Hey all!

I'm new to figure painting, any tips for a beginner?

Hey Dale, welcome to the site.

Are there any things in particular you want tips for? For instance- camo, faces, leather, highlights, shadows etc?

If you are looking for articles you should have a look at Historicus Forma:

https://hfmodeling.kitmaker.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index

There have a good few articles on various aspects of figure painting. Check out the forum there aswell.

There's also PlanetFigure which has some articles and a forum too:
http://www.planetfigure.com/articles/

I hope this helps.

Good luck.

-Karl187-

Check out this article on painting figures with Acrylics, it was very useful to me.

https://armorama.kitmaker.net//features/2274

Cheers!
Stefan

First - Pick a medium that you want to learn and use.

The three basics are:

1. Artist Oils: The classic figure painting medium with long working times. Easy to blend. However, it's easy to "over-blend" and takes some learning to not use too much paint. Also, long drying times require extra patience. You often have to deal with the "glossies" so over coating with clear flat is sometimes required.

2. Hobby Enamels: This is the "old school modeling" medium that can get great results. Pretty fast drying times and usually gets dead-flat finishes. However, the medium is limited in especially in its "color pallet." Hard to paint really fine details, especially on faces.

3. Acrylics: This is the most popular medium today with lots of specially formulated paints available. Very fast drying times. Requires a "glazing" technique to layer semi-transparent coats of paint to build up shadows and highlights. Paint will not blend out at all as it starts to dry. You'll find that most of the information available for figure painting is now based on using acrylics (for example, table top war gamers almost use acrylics exclusively).

The first two, oils and enamels, work similarly in their blending / shading techniques, but acrylics uses a completely different method (glazing).

There is some overlap, for instance, most (many?) oil painters undercoat or block in colors with acrylics first. The same is true for many enamels users.

Enamel and oil painters can often mix colors using both mediums together. This is especially useful for hobby enamel painters to extend blending times and color pallet or for oil painters to get dead flat finishes.

Acrylics cannot be mixed with either oils or enamels. However, some acrylic painters use oils for flesh tones and faces and acrylics for uniforms.

So, there are a lot of variations on each theme. However, when you're reading and searching for advice, you need to narrow your questions down to the type of medium that you're using since the advice you get might be perfect for one medium but not for the one you actually use.

FWIW, I use artist oils over acrylic undercoats, but that's just me. I started back in the early '70's with hobby enamels and progressivly added more and more oils (also useful for pin washes, filters, and color modulation effects) until I was mostly using oils. Made a complete break when I switched to Tamiya acrylics for airbrushing and stopped buying hobby enamels. Found out that undercoating with acrylics was really helpful and allowed me to use even less oil paint for thinner coats, so added those to my kit bag.

However, there are guys who are masters of each of the various techniques that can paint figures that will make your eyes pop out of your head. So, there is no (IMO) single best technique except the one that works best for you.

So, start with one particular medium and try to master the techniques used with it without getting distracted by discussions and tips and recommendations for materials and techniques the other mediums. You might consider what kinds of model paints that you have invested most of your money model in.

If you have a ton of Model Master hobby enamels, then maybe you should start with that. If you have bottles and bottles of Vallejo and Andre acrylic paints, then you might want to start with those. (Tamiya acrylics, on the other hand, cannot be brush painted without a lot of head aches, so don't count those in you decision on which medium to try.) If you have tubes and tubes of artist oils and Abt 502 oils, then you might be comfortable trying those.

If after some time, you find that you can't get the results you want, then consider changing up mediums. You've got to find your own comfort zone with materials that you're comfortable working with before you can ever really get good at it.

HTH,

Got to agree with everything SdAufKla says.
I use a basecoat of Tamiya acrylic mixed with celulose thinner, sprayed on. This is followed by block painting with enamels and finishing in artists oils.
.....But that's just me, it may be that you're happy doing it a different way. Find out which medium or mix of mediums you're happy working with and practice, practice, practice.