Preparation
There are six parts to this miniature, and four
of them should be attached together with pewter sprues when you purchase
this miniature. Those four pieces are the most delicate bits of Sasia,
the “Dorsal Blades”, and should be handled with care when removing from
the sprues and trimming flash from them.
Sasia Samaris' parts, rear view and front view. From left to right: Rear view cloak, Rear view lower body, dorsal blades, front view cloak, front view lower body, dorsal blades. Note that these pictures are pre-cleaning and that the dorsal blades are attached two to a sprue, four total.
This brings me to the first step, accounting for
your parts and cleaning them up. The casting process for most pewter, lead,
and lead-free pewter miniatures involves a fairly messy mold which will
leave well-defined seams and, sometimes, fairly mighty lumps of “flashing”,
which is extraneous material which remains attached to the finished miniature. Rackham makes miniatures with a lot of flash, but their seam lines are
fairly minimal. Overall, their quality is top-notch, but the miniatures
do involve quite a lot of work to make them look nice.
Take a modeling knife or scalpel and trim the big
lumps of flashing from the miniature parts. The best way to do this is
to cut the flash off a bit away from the miniature, so as to not damage
the model’s detail. Once you have trimmed the excessive flash and separated
all the parts from their various sprues, take a few small files (I prefer
to use one flat on and one cylindrical one) and file down the seam lines
and the smaller flashing until the miniature has a nice, clean appearance.
Be sure to check the places where you will be attaching parts, as a tight
joint is usually critical and flashing may be thick there.
Now it is time to assemble your miniature. As far
as most miniatures go, the assembly is an easy process which involves gluing
the miniature to its base, at most. This is one of the reasons I picked
Sasia as an example: She’s much more complex.
Assembly
The first thing to do is to glue the cloak and Sasia's
upper body to the base. This will involve cutting a small hole in the base,
as Rackham has the strange habit of not providing pre-cut bases. This is
a good thing in one sense, as this means that one has flexibility and will
not have extra hole in the base after assembly. It is, however, still annoying.
So cut a hole big enough to fit the short rectangular lump of pewter in,
then glue it in.
Next, you will want to drill a small hole in the bottom of Sasia's
upper body. You will then drill a similar hole in her upper body, both
holes should be about 1/6 of an inch deep or so. Then you will fill the
hole in her lower body with modeling epoxy. The best kind of epoxy to use
is a two-part epoxy like Kneadatite, also known as "Green Stuff".
After you fill the hole, you will want to take a
length of wire about 1/3 of an inch long and stick it in the epoxy and
wait for the epoxy to set so that the wire forms a sort of peg out of the
hole. While you are waiting, you might as well drill four holes in the
back of Sasia's cloak where the Dorsal Blades will be set. You can also
fill these holes with epoxy and place pegs in them. You should also drill
holes in the bases of the Dorsal Blades at this time. On Sasia, the dorsal blades are VERY
difficult to drill and peg. I almost trashed one of the blades drilling it, so
be very careful.
Now that all your pegs are set, there are several
ways to attach the various bits to the pegs. The way that I do it, which
I think is the best way, is to fill those holes on the non-peg bits with
epoxy, then stick a piece of wire in them and remove it, creating a peg-diameter
hole such that you will have a tight seal with your peg.
I will now tell you how to finish the assembly, but I
don't suggest that you do so at this point in the process. After all the pegs
and holes are set, place a small amount of epoxy AND super glue in the holes,
and then push the parts together until they have a good seal. The extra epoxy
should squeeze out the sides, and you can trim and carve it later so that your
miniature looks seamless. However, as I said before, I usually save this until
after all those pieces are painted.
Sasia's upper body pin, a good example of a pin from a Minotaur miniature, and Sasia's lower body with female pin mate for upper body pin.
Painting
The first step in painting your miniature is the
undercoat. There are several methods of doing this, and I suggest the "by
hand" approach, as it tends to work out better, in my experience. Take
some white paint (I always use white, although others sometimes suggest
using black or grey, depending on what color scheme you are planning on)
and mix the paint with water until it is just wet enough to not bead up
on the pewter. Then paint the entire miniature with this paint. If you
purchase the "miniatures painting paints" made by various gaming companies
out there, your paint should be very close to this consistency already.
I personally prefer to buy the Liquitex and Grumbacher tubes of acrylic
paint, as they are more versatile and last longer. In terms of Liquitex, your
basic white is "Titanium White".
After your undercoat has dried, it is time to start on the actual painting. The hardest part of painting a miniature, it seems, is picking what color scheme to go with. Unfortunately, nobody seems to know how to answer that question. I just go with what seems nice to me at the time, based entirely on whim. If I don't like how it looks later, I just do it over again in some other color after stripping the old paint off. A friend of mine who recently got into miniature painting bought a color match wheel which indicates which colors and shades go well together. He was very happy with it, and this seems like a very good approach for a beginning painter to me.
