Painting Plastic Miniatures | Dungeon Master's Blog

How to Paint Plastic Miniatures for Dungeons and Dragons

In this tutorial, we'll be talking about painting the new style of plastic or polymer miniatures for use in dungeons and dragons or other tabletop gaming. In the olden days of yore, back when I was first learning how to play these games, minis were only available as expensive, little, pewter guys. Their cost made it so that building an army of goblins, skeletons, town guards or really even keeping up with having a mini for your each of your favorite characters was almost impossible to do. Nowadays, though, companies have developed the technology to use those same pewter molds and fill them with a very inexpensive polymer, that makes the white plastic miniatures that we see all over more modern tabletops.

The one fallback of these is that the white plastic doesn't show detail in the same way that the pewter models did, so it is almost a requirement to paint them in order to see any of the detail you are hoping for at your table. Don't worry, though, because soon you'll see the process laid out in broad strokes (see what I did there?) and your games will be played like the pros. There are two basic ways to prepare your minis, one being "table-ready" paint, the other being "showcase." In this case I'll be walking you through making your minis table-ready. We're not making works of art here; that being said, as you practice painting, you will get better and better at it over time.

Purchasing Plastic Minis

The first thing you need to do is get a hold of some plastic minis. Maybe you've got an awesome uncle or something that sent you a mess of miniatures to get started on your tabletop, and if that's the case, awesome....your uncle is righteous. But if not, you're probably going to want to find a good source to acquire what it is you're looking for. I'd suggest starting with the Reaper brand miniatures, whose line of "Reaper Bones" is probably the widest selection available for dungeons and dragons. Since Reaper has been at the minis game for a long time, they have a great selection of high-quality molds they were using for pewter minis, which converted to plastic tabletop minis without too much trouble.

Preparing the Plastic Minis

After getting yourself a set of tabletop miniatures, the next step is to unpackage them, and then prepare them to accept a little bit of paint. In order to make these things in a mold, the mini companies often have to coat the molds with some kind of lubricant that keeps the liquid plastic from sticking to the metal molds. What's left of this lubricant can also make the paint not stick to it correctly. To take care of this, just make a sink full of dishwater, and soak the minis you're going to paint for a few minutes. After a bit, remove them from the soapy water, and use an old toothbrush to scrub them down. Make sure you at least lightly brush everything, including the bottom, and the base of the mini. Finally, just rinse it in clean running water, and set them aside to dry. Make sure you allow them to dry completely, though, as you won't want the water left on the mini to mix with the paint later on.

Applying the Black Wash

This is probably the most important part to making certain that your minis turn out all right. Blackwashing is the process by which you make sure that all of the cracks and crevices get paint on them. Since the deepest pieces of the mini would naturally look darker, even shadowed, compared to other parts of the mini, you're going to want to use black paint. Take a little jar of black acrylic paint, and put a single drop into a plastic paint cup or pallet. Start with the base, and using the paint just as thick as it came out of the tube, lather the paint onto the base to make certain it is black. You'll also want to turn the mini over and paint the bottom black as well. This isn't "washing," though. That part comes next.

You have one drop of black paint in your pallet. If you used it all to paint your base, go ahead and add a little more. Now, take your cup of water that you have handy (always keep a small cup of water handy to soak your brushes in), and use your brush to soak a little up, and drip it into the paint, one drop at a time. Add maybe three or four drops of water to your paint, and mix them together with the tip of your brush. Now, your base probably had time to dry, but if not, you're going to want to give it another minute. Once it is dry, use your brush to work the paint into the mini, allowing the water to carry it into cracks and crevices. You're literally hoping to "wash" your miniature in the paint and water mix. It's okay if some of the mini still looks white, so long as in between the armor, or the ribs of the skeleton, and the buckles of the shoes and all the tiny details starts to turn black. In the picture above, it looks like the whole minis are black, but it is truly a very thin coat, with much of the miniature showing through.

