20 replies to this topic

[Dominus]

Hi Everyone!

I'm one of what I imagine to be many newbies around here after the very successful kickstarter, and while I'm not a newbie to painting minis, it has been a very long time since I've been active (about 15 years in fact!). But thanks to kickstarter, I have a ton of awesome looking reaper minis coming next year and also a ton of sci-fi football goodness from the Dreadball kickstarter...what I don't have is any paints!

So I was going to order myself one of the great looking Build Your Own Paint Sets from the reaper site, but I'm totally overwhelmed by the options and really have no idea where to start. I've had a poke around the site and the forum but couldn't find any suggestions on what would make a good 'starter set' of 54 paints. 54 is a lot of paints anyway so even if I just picked at random I'm sure I'd do ok, but I'd love some expert opinions if you guys have any :-)

Starting completely from scratch here, so advise accordingly!

[Argentee]

Ok... Start with Brush on Primer and black Primer. True White, True Black. Then pick the 2 hair colors and skin colors you'll use the most, and add those triads. Add Brilliant greens, True blues, and Fire colors triads. Soil colors, Neutral Greys, and Off Whites triads. That puts you at 34 already!

[TheAuldGrump]

I might skip the brush on primers and get spray primers instead - I typically use automotive primers.

The True White and True Black on the other hand are pretty essential.

If you are likely to play Doomball then go for the colors that will work for your team.

I agree on the triads as well - a good selection of triads will make things a lot easier. (I used the Dark Elf triad for Ebonwraith, in metal, as one example.)

I might go for Vivid Blues over Pure Blues, but they are close. The others are bang on for what I would go for. I might substitute Bone Colors for Off Whites - but they serve much the same purpose.

Are you going to paint orcs and goblins? I use olive drabs, but others (most?) prefer brighter colors. Buglips, I think, uses the D&D orangish goblin skin tones. Tolkien's orcs would be closer to Dusky Skin, I think.

I love the metallic triads, with Metallic Triad 3 being my favorite - I use Scorched Metal a lot.

A selection of HD paints for the rest, I think. A good base coat helps with everything after.

The Auld Grump

[Frankthedm]

Bones minis can be so flexible that spray paint primers can crack and break off.

While you'll find many miniature enthusiasts who swear by the 1/2 oz. hobby paints dedicated to miniatures, some of us use the more affordable 2 oz. craft paints from the Arts & Craft stores. Sure, the craft paints don't mix together quite as well and they often do have less pigment to binder ratios, but those 40% coupons really make up for the slightly lower quality, at least for me.

http://www.reapermin...where-to-start/

http://www.enworld.org/forum/miscellaneous-geek-talk-media-lounge/133078-painting-miniatures-guide.html

[TheAuldGrump]

Bones minis can be so flexible that spray paint primers can crack and break off.

While you'll find many miniature enthusiasts who swear by the 1/2 oz. hobby paints dedicated to miniatures, some of us use the more affordable 2 oz. craft paints from the Arts & Craft stores. Sure, the craft paints don't mix together quite as well and they often do have less pigment to binder ratios, but those 40% coupons really make up for the slightly lower quality, at least for me.

http://www.reapermin...where-to-start/

http://www.enworld.o...ures-guide.html

However, I can tell you that I have not had that problem - I use Duplicolor Sandable primer, and painted the Ghost (one of the most flexible of the Bones, in my experience) with nary a flake - even when holding it and flexing the figure while saying 'wub, wub, wub'.* I have also used the Army Painter colored primers without mischance. The gnoll as also part of the demonstration, the flail is very flexible. That one was primed with Army Painter Leather Brown primer.

The paints themselves were Reaper for the most part.

So it really depends on the primer, and having a light touch on the nozzle. Primer that is too heavily applied might be more likely to flake and peel.

The Auld Grump

* The wub, wub, wub was during a demonstration for folks thinking about entering the Kickstarter - they did.

[ObsidianCrane]

Yeah I would hit up the Learn To Paint sets and make sure you have 1 of each colour there and then head on over to the triads for ideas to fill out the rest of the colours. Then if you have anything left to pick just look for highlights and shadows for the colours that you have to extend your range.

Primer is entirely optional on Bones, if anything I've had and heard of more problems with it than without it.

[Frankthedm]

So it really depends on... ...having a light touch on the nozzle. Primer that is too heavily applied might be more likely to flake and peel.

I would be willing to bet that is the exact situation. Given that I currently like a solid black priming on my figs, I'm looking into getting an airbrush to prime my bones.with acrylic paint.

[Argentee]

I have no luck at ALL with spray primers. But I also live in Florida where it is very, very humid and so the primers tend to fuzz.

