I thought I would take the time to start a section of the site dedicated to providing beginner (and heck, maybe even intermediate) painters with tips on painting, ideas for new ways of doing things and descriptions of some of the methods I employ to achieve my particular style.  I probably won't create multiple pages and graphics and links etc, just a simple page with a set of quick-jump links to get to the parts of interest to the reader.  My plan is not so much to write what most people accept as the "right way" to do it, but rather to tell you how I do it.

As always, I'd appreciate feedback, comments and any questions you would like to see addressed in this section!

Photographing Miniatures

(this is taken from a post by - I think - Steve Fuller, from the Warmachine Forums at www.ikwarmachine.com. These are awesome tips.  Hope nobody minds me spreading them around some)

Well, since I've had some people ask for a full blown tutorial on photographing miniatures, here it is. I could wax theoretical on this subject all day long, since i do it for a living, but I'll try to keep it short and sweet (like me ).

In order to do well in this area, you first need a few things:

1) Digital Camera - Especially one with a Macro function, preset (or manual) white balance, and a way to set the exposure mode to fully manual.

2) Tripod - VITALLY important. Your shutter speeds are gonna be astronomical, and even your heartbeat in your palms can shake the camera enough to ruin a shot. Only hand-hold a camera if the shutter speed is 1/60th of a second or quicker, which for photographic miniatures will never be that quick. We'll be working around the 1/8th to 1/2 second range.

3) Lights - Here is where you can skimp a little. At home, i don't have all the beefy lights i have at work, but with two desk lamps i can still crank out some decent shots. However, i still bring my models to work and shoot them here on my lunch break, just because i can.

4) Backdrop - The fact that you need one is ALMOST as important as the type of backdrop you want. Something smooth, yet non-reflective (not satin...very bad); something neutral. A light grey linen pillowcase could be ideal.

Now we'll go into a little more detail on each. A digital camera pretty much speaks for itself (and might ACTUALLY speak, if you get a super-fancy schmancy one), and i've already relayed what it needs to have, so we'll go into tripods.

All a good tripod has to do is hold the camera perfectly still. If your trained Welsh Corgi can do that for you, hallelujah and holy sh*t, you're a step ahead. If not, get a tripod. It doesn't have to be expensive, just stable. Some people say you can just set the camera on a book or something and use the timer so you won't have to hold it or even shake it when pressing the shutter release ("the button", colloquially). This is true. HOWEVER...when shooting a single model, more often than not it is taller than it is wide, and is therefore a VERTICAL composition. Setting a camera down and pressing the timer will, by default, give you a HORIZONTAL composition. You'll be able to fill up all the space in your lens AND move the camera closer if you tilt the camera 90 degrees. Get more detail. More detail good. A tripod will allow you to move the camera on all 3 axes (plural of axis, not tree-chopping utensils), including tilting it 90 degrees for VERTICAL COMPOSITION. They thought of everything, didn't they...?

Now that the camera is as motionless as my social calendar, let's move to lighting. Like i said previously, all you REALLY need are a couple of desk lamps. Bear in mind, however, that it is best if both lamps are the same type of bulbs as ANY OTHER light sources in the room (overhead lights, track lighting, strobe lighting, lava lamps, flaming family members, whatever). If the chandelier overhead uses incandescent lights, it's best to have incandescent bulbs for your lighting. Otherwise, you'll HAVE to have a camera with manual white balance settings. If all your lights are the same (all halogen, all fluorescent, all lightning bugs, etc.) then all you have to do for white balance is set it to that type of light. For instance, if all your light in the room and on the model is fluorescent, set the white balance to fluorescent. Pretty simple. You'd be surprised how complex some people find that....
What white balancing does, essentially, is compensate for the dominant color of light your bulbs are emitting. Fluorescents (i use them as an example just because i'm happy to know how to spell fluorescent correctly) cast a blue-green, or cyan, hue on everything. It doesn't seem like it with the naked eye, but in photos they'll come out looking like they were taken in a hospital. When the camera's white balance is set to fluorescent, it will automatically add a little extra red (the visual opposite of cyan on a true color wheel) into the color reading to counter act it. Smart cookies, those cameras.

Now take those lights and put one directly over the model your photographing, about 8-12 inches above it. You can adjust this if it seems in your subsequent photos that everyone's head is glinting like Yul Brenner's. The second light, put on the same level as the model, pointing towards the model at a 45 degree angle from the camera. So the camera points straight forward, the side light is 45 degrees to the right (or left, wherever the face of the model is). On the other side, hold a white card or piece of paper as close to the miniature as possible angled like \ (or like /, if it's on the right) but out of sight of the camera. That will bounce some of the light from your bulbs back into some of the shadows and bring out more detail. More detail good. Anyone who's been to a GW Grand Tournament or Golden Demon Competition in the past two years has seen me do this.

Then set the camera to your manual setting, and find the Aperature (or f/stop) setting. This will be a number like 6.3 or 5.8 or 4 or something like that. Set this to the HIGHEST NUMBER POSSIBLE. Anything close to or above 8 is ideal. Then find your Shutter Speed setting. It will be a fraction. 1/60, 1/15, and 1/125 are all familiar shutter speeds. Set your to about 1/4.

Like i said earlier, tilt the camera 90 degrees (unless the model is wider than it is tall, in which case don't tilt it). Turn on the Macro function. On most cameras a little icon of a flower will appear on the camera's monitor. Then use the zoom control and zoom the lens all the way out. Then, while looking at the flower icon, zoom the lens in again. You should notice that, about halfway between all out and all in, the flower changes color (usually white to yellow). While the icon is this different color, that is the BEST focal length of the lens for macro photography. Zoom in as MUCH as possible while still keeping the flower yellow (or whatever color it changed to). If you have no color change, just zoom about 2/3 the way in. That's about the same. As soon as you have that, then don't use the zoom in and out anymore. Just move the camera itself closer or farther from the model. If the camera can't autofocus on the model for some reason, just move the camera back a little and try again until it can.

The backdrop is simple. Neutral, smooth, not shiny or reflective. The less color, the better. Color WILL be reflected onto the model. And black is just terrible. A lot of times, the moidel tends to look like it's getting sucked into as void. And pure white can often overwhelm the model and make it look like it's surrounded by a glow. Extremes bad. Neutral good.

Then snap the photo.

Your first attempts might look too light or too dark. If so, adjust the shutter speed accordingly. If 1/4 is too light, change is to 1/8. If it's too dark, change it to 1/2. Just experiment to see what looks best overall.

That's it. That's what i do. Oh, great...now that all of you know how to do this, there goes my sense of job security....
 

Preparing Miniatures

Miniatures arrive from the manufacturer with all kinds of burs and spurs and mold lines and other nastiness that interferes with the sculpt and achieving a good paint job.  At a bare minimum, you should be sure to remove all "flash" (protruding pieces of metal) from the figure, and file down or trim any visible mold lines as best you can. To be honest, I almost always miss something at this stage.

Most miniatures leave the mold still covered in an almost undetectable oily residue that was used to make it easier to remove them from the mold.  Many painters wash a miniature in soap in water to remove this and make the paint adhere better.

.......I usually don't.  I almost always forget, but the pro's say to do it so I'm including it here :)

Priming - this is a critical step to painting a miniature that cannot be skipped if you expect to a) achieve a nice finish and b) have the paint job stay on the miniature. Priming creates a surface of paint for the resulting paint job to adhere to.  It also has a dramatic impact on the final look of your miniature. Figures primed in black will generally have darker tones, and often a very dramatic look - recesses in the figure are black and dark, giving the figure a lot of depth.  For reference, 95% of my miniatures (including the orc shaman in my logo) are primed black. Black is also much, much easier to paint metallics over. Don't punish yourself by painting metallic paint over white primer. At the very least, re-paint any metal sections with black before applying gold or silver etc.

White is best for producing bright colors and .... well....white. If you are painting a white horse, or a High Elf for example, you probably could save yourself a lot of pain and suffering and use a white primer. However, for the dramatic effect that blacklining and dark recesses provide, black is my primer of choice. I think I have only primed ~ 2-3 minis in my gallery white.

It's worth noting that I apply my basing materials (rocks, dirt, grass - more on that later) before I prime.  Base materials should always be painted so that they look more appropriate to the scale (including drybrushing static grass, dirt etc).  I find that black creates excellent depth and shadows.  So to prime, I glue the mini to the base, glue on the basing material and then I prime. 

I use spray primer all the time - I really don't have the patience to brush on my primer. I know there are other brands that would work fine, but I use Citadel Black Spray Primer and I'm quite happy with it.  Invariably there are nooks and crannys that the paint misses, so I usually go over those with a big brush and watered down black paint to put finishing touches on the primer coat.

Painting Flesh

I see a lot of folks on various forums and message boards who find themselves struggling with how to paint flesh and how to paint faces. I thought I would describe my method here in case it helps anyone.

I do the same thing over either a black or white primer.

First I decide on the shade of skin I want the miniature to have.  For dwarves and burly characters, I usually go for a darker skin tone (GW dwarf flesh). For elves and female characters, or just general human types, I go for a more medium tone (GW elf flesh).  Finally, for undead and vampire types, I use a very pale tone (GW pallid flesh).  Here are the steps I use:

1. Base coat.   I use the colors indicated in the above paragraph to start off my tone.  So for example, on the Truthsayer I will start off by basecoating all the flesh areas with Elf Flesh. What you want is to thin your paint so that it doesn't dry too fast and create streaks in the coat.  Many folks talk about using the consistency of milk. That's fine if you drink Homogenous milk.  Don't go as thin as Low Fat Milk ;) or you will have a hard time getting coverage, especially over black. You may find that black is difficult to cover and be tempted to start blobbing on paint - don't do it. Just keep at it, adding coat after coat until you get a good, even covering.

2. Flesh Wash. Many folks swear by Vallejo Smoke, some by Reaper, some by Chesnut Ink, but pretty much everyone agrees that it is a valuable tool. My second step is to wash the figure in GW Flesh Wash (yes, the stuff available right now, not the old version).  I apply this very very thinly, in a copious wash. Basically I wipe most of the ink out of the brush into the pot, then add a lot of water to the brush, and swish it all around. In each area, I manipulate the brush to ensure that the ink goes into the right valleys in the sculpt (for example, making sure there is the right amount of ink in the eye socket area etc.  Here is a very valuable tip when applying inks - your brush isn't just for putting down paint and ink, it can also pick it up.  If you find you have over flooded an area, especially in the face zone, dab your brush on some paper towel to remove the current ink/water mix a bit, and tap it into the area you flooded. It will suck up the excess like a straw.  Neat-o.

3. Once the flesh wash has dried, I go over all the areas of the flesh with the base coat color again. Example again is Elf Flesh for the Truthsayer.  However, I leave the dark nooks and crannies as they are, and don't paint over the deepest areas of ink.

4. Still using my original pool of base coat paint (which I will re-thin as needed with more extender and/or water) I start adding a lighter shade of flesh to the mix, to start the highlites. So for Dwarf Flesh base I add Elf Flesh, for Elf Flesh I add Pallid, and for Pallid I add White (in each case, a few drops).

5. This new mix is painted onto raised areas such as elbows, bridge of nose, cheekbones, chin, upper pectorals, tops of biceps etc.

6. I repeat steps 4 and 5 a few times, until pleased with the result. In each case, a smaller, higher area is covered.

7. That's about it - I add some touchups, fix any mistakes, add a bit of flesh wash where needed. 

Hope this has been helpful!