Painting those LPB's

[Arlaghan]

I've decided to try my hand at painting those little plastic folks. My Preiser set of railroad workers have been worked to the bone! Need to start populating my railroad structures with permanent residents!

Thanks to Jon-monon for the link to Brian Fayle's Figure Painting Website. I've taken some of the ideas found here and merged them with what I already know from my days of Dungeons & Dragons 25mm figure painting plus the advice from Warhammer Figure painters world-wide!

I will post my painted LPB's to this thread. But first, let me show you my new "workstation" that I set up in my living room for this purpose. It's an old drafting table with my new magnifying lamp ($20 from Staples) and a brand new set of acrylics, fine point paintbrushes and paint brush tub ($20 total at Michael's). I have since added another swivel arm lamp to the other side to provide more light when I am not using the magnifier. Believe it or not, I find it easier to use my own eyesight and only use the magnifier to "study" the model before I begin.

 

[Arlaghan]

Brian Fayle's advice is to paint the figures black. This will serve as the dark shadows and you dry-brush the color on top of this, careful to leave the shadow areas black. (See his website for details.) This is contradictory to the practice I've learned from wargaming, but I decided to try it out. Here is a sprue painted black with regular paint from a cheap spray can from Wal-mart:

 

[Arlaghan]

Say Hello to Guillermo

I painted this guy bald and he looked so much like my father-in-law that I just had to give him that name. I am getting a bunch of seated figures ready to populate my next scratch-build - a Wendy's Hamburger joint - and so he's got his white hankie tucked in so he doesn't dirty his nice suit!

Colors used: Flesh tone, Cape Cod Blue, White
Washes used: Brown and Black
Total painting time: Approx. 10 mins

This is all I've got for now, I will post more figures here as I make more progress.

 

[Arlaghan]

And here is Olga...

This one also took me about 10 - 15 minutes to do. Try to look at it from a distance, as this is how they will be seen on the layout. The colors tend to blend at about a foot away, and at more than that they look very realistic. Zoomed in like this they look rather... enh.... ummm....

 

[jon-monon]

:thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

 

[shaywen]

Thanks for the link and the examples. I have several hundred naked LPB's and was waiting for inspiration. :thumb:

shaywen

 

[Anachron]

you are crazy
how the h**l can you pant those little dots of plastic so realistic?

:thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:
5/5 for you

 

[ezdays]

Originally posted by Anachron
how the h**l can you pant those little dots of plastic so realistic?

Well, he never said what scale so just imagin those number represent feet, not inches. Not so hard now is it?

Hey, fantastic job at any scale.:thumb: :thumb:

Don

 

[Arlaghan]

Thanks guys.

Though, the size (They are N scale, by the way) may at fist seem daunting (it did for me!) in actuality they were quite easy. The difficulty in painting figurines (for me anyway) comes when you have to worry about not "coloring outside the lines." The more times you have to dip your brush in paint and return it to the model, the more chance you have of doing this... since these are so small, less trips to reload the brush, less chances of messing up! Plus the small size means you are done quicker! I will admit, though... it helps to have good eyes... or to practice depth perception on the magnifier... either way is good.

Now... time to get some more folk to move into my layout!

 

[Arlaghan]

Here's another one...

 

[Arlaghan]

One more...

Hmmm, I'm undecided on this method... From far away they look pretty good, but up close they look awful! The figures are so small that... well, I dunno... what do you guys think? I'm going to try to put them in a setting... maybe that will help me decide.

 

[Anachron]

I still think you are crazy
even more now that I know they are N scale
its impossible to paint those fellas

 

[Arlaghan]

Anachron, you really ought to try it! I thought the exact same thing, until I paid $10 for 5 Preiser figures and said "No way, this cannot continue like this." So I bought the box of unpainted ones to give it a shot. $20 and it came with over 120 people and 6 benches! (Not the ones in the photo, though, but they are the same.)

Here is a comparison shot. The one on the left is Guillermo, painted using the shadow techniques and the one on the right is a figure that came from a Preiser set, already painted. What do you think looks better?

 

[Arlaghan]

And here is a shot of the 4 new "citizens" with a scenic surrounding. (The gas station is all I have that's fully 'scenicked' right now.) Sorry that the photo is a little blurred, I guess it was trying to focus on the structure (which I cropped out) but I think this gives the general idea of what they will look like.

Opinions, please! Don't worry, my feelings won't be hurt.

 

[Arlaghan]

Grrr, ok, here's the picture I forgot to post...

 

[Russ Bellinis]

I can't see any difference between the figure you painted and the one Prieser sent already painted. I think that when you get a layout full of lpb's no one will try to look closely to see facial expressions anyway.

 

[spitfire]

Alex, I think the ones you painted look better - at least in the photos. I read about that technique and I think it has potential, but perhaps black is too dark a colour. After all, how many shadows are really black? I think some experimentation with shadow colour might be worthwhile.

The advantage of this technique is that if you miss a spot (which I invariably do) it's not glaring white plastic.

Anyway, your LPB look right at home on that bench. Looking good!

Val

 

[Matthyro]

I like your figures too Alex. Do you use one of those magnifyers that fits on your head with two lenses. Very easy to work with as they are hands free.

 

[RailRon]

Arl, your comparison of Guillermo with Mr. Preiser is very interesting.

I never could explain before, why the painted Preiser figures look good, but still somehow toylike. But your pic gave me the clue: It's the absence of the shadows (e.g. between the legs).

Val's suggestion to do some experimenting with the shadow color sounds good to me. Perhaps the contrast between lighted and shadowed parts of the body is a little bit softer then, which COULD be even better. (But for my eyes it's already perfect now!)

And this is really N scale! Unbelievable! I congratulate you to your eyesight and your steady hand! :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

Ron

 

[Ray Marinaccio]

Nice job Arlaphan.
I tryed painting HO figures before.
After seeing yours and how you did them, I'll try again.