Hello there, Now I've been infected by the modeling virus #:-) (Mark is responsible and it's contagious so beware) I'm making my own diorama. In that diorama I also planned a figure (woman) and a mule. I have never painted those figures before so I read the article on armorama about this topic. The man in that article uses oilpaints, my husband a combination of oilpaints and enamel. I want to have the best result but it also has to be not too difficult. I know oilpaint takes years to dry, enamel not but on the other hand I think I read that the results of oilpaint are more beautifull. What is your experience with painting figures. What paint /technique do you prefer and why ? Thanks in advance. Donja

ps I'm not that patient so oilpaint.....

Hi Donja,

And again welcome to Armorama (see dutch section..).

I paint my figures with a combination of oils and enamels. Where oils are mostly used for faces and gear details, and enamels for equipment and uniform.

Agreed, the oils tend to dry slowly, but it gives you time to correct things and do several figures in a certain time span. Thinning the oils can speed up the drying time, but also can create sloppy work.

A lot of people here use acrylics and guys like Gino get excellent results. I will take it up sometime, when I find the time...

Kris

Hi Donna. I also use a mix of humbrol enamels and oils for painting. Both have their advantages and can be mixed easily.
One example would be how to paint your mule. I used the following method on horses lately and it was quite easy to get nice results.

I primed/base coated the horse with Tamiya acrlyics .. desert yellow. When dry, I brush painted the horse with a mix of raw umber and burnt sienna oils and humbrol leather and a little liner orange, with a wide brush, taking no care. I left this for maybe 15 minutes and then using a clean brush I removed as much paint as possible with downward strokes... even using a cotten bud/top for the peaks. A little base colour and black oil was added to the creases and humbrol leather and desert yellow was added to the peaks and all this was stipelled/feathered together to have smooth and natural flow of colour.
leave to dry for a day and then detail paint.
This was a first attempt at horses, and it turned out quite good. For me oils and humbrols are great together .... as I can never seem to achieve any success with acrylic brush painting. Good luck.

Hi Donja,

It's good to know that there's another lady here who does modeling.

I use oils for the flesh part of my figures. For thier uniforms and accessories, I use enamel.

I paint my figures first with a lightened Dark Yellow acrylic base, just like Plasticbattle does. Once it is dry, I treat them with a very light wash of raw umber to accentuate the shadows. When it is dry, I mix up a small amount of Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochere and Titanium White until I get a proper fleshy color. I apply a light covering of this mix to the skin of the figure. When this coat is halfway dried, I higlight the high ridges (nose, chin, cheekbones,e tc.) with a very very very tiny amount of pure white blended to the flesh.

From there, it's just a matter of fiddling around to get some special effects.

The nice thing about oils is that it doesn't dry up quickly. That means you can manipulate it. The second thing is that it allows you to blend colors easily. That's because oil paints are very "soft" on the brush. Another bonus is that they are opaque or translucent. That means the base color actually shows underneath a really thin coat, thus allowing you to alter colors.

Drying time isn't that long. It usually takes only two to three days for entire coatings to dry. To hasten the drying time, I usually set my hairdryer to low heat and point it on the figure.

Hope this helps.

Angela