“Don’t get carried away” or putting it another way “Sometimes less is more”

What I mean by this is that just because you can paint something or have found a new technique that you like don’t abuse it. I try hard to avoid using the same technique too often if possible, with the result being that I have to add more and more techniques to my range.

With painting I see a lot of people using inks on everything, in some cases to the detriment of the finished piece, and camo schemes, blood stains, battle damage. I am a great advocate of allowing people to do what they like rather than what people tell them to do… however please try a little variety.

I have fallen into a huge number of pitfalls during my time as a customiser, so if I could give you one piece of advice that I would have benefited from myself it would be “Sometimes less is more”.

Ultimately though, your examples nicely demonstrate that which brand of paint you choose is far less important than good technique and tools.

daemon23, GW is my preference due to availability and colour range but P3 is definitely closing fast on both those counts, and the P3 paints are closer to GW’s foundation paints when it comes to coverage. I would definitely recommend that you use what you find to be the most fitting for your own style.

Catsy, thanks my friend. The Geoshift info is interesting indeed.

I use the boulder piece (and quite a few other secret jig designs) as it gives me far superior control over the piece being painted. When attempting fine detail it helps to be 100% confident that the piece will move in your hand exactly as expected and with no risk of being dropped or slipping.

Hopefully if you guys keep up the interest level in these articles we can move onto some more advanced subjects. Thanks for the positivity guys!

I’m assuming you chose the rock parts for your jig in order to make it easy and comfortable to grip. That makes sense. But it’s not an especially common pair of parts and not one I’d personally care to get paint on. My usual jig base consists of a 4×4 plate with a 2×2 round brick. What I attach to it depends on what I’m painting–usually some kind of bar sticking out of the 2×2 round brick with a stud attached to the end, like the now-common #61184; that’s great for heads, helmets, and single weapons where you can stick the pommel or bottom of the pistol grip into the hollow stud.

For spray painting arms and weapons I have a six-inch length of 3mm styrene rod that I stick into the 2×2 round brick; it looks kind of like a tree with a bunch of yellow hands and U-clips attached to it. For torsos and legs I just use a long 1×16 brick.

Bravo for putting this article together. It’s really great to see the customization community starting to get some visibility and respect, and I can’t think of anyone better to write about it.

First off, you can find good brushes at just about any art store, don’t think you need to go with the GW/Privateer brushes, though those may give you a good idea on what the various bristle lengths and shapes do for you and guide your future decisions. Something to know that I didn’t: sizes range from large (10) to small (0) to tiny (000, or 3/0, and below), but they are only relative for the manufacturer and sometimes just the line of brushes. One line’s 0 size is not necessarily the same size as another’s.

There are a number of other paint choices out there. GW/Citadel makes decent quality paints, and their metallics are better than any others right now. P3 is really good quality for the most part, but be wary of their metallics as they had manufacturing problems early and some of these bad pots of paint are still out there. Vallejo has a few lines: Model Color, Game Color, and Model Air. Game Color was made to match the colors from GW from a decade ago, and has slightly different characteristics from the Model Color line. Model Air is designed for airbrushing, but could be used with a small brush as well. Reaper (out of Texas) has Pro Series and Master Series paints; Master Series are quite good and has many colors not found in GW, P3, or Vallejo lines. Coat d’Arms and Army Painter also make lines of mini paints; the former was the original supplier for GW/Citadel, and the latter is new and I haven’t heard anything about them.

Personally, I’ve found that no one company is the best at everything, but I do favor P3; the only problem I have with their selection is it is missing colors I want. Vallejo is very good quality, and would be my second choice, but random colors of theirs seem to have poor quality issues; their greens and bone are especially bad for no apparent reason. Reaper Master Series is pretty close to tied with Vallejo, though some of their colors are less vibrant, but that might be what you want. GW used to be pretty mediocre for a while (especially with the hard plastic hex-shaped bottles with the screw-top lids) but have improved, and like I said, their metallics are the best I’ve seen. I don’t have much experience with the newer GW products, but I’ve read they’re about to double the number of colors in the line sometime this year.