 Clays comes in at £70 in an hour. . 

[mmcv]

Horses for courses.

I'm the opposite: Priming from a can and priming by brush.

It takes me about an hour to arrange 100 - 120 figures on the bases I use for priming, but that owes a lot to beng practiced, prepared and having all the materials to hand.
Priming itself takes about 15 minutes for up to 4 sheets (Up to 400 figures).

A fair comparison ought to consider the 2 days I allow for the primer to cure.
Also the 2 - 3 hours I spend transferring the primed figures to painting sticks.


The economies of scale in my batch production methods drop off rapidly when I'm prepping a bag or two of figures bought at a show.

My usual method is to paint on the primer to a few strips of figures on painting sticks before I paint the last strips of previously primed stuff. That way it'll be dry by the time I'm finished with painting the current strips and I have something to move onto. Find it only takes me a min or two to do each strip, so taking 5 mins at the start of a painting session to prime a handful is a nice warmup before painting proper. I have done big batches of priming before, but as you say it becomes a whole thing in itself and can take up a fair amount of time, particularly if you're using airbrushes or doing zenithal highlights. It works well if you're doing a massive batch paint, but since I like to vary my painting I'm not generally doing huge batches so it's not as valuable. 

[Orcs]

A very important one

NEVER get your brush water and drink confused!

[FierceKitty]

I have been known to dip my paintbrush absent-mindedly into my tea. The paint didn't suffer, but the tea did.

Just in passing, I managed to have a LOT of fun angling while a student, and I was sufficiently hard up to think twice before buying a Mars bar in those days. It wasn't dry fly on a Hampshire chalk stream, of course.

[Norm]

With acrylic paint, keep the brush damp, the paint mobile and wash the brush regularly while painting so that excess paint deep in the bristle does not dry hard.