Practical 6mm painting and basing

This is just how I do things. Feel free to follow your own advice.

Special points concerning 6mm painting

These tips will produce good-loking figures fast. Painting 6mm is increadibly fast work; they're so small that you can cheat a lot (which I always do ;-)

• Paint around 40 strips (200 figures) per batch. This will produce 10-40 stands of figures.
• Undercoat with a spray preferably in a darkish colour predominant on the figure: brown for Indians, light brown for Gauls, no undercoating for mediaevals (leave armour unpainted, but washed) and so on. Undercoat horses on a strip-by-strip fashion, using a brush, with different shades of brown and grey for different strips.
• Use brighter colors than usually. Small figures = small areas of color, so you need brighter colors to see them clearly! Also use, for example, silver instead of iron and gold instead of bronze. I use different brands of acrylics.
• Don't paint too much detail, people aren't likely to notice it, anyway. Go for shield designs on at least some of your troops, though, as this really looks good!
• As the last thing you do before basing, paint the base of the figure green or brown. This cleans up mistakes and prepares them for basing and flocking.
• Don't shade or highlight figures: paint them with plain colors, and wash them or use the dipping technique after you have based them.
• Basing: Break the figure off from the rest of the strip, and glue it to the base with PVA. Leave to dry. If you need to rebase, simply let the base stand in water for 2 hours, after which time the glue has softened enough for you to simply pick off the figure.
• Flocking: I paint the bases with watered-down PVA with a bit of washing up liquid to break surface tension, and leave the bases standing in flock overnight. I use the Woodland Scenics "Green Blend" and "Earth blend" flock for bases.
• Spray the figures with a coat of varnish after they are based, dipped and flocked.

Types of paint

I use different kinds of acrylics, chiefly Citadel, Ral Partha and Miniature Paints (somewhere in my hidden past I was a fantasy player). I wash the based figures with the dipping technique to produce shadows, and to protect them. I spray the finished bases with Citadel matt varnish for even better protection, and to help keep the flock in place.

Basing material

We bought a large sheet of 0,75mm thick steel from a metalworker, and got him to cut it up into bases for us. This is fast and cheap, and the bases are accurate, sturdy, and magnetic.

I previously used 1mm fibreboard, cut with scalpels along a ruler. Then I glued sheet metal to one side, so I could store the finished bases in boxes lined with magnetic sheets. I got this metal from cake boxes which I cut up using scissors, but other sources exist.

No matter the material of the base, I paint the base green or brown using cheap acrylics (or a spray can to save time but waste money) before I base.

Glue

PVA, both for fixing the figures to the base and for flock (the last with watered-down PVA mixed with a slight bit of washing up liquid to break surface tension).

Painting times for 6mm figures:

Rule of thumb: 20 minutes per color per batch of 200 figs. This requires a correct state of mind: slap the paint on really fast. Never mind if you make small mistakes - the dipping technique will take care of that. After you've finished, you'll be surprised to note that the figures look good, anyway. I paint all my figures this way, and feel the look of my figures is very acceptable.

I.e. 200 Indian bowmen: spray brown, leave to dry. Paint white skirt, bamboo bow, light brown arrows, orange sword sheath, black hair, green ground. Each at 20 minutes gives a total of 2 hours for these 16 bases. (in actual fact, I use less time painting these Indians. Especially the sword sheaths and arrows take very little time).

The only exception to the above is general's elements, shield designs and standards. You'll often find yourself using much more time on these, and I feel this is justified as they do a lot for the general look of the army.