Painting with oils

[p-26luvr]

A short while ago today I went through T-Tango's 2 Roman figure build posts & rather than take over his thread have decided to post my ouwn views on painting with oils. I am 78 years old & have been painting figures for about 35 years now.I AM NOT AN EXPERT ON PAINTING FIGURES. I do a creditable job of it ,but that is all. When I first started painting figures I was fortunate enough to join the Miniature Collectors of New England club down in Boston. Through that connection I was able to attend a Sheppard Paine 15 hour seminar. Between the seminar & the members of the club I learned a really lot of techniques. I use oils exclusively on my figures. I like oils because the allow me , first & foremost to mix the exact shades of color I want for shading & highlighting & any special effects That I want to achieve. The other main advantage is the slow drying time Allows me to stop & leave it overnight. I use Dorland's wax medium as a flattening agent. While both Winsor - Newton's paints & brushes are expensive, a tube of paint will last for years & the same for their brushes. The points on their brushes hold their point until they are almost unuseable if well taken care of. The last one I bought about 7 years ago. For those who may be interested Kalback Publishing, of Fine Scale Modeling fame, have a book by Sheppard Paine on building dioramas that has a section on painting figures that is very good. K-B also has a book on painting figures with acrylics that is excellent. In Britain if you plan on doing several figures please look up the British Model Soldier Society & consider joining it. It will help you immensely. Carl T

[T-Tango]

In actual fact Carl I used acrylics for the Roman figures, of course the techniques are totally different as you can't blend acrylics the same way as you can blend oils, as regards reference books, my main one is Painting Miniatures by Danilo Cartacci.

[Deon]

I was lucky enough to get some tips from a cracking Maltese figure painter at the Malta Expo this year, the guy uses acrylics, but as very fine washes and many of them, going back over stuff repeatedly building up the required shade and depth. I'd never really thougfht of using acrylics that way, but this guy gets amazing result, thought perhaps not some of the textures achievable with oils. Sadly Im not up to the standard to show my work but I believe he was at Euromilitaire this year.

[p-26luvr]

In actual fact Carl I used acrylics for the Roman figures, of course the techniques are totally different as you can't blend acrylics the same way as you can blend oils, as regards reference books, my main one is Painting Miniatures by Danilo Cartacci.

T-Tango, one of the things i have bought for use with acrylics is put out by Winsor- Newton in their Galleria Acrylic Mediums called a Flow Improver. I use it when I use my airbrush to paint model aircraft with acrylics. It helps to prevent clogging the airbrush. It might help in painting figures as well. It might slow down the drying time. Perhaps W/N could give an answer about this.