FAQS
From time to time, I get e-mails from my readers with questions about modelling and gaming. While I love hearing from people who read the site, a lot of the time the questions end up being very broad and general, or repeatedly the same ones from different people. I'm going to try and address these common questions here. This list will probably continually be added to, as I get more questions to answer.
- How do you paint ork skin?
- What paints do you use?
- What is plasticard / sheet styrene?
- What brands of styrene do you use?
- Where can I find or purchase styrene?
- What sort of glues do you use?
- What should I use to cut metal miniatures?
- Do you do commissions?
- Will you sell [model]?
- Where can I find Ronin Miniatures / Primarch models?
PAINTING
MODELLING
MINIATURES
PAINTING
A: Allow me to share Ein's Ork Skin Method for the Lazy Painter (and himself), with the caveat that I do not consider myself that good of a painter to begin with.
- Prime black. Krylon black primer is my go-to spray for most jobs.
- Knarloc green coat. You can thin the Knarloc green out just a tiny bit with some water and get some really nice coverage. Since it's a foundation paint, even thinned Knarloc green goes over black very well.
- A coat of Goblin Green. I use Vallejo Game Colors primarily, but they also call the paint 'Goblin Green' - it is the same shade as GW's, or near enough that the eye can't tell. Vallejo paints usually don't need much thinning, but I do tend to get a bit on the brush and just tap the surface of the water in my painting cup to get it flowing better so I don't leave any brush stroke marks while base coating.
Now the fun begins. Your whole ork skin area should be a nice, bright, smooth goblin green. If your paint went on chunky, the washes are going to look terrible, so make sure you've got a nice coat on. - Thraka Green wash. This stuff's fantastic. My usual method is to grab a whole bunch and heap it on the skin areas. The Citadel washes are well-behaved, and can be steered around the model with your brush and a tiny bit of water. If you find you have excess wash, dry off your brush on a paper towel, then touch the brush to the excess wash areas; it will 'sponge' the wash off the area it's touching. With a bit of water and your brush, push the wash off raised surfaces so that you don't get any of the shade drying in dark spots on raised areas like muscles. It should all settle nicely in the crevasses.
- Let the last step's wash dry completely. Then, do it again!
I usually water the wash down more at this stage before applying it, just because I don't want the green to overpower the model; heap too much on and you're painting a Nob, not a boy. The way the Citadel washes dry makes a fantastic, blended-looking transition between the dark crevasses and the brighter raised areas. - Let the second thraka green wash dry... and break out the Badab Black wash. Grab a brush with a nice point, dip it in the wash, and start brushing the ork skin, following the crevasse lines between muscles and bulges. These areas should, by now, be substantially darker than the surrounding skin, thanks to the 2x Thraka washes. A bit of water will help the badab black stay in just the recesses, but be careful not to use too much, or it'll start running down the model and onto parts you didn't intend to get!
At this point, you're usually done, and it looks like you spent a lot of time blending and getting the highlights right. If the skin looks too dark, as can sometimes happen with too much Thraka Green or Badab Black, it's fixable (though this method, like most painting, looks better if you get it right the first time ). Grab some straight Goblin Green on a brush, and brush it on the raised surfaces like musculature, brows, whatever, doing your best to keep the paint away from any of the darker recesses. A quick Thraka Green brushed over these highlighted areas will help blend the brighter spots together with the darker ones.
Grots in my army get almost the exact same treatment, but I start with a brighter green before I start washing. Something like Scorpion Green will go on well over the Goblin Green, and will make for brighter colored grots. For darker Nobz, just wash more; liberal use of thraka green and badab black washes will inevitably prove to make darker skin.
This guy was done using the above method, mostly:
I started with a grey primer on that model, but the foundation Knarloc Green undercoat basically means you get the same results no matter what color primer you're working from.
This is my preferred painting method right now, just because of how brainless it is. I don't have to worry about blending colors, placing highlights, or anything all that advanced. I can veg out in front of the TV, apply washes with about 5% of my brain, and do other stuff. The Citadel Washes are fantastic enough to take care of the rest.
A: Vallejo Game Colors are my paints of choice for the most part. I received a big case of every VGC as a christmas gift about two years ago and it has been going strong this whole time. I find their colors require less thinning than the Citadel ones, and their eyedropper bottles save you from wasting a great deal of paint. However, I do also make pretty big use of Citadel's Foundation paints and Washes, because both are incredibly useful shortcuts for painting.
