What's your secret sauce?

['Nickname' O'Shea]

Just a thread for sharing any odd materials, paints or even techniques etc. that you use a lot in your process that perhaps aren't well known.
Doesn't have to be a unique or original idea per se.

For example two paints I use on almost every miniature -
I use a lot of Tamiya Chrome, but pretty much exclusively for drybrushing metallics. Like most Tamiya paints it's quite goopy and doesn't brush on all that well, but it's great for drybrushing, very pigment dense and really makes metallic highlights pop. You can even use it for highlighting gold and brass and put a glaze of sepia over it if needed.

I'm also a big fan of Daler Rowney white ink. It's superior to almost every white acrylic miniature paint I've used; brushes on thin and doesn't obscure detail, doesn't separate or clump in the pot and is very opaque for it's consistency. It also goes beautifully through the airbrush straight out of the jar. It's great for rebasing brighter areas on miniatures that have been primed black.
Big fan of Daler Rowney inks in general in fact, I use them for painting and drawing on canvas and paper, and having large pot of black and sepia inks has been invaluable for big terrain projects when you don't really want to buy ten pots of Agrax Earthshade...


I suppose the other secret sauce is really more a philosophy of painting thing - 'Perfect is the enemy of Done'.
I'd rather have a fully painted army that perhaps is 90% as good as I could paint them, than 1/3 of an army painted to perfection with the rest still languishing on sprue because I've either burned myself out or given myself anxiety about making sure they're perfect. Just git 'em done and on the table!

 

[SirFrog]

I have a few tips and tricks, though I haven't really pioneered either, but... still, hobby wisdom is worth sharing.

Fluorescent paints are often super thin (at least mine are), but work wonders as eye-poppingly bright glaces and cam easily be used to smoothen out transitions or do neat little tricks:
Carefully layer a power sword effect, slap some appropriately-coloured fluorescents on top, reapply the highest highlight (i.e. white) and you're done! Also works on gems or similar that you want a bit of an extra pop from!
Paint a plasma coil bright white, and then apply an even layer of a fluorescent colour on it (I use bright green). Reapply white on the INSIDE of the coil, the deepest parts, and very very carefully stipple white on the top/corners of the upper ridges. In other words, the brightest white is furthest in, with the green at the outside A little goes a long way. Congrats - bright, shiny plasma coils!

Tamiya transparent colours are brilliant to put on top of metallics for a candy-like sheen. Slap some on top of chrome paint and you get lovely glittery candy-shine paints! Works best with bright colours, and so far I've tried red and blue. Smoke gives you a gunmetal-looking metal, a bit deeper and somewhat brown-gray but still shiny.

There was an old trick using acrylic floor polish called Future, or Pledge (variations exist) as a semi-shiny varnish, key ingredients in washes, transfer application aid, flow aid in brushed paint... lots! I have a bottle that I mix 1:1 with regular water and use it to thin my Citadel paints before they go in a dropper. Absolutely magic. If I find the archive link, I'll edit this post.

As a follow-up, seal your miniatures with varnish! They'll handle wear-and-tear better. Don't skimp out on quality for a rattle-can, and get the mattest one you can find,. Then, brighten up the stuff that's supposed to be shiny (like bottles, gems, etc) with a brush-on gloss primer. It'll shine through. You don't need the old multi-layered approach in my experience, just get a good matte one and apply two layers. Though for terrain, I get the cheapest hardware store one I can find haha.

Use a wet palette, people! If you don't wanna get a fancy one, save a low plastic tub from somewhere, and cut a sponge or sponge wash cloth (Wettex is a popular brand here) and place it at the bottom. It should cover the bottom once fully soaked. Top with parchment paper, preferably cut to shape. That's a wet palette! Then, when you're done painting, just pop the lid on!

Store your brushes bristle-down if you can! A cheap, soft-ish large-ish spring can be used to grab onto the handle so they can hang. Naturally, never let them rest on the bristles so if you can't DIY a solution like this, just let them stand!

We all know Liquid Greenstuff is almost useless as a filler, so slap it onto terrain in lumps to create a mossy, gooey gross texture!

