All posts filed under: Tips and Tricks

Painting and hobby tips and tricks that I’ve picked up, use or found really helpful.

Painting Tip: The Eraser Brush

Whenever I’m painting I always have two brushes out: the one I’m using and one to erase. The need for the second brush arises because I don’t like to do touch up painting and my hands shake a bit. To solve both of these problems I have a second, clean brush always on hand that I can quickly wet and “erase” any spots of paint I put on the wrong spot.

Painting in hot weather, any tips?

This week it is in the upper 90s here in the PNW and I know there are much hotter places in the world, but it hardly ever reach the 80s here in Seattle, let-alone the upper 90s. Because of this my apartment isn’t set up with air conditioning. This means two things hobby-wise: I’m staying up much later since I can’t sleep and am able to get more painting done, and my paint dries out faster than normal. When doing the washes this is actually a benefit as I can paint the next coat not long after painting the first. The problem though is when putting some paint down on my pallet, I am adding water between each model to keep it liquid. This is causing me to struggle keeping a good paint-to-water mix so my question is this to my fellow hobbyist in the warm/dry climates: what do you add to your paint to keep it from drying out quickly?

Paint a little, often

So this morning I finished one more base color on 5 of my traitor guard. I was a bit intimidated by the fact that I have 50+ guardsmen to paint and I don’t often get hour stretches to paint. My solution: paint a little, often. Such as this morning, I had 10 extra minutes before having to leave for work, so I grabbed my brush and painted the boots, belts and any other dark gray part on 5 more guys. Sure I have 10 more in this platoon to paint that same gray on, but it is 5 less I have to do later. Painting a little, often also will help keep my painting skills up. Its been a few months since I did any painting, and I can tell. I’m a little less steady, not as good at mixing the right water to paint ratio, and generally slower. I have plenty of projects to paint, so even when I get new projects in the mail (the sentinels are next) I will continue to paint …