As with many rule sets that many people browse and try out in their gaming careers, painting figures is not as simple as it first appears.

Though it is by no means an overly complicated affair, it still takes a bit of practice to do well. Having said that, it is worth pointing out early on that care and time should be given to the art of neatness. Painting figures neatly may not win many battles, but an army of cleanly painted figures somehow conveys the message that you are competent. (There's always something to be said for subtle intimidation.)

To really begin: a good painting kit includes: a) some kind of hobby knife, ex-acto knives with #11 blades are great. b) small wire cutters, for when an ex-acto just can't cut it. c) a needle file is occasionally useful but by no means required. d) needle nose pliers will be helpful for bending and straightening things out. e) several kinds of cement depending on your needs but at least a crazy glue of some sort, try small bottled ones like Quick Tite¨. f) brushes, more on that in a minute. g) paints in as many of the colors of the rainbow as you can requisition (from your father). h) acrylic spray paint in black and white. i) clear topcoat or varnish, gloss or flat as desired. j) a used white cloth (rag) and a container for water. It may seem like alot to gather together but it really is easy to gather together.

For miniatures painting acrylics are your best choice; they dry quickly, clean up with water, are no where near as messy as enamels and oils, and just forget watercolors. The Citadel¨ line of paints are just the best for figures though any set of acrylics will do, like the cheap stuff at craft stores. For the most part three kinds of reds, blues, yellows, greens, some browns (including flesh), and black and white is somewhat more than you really need. A dark, medium, and light hue or each will make sure you can get through shading and highlighting without too much mixing of colors. For the more advanced painter, inks in various colors can be useful in shading and glazing.

When it comes to brushes, there are three kinds you should concentrate on. A 00 brush is just the right size for general purpose painting, 10/0 size is useful for detail work, and a larger, flat brush for large areas and highlighting. Nylon brushes work best with miniatures, as they are quite durable.

Now, if you've got everything together let's begin. Find yourself an uncluttered area in a well lighted area to set up, and arrange your tools as you see fit. There are often metal bits or flash where moulds join or where the sprue joins the figure are left over from the casting processes, these need to be carefully removed. This will greatly help the overall look of the finished figure. Gently use the ex-acto knife or wire cutters to trim off the metal. Mould lines are a bit more annoying to deal with as they can be hard to see and often cover a large area. Use a needle file on the easily accessible areas, and an ex-acto in curvaceous areas. (I rarely bother with a file).

Glue Together

Next you'll want to put the model together, if necessary. The key point with crazy glue is that it will stick anything together, including your fingers. The crazy glue is just general purpose, but expensive for those little bottles, so just a drop or two for bonding metals on the model. Basing and flocking is best left to white glue, and if you use plastics a little bit of liquid plastic cement is even stronger than crazy glue. Modeling putty might make it on to your shopping list if you put together larger models. Particularly, if you need to fill in some holes or cracks caused as a result of model construction. At this point you don't want to base your models, a result of the casting process is that sometimes there is a little bit of residue on the figures (casting release agent). Using an old toothbrush gently scrub with dish liquid to remove the residue and to give your painting a clean start. Finally, when the figures are dry and depending on the size of your figures you should use a bead of white glue to affix the figure to a tongue depressor or popsicle stick to lessen the handling of the models in the painting process.

Now that you're ready for priming, you have a few choices to make. Do you want to hand prime the figures or spray them. And in either case which color should you use. Hand priming a figure gives you greater control over the base coat and if you spray you will most likely need to touch up the paint anyway, but it takes more time to hand paint each figure. Spraying is all about speed but as you need to figure out the fine line between a solid coat, and a dripping, paint soaked mess. Practice a little on some meaningless little object, keep the can about a foot away from the model and make sure to spray from every direction. The choice of color of your base coat is the most important decision at this junction.

Just remember that models with many light or more transparent colors like yellow should be painted white. Most other figures are best base coated black, you don't have any white areas to deal with and there is some shading already built in (for you lazy types). Looks like my allotted space in this issue is finished so I'll leave you to the excesses of the evil editor for the rest of the issue. Bye now.

Painting My Way Part Two

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