Painting 7mm scale figures

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
During several of the coach builds I’ve documented on WT I’ve included images of some of the passenger figures. I’ve not detailed how I went about painting them, and I was asked a while ago if I wouldn’t mind outlining my techniques for painting figures.

I want to stress these are my techniques. They are based on techniques used by other modellers, and I duly acknowledge their input into my creative process. I don’t expect anyone to follow my processes to the letter. Think of them as a springboard from which to develop your own techniques.

Usually I choose to use Humbrol enamels. I have never been truly comfortable with acrylics, but that is more down to my lack of experience with the medium than any fault of the paints themselves. I have a selection of colours from the Tamiya range, and recently supplemented them with a couple of sets of the LifeColor range, including a set of flesh colours.

Some figure painters spend a long time blending shades to give depth to the model, highlighting features and so on. If the sculptor has done their job well, the figure will have plenty of detail which will only need mild enhancement with paint effects. I want a natural appearance, not a badly made-up clown. I only enhance shadows if I think they need it, preferring the sculpted folds and so on to do their own thing.

I should apologise for some gaps in the pictorial record. Painting a figure is a free-flowing process, and not easy to document at each stage. In some ways, a video would be easier to show blending and painting, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.

IMG_8003.jpg

The victims for this tutorial are cast metal figures. The shunter hails from the Omen Miniatures range, while the signalman with the mug is from Pete Armstrong’s Border Miniatures range.

Preparation

Spend a while cleaning off mould lines and flash from the castings. It’s one of my pet peeves if an otherwise well-finished figure has mould lines in prominent places. If figures need assembling, now is the time to do so. In this case, the arm with the mug needed fixing to the torso of the signalman. I used a cyanoacrylate glue. Should a joint need filler, so be it, but tidy it up when dry, blending into the casting as necessary.

For ease of handling, and for ‘planting’ later on a layout, I drill into the heel of one foot to take a reasonable length of 0.9mm brass wire. Glue the wire in place.

It is often advised to clean new castings with a mild detergent and to let them dry before painting begins. I do this once I’ve finished fixing and fettling things.

IMG_8004.jpg

Stick the figures into something convenient to hold them while painting. I use an offcut of softwood, but I also have a hand vice which makes it easier to turn the figure round as you work.

IMG_8040.jpg

An undercoat is advisable. I have used rattle can acrylic primer in the past. For preference I will use a red oxide, though some advise using a black undercoat. It should ideally be a dark base colour, rather than white or grey, because it won’t show through if areas miss paint later on.

IMG_8005.jpg

For this pair I brush painted a Tamiya dark brown acrylic all over. I wanted to try this as an alternative, and suffering from a cold at the time I didn’t want to go through the rigmarole of face masks and heaters in the paint shop just to squirt some primer about.

Let the base coat dry thoroughly. If you have a warm place to place the figures, such as an airing cupboard or on a radiator, so much the better. Let them cure for at least 24 hours. Mine managed a couple of months, because “proper” work got in the way!

Tools

A method of holding the figures while working on them has been discussed already.

IMG_8038.jpg

If you are really serious about this, a selection of good quality sable brushes of sizes 1 down to 000 is worth acquiring. Set them aside for use with acrylic paint only. It is possible to use sable brushes with a variety of paint mediums, but you have to be very careful to clean thoroughly after each use. Easier, then, to keep a set for each kind of paint.

A palette for mixing and blending paints, and a couple of sheets of clean kitchen paper for cleaning the brushes.

A good magnifier, preferably with built in lighting.

Hands and faces

It’s commonly accepted that faces and hands should be painted before clothing and other details. I usually begin with a darker base colour, with the intention of adding lighter shades as needed.

IMG_8042.jpg

I started with an overall coat of LifeColor Flesh No 1 Shadow, applied with the No 1 brush. (I found most of the work could be done using the one brush, even though I had selected smaller sizes for detail work. Your mileage may vary.)

While the Flesh Paint Set includes six shades, two each of shadow, mid-tones and highlights, I find I only need two or possibly three shades to paint a figure. Blending colours as you go - I use plain tap water - gives a fair variety of shades.

IMG_8045.jpg

Being acrylic it dries very quickly. The next shade I selected was the mid-tone Flesh No 2 Base. I didn’t load the brush with a lot of paint, wiped some of the excess off onto the kitchen towel, and gently applied it over the base coat. I painted the forehead, cheekbones and nose, front of the chin, rims of the ears and along the jaw line. I left the eye sockets and mouth with the original base coat. I mixed a slightly darker shade of the two colours so far, and applied this around the neck and hands. With the hands, depending on the skill of the sculptor, I try to leave darker paint in between the fingers, and areas that are in shadow such as the bottom of sleeves.

IMG_8047.jpg

The final shade selected was Flesh No 1 Light. Again, using the palette, I blended this pale shade with the other colours. Again, I highlighted the same areas as before, but mixing the shades to give a little variation. It’s around this time you realise the little person has a moustache! A nice trick to try is to highlight knuckles and finger joints on the hands.

IMG_8048.jpg

To finalise, I repeat the process as I feel necessary. I usually need to reapply some darker shades into the eye sockets, along the sides of the nose and down to the corners of the mouth.