MODELLING
Q: What is plasticard / sheet styrene?
A: Simply put, this is very thin plastic sheeting that is used by hobbyists for scratchbuilding and detailing work. It's sort've similar to what a credit card is made of, though a bit more bendy, and generally in much larger sheets. There are varying thicknesses that I use, ranging from as thin as .012" thick to .118" thick. Generally I won't go much thicker than .118", as it becomes much harder to cut and shape, and that thickness itself is reserved for the most hardy of structural work (for example, maybe what one might use to make a Thunderhawk chassis).
Plasticard is also available in non-sheet form, typically as either round dowels or square rod. The dowels in particular are rather useful, as they can be cut into thin slivers and glued on a model for rivets.
Q: What brands of styrene do you use?
A: I have 3 major brands that I use. Primarily, I default to Raboesch for a lot of my styrene, simply because it is the brand my local hobby store carries in abundance and it is relatively cheap.
Evergeen is also an excellent brand of styrene, and it is the brand where the large majority of my non-sheet plastic comes from (square and round rods) due to their wide selection of sizes and diameters. They are slightly more expensive than Raboesch, but they also manufacture a few textured sheet types for model train enthusiasts that can be useful from time to time (such as ridged styrene, with a corrugated texture).
Lastly, there's Plastruct, which is ridiculously expensive but also has the best possible selection of textured styrene out there. Plastruct is where I turn to get things like diamond-plate textured styrene, or cobblestone. These can run as high as ten dollars per sheet in some places, but generally it's worth it because you don't use that much of it on most models. I would not recommend buying most of your plain styrene from Plastruct if you value your wallet's contents.
Q: Where can I find or purchase styrene?
A: This answer can vary wildly depending on where you actually live. As I mentioned earlier, my local hobby store carries a fair bit of plasticard already, so I usually pick up what I need from there. Occasionally, I will find myself needing some textured styrene from Plastruct which they do not stock, in which case I turn to the internet. Hobbylinc.com can be a decent place to order your sheet styrene from, but they are tremendously slow about getting your orders filled so be sure you're not in any particular hurry. (Often I will get the order confirmation letting me know they've shipped long after I've forgotten I even placed the order.) If any readers have alternative suggestions as to where one might find styrene online, feel free to e-mail me and I will add it to this section.
Q: What sort of glues do you use?
A: There's a couple different types. First and foremost, I do not use any of Games Workshop glues. I had the particularly good fortune of finding an excellent brand before trying GW's, and having tried GW's since I must say I am quite dissapointed in it. My primary glue is called "Hot Stuff Super T", and comes in a yellow bottle. It can be purchased online for a pretty reasonable price. This is a cyanoacrilate superglue that is relatively instant (meaning, 5 seconds or so before the part is joined completely). It works equally well on plastic and metal models, and I have to say I've never been dissapointed in it.
Please note that I am endorsing the yellow bottle Super T. There are two other types - one in a red bottle, and one in a green. The red bottle is very thin, and pours like water; that in itself can be useful for certain applications, such as basing, but when you're trying to apply glue to a model and it's running off it can be a frustrating and messy endeavor. Alternatively, the green bottle is extremely viscous and thick glue, but also rather slow-working. You end up having to hold the parts together for quite some time to get any sort of bond. The yellow bottle is just right - a sort of syrupy consistency that is easy to work with and joins quickly.
For plastic models, I also use brush-on plastic glue solvents to help close gaps that may appear in a poorly-cast plastic model. My favorite type of these was Ambroid Pro-weld, which was a rather fantastic product, but my local store has stopped carrying it so I've had some trouble getting it easily. The idea is pretty simple - sometimes you glue a model and there's tiny gaps or seams that you want to have closed. You get the brush inside this container, dab it in the substance, and brush it on the weld. It flows into the crack, melts the plastic it comes in contact with, and 'seals' it up nicely so that the crack begins to dissapear. It's not foolproof, and you can easily destroy a model if you're not careful with how you apply it, but it is also a great help when scratchbuilding to cover up any imprecise measurements that create seams.
More recently, instead of Pro-weld, I have been using both Micro-Mark's "Same-Stuff Professional Plastic Welder" and "Plastruct Bondene". Both do a reasonably decent job, though not quite as well as the Ambroid stuff in my opinion. Please note that none of these solvents work on metal miniatures. (Actually, they remove paint from metal miniatures fairly decently if you've got money to burn and little time to do it in.)