Another approach that works with Confrontation miniatures especially is to find a color scheme that you like based on somebody else's work. Most Confrontation minis come with a card that has a photo of a painted mini on it. In Sasia's case they just have a picture, but you can almost always find examples on the internet.
With Sasia, I had pretty much already decided that my Dirz faction minis would have an Arabian look, so light clothing with dark skin. But the Alchemists are also "technomancers", and Sasia's cloak is a genetically modified creature itself. Therefore, a biomechanical look along the lines of Giger was something I would also shoot for. In other words, I'd try to make "Aliens" meet "Lawrence of Arabia".
Sasia with her flesh base coat and undercoating. I temporarily glued the lower body to the end of a dental pick so I wouldn't damage the paint job as I progressed. Dental picks can usually be gotten from your local dentist: They throw them out long before they're useless for mini work.
So, I decided to make the cloak a sandy pale color on the back and a pinkish, fleshy color on the underside. This brings me to the base coat, one of the absolute most important steps in painting a miniature. It seems that most mini painters pick a final color scheme and then pick a dark version of that to slap on as a base coat. This trivializes this step, and you'd be better off just painting a final color and then doing a dark wash rather than waste material. However, a well done base coat makes a miniature, in my opinion.
This brings off on a small tangent, but now is the best time to address it. There are many different techniques that people use to paint miniatures, and most of them end up being roughly equivalent. However, the too-common practice of "coat, wash, drybrush" can bring out some really ugly results and is far too simple to address every situation. For example, with Sasia I want her skin to look smooth, I want the back of her cloak to look dusty, the underside to look slimy, and her blades to look shiny and metallic. If I used the "coat, wash, drybrush" approach to this, I would end up with roughly the same texture on every surface, which leaves a miniature looking flat and lifeless. This approach is good for exactly one type of miniature painter: The kind who doesn't care about his minis, but he can't play his game of Warhammer without a painted army. For you guys out there, coat, wash, drybrush. If you have a miniature that you want to look good, keep reading.
Back to the base coat. Since I had decided to go with a sandy back, I chose a mixture of burnt umber and raw sienna, giving me a dark brown on the back of the cloak. For the skin, which I wanted to be dark but somewhat rosy, I went with red oxide mixed with burnt umber. For the underside of the cloak, which I wanted to be a visceral pink, I chose a mixture of dioxazine purple and ultramarine blue. Note that these colors are ludicrously darker than my intended final color, this does away with the need for a wash simply to darken the crevices of the miniature, a practice I abhor on principle.
After the base coat, I did progressively paler drybrushings on the underside with a mixture of a medium red and white. I started with pure red, a wet, heavy drybrushing, and then progressively added white to the mixture, making each successive wash less heavy until I finally got to pure white. As for the back of the cloak, I used a mixture of some random "ivory" color that I have, raw sienna, and yellow. After successive paler washes, each with less paint on the brush than the last, I topped it off with a very dry pure white drybrushing, giving me that dusty look I was going for.
What I call the middle stage on this mini. The cloak won't change much as the mini progresses, but note the lack of detail. Also note the different shades of darkness between the flesh and the tan part of the cloak: They both started with almost equally dark base coats.
A little aside on drybrushing, which many may not be familiar with. The way to drybrush a miniature is to load your brush with paint, wipe the brush on a towel, and then lightly run your brush over the figure. This can be done a number of ways in order to achieve different results. The primary technique I use when painting miniatures is successive drybrushings, which means that I load my brush with paint, wipe it say once, then drybrush. Then I clean my brush, load it with a lighter shade, wipe it say twice, and then drybrush again. This basically ends up creating a nice gradation of color from dark to light from the crevices to the peaks of the miniature. If you use high viscosity paint like I do, then you can create a very nice dusty look by not adding water. By lowering your viscosity with water before you wipe your brush, you get a smoother look. In Sasia's case, I used a high-viscosity drybrushing for the back of the cloak and a very low viscosity for the front, which gave me a slimy wet look on the front, and a dusty one on the back.
For the shirt, sleeves, and bikini bottom, I used a light blue base coat with a wet white drybrushing. Light blue or grey works best for a white piece's base coat. I've seen some very glowing results with this technique.
Metallics
I used a lot of metallics on this miniature: The "spine", the dorsal blades, the armor, and mast of the details were done with metallics. So, one asks, how does one do metallics? Well, I used two very similar and very basic techniques for Sasia, both of which require a solid black base coat.