The secret is to know when to stop. If you think you’ve gone too far, let it dry and assess the damage. In the worst case, simply recoat with a base layer and start over - just be careful not to let paint build up too heavily or it loses the fine details of the casting.

Personally, I don’t bother with painting the whites of the eyes. From normal viewing distances, such details are not visible. You don't often see the whites of eyes in real humans, which you can test next time you wander down your local high street. From across a road, you won't see more than some shadows and perhaps the line of the lashes.

When I begin the process of painting the clothing, I shall paint hair and facial hair. That will be the next part of this tutorial, and it may be a while coming!
 

Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
It has been a while, but here we go with the second part. This has been prompted by having a pair of crew figures to paint for a loco I'm building, so all four figures have got the treatment today.

Clothes

Having painted the faces and hands, I turned to Humbrol matt enamels for the clothing. Railway uniforms have tended to the dark blue or black over the years, with shirts either pale blue, cream or white. I have a figure that resembles a signalman, holding his mug, and a shunter with his pole. Let's take the signalman first.

image.jpg

I have actually completed most of the painting here, but I generally work in this order: shirt collar and front, jacket/waistcoat, trousers and boots. It's easier to block in the shirt before the outer garments, though I tend to leave the tie until later. In this case, being a clerical position, I've assumed a nice clean white shirt for our middle-aged Neville Chamberlain lookalike, so out with the Humbrol Matt 34. I diluted the paint a little in a mixing tray with a small amount of white spirit. I was not too bothered about getting even coverage, so if some of the undercoat shows through this helps with the modelling.

Next, Humbrol Matt 33 for the trousers and boots. Once properly dry, the boots will get a satin varnish. I decided Neville's waistcoat might be a dark grey rather than black. A proper waistcoat wold have a satin back, but I've not gone to that extent for this tutorial. To simulate a shiny material like satin or silk, I might consider one of the metalcote paints mixed with black or grey, followed up with a gentle buff with a clean cotton bud.

The grey hair base colour was mixed from black and white. A darker shade was mixed up, thinned so it ran nicely from the brush, then painted in streaks to give some impression of depth. A lighter grey shade was mixed, and drybrushed to highlight the cast detail. Finally, a nice blue was chosen for the tie. You can usually work quite quickly with enamels, and even mix them on the work to get varied shades, which is useful for developing light and shade in clothing folds.

I finished off with the mug, painted white with blue stripes applied from a fine brush. Like the boots, a coat of satin will add a little shine to the ceramic and the contents. I haven't worked out a way to simulate a steaming mug sadly.

image.jpg

Our shunter, being a slightly younger character, eschews a tie under most circumstances. His wide shirt collar is folded neatly over his uniform jacket collar. Only his jacket buttons are picked out with a careful drybrush with silver. Again, I began with the shirt, mixing a slightly off white rather than pure white. I then blocked in the trousers, jacket, cap and boots in black. Later, the boots and cap peak will get a coat of satin varnish. Figures with headgear don't leave a lot of work for the hair, but I still try to add a little drybrush detailing if I can.

For hair colours, it's worth spending a while trying to study real humans. Although there are many more vibrant colours that hair can be dyed these days, it's still useful to try and replicate natural colours and highlighting rather than paint a model head in a single flat colour.

image.jpg

This is the steam loco driver who will be in charge of the WD being built in a thread elsewhere. I've assumed he and his fireman have just come on shift, so their work gear is fairly clean. The process of painting was much the same as the guinea pig figures, beginning with skin tones, then shirt, dungarees, jacket and boots in that order. I mixed the pale blue-grey from Hunbrol Matt 87 and 89, mixing black to give me a slightly darker shade for shading and a light application of dirt. Once the paint has hardened I shall tidy things up a little round the wrists and bottom of the trouser legs, then satin varnish for the boots and grease top cap.

image.jpg

The fireman has stowed his jacket in his locker, so after his face and hands were painted I mixed a slightly off-white for his shirt. The dungarees got a slightly bluer shade than the driver, and again I added some shading and dirt from drybrushing variations on the basic shade.

image.jpg

Dirty patches have been drybrushed where grubby hands might be wiped, such as the backside and around the pockets. Some grubbiness was added to the knees to give an impression of having crawled about in the bunker for a short while. Again, the boots and cap will be satin varnished, though the boot toes might be scuffed.

Conclusion

I hope the techniques I've explained prove useful. As with so many of these things, my methods have been developed over time, and do vary from other people's. I think my methods allow a figure to be painted relatively quickly - the loco crew, for example, took me about an hour to get to the photo stage. The base undercoat had a good 48 hours to dry, and I will probably leave the figures another day or two before final tidying up and matt varnish protective top coats.

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, please pipe up!
 
Last edited:

Tappa

Western Thunderer
Very nice Heather. As someone who also enjoys painting figures, I am so glad it isn't just me who doesn't bother detailing eyes. There seems to be an obsession with detailing 7mm eyes and it looks so un-natural. I also use the "across the road" rule for detail.
A very good dodge for getting shadows onto figures is to use the Army Painter Quickshade - strong tone. I have used it along with a quick blast of Testors Dullcote.

Jeff
 
Top