Sprue to Pitch

Hello, welcome and thanks for joining me for another edition of my how to paint minis for beginners series In our previous editions I've covered assembly, priming, and basecoating. It has just occured to me however that we haven't discussed one of the most important things when it comes to mini painting (especially blood bowl players), color selection. Choosing a kit ( a kit is a team's dedicated colors, IE Philadelphia Eagles are Silver and Midnight Green, NY Yankees pinstripe Blue, La Lakers Purple and Yellow) to match your team is no simple feat. You must consider a multitude of things, including the team race, what colors look good together as well as what colors you actually like. Take for example my Chaos Chosen Team. The main kit colors I chose were Mephiston Red and The Fang. You can see the two main colors expressed in the team coin. I main reason I chose these colors was because they matched the kit of the Chaos Chosen Team I played in my PS4 Blood Bow...

Welcome to the next step of painting The Doom Lords 2016 Chaos Chosen Blood Bowl team!  In our previous posts we covered assembly, and priming.  Please check them out if you need help with those steps. Okay here it is, it's rubber meets the road time.  You've primed your minis now you are ready to actually start applying paint. Let's take a step and just congratulate yourself for getting this far. Most models bought are never even assembled let alone primed. So by doing that we have already achieved more than most. Now to set ourselves up for success we are going to need paint and brushes.  Miniature painting can be an expensive hobby with most paint pots running between 3 and 7 dollars a piece. Not to mention that a quality brush can also be very expensive. Fortunately there is a cost effective solution that can get your toolbox ready for action.   Citadel sells a starter kit for Warhammer 40k that you can usually find in your Local hobby shop ...

Welcome to the next step for our Chaos Chosen Team going from based to primed! Now I know what you are thinking "going based to primed" sounds like alt-right speak, but I assure you it describes the process of covering your miniature figures in a layer of primer which will make painting much, much easier. Most hobby and miniature paint will not adhere well to bare plastic. Trying to paint unprimed plastic is like trying to pour marinara sauce on your spaghetti without draining the noodles well enough. The good stuff slides right off. The first thing we want to do is get ourselves a good can of spray primer. I highly recommend the spray primer made by Citadel. It is a little expensive (22-27 a can) but it's good to cover 25-40 minis depending on how you spray which is usually more than enough to do a Blood Bowl Team or two. It comes in a variety of colors from black to grey to white to even bone and gold metal.  Choose the primer based upon how dark or light yo...

Cutters and plastic glue along with an x-acto knife or mold line remover are essential tools for de-spruing and assembling plastic miniatures. During separation always separate the pieces for each figure. I like to keep them on a paper plate or a post it note to keep all pieces accounted for. Once you've removed and separated the pieces you will want to inspect each piece for flash lines. Flash lines are the thin line from where the Sprue was in the mold.  You don't have to remove them but the different between an okay model and a great model is removing those flash lines. You want to be very careful when you do this, too much pressure when sanding or trimming can spell disaster. There are two ways to remove flash lines.   If the lines arent pronounced you can usually use a little fine grit sandpaper or Emory board. I prefer an Emory board because I can trim it to size to fit right spaces.  Just sand and keep checking until the area is smooth....

 This post will be the first of hopefully many where I post pictures and discuss the fine art of miniature painting. The blog name Sprue to Pitch comes from the process of clipping plastic models out of molds or "sprues" and getting them ready for the Pitch which is the field in which Blood Bowl is played. Sprue To Pitch So please check back for more photos and progress!