This set includes the following paints: Copper, Dragon Black, Kilt Green, Sunlight, Breonne Navy, Blood Red, Ruddy Flesh, Linen White and Oiled Leather. For brushes, we have the Pro-Paint line, a Taklon 000 and a Takon 0. For miniatures, we have Laurana, Sorceress and Tsuko, Monk.
For those who’ve never used the Pro-Paints before, they come in ¾ ounce bottles and are non-toxic and water-soluble. Pro-Paints are a good brand as far as coverage and mixing go as it requires little water or flow-improved to get the paint moving in the direction you want. Thickness and coverage vary, but for this set, the only one I had a problem with was Breonne Navy. For some reason, and I’ve had this problem with previous paints of this color before, it’s almost like a satin or silk finish in that it’s base coverage isn’t good but can be brought out with a few washes. The good thing is that the crossover between paints from this set and the first set is minimal with Dragon Black being the only color to be found in both sets.
The Takon brushes are middle of the road in that they’ll last and hold a point as long as you’re good to them. They don’t have the quality of the sable brushes, but that’s because they’re half the pricr or less in some cases.
Both miniatures have minimum flash on them, making preparation a breeze. The two are a study in difference sculpting techniques. Laurana holds one hand up and another hand down, holding a scroll. One leg is slightly bent on a rock and the other on the ground. Her dress is simple, a shirt and skirt. Her hair is long and full, going past her shoulders. Now the thing about here is that outside of her skirt, she has a minimum amount of raised areas, which means that drybrushing her would be difficult as drybrushing relies on the ridges and contours of the figure to catch the paint. Tsuko on the other hand, is a bare chest monk holding a three-piece staff with legs spread for stability. His frame is heavily muscled and his pants come with lots of flaring areas. He’s also bald on top with a lengthy pony tail trailing down his back.A few pieces of flack and minimum mold lines allow me to brush them down with warm water and soap and get them primed quickly.
Now unlike the first set, this one notes that you’ll need to remove any metal with files or a hobby knife. It also mentions that using a primer is a good thing. Unfortunatly, it continues to make the claim that “Everything you need to paint bright, eye-catching miniatures is included in this box;” but since it doesn’t have files or primer, well, it’s a little misleading. There should be some type of call out box telling you what you’ll need to use this set fully.
The instructions have undergone a little bit of a change too. The logo is smaller and closer to the top. The final painted picture of the miniature is larger. The instructions are much higher on the first page, giving the author, Anne “Vaitalla” Foerster, more room and more instructions.
The instructions are on one sheet of paper in landscape format folded to give us the illusion of four pages. The first three pages are instructions, the last page a listing of Pro Paints by Reaper.
The book assumes that you are familiar with the previous technique of washing and drybrushing, but repeats the information of washing again. I notice that the wording here is more direct and to the point when discussing washing and this also saves space.
For those who don’t know, washing is when you have a mix of about three to one, of water to paint ratio, that’s mixed together and then brushed onto the miniature, especially into the folds. As it dries, it leaves the raised areas alone but darkens the area where the wash has dried.
The new technique here is layering. This is a little bit more of an advanced technique as it requires you to have a mixing palette. Not a big deal as you can use the plastic case a miniature came in for it, but another thing that would’ve been nice to note. When layering, you should have a nice thin paint. Making sure that you’re brush is in a point, the better the point, the easier the layering goes, you take a small portion of the paint at the tip of the brush and layer it on the figure. You then lighten up the layering with a mix of paints and layer another one on top of the previous one. The key to this technique is to leave a little bit of the previous layers remaining so that the highlights you make get smaller and lighter with each layer.
In some ways, it’s similar to very controlled drybrushing but has a few benefits. One, drybrushing destroys your brush. No arguments about it. Even with brushes that are designed for it, they’ll be destroyed. Next, drybrushing can have a ‘dusty’ effect on the miniature, which is caused by the paint drying on the brush even as you apply it. Third, even with good control, it’s difficult to get the same effect as good layering without having to do a lot of retouching. Fourth, it’s limited in how it can be used. On a flat figure, like Laurana’s arms or bracers, there are not a lot of raised areas to work with.
On the other hand, layering requires a steady hand. It’s not quick either. With drybrushing, you can slop the point onto the brush and then off then onto the figure. Here it’s a matter of finding the spots that can benefit from the lightening technique and then going to town on them with several layers. Time consuming effort that may not be worth it for every figure.
The instructions are broken up into two parts. The first, Painting Skin and Faces, has us work on the flesh of both figures. It starts off with a 50/50 mix of Ruddy Flesh and Oiled Leather that’s thinned with a little water. For a wash, we mix some oiled leather and black with lots of water. It’s an interesting formula, but when mixed in the proper ratio, looks almost just like their Flesh Shading Ink. The next layer that goes on, is a thinned layer of Ruddy Flesh, and then another one of Ruddy Flesh and Linen White at a 50/50 mix and then adding more layers of Linen White as you go.
The advice on painting the faces goes a long way, but is difficult to envision. Thankfully, the authors have noted this and include a face done up in dark blue with highlights drawn out unblended for clarity. Seeing this face allows you to quickly see where some of the stronger highlights should go.
The cloth varies for each figure as each one wears different cloths and the reader is given different instructions for colors for each one. Take Tsuko’s pants for example. We start off with Blood Red and after it dries, give it a wash of Dragon Black. The first layer on the pants is then Blood Red on all the raised areas while the second layer is Blood Red and Sunlight (yellow), at a 50/50 mix. This gets added to only the highlights and points, the folded edges that stick out the most. See, if you use too much of this, the paints will start to look orange as opposed to red.
Overall, the instructions this time are better but still suffer from being so cramped. Each figure is shown with full basecoats on, even at the start of the project so a reader has a hard time determining if they’re doing the techniques correctly. When shown the effects of the techniques, we have a baseline of start to finish, but in progress work and as the instructions go over things one at a time, it’s hard to say how much work would be needed to go back and touch up the areas.
The good thing is that the instructions tell us that you have to own a palette, files, hobby knife and primer. There are more instructions and written in simple, easy to go along with category. The value of the kit, almost $40 worth of goods, continues to be a great deal at $25.95 and has minimum overlap with the first kit. Lastly, with just the materials in the boxed set and the standard hobby tools, you can complete the miniatures. You need no other brushes or paints.
For those wishing to try out layering on different fields, from smooth to heavily textured, Learn To Paint Kit-2 has you covered.
