Bob Ross Miniature painting. Is it possible?

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Is it possible to paint a complete complex miniature with layers in a half hour? Or do all the techniques/materials for painting minis talk more than 30-60 minutes?
 
Is it possible to paint a complete complex miniature with layers in a half hour? Or do all the techniques/materials for painting minis talk more than 30-60 minutes?

Sure, if it's pre-primed, and you don't use washes (which require drying time). You can quick-blend a mini to tabletop standard at least, keeping in mind that experience also affects speed.

Anyways here's some examples:











https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roq5894RCzg


Personally, I'd say the best way to speed paint is:

1) choose a limited colour selection - something like the Zorn pallette
2) focus only on the most visible areas, leaving the rest of the mini "in shadow"
3) drybrush/overbrush as your main technique.
 
Sure, if it's pre-primed, and you don't use washes (which require drying time). You can quick-blend a mini to tabletop standard at least.
Interesting. I mean I cod see someone becoming successful as a YouTuber with a channel dedicated to doing a mini in a half hour. Maybe it already exists.
 
Interesting. I mean I cod see someone becoming successful as a YouTuber with a channel dedicated to doing a mini in a half hour. Maybe it already exists.

Yeah, a few.

Interestingly, in regards to the title of your thread, there is a Youtube miniature painter known in the Hobby as "The Bob Ross of Miniature Painting" - that being Duncan Rhodes, those he isn't as focused on speed painting so much as a very straightforward paint-by-numbers approach
 
This seems like the appropriate place to ask this question.

What do folks think about Army Painters Speed paints?
 
This seems like the appropriate place to ask this question.

What do folks think about Army Painters Speed paints?
By that I assume you mean the "dipping" method?
 
Army Painter now has a product that's similar to GW's Contrast Paints.

Anyhow, the real secret to speed is painting in bulk. I actually like to do a dip layer before blocking. I used to do Ralpartha Brown base, drybrush with African, followed by East Indian then slop on thinned Liqutex Burnt Umber. Once that was dry I'd block a few colors and metals on top and call it done. It gave a very nice gradation. Unfortunately those Ralpartha colors no longer exist. The brown base works better with reds, yellows, and oranges.

Another good quick route is to spray black, drybrush white and stain block colored areas. This works better with blues, greens, and purples.
 
By that I assume you mean the "dipping" method?
If they do mean The Dip (whether Army Painter or DIY with woodstain)...it depends heavily on your subject matter/period/setting. from my fairly extensive experience with it.

For Old West, non-SF Victorian Imperialism, pirates, either World War (and conflicts from around that period), Low or Gritty Fantasy...yeah 100%, especially if you're doing a lot of similar stuff and it's okay if it ranges between sepia toned and grimy/dirty.

Avoid periods/settings where people have light colors that pop or are meant to be seen in pure form (although red comes out okay, and some greens).
 
No they have a new product called speedpaint. It looks pretty cool.


Ahh, OK, yeah, so like Contrast paints, this is actually an old technique that's come into popularity recently, originally referred to as "hard body washes". In my Painting guide I give a process of makig your own, for much cheaper than contrast, but AP paints tend to be more affordable, so it ay be worth t to avoid the extra work, though with less control over the colours.
 
Personally, army painter dip is way too thick, Future floor wax and a bit of sepia ink flows better and you don't need to spin the figure on a drill.
 
I don't dip, so I have nothing to add. There's nothing wrong with it, but my personal painting process is way to OCD to go that route. It is a great way to get a lot of figs done quickly that still look good. If I'm going for speed the best I can manage is to go slightly more comic-book in my highlighting instead of smooth wet of dry blends. That's my own cross to bear though.
 
I've been using the Army Painter speed paints for a few months now. I like them a lot, I prefer their texture and price to GW contrast paints, but I don't think there is any inherent quality difference between the two. I can knock out a set of figures that would normally take 5-6 hours, in less than 2, with better results (for me). I am no Golden Demon Award winner though.

Here's a few figures I did using mostly Army Painter speed paints:

20220423_181354.jpg20220319_124213.jpg
 
Personally, army painter dip is way too thick, Future floor wax and a bit of sepia ink flows better and you don't need to spin the figure on a drill.
I've never actually used the drill, because that is silly and I know what mineral spirits are. :grin:

Kidding aside, someone pointed out how daft it is to actually dip the miniature, despite the name, and how much less messy and product wasting just brushing it on was, and I never looked back.
 
I use the Minwax Polyshade stains, since Army Painter dips are just their countries equivalents repackaged. If I recall correctly off the top of my head, the rough equivilents are Pecan = Soft Tone, Antique Walnut = Strong Tone, and Tudor Black = Dark Tone. I spoon out a little from my quart cans (which are 1/3 the price of the AP pint cans) and thin it slightly with mineral spirits. Brush on a batch of minis, go back to the first and wick off the excess with a clean brush, done. Much, much cheaper, cleaner, and easier than actually dipping the miniature in Army Painter woodstains.

My Army Painter Speedpaint Mega Set came in just this week. I'm hoping to give them a try out sometime this weekend.
 
A good "universal wash" alternative to the dip is to mix up the following recipe:

1 part GW Seraphim Sepia;
1 part GW Agrax Earthshade;
2 parts GW Lahmian Medium.

Thinner than washes, and settles into recesses without tinting the main colour. Obviously works better with warm colours, but still works with greens, blues and greys. However...

All of the GW washes can be thinned 1:1 with medium to give a mix that settles mostly in the recesses. So block in your main colours and wash with the appropriate recess colour. Done. No highlights, but you've made the details "pop".

Contrast paints are hugely versatile - I use them thinned as wash+filter on vehicles, or thinned more for a (very expensive) wask that looks a little heavier and more cartoony.

Guilliman Flesh over white primer or a cream/bone colour is like liquid magic.

The Contrast yellows and orange are also amazing over white primer. One coat straight from the pot.

Lay down paint over a grey primer so you don't need extra coats to cover thin spots as you would black or white primer. Again, thinned contrast can give a superior heavy wash - perfect for horses.

As David Johansen David Johansen said, batch painting really helps. Paint one detail on all of 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12 figures in a unit. Then another, and so on. I say detail rather rhan colour, as it's easy to miss bits. Better to do all belts then all shoes than "all brown" (although it's faster to do everything of one colour one piece after another).

Depends what you're painting too. Historical minis, broadly, have fewer details than scifi or fantasty, and in those categories a simple Copplestone sculpt paints faster than a midern GW mini. Face+hands, coat, trews, leather+wood, metal, wash.

Clearly less true if you're doing 7 Years' War minis as they tend to have frilly bits, cuffs and turned-out coat linings, or Napoleonics with lots of trim. Remember that many rank-and-file units will look amazing as a block of 20 figures.

As an extreme measure, take up a game in a smaller scale where you can paint dozens of minis in an evening.
 
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A much cheaper universal wash is made by mixing 1::1 distilled water and Liquitex (or other preferred brand) acrylic matte medium. I keep a dropper bottle of this mix for glazing washes, and a dropper bottle with a tiny amount of flow aid added for recess washes.

You can add this medium mix to any acrylic paint in whatever quantity required for the intended effect (also, some colors/paint mixes require more medium to thin and dilute than others). It truly is a universal wash, in that any standard acrylic color I own is also a wash.

I do still use Army Painter dropper-bottle Soft Tone, Strong Tone, and Dark Tone for convinience, but I don't bother buying color washes anymore.
 
So just a random update on this. I picked up the Army Painter Speedpaint set. I took a 3d printed knight that I suspect I really screwed up a zentiwhatever priming job on because while he was mostly black with grey upper highlights and a fairly white top. That did not work with the speed paints. I'm sure errors abounded all over the place so I'm pointing two thumbs at this guy for why it's not turning out right. First I think I should have gone a loooooot heavier on the grey over black primer. The white at the top was probably fine but what I had was mostly black and with speedpaint that's just giving me super dark muddled mess. Second I suspect my 3d printed knight is too smooth without enough detail to work well with the speedpaint as is. I covered his cloak twice with a good drying period in between and there are big flat visible sections that are still just black.
I think I'm going to have to pick brighter colors of I don't want him to look like a guy who's just all shadows.

Probably would have helped to read any of anyone's suggestions again before lobbing paint about but that's not how I rolled this time.

Might try again on a grey preprimed mini and see how it comes out.
 
it might be easier to just prime grey, then do a black wash, then, after giving it a few hours to dry, a very light white drybrush overtop. You'd get practically the same effect as zenithal with less of a margin for error.

But yeah, painting anything over pure black is gonna be tricky.
 
I primed everything black for many years, it's not that bad.
 
So my trick with my Escher gang was black prime, a heavy white dry brush top down over the entire model, then painting. If I were going for board game usage, I’d probably stop after the dry brush as I like the look. Or if I were doing a Sin City feel.
 

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This reminds me on an unrealized plan of mine to build an undead army, heavy on zombies, and paint the whole thing in black and white going for an early George A Romero feel.
It was a long time ago, but I saw a whole collection, including terrain, that was done that way. Basically, a riff on Nosferatu for some sort of convention game. Absolutely beautiful.

Lead Adventure Thread about it from over a decade ago.
 
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it might be easier to just prime grey, then do a black wash, then, after giving it a few hours to dry, a very light white drybrush overtop. You'd get practically the same effect as zenithal with less of a margin for error.

But yeah, painting anything over pure black is gonna be tricky.
WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME EARLIER!!!!

Whew. Now that we've got blame figured out I feel much better.
 
Currently loving the Army Painter Speed Paints. The only thing they lack is the variety of the Contrast Paint range, especially with the new release.
 
Currently loving the Army Painter Speed Paints. The only thing they lack is the variety of the Contrast Paint range, especially with the new release.

I need to get to my LGS and see if they have the new contrast paints. I've seen a few videos about them by various mini painters and they look pretty slick. Of course, they still come in the shitass Citadel pots. The Army Painter Speed Paints are head and shoulders above when it comes to containers, since not only are they in dropper bottles, but they come with agitators pre-installed.
 
I need to get to my LGS and see if they have the new contrast paints. I've seen a few videos about them by various mini painters and they look pretty slick. Of course, they still come in the shitass Citadel pots. The Army Painter Speed Paints are head and shoulders above when it comes to containers, since not only are they in dropper bottles, but they come with agitators pre-installed.
There's a Youtube video that goes over all the new contrast paints. Basically, there's three types.
Actual Contrast Paints
Paints that are more of a wash
Paints that are more of an glaze

So you might want to stick to those are are true contrast. I'll see if I can find the video.
 
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Just remember with Speedpaints you want to prime white, if you want them to do what they do. On black primer, they're just thin paints that take forever to cover.
 
I need to get to my LGS and see if they have the new contrast paints. I've seen a few videos about them by various mini painters and they look pretty slick. Of course, they still come in the shitass Citadel pots. The Army Painter Speed Paints are head and shoulders above when it comes to containers, since not only are they in dropper bottles, but they come with agitators pre-installed.
Pain in the butt, but I transfer all my GW paints to Reaper bottles and toss in the agitators. The contrast and washes go easy, the GW paints need to be thinned anyway, so using a mix of Vallejo Flow Improver, Vallejo Thinner, and water makes them transfer well and be ready for painting.
 
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