The "spine" of the cloak was the hardest part of this mini for me to decide on. This is because I think it is the most distinctive and interesting part. I hemmed and hawed between an orange or a red over a black base coat. I finally decided on red because orange would have required a much more intensive and difficult technique than I was willing to use on a mini I was painting for a basic tutorial. Starting with a black base coat, I applied a medium red drybrushing to the spine. This looked nice when it was done, but it still lacked something. Then I decided that, since this mini is called "The rose of the Desert Sands", I would make the spine look more rosy, so I drybrushed it with silver. Voila! That is metallic technique number one. I also used this technique on many of the details, such as the hook dangling on the front of the cloak. On this one, I didn't use anything but the bsack base coat and the silver.
Metallic technique number two was implemented on the dorsal blades, Sasia's armor, and on the straps connecting her to her cloak. I decided to use the same color for all of the "metal" parts that weren't the spine, as I imagined they weren't grown in the same vat. What I did in this case was base coat these parts black, then mix a nice thalo green with silver, then coat the black bits. A similar result as technique number one, but more metallic and less "sweaty" looking. For the straps, I used purple and silver on black.
A note on the dorsal blades. While applying the black base coat, I found it difficult to get black in all the little crevices. I then used a black wash to get paint in those hard-to-get places BEFORE I moved beyond the base coat. A wash, FYI, is when one waters down the paint to an ink consistency (or just use ink, but that has drawbacks, mainly involving solubility after the ink dries) and then "washes" an area with this paint. This lets gravity do the annoying work.
Details
I won't say much about the details, as most of this comes down to simple hand-eye coordination and patience, neither of which I can teach in the scope of this tutorial. Suffice it to say that dotting eyes is not that terribly difficult compared to distinguishing a buckle from a strap. But the details are what separates the women from the girls when it comes to painting minis. Don't let all this hullabaloo about "NMM", "RMM", and whatnot distract you from this.
The details on Confrontation minis are exceptionally difficult, so I would suggest that the beginner start with Citadel/Games Workshop, Reaper, or other such relatively simple minis. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing like jumping in the creek without a paddle, but be ready with a bottle of acetone after you're done.
I have one absolutely serious suggestion for anyone who has trembling fingers: Eat with chopsticks. This will help your dexterity immensely. I have the natural edge of having eaten with chopsticks in my family home when I was a child, and I think that is the primary thing which makes me good at this sort of detailed work.
On Sasia, one detail I am rather proud of is the rose on her chest (which my wife called "vulgar"). The actual miniature has what appears to be a rectangular metal clasp on her shirt. I thought this was silly, so I painted it red, and then used black and white arcs to make it look like a rose.
The
Rose Detail. Keep in mind that this is actually a flat piece of metal.
Touching it Up
Now go back through and fix all your messups. If you miss something, fix it up after you clearcoat it. If you don't like how something turned out, do it over. This is key. If you are not satisfied, remember acetone. (Do not touch or inhale or ingest acetone, a more horribly toxic legal substance is not made by man or beast.)
Post-Painting Work
This is my area of least expertise, as I have never considered it terribly important. However, there is much merit in having a nice looking miniature mounted on a nice looking base.
The first thing you do when you're done with your miniature is to clearcoat it. There are a number of clearcoats out there which will work, and I have yet to find one that totally satisfies me. I coated Sasia with Citadel Colour Matte Varnish, which seems a bit shinier than my usual stuff (MinWax Polyurethane Clear Satin). I hate shiny. In any case, pick your poison and coat that puppy, because a badly clearcoated mini looks a heck of a lot better than one with the paint rubbed off.
There are many techniques using clearcoat which I have looked at on the internet and never used. One of the more common practices is to use a shiny clearcoat for metallic bits to make them more reflective. I don't see the need for this, as careful application of subtle white highlights will make a red blob look more like a 3d gem than clearcoat ever will.
These gems (detail from my Egyptian Sorceress mini) were painted with medium red paint, then highlighted with white. Note the varying thickness of the white coat.
As far as the base goes, I'm fairly basic. I used to paint all my bases either green or grey as a way of covering up the metal and plastic. This is satisfactory, especially for a mini you are going to play a game with. However, given the level of attention you've paid to painting the mini, it seems somewhat lame. Also, you won't win any competitions if you can't put together a nice display mini. With this in mind, I bought green flocking and modelling sand. This is sort of pathetic considering some of the gorgeously modelled bases I have seen, but it's a start.
The way to apply your flocking and/or sand is to spread glue all over the parts you want to cover, and then dip your base in a small teacup or empty blister pack (recycling!) full of your material. Voila! Insta-base!
Of course, you will probably want to add more detail to your base, and that is where epoxy and extra miniature parts come in. Just make rocks, skulls, broken weapons, etc... and stick 'em on there. I've seen a lot of fake grass on mini bases, but these all tend to look the same. For Sasia, since she is the Rose of the Desert Sands, I put sand on there.
Staring in Awe at Your Work
