After trying my hand at painting humans to mixed results I decided to practice on Ape X. This is large sized cyborg gorilla miniature from the original Bones Kickstarter that got worse than it deserved from me.
I think that the finished job is functional but it’s a bit of a waste of a fun sculpt.
I put some effort into layering the fur which I think turned out okay. But I really mangled the belly and face, then tried to recover by painting it in black which killed the details. One day I plan to go over these miniatures with a matte finish to take off the shine.
I think the matte finish is an excellent idea. You can either get some inexpensive spray-on matte varnish or buy varnish that you can apply by brush, and just give your minis a thin layer to take off the shine (since they are already protected by the MinWax). If you go with the latter option, I strongly recommend Vallejo’s Matte varnish.
Thanks, I’m going to give it a try. I like the protection of polyurethane but it’s way too shiny. Plus, more protection is a good thing. Does spray on varnish follow the same guidelines as spray on primer? Not much I can do about the frigid weather, unfortunately.
Thanks, I’m going to give it a try. I like the protection of polyurethane but it’s way too shiny. Plus, more protection is a good thing. Does spray on varnish follow the same guidelines as spray on primer? Not much I can do about the frigid weather, unfortunately.
Yep, same exact rules. You should only need a very thin coat to dull out the shine, so frosting should not be as much of a problem as you had with primer, where you needed to cover the whole miniature.
If you find out that you got frosting anyways and you get some foggy spots in your miniature, wait for it to dry and then use a brush to gently dab some Gloss Varnish or MinWax on the area, wait for it to dry and repeat as much as needed. It won’t fix it 100%, but it will disguise the fogginess.