Working at The Last Square and teaching the Beginner's class at our store people often ask me about paint. Most beginners don't know where to start. With almost 20 years of painting under my belt I have learned a lot of lessions the hard way. I am always happy to pass those lessions on to beginners. Paint Next to your figures, paint is the most important thing you need to have a nice wargaming army. There are and have been many fantastic paint lines. We carry great paint lines at The Last Square. The first thing you need to know about paint is that there are 3 types; acrylic, enamel and oil. Each type has it's own advantages and disadvantages. Next you have the different styles of painting miniatures. You have wet pallet, cap painting, and thick and thin painting. Oil paint is the old stand-by. It's been around forever in various forms and is great for many things. Due to their long drying time (24-48 hours) they are great for blending and shading. This can be a disadvantage in that you can't paint a figure in one sitting, as you have to let them dry. Most people use oil paint on a pallet and mix spirits in to get the correct consistancy and color. Many modelers and figure painters use oils because of the ability to mix and blend, creating shadows and contrasts. Oil paints often come in tubes that allow you to control the amount you use. Oils also offer mediums such as gloss, flat, satin, and metallic. Mediums change the sheen, or texture of the paint. The disadvantage is there tends to be a few hardcore colors that the artist has to mix himself to get the color he wants. Enamel paint is another classic. It's been around as long as oils. It has a quicker drying time than oil and can be thinned with Turpentine for use with airbrushes. It has a great variety of colors oils can't match. Acrylic paint has been the big dramatic improvement in the last 10 years. Once gritty and a poor medium for painting, they have made incredible improvements, and offer many advantages. They have a quick drying time (10-15 minutes) They can be thinned and cleaned with water. Many new acrylics also offer drying retardents so you can extend drying time to allow you to mix and blend. Style Once you have decided which type of paint to use you will develop a style of painting. The most common is "wet" palleting. This is a method where you take some paint, put it on a surface and use water or Turpentine to get the consistency and colors you want. This method works best if you mix and blend or prefer thin paint or custom colors. (This article first appeared in the September 2001 issue of The Journal, the newsletter of HMGS/Midwest.)  Back to Table of Contents The Messenger Fall/Winter 2001 Back to The Messenger List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by HMGS/PSW. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com