Mantic Dwarfs: An easy painting guide
Mantic Games’ miniatures are affordable and quick to build, making putting a fantasy army together easy. Once you’ve built your units you’ll want to get them painted and ready for the tabletop so Big Orbit games has put together an easy painting guide for Mantic’s new range of Dwarfs.
This guide will demonstrate how to get your rank and file Dwarfs ready for battle in 5 easy steps, most of which just take a minute or two and involve minimal painting skill. This guide is also suitable for painting characters but you may wish to add extra detail during the basecoating stage.
Materials used in this guide:
Army Painter Paint Set with Matt Black Primer
Army Painter Quickshade Dip – Strong Tone
Army Painter Anti-Shine Matt Varnish
Step 1: Undercoat
Easy one this, using the matt black undercoat spray from the paint set, apply a even undercoat using sweeping motions across the model or models. Note: Remember to shake the can for at least a minute.
Step 2: Basecoat
Using the paints in the Army Painter Paint Set, paint the model using flat colours, i.e. using no shading or highlights. For our dwarf we used gold for the armour, silver for the hammer and chain mail, red for the cloth, brown for the leather, flesh for the face and finally brown, darkened with a small amount of black, for the beard to make it make it stand out more.
The only real detail that was added was the eyes (not terribly well however as they are not my forte).
Step 3: Quickshade Dip
In this step we aim to get all the effects that would normally be achieved through highlighting and washing in one simple step.
Quickshade dip is a pigmented varnish so in this step you are adding shading and protecting your model at the same time. As this is a varnish it must be used after you have completely finished painting your model.
We are using “Strong Tone” Quickshade dip on our dwarf, “Soft Tone” & “Dark Tone” are also available, strong is the medium tone dip.
When using Quickshade dip you should dip your model using a pair of pliers and shake it off 5-6 times and then leave for 24 hours (this is why this is an easy painting guide rather than a quick painting guide :)).
You can also paint Quickshde on, you will need to be quite liberal with the amount used, also brushes will need to be cleaned thoroughly with washing up liquid when you have finished.
Step 4: Basing & Anti-shine Varnish
To base our dwarf we first painted the base brown and then added some sand to the base using super glue. We finished off by applying PVA to those areas of the base not covered in sand and giving the base a dip in a tub of static grass.
Quickshade dip produces a gloss finish, which most gamers are not too keen on, so to achieve a matt finish we give our model a coat of anti-shine matt varnish. As with the undercoat you should apply a even coat by using sweeping motions across the model or models, once again remembering to shake the can for at least a minute before you start.
So you could easily have say, 100 troops choices finished in a month ? that’s very impressive.
How thick is the quick dip ? And how messy is it ?
A quick painter could easily get a whole army painted in a month’s worth of evenings with quickshde dip.
The quick dip is very thick, that’s how it works, it slowly runs into the gaps and dries overnight. I have to admit it is messy, when you shake the model off you need to do this over a cardboard box or the kitchen sink (which can be cleaned with washing up liquid).
I always paint the dip on with a large brush. It´s not messy at all and you can see what you are doing. I guess it takes a little longer but you don´t have to clean your kitchen afterwards. I think Army Painter has a short “tutorial” on painting the dip on.
Hello Allan
I’m definitely thinking of painting the dip on it future too, it’s less messy and it should be easier to get a consistent finish on your models.
Paul