Born Painting Miniatures

After airbrushing, repainting and reassembling the knight, I decided the base should kind of match the rest of my recent Imperial forces: the Catachans. The feet were glued to a custom resin base with a lava flow texture.  Testors putty was used under some of the "toes" to make it more stable and flat to the surface.   The next step was to add texture to the dirt areas.  A layer of sand was glued down and it was left to dry completely. Then it was ready to be base coated.  All of the surface was painted black.  Watered down Mournfang brown was added to the dirt and some grey layering added to the water area. More detail was added by dry-brushing tan and bone on the dirt and also layering blues and grey onto the water. I shaded the dirt with agrax earth shade.  The water was shaded with Drakenhof Nightshade.  While the washes were drying, I cleaned up the rim of the base with black. The next step was gluing grass flock a...

I recently took on the task of completely redoing this Imperial Knight. It came to me well painted in a very traditional blue and gold color scheme but when he broke, I figured it was time for an overhaul.  So I popped it apart and in the Simple Green it went.  The knight was previously a Knight Paladin with double battle cannon and reaper chain sword.  A Knight Gallant seems to be more of what I will use on the table top so I built up the power gauntlet.  Also to keep him cheap but swappable, I magnetized the heavy stubber on.    After a few rounds of stripping off the old paint, the knight was ready to be primed.  I started with airbrushing the entire thing in black primer.  The under detail/ mechanical bits were airbrushed with grey, silver and nuln oil.  I later did edge highlighting and brushed on more nuln oil.  For the armor, I airbrushed target raised areas with elysian green and then the same but mixed with yello...

How to strip paint from miniatures  This poor trooper came to me covered in chalky textured paint. This can be the result of spray priming from too far away, using old paint or any number of other spray issues. Clearly sometimes miniatures need repainted.  This could be due to a model crisis like the one seen above or perhaps it's just time to give them a fresh look.  Stripping paint is a task that can be super easy but can also come with fear of damaging those expensive miniatures.  Below is the step by step method that I used on the storm troopers and seems to be the tried and true method for stripping paint from models.  Before we begin I should start with a few warnings:  Gloves are recommended.  I didn't use them and the chemical left my hands a bit dry and irritated. Follow product safety guidelines. Tools required for paint stripping  - Simple Green cleaner -  I've used other chemicals in the past such as Pinesol but t...