I will be painting 1/35 figures of WWII Germans

1) to start, should I prime the pieces?

2) should the accessories be on the figure already?

3) what size brush to use?

4) if the uniform is field grau then do I shade all the creases in the uniform (field grau + black first) then paint the rest of the uniform field gray? What is highlighting?

Questions like these, the answers will vary from modeller to modeller. This would be my answer
1) to start, should I prime the pieces?
I usually do. I use a cheap primer from a car accessory shop. It has good bite and makes paint stick easier. It also shows up little mistakes, gaps and imperfections, which you can easly fix before going further. Fix and re-prime.

2) should the accessories be on the figure already?
I fully assmeble the figure with most accessories. Never helmet, gun or folding spade. If the head is supplied with helmet I keep this seperae also. All accessories should have appropriate belts and fixings

3) what size brush to use?
003 for most things and 005 for fine details

4) if the uniform is field grau then do I shade all the creases in the uniform (field grau + black first) then paint the rest of the uniform field gray? What is highlighting?
I would paint the base coat first of field grau. Let it dry. Then mix some base and dark colour for shadows and some base and lighter colour for highlights.
There are lots of options here. this would be a 3-tone shading. It could be a 5-tone as more experienced painters might use. Base and dark tone for first shadow, and black for recesses. Base and light colour for highlights, and highlights and white for peaks. This is then all feathered together by slightly dabbing the brush and blending the different shades together, so no recogniseable lines are present. The highlights are the little peaks...... that would catch the light more

thanks for the help but isn't the smallest brush a '0' please send me a link to buy mini brushes?

Not a bad idea, though I confess I don't always do it.



Depends on whether or not you can easily reach them while painting. Also depend on the quality of the engineering. For example, the Pegaso kits I've done have bee so well designed that I could paint the pieces separately form the whole then assemble with no seam showing.




I use a 1 or 2 for larger areas that are too small to airbrush. For fine detail work I'll use a five 0 and they go down to a ten 0. I also have the remains of a brush that has only a few bristles left for really small lines.






Plasticbattle covered this quite well. You could also apply a dark wash to the creases and let that be your shadow. Using oils they will tend to feather out nicely on their own. Dry brushing is another good way to highlight. Again, the technique tends to blend the edges.

Well here are my two cents

I only prime if I am using light colors over dark plastic or if I intend to use oil paints.

I leave the helmet, fire arm off. If there is anything that will be a different color I leave it off. Everything else can go on. But I don't have a firm rule on it.

I use a brush that is 'as small as the crease or crevice'. I typically airbrush overall color and flesh base coat. The go to the brush. The size depends on the figure. I will use as many as necessary on one figure. If you're brushing the entire figure you may want to use a brush that is about 5mm wide (don't know the 'art' size of that) for the basic painting then the skinny 0-0000 sizes.

here's a link to one manufacturere
http://www.micromark.com/ go to the painting link, then brushes link

I always prime, using XF 54. For the shade-parts i use the basecolours, mixed with "nato-black" XF 69. For me, this works better than "pure" black. I use this with quite a lot of water, so it will blend a little. For the highlighted part i use baseclour with white. Still learning and trying different things every time. I always complet the figure befor painting