Hello,

I was walking down the street one day and happened to walk past a model shop. Interested, I went in and about an hour later I came out totally hooked. Not only that but also with a box of figurines, a couple of paint brushes and a selection of paints. Can anyone recommend any books on scale model painting (hope that't the right terminology)? Thanks!


bung_chau

Hi there Jeremy and Welcome to Armorama

Without knowing what sort of figures and paint you've got I would recommend Osprey Modeling Manuals - Modeling WWII Figures which is not a bad guide.

However if these are your first figures you could do far worse than just following the painting directions on the box and forwarding any specific questions here.

Cheers
Darren

If you are going to be painting them with acrylic paints, try this link. (Its in english)

http://www.ttfxmedia.com/vallejo/cgi-bin/_modelis.asp?p1=ing&p2=modelcolortecnicas

Welcome Jeremy!
Hmm... I´m not that into modelling books, but I can sure recommend you to browse through this site! Also show your work here after you have made your first step and we´ll help you to improve if you´d need that. What figures and what kind of paint did you buy?
Cheers Andreas

Ps. If this is your first painting like this, then to get right paint on the right place can be hard enough. It was for me at least

thanks for your replies! I bought some Italeri 1:72 scale figures and enamel paints. It took me about an hour to get one figure done - it's tough work.

Will acrylics be better for a beginner like me?



Jeremy

Hi Jeremy. I started off with enamels too but i changed to acrylics pretty soon after mainly becuase they are easier to clean. I seem to get much better paint coverage with enamels though, but they also smell quite bad and are more of a hasle to clean . If you dont mind the smell and the clean up then i would stick with enamels if you carry on handbrushing
Tom

Acrylics clean up with water, rubbing alcohol, windex..
Enamels require solvents and are toxic.

thanks again for the tips and ideas. I think i'll try acrylics and see how that goes as the enamel is stinking the place out.

With acrylics can i use them as i did with the enamel stuff or do i need some sort of special layer coat before i add colour?

Thanks,

Jeremy

s

Oops. I missed this link earlier and have now found it very helpful indeed. Thank you!

i tend to find that with acrylics you sometimes need a primer coat for the paint to adhere well to the surface of the model. Enamels tend not to need a primer coat in most cases. It really depends what colour you are using