The paint will shrink some upon drying, as the water evaporates, and it is absolutely necessary to let the black wash dry. Maybe even leave it overnight and don't touch it again until you're ready to do some part of the next step.

Paint the Deepest Details First

If all you really want to do is have some fun, detailed minis on your table, you can stop right here. A blackwashed plastic mini will show the details that you want, and look great on your tabletop as a part of your game. If you really have the gumption, though, feel free to start applying colors. You're going to want to start in the "deepest" parts of the mini. Tucked under its armor, or behind the weapon it is carrying. Between its legs and under its cloak. These places will be the hardest to reach later on, and if you finish the pieces that are in the way first, you'll likely fudge a little, and get the wrong color on something that you didn't intend. So start on the things that are hidden and hard to reach. Look at the goblin below. See how I made sure to do the whole mouth before I ever got around to the skin color? I painted the base color that I wanted the inside of the mouth to be, then I did the tongue, since it is "above" the mouth, meaning the back of the mouth is harder to reach than the tongue or the teeth. Then I did the tongue, then the teeth, then the lips, so I wouldn't get the wrong colors in the wrong places, and the details would work out like an actual mouth would look.

Grouping Colors

Once that is out of the way, you're going to want to "group" colors together. Are there a lot of things that you think are going to be dark brown? Like a belt, a quiver of arrows, boots and maybe some leather pouches or a backpack? Try to get them all done at once, lightly applying paint in thin coats to make them all pop out at once. This will help you see more of the details in each of the parts of the minis as you start to identify all of its parts. Work on clothing the same way, or get all of the skin and the armor knocked out at once. The first thing grouping will do is show you details you may not have seen before. As you work on a belt, for instance, there might be a tiny pouch that you didn't even know was there until you started identifying everything that should have been brown.

Another good reason to group colors together is so that if you're blending colors together in a pallet, you don't have to remember how you blended your new color together, which you will always get wrong if you try to repeat the process. In the example above, I've blended some yellow together with green and a little bit of cream to make a pasty goblin skin color. I made sure to paint all of the goblins I was going to paint with that mixture so I never would have to make that blend again, and potentially make the wrong mixture. Also, in the example below, I had colored the beard, quiver, sword sheath, boots, everything the same color brown. Once I painted the armor and clothes in their various colors of silver, steel and purple, having the colors grouped together as the same color brown let me see that the beard needed some kind of highlighting, to make it look different than the leather items the mini was carrying.

Highlighting with Lighter Colors

And now we get to talk about drybrushing. This is usually one of the last steps. The beard of this mini was originally the same color as all of the leather bits. It may not look like it in this picture, since I also dry-brushed the other leather parts to make them a little lighter in color, but they were all an extremely dark, burnt umber color. If you could look deep into the cracks and crevices of the beard, hair and leather parts, you would still see that deep umber color in there too. What I did to make this happen is called "dry-brushing." It is almost exactly what it sounds like. I put a tiny touch of paint on a flat brush, as thin a brush as I owned, and then laid a paper towel down, and brushed the paint off of the brush and onto the paper towel. The tiny amount of paint left on the brush was then dragged across the hair of the beard sideways, across the grain, to only highlight the very highest parts of the beard with the lighter colored paint. This is a fairly advanced technique, so dont be surprised if it doesn't work out every time until you get the hang of it. If you're trying it for the first time, try with the driest brush you can manage, meaning, get as much paint off of the brush as you can before you touch it to the mini. As you get more comfortable with it, you'll start to notice how much paint you really want to leave on the brush.

Work on the Details

So now you've gotten everything washed in black, made great progress on grouping your colors together, and learned how to change those groups into more custom looks with dry brushing. So what's left? The string on the pouch. the leather of the handle of a dagger, or the piece of cloth tying back a pony tail, that's what. It's time to focus on the details. While grouping colors, you may have noticