So I’ve been printing minis lately. A lot of minis. My Anycubic Photon has been running pretty much 24/7 since I got it (though there have been trials and tribulations along the way that led to a lot of wasted resin…).

The above represents probably about 60% of the ones I’d printed as of a week or so ago, and it doesn’t show all the loose bases I’ve also printed. Add to that the pile of 50-cent Heroclix I’ve been picking up at the local game shop that have mostly been stripped for repainting and re-purposing, and I’ve got a lot of primed minis lying around. Gaming with minis in shades of gray is more fun than gaming without minis at all, but ideally I’d like a more colorful experience.

The problem: I kind of suck at painting.

You could say that I’m technically an experienced mini painter, if you can accept “as a twelve year old in the early 80s I slopped some Testor’s enamels onto some lead Grenadier lizard men” as “experience”. My hands aren’t the steadiest, my eyes aren’t the best, and it’s not something I’ve ever practiced much.

Ghouls and stirges and blights, Oh My!

Nonetheless I’m determined to soldier on. Armed with a small selection of Army Painter paints and washes and – yes, I gave in and bought a couple of those contrast paints – I’ve started the learning process.

The first batch shown above was almost all done with the contrast paints because they were the shiny new thing I was playing with. The contrasts are wonderful on varying surfaces like the stirges and blights above, where I just essentially painted on a single coat of a single color, and it filled in the details like a multi-step paint and wash process. (The paint ran down onto the bases of two of the stirges while I wasn’t looking, so I decided those two were dripping blood from a recent feeding.)

The face of the Flameskull and the little bit of orange fire around it were also contrast paints. The facial features filled in nicely without me having to actively address them. For the back of the skull I just left the translucent green resin showing to give it an eerie look.

The ghouls were contrast painted as well, and on the bases I experimented with a a few different methods of layering one contrast paint over another to see what kinds of visuals I ended up with… overall I liked the results. I’m not building troops for wargames, so I wasn’t interested in keeping everything totally homegeneous.

Not shown are the orcs whose not-very-detailed leather armor I coated with some of the brown contrast paint. Without many grooves to settle into, it dried a blotchy brown that I’ll probably end up painting over and doing via traditional methods… once I learn those methods.

The Will-o-Wisps were simple. Dipped in watered down cheap craft paint and covered with a spray gloss clearcoat.

I’m jellies of good painters

I printed some ochre jellies in several sizes (to account for when the big ones divide) in clear resin and had an appropriate Army Painter color I was planning to water down and spread across the surface in hopes of tinting them while leaving them translucent.

In practice this left them with a blotchy look I didn’t care for, and I cleaned the paint off them before it was fully dried and decided to try another approach.

I painted the undersides instead, using the full-strength ochre color, and it showed through well. A gloss clear-coat on top gave them the “evil gelatin” look I wanted!