So I’m getting ready to dive into the world of finally painting my Star Wars Legion minis. I’m planning on getting an Army Painter speedpaint 2.0 set to start. Should I also buy the wash set? I’m not sure if it would improve my results as a beginner, though I imagine I will want them if I keep up with painting. I’m intending to start by getting this Army Painter’s stuff:
Speedpaint most wanted 2.0 set
Most wanted brush set
Matte white primer
Matte varnish
Project paint Station
I’ve been painting scale models and figures for about 5 years now, and for what you’ve listed, here are my tips:
Don’t buy paint sets of any kind. Most of them contain paints that you’ll use once in a blue moon. Off the top of my head, for star wars stuff, you won’t need a lot of greens, so owning one good single pigment green and mixing paints to get other tones is plenty.
Most wanted brush set is fine. Brushes are consumables in this hobby, so expect them to become less usable over time. Having this set is fine, and then you can replace the brushes you use the most as time goes on.
Matte white primer. I guess this is fine, but for speedpaints/contrast paints, a really easy way to get results that look like you put more work into them than you did is through the “slap chop” method.
Matte varnish. I’ve never really had problems with having to varnish my miniatures but I won’t advise you against it. My favorite matte varnish is Vallejo ultra matte (72653) which I use to make gloss stuff matte instead.
Project paint station. Organizing your hobby space can be important, I personally use products from hobbyzone.pl.
Washes are a great way to bring a model to the next level. I recommend getting a black, brown, and a sepia wash.
A couple more words of advice from me:
Buy a bottle of whatever the “medium” (the medium is like the paint without the pigment) is for those speedpaints. Speedpaints (and contrast paints, and every equivalent paint set) have massive variance in saturation and coverage. If you want a more consistent experience, you can use the medium to thin down your more saturated paints. Water might work, but the medium will work.
Get a proper light. An architect’s lamp of some kind will do, and get a light bulb with 4000K rating. This will give you a natural light so you have a good idea of what the miniature really looks like, and will keep you from straining your eyes.
Your next big upgrade when you start moving away from speedpaints is going to be a wet palette. I can not stress how much value this one tool can bring you.
Always keep in mind this is a hobby. If you want to do your hobby, do it. If you don’t, don’t. Don’t feel bad about having too many miniatures in your backlog. If the army is getting boring to paint, just paint something else. It’s ok to paint a random lizard, or superhero, or dog, or whatever. It’s ok to paint for a week straight, and it’s ok to not paint for 3 months.
Your minis don’t have to look like the crazy stuff you see on pinterest. It’s fine to get inspiration from them, but don’t let them demoralize you. Keep in mind some people have as much as 20 years head start on you. Some people spend hundreds of hours on a single miniature. Some people are army painters, and some are display painters. It’s not a contest unless you sign up for it.
Engage in the hobby with other people. Take any chance you have to visit your local hobby store, post your painted minis on lemmy, etc.
Does slap chop work for almost completely white minis like stormtroopers? Or even necessary for all black minis like death troopers?
Maybe not for stormtroopers, but it should work for death troopers. The trick to painting black minis is to not really paint them black, but various dark shades of grey.
However, you don’t have to be “stuck” on one technique. You can use slap chop for more colorful minis like named characters, and you can use regular techniques for your troopers.
I wouldn’t, unless you have the money.
I’m pretty new to mini painting as well, and using speedpaint 2.0. They all look pretty good without wash. I did use a homemade wash on one of them and yes it made a positive difference but I’d recommend making sure you like the hobby before investing more than you need to.
Maybe I will just buy the black quickwash only. Thanks for the input.
The whole point of Speedpaints is that they are supposed to be a one layer solution.
I use Speedpaints 1.0 and they work pretty well for me.
One recommendation I would make: learn about slapchop: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=slapchop+miniature+painting
I’ve been watching some of those videos, but I’m not really sure if slap chop works for mostly white like stormtroopers and clone troopers? It also doesn’t seem like it would be helpful for death troopers or imperial special forces.
The white SpeedPaint is actually a runny light grey that shades the panels of the stormtrooper armor. If you’re not sure how well a paint job will work just try it out. If you’re really worried practice on some cheap toys or something and just study how the paint affects them.
Slap chop works best with models with lots of detail to catch the dry brush, but works fine on just about anything.
If you’re going SpeedPaint washes aren’t necessary, they’re essentially a base coat and wash in one step. I would recommend some normal paints to do highlights with. Highlights are pretty tricky with speed paints.
Yeah I intend to buy a box of cheap minis on Amazon to test and practice with before moving on to my actual minis.
One thing I’ll add is that you can literally use any Matt white spray primer. Non-hobby brands (like Hycote) cost about half the price.
There’s no real need to buy the wash set if you’re starting off with speedpaints. To be honest, I only ever use black washes and brown washes on anything anyway - if you’re still keen on trying, you can go very far with just these two colours.
The most wanted brush set is not a great place to start - for half the money you can buy a complete brush set from sizes 0/3 to 6. Admittedly, they’re synthetic, but there’s a reason that you don’t learn to play violin on a stradivarius. In a year or two you can upgrade if you want, safe in the knowledge that you’re probably not going to accidentally wreck them now.
I’m a huge fan of speedpaints, though. More than worth their cost.
So here’s the conundrum I seem to run across in hobby stuff. On one hand, you don’t want to spend ludicrous amounts of money on high end equipment off the bat because you may not keep up with the hobby. However, if you buy really crappy tools then your end product could end up trash no matter how good you might be, and then you might just give up. Do you have recommendations for any specific middle of the road brushes? What about the AP hobby starter brush set?
Ah, it’s a fair point, but synthetic brushes are pretty spot-on approximations of the natural hair ones in all aspects apart from longevity. Within a year or two, they’ll have slowly started to lose their point. Think like a pencil blunting - they’ll still be usable, just not quite as tightly pinched at the end.
I only have one natural brush in my collection, a 000. All the rest are synthetic - there’s really no reason to pay premium for brushes used for heavy lifting.
[Something like this would be more than adequate.](https://KINBOM 9 Pieces Fine Detail Paint Brush Miniature Painting Brushes Kit Mini Paints Brush Set for Acrylic, Watercolor, Oil, Face, Nail, Scale Model Painting, Line Drawing(Black) https://amzn.eu/d/hudVh3N)
No set, just Nuln oil.
