Teaching Miniature Painting Technique

Tom has two youngsters keen on painting their Warhammer figures, and he will be doing his army as well. So I thought I would give him some insights on how to paint, and then some strong suggestions on using the simplest techniques in order to get the most figures done with the least time.

I came loaded with brushes and figures, as Tom advised me that he had paint. I brought my fave colour, Rackham Bone, and tom had a little mix of GW Foundation Blue & Grey, Scortched Brown, Regal Blue, and Ice Blue.

The first lesson were the very basics. Keep the paint on the bottom third of the brush. Keep your paints water thinned. Have a rubbish transfer and mix brush to your pallet. Have a tissue box/ Kitchen paper roll around for cleaning and wiping. Clean water, mix water and bin in easy reach.  Clean your brushes well between each colour change. No warm water as it melts the wax in the ferrule. Shape your tip. Have an upside down brush in your wash water to 'rub' your bristles clean.

Then we got into the painting. How to load a colour and use one or two brush loads of water to thin it. How to mix a darker colour and then work towards lightness for highlighting.

I showed Tom how to drybrush, and how opacity affects highlighting.

The Regal blue did not want to apply nicely, so after a correction I showed Tom how to turn it into a wash.

At the end of the two hour session, Tom had the basics down pat, and using only the colours he had I showed him how to make and effective batch process to paint the Lizardmen and the Skinks.

Once he has these done, we will get him going on his Skaven, and then once the skills have developed, it might be time to get the High Elves painted.

The Skaven emerge

Tom has decided on his army, and has gone for the rat men, the Skaven. One battalion box, and a heap of gear grabbed from the gamers friends, WargamerAu & ebay.

For the game Tom had 1500 points, Jez had 750 Orcs, and I had 750 points of Empire.

It was a good romp, close most of the way, with the "Unlikely Alliance" putting down the ratties. Dropping a Rat horde was difficult, as those stubborn rolls meant that it took the humans some serious chopping, but I had three tight frontage units facing his horde sized effort. Jez's Black Orcs had a hard job, dislodging a horde by itself. It was saved by a traffic jam preventing flanking attacks over the time that it took to kill the ratties.

Funny stuff:
- the slave rat explosion was one of the most effective tactics of the day - Tom is priming his brush for slave painting a plenty. 
- Animosity - The goblins were NOT interested in attending the battle. When the Black Orc's went screaming off with a Warggghh roll,  both gobbos stayed stock still. And the next turn. The centre unit woke up once it was slammed into by the slave rats on their turn three, but the other one had FOUR rolls of one in a row - staying  dead still on the starting line.