Even if you use spray primers, it is good to have brush on primers. Being able to brush on a tiny bit of primer is great for when you rub paint off a spot, or have to do repairs after ham-fisted players.

[buglips*the*goblin]

If you want to mix your shades and highlights, buy the HD set and add what you want on top (you'll need black and white, some primer).

If you don't want to do a lot of mixing, then identify what your essentials are for the first minis you want to paint and buy triads for that job. You'll have less breadth of color this way, but your shades and highlights are already mixed and ready to go from the bottle.

That's a new thing that cropped after the 90's, the triad organization. I like it, though I don't use it much. Most of my paint comes from old school sources so I have to mix a lot anyway. But if I was building straight from scratch . . . I'd be giving the triads a look.

This is one of those questions where you could get a hundred different answers and all of them are right.

[Wren]

If you're looking to paint quickly for gaming, you might want to start with the HD paints, then add Black, White, Brush-on Primer and Brush-on Sealer from the core line, then start looking for a few favourite colours or additional skin options and such to fill out to 54. Skin colours are ones to look at adding, there are some in the HD set, but not the variety of what's in the core set. The HD paints are formulated to cover in fewer coats, but will need more thinning for techniques like layering and glazing.

Some colours and triads that I find very useful to paint with, but wouldn't necessarily have thought to pick up if I were buying paints piecemeal:

The Bone triad - slightly browned grays. Very nice for rocks, old wood, or adding to more saturated colours to tone them down. You could skip the Polished Bone and just use white for highlighting. I use these far more than I use the true neutral grays.

Brown liner - great as a liner, or to darken other colours without the harshness of brown

Linen white - to highlight colours without the starkness of white

Rust brown

Oiled Leather

The Ivory triad - if you want the more yellow style bone look, and as a nice neutral colour in general. Good for a more natural blond hair, too. Again you can probably skip the highlight (Creamy Ivory) and use white or linen instead.

Shield Brown - doesn't look like much in the bottle, but is a great all-purpose neutral brown. Good for wood, dirt, etc., especially when you've already got enough colours in your piece.

The Dark Elf triad and Dusky Skin triad are both good for dark elf skin, but also aces to highlight black or shade white. Dark Elf is a little more purply. You don't need both if you're going for a limited set of colours, but one of them is handy.

The Midnight Blue - Twilight Blue - Snowshadow triad is also great for highlighting black (when you want that blue-black hair or shiny leather look) or shading white. They're great for doing white metal NMM. You can mix them with grays for less of a blue steel look on NMM. Also very nice on their own.

I like Redstone for shading many caucasian skin tones, and Bright Skin Highlight for highlighting them.

The earth triad is a nice solid set of browns.

Saffron Sunset is great to highlight Rust to create a red hair, and a nice glaze over blond hair or gold NMM to warm them up. That's a bit more of a limited use than many of the others I've mentioned, so probably not a top of the list colour.

Next to browns, greens are probably the colour it's handiest to have more of if you don't want to have to mix paint as much.

[CashWiley]

The primer discussion is better kept over here: http://www.reapermin...bones-n-primer/

[Serenity]

Yeah I would hit up the Learn To Paint sets and make sure you have 1 of each colour there and then head on over to the triads for ideas to fill out the rest of the colours. Then if you have anything left to pick just look for highlights and shadows for the colours that you have to extend your range.

This will require some patience unless Dominus can find the LTP kits from someone other than Reaper. They're out of most of them at the moment. They are a very good deal, though, and they've been packing them with all dropper bottles lately instead of the paint pots on a strip.

Definitely check into it if you are at all interested in getting kits with minis, brushes, paints and instructions. If you check with Reaper by phone or email, they can tell you roughly when they expect to have these back in stock.

[Caffiene]

If you check with Reaper by phone or email, they can tell you roughly when they expect to have these back in stock.

I emailed about this at the end of October and was told more were expected in stock "very soon"^™. Its been 3 weeks since then, so Im hoping itll be any day now.

[ced1106]

Reaper will be releasing their new Bones LTPKs in December, so I would review these kits before buying any paints. At an OLGS, you might be getting 8 paints for $20 plus shipping. Just start with whichever kit is just above your painting level. Two kits and you should have a good supply of paints. From these paints, you should be able to determine what paints to round out your collection with (eg. dark elf triad).

[Inarah]

I will second Wren's list. You will want a lot of browns and greens, so don't be afraid to get a few of those. Plus:

Bloodstain/Clotted/Carnage reds

Chestnut/Palomino/Buckskin triad and Sun yellow.

I normally use a spray primer myself, but a bottle of brush on is good for quick touch-ups at the table, or to have along when traveling.