I was gifted The Undercity, Widower’s Wood, and the Expansions recently and am interested in painting the miniatures.
I saw an old Insider article that covered boiling the miniatures to harden them and another that discussed painting.
This would be my first ever attempt at painting miniatures and I was wondering if anyone had advice or could point me in the right direction for how to paint these miniatures.
I have no paint or brushes, this is a completely new venture for me. I do not even know which P3 paints I should purchase.
Hello malex. it’s a fun project! I have a copy of Widower’s Wood on my desk with the plan to paint it up, and I have started painting some of the hero models, so I know the miniatures relatively well.
I think the sculpts are very nice. But in my opinion they are not as much fun to paint as PP metal or resin or the new 3D printed models, mostly because the details are much softer and the bendiness (especially of the bases) somehow makes them “feel” less fun, hard to explain. What I mean to say is that I wouldn’t use these to learn to paint miniatures, as I’d be worried about losing my motivation.
So if you have a general interest in painting miniatures, maybe you would find it more approachable to start with a different project and come back to these sets later.
But that is just my opinion and painting anything is better than painting nothing, and if you are highly movitated to launch into this project then I am sure you will learn lots and have fun. Just sharing my personal experience with these sets.
Welcome to the hobby! It’s as diverse and deep as you want it to be, from painting minis to making custom terrain and minis.
My personal advice is to stay away from cheap craft store paints for minis - though if you get into terrain it’s much cheaper stuff to use in quantities you’ll need for larger terrain projects. Acrylic paints that are meant for miniatures are much easier to work with. I personally like the dropper bottles over paint pots so I use Reaper paints, but Privateer Press brand is nice stuff too. I’ve got some of their stuff as well - I actually tend to accumulate different brands and use them all.
I do agree with lastminuteman’s post about the bendiness of the board game minis. They’re still OK to paint, but you might want to find some other stuff to work with so you have some nicer stuff to work on as well.
Lots of great YouTube painting videos out there for all levels of painting too, be sure to give some of those a watch to learn some of the techniques of painting. Good luck & be sure to post your finished stuff! A lot of painting forums exist that can give you advice, critique and motivation.
I would recommend starting with the essentials. Quality paints like P3 from Privateer Press are a good choice, but I also use Reaper, Vallejo, and others. You don’t need every imaginable color, but you will need the basic colors, plus a few metallics like Pyg Iron and Cold Steel. Don’t worry about having the “perfect” color, you can mix paint on your palette to get what you want.
A wet palette is a handy option, as your paints won’t dry out on you. Pick up some decent brushes, either natural or synthetic, but don’t worry about Kolinsky sables while you’re learning.
Watching videos on YouTube can be quite instructive, but you’ll learn more from actually painting. Among the lessons you’ll learn is the surest way to find a mold line is to prime the miniature.