Q: What should I use to cut metal miniatures?
A: A few tools immediately spring to mind. I'd recommend a jeweller's saw, first and foremost. These are essentially hand-saws with very, very fine blades that are able to hack through metal miniatures with a bit of patience. The upside to using one of these is that you end up with a very unobtrusive, thin cut, which can be perfect for reposing those obnoxious one-piece metal miniatures without destroying too much of the existing detail. You will also want a ton of extra blades for the thing, as they are very frail by design and snap after a very short period of use. Fortunately, the extra blades are reasonably affordable though I've no doubt you can find cheaper with a bit of looking.
Secondly, there is the ever-popular dremel. A dremel with an appropriate cutting bit (usually a toothed metal disc, or a thin disc with a diamond-tipped edge) can go through metal miniatures fairly easily. Dremels are also pretty invaluable tools to a hobbyist in general, as the variety of sanding and cutting bits you can attach can seriously simplify your workload. The downside to using a dremel is that the cut is usually not quite as precise as a jewller's saw will afford you. Also, I've noticed metal miniatures getting quite hot when I dremel parts of them off due to friction, so keep a cup of water handy to dip the model into from time to time to prevent yourself from getting burned.
A few words of warning, here: Dremels should not be used by children or inexperienced young adults. There exists a real possibility of injuring yourself, as dremels can be just as dangerous as other power tools. Please exercise caution when using a dremel - the nature of the miniatures hobby means you're generally going to be holding the object in question, which means your hand can be rather close to the spinning bit. Add onto that the little detail that dremels like to 'roll' along a model (meaning, they get a bit of grip on the model and the tool tries to climb out of your hand) and you can ruin either yourself or your model. Please be careful.
Also, I would never recommend trying to cut a metal miniature with something like an xacto knife. The blades aren't made for that sort of thing, and you'll spend a very long time trying to hack through them. The stresses involved put a lot of force on the blades, and they will snap. I recall rather vividly my first attempt at trying that - the xacto blade snapped off and lodged itself about half an inch into my desk.
My last recommendation is simple flush cutters. I will use these from time to time, usually to get metal parts off the 'flash' that they come attached to, and very rarely for any actual work on miniatures. Please be careful, as not every brand of flush cutter is made to cut through metal. Ironically, the only pair of GW flush cutters that I ever owned (the yellow-handled pair, for those of you who may be familiar with them) snapped right in half the first time I tried to use them to cut a metal mini apart.
MINIATURES
A: Usually no. My days are usually quite busy, and I prefer to dedicate what little hobby time I have free to working on my own projects. Likewise, I am very inconsistent with what I choose to work on; I like to let the spirit of 'whatever I feel like working on now' dictate my hobby schedule, which is partly to blame for why I have so many things un- or half-finished. I don't think I'd be able to sit down and do from start to finish the sort of projects most people come to me for without finding something else I'd rather be doing halfway through and feeling rather frustrated that my time's being occupied by other things.
While I appreciate when people ask, my usual answer is 'no', barring the rare circumstance where there is serious enough compensation offered to have me interested in that sort of commitment. That does not mean I'm not more than happy to offer advice where requested. I love seeing the things other people make, and I think I am usually able to put together a reasonably constructive critique and contribute ideas.
A: Unless I've explicitly gone out of my way to make that model available for sale, I'm almost never interested in selling it. Again, while I appreciate the sort of interest people take in the models, I spend a lot of time, thought and energy in most of the stuff I do, and they're really sort've special to me. Of course, if you're interested in financing my education, we can talk. 
Q: Where can I find Ronin Miniatures / Primarch models?
A: I get a lot of e-mails about this, probably from people who see the Mortarion photos I tossed up a while back. The short answer is that I can't help you with this. Ronin Miniatures went out of business, as far as I am aware - they used to have an incredibly slow web site, but that dissapeared sometime in early 2008. I could be wrong, and I'd be quite happy to be wrong, but I haven't found anywhere to buy the Primarch models from to point people to. I don't know if they've switched into some sort of underground distribution or what have you to evade GW's legal efforts, but I can say that every couple months I'll spot a few of the primarch models floating around on E-bay under various names... The Emperor, for example, is called "The Lord", whereas Mortarion is "Death Knight", I think, and so on.
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