Question about FOW infantry painting

So I've decided to screw trying to get crap painted before it sees the table and just start assembling and playing (and painting slowly in the background). I always wanted to try FoW and have an army kicking about. How hard is it to paint the infantry models once they're on the base? Or is it too much of a pain to do that?

Paint them first then mount them. Mount each on a piece of poster board or cardboard. Once their painted mount them on the base. Thats what I do.

I don't do that.

Instead, I glue them to the base and paint them there. Here are the pros/cons of that:

Cons:

Harder to paint some spots of the figures. Brush can't get everywhere, particularly if you put the guys close together. I fixed this by spraying them in my camo green color, so any spots I couldn't reach are still in the color scheme.

Not as detailed. If your going for some serious painting with FOW then don't base them first. I'm not a crazy good painter, so didn't bother.

Basing was a slight issue, but not anything serious or major.


Pros:

Can play with them whenever and don't have to worry about losing those tiny little men. This is big for me because I would paint at different places, and not having a dedicated painting location made trying to put the little guys up somewhere to cause issues.


There's a couple of ideas for ya, its really up to you. Most guys who are serious about painting don't put them on the base first, but if your just looking to get them painted (LUIS!!) then just paint them on, it ain't gonna hurt nobody.

Alright, thanks guys. I want to make them look decent, but I've been itching to get into this so I was torn. If anything I'll bump FOW infantry up my painting queue and leave the other stuff for later on.

Andre,

This is what I did with my Italians and I think they've come out high quality so far. I think this could be the highest least work/ best look ratio.

1. Glue figures on to bases. Try to leave at least some space between figs.

2. Prime the whole base white

3. Paint on all your basic colors, your khakis, gun stocks and barrels, flesh colors for the face and hands and anything else. Don't do camo patterns yet. Keep the colors lighter than you want in the final product, because the next step will darken them. Paint the base the underlying color you want it to be. For instance, I used Iyaden dark sun for my base since I knew I was gonna be in the desert, but if your gonna use green static grass, then try a shade of light brown or brownish green. This part is the most time consuming, but still shouldn't take too long. You're not going for detail, just trying to cover everything up. Even if you have a few little white parts showing here and there from the priming, don't worry about it too much cause the next step will fix that.

3. Dip it ! Go get a can of Mix Wax , Water Based, wood stain. I use American Walnut, but you can experiment. The more you experiment however, the more expensive it gets cause those cans are pretty pricey. Get at least an 8 Oz can. Anything smaller and you won't be able to fit your bases through the opening of the can. Follow these steps.

a. Shake and open the can.
b. Get a small dry brush, and a paper towel for blotting and put it aside.
c. get a paper plate or something to put your figs on after dipping
d. grab the edge of a base you want to dip and dip it in for about half a second. When it comes out you're gonna be like " holy shit" but don't worry.
e. shake the base a little over the can to get most of the excess off.
f. start using your brush to blot areas that still have too much stain. Cracks and crevices, faces, places where you just want more color coming out. Blot the fig, then push your brush into the towel to dry the brush. Blot, dry the brush, blot, dry the brush until you're satisfied. Don't forget to blot the base either !

This process takes a little practice, so I wouldn't use one of my desired figs the first time I'm doing it. Do this whole proces with a model you don't care about first, just to get the hang of it.

4. After the figs have dried, you can now begin to add any highlights you want. Lighten up faces, add camo patters to jackets and helmets, create a little more sparkle on gun barrels or medals. Whatever you want.

5. Flock your base. Apply prodigious amounts of flock to make sure you cover the fact that your little guys are on bases on top of the base. The better you flock, the less this will be apparent to on lookers.


That's it, hope you try it. and good luck !!

What army are you going to use? I used the same method as Stephan with my friend Ammon's american army. The one difference is that I based them with a camo green spray paint that i bought at home depot. then all i had to do is paint in the details such as flesh, black and gun metal. Then a dip and some dry brush.



this is the only picture that I had of them. The infantry turned out really good. I am starting to do that with my british north africa army with a khaki base. It works awesome.

The dipping process is amazing. I do the same thing with my Americans and will also soon start with my British, whenever I start buying them.

Jeebus, I had no idea dipping could be so effective. I'm doing 7th Armored British, late war. I'll definitely start blocking out how I can get dipping done fast.