 

[Lord_Ikka]

Mine is basically a philosophy/strategy to avoid burnout (as I'm an ok but not great painter so I don't have any real tips there). A combination of planning, batch painting, and doing one or two-off projects is probably my best advice. I paint up a lot of minis and have come to the realization that I need to have small breaks to keep my hobby mojo flowing. So what I do is this-

1- Plan out army project. Whether that is starting a new army from scratch or adding onto an existing army, I will write down my goal and what models I need for it. This can involve writing fluff for my project or planning out army lists, but regardless I will write stuff down and then re-read it; it is the first thing I do to make sure my hobby brain is active for the new project.
2- Purchase and build/convert models. Easiest part for me, I love the building portion.
3- Pare down the army into small, 10-20 model mini-projects that I can do in a month. Then split up those projects by batch-painting 5-10 minis at a time. That gives me enough models to feel like I'm accomplishing something, while not overwhelming my brain with painting the same five-to-ten colors across a mass of minis.
4- In between squads/batches, paint up some individual minis. These can be "heroes" of the army that require a more detailed paintjob, or more likely completely unrelated minis that allow me to do something different for a while. It allows me to recharge and then view the next section of the large project with eyes/brush that aren't tired from painting the same scheme.

 

[Greyhart]

A few things that I do..

- Assembly line. When painting an army I'll do between 3 and 6 models - depending on size - at a time so that by the time I finish a color on the last model, the first one is dry and ready for the next color. It's usually one leader/special and the rest grunts.
- Subassemblies. Most miniatures today are very detailed, dynamically posed and quite intricate, especially GW models. I paint subassemblies and build as I go along. The minor touch ups I may have to do are outweighed by the ease of painting and not having any "oops, I missed spots because I couldn't get my brush in there" moments. In fact I've gotten so used to doing this I had a hard time doing some mono pose models recently and had to relearn how.
- Music. I listen to music while I paint to block outside noises and to keep me focused and rolling along. Heavy metal headbanging not recommended while painting.
- Frequent breaks. Depending on how much time you spend hunched over your painting table in a day, always take breaks now and then. I break every hour to refill my drink, use the restroom, get a snack, and mainly walk around and stretch. Your back will thank you.
- Separation of church and state. Always use different containers and separate your paint water from your drink of choice. Carbonation 'might' help clean your brushes, but paint slurry won't do your stomach any favors, not to mention the taste, which will normally make you spit-take all over your nicely painted minis. No, I don't know from experience. Not at all.
- Lighting. Can't stress how important this is. My work background is in optical systems and lighting plays a huge part in how we perceive color. A well lit room with natural lighting is best. If that's not an option a good swing arm desk lamp with a "daylight" bulb which you can get at any hardware store. DO NOT use florescent or 'normal' lightbulbs. The jury is out on LEDs still, I haven't used them for hobby work so I can't give an informed opinion. The light frequencies these emit will distort how the colors look to you, so when you actually get them out of your dungeon and onto a gaming table in the light of day they're not going to look like what you thought. Good lighting will also help avoid eye strain.

 

['Nickname' O'Shea]

Great tips guys, keep them coming.
Good points about batch painting - all armies I do now are batch painted. I'll spend a few weeks - or months! - thinking carefully about what order the paints will be laid down in, accumulating units and models until I'm ready to start. Usually around 2k to 3k points worth to make it worthwhile.
Once I get going it's generally a week or so for building and converting, and then 2-4 weeks for painting. It's a workflow that might not work for everyone, but it works for me. It means I take over part of the house for a month or so, but then it can all go away again. Sadly don't have a dedicated painting area.
During the batch paint I will use vehicles and characters to break up the monotony, and after the project I will often paint some small bits of scenery or odd character models to just refresh my palate (currently doing this now after the big terrain project).

There was an old trick using acrylic floor polish called Future, or Pledge (variations exist) as a semi-shiny varnish, key ingredients in washes, transfer application aid, flow aid in brushed paint... lots! I have a bottle that I mix 1:1 with regular water and use it to thin my Citadel paints before they go in a dropper. Absolutely magic. If I find the archive link, I'll edit this post.

I sadly used the very last of my hoard of Pledge Klear on the Zone Mortalis board. Pledge apparently changed the formula some years ago. There is meant to be an equivalent (can't remember the brand) but I haven't found a source in the UK yet - please let me know if you find anything!
I found it great for making large batches of custom washes and watering paints down for the airbrush.

 

[Stoof]

Big second on the Wet Palette. They're great. Probably the best random suggestion I found over the years. I made mine from an old rubber stamp pad which I'd rinsed the remainder of the ink out of. Wet it and give the pad just a little squeeze so it's not completely soaked, put a bit of baking paper on top of it, and you're good to go.

Lighting - try to get some good daylight bulbs if you can't paint with natural light. It will reduce eye strain and make it easier to see exactly what you're doing, and the colours will appear more natural. Many LED bulbs don't seem to make colours appear as they will under natural light, which can make a paint job that looked great under bulb look a bit odd later.

 

[cainex1]

I need to get back to painting... ANYWAY.
I just have one but if I can think of any others I'll drop em here.
Using a matte varnish in built up layers (3-4) provides a laqeured look whatever color you apply it to.
OH YEAH! To add to @Greyhart subassemblies idea- this is also the stage at which you can decide to modularize/magnetize. Don't be afraid to shave down a nub or open up a socket a bit.
I will use the Escher lasgunner as an example, you can glue the support arm to the lasgun and hold it into place in the shoulder sockets until the glue firms up a bit (use a solvent glue, you want a lifetime bond that's flexible before it cures), pull it free and 3-8 hours later shave down the inside edge of the shoulder sockets and the upper back of the arms and it will pop in and out with only the tiniest bit of force. If you pinch the arms in just a touch, you can have enough pressure to pose them but I feel like that might be a little much bending on a chemical bond.

 

[Narflung]

Paint 15 minutes a day. Having a routine of sitting down and painting for just 15 min will ensure you get small amounts of progress done, promoting even longer sessions.

Clean your brushes with brush soap and/or a brush restorer. Your brushes will work better and last longer.

Practice mixing colours. While I definitely have a large paint range with many colours that are very similar to one another, when painting small numbers or organic matter (ie when painting something where uniformity doesn't need to be 100%), play around with bespoke paint mixes. It gives you a really good sense on how to really make colours pop.

 

[Combo Lab]

Just a thread for sharing any odd materials, paints or even techniques etc. that you use a lot in your process that perhaps aren't well known.
Doesn't have to be a unique or original idea per se.

For example two paints I use on almost every miniature -
I use a lot of Tamiya Chrome, but pretty much exclusively for drybrushing metallics. Like most Tamiya paints it's quite goopy and doesn't brush on all that well, but it's great for drybrushing, very pigment dense and really makes metallic highlights pop. You can even use it for highlighting gold and brass and put a glaze of sepia over it if needed.

I'm also a big fan of Daler Rowney white ink. It's superior to almost every white acrylic miniature paint I've used; brushes on thin and doesn't obscure detail, doesn't separate or clump in the pot and is very opaque for it's consistency. It also goes beautifully through the airbrush straight out of the jar. It's great for rebasing brighter areas on miniatures that have been primed black.
Big fan of Daler Rowney inks in general in fact, I use them for painting and drawing on canvas and paper, and having large pot of black and sepia inks has been invaluable for big terrain projects when you don't really want to buy ten pots of Agrax Earthshade...


I suppose the other secret sauce is really more a philosophy of painting thing - 'Perfect is the enemy of Done'.
I'd rather have a fully painted army that perhaps is 90% as good as I could paint them, than 1/3 of an army painted to perfection with the rest still languishing on sprue because I've either burned myself out or given myself anxiety about making sure they're perfect. Just git 'em done and on the table!

Man, I really needed to read this last part today. I'm stagnating on putting final coats and touches on Morvenn Vahl and some Warsuits and i've essentialy lost two days/sessions to Perfecting. After reading this; I'm going to adopt this mindset, and go home today and apply washes and call them done. I cant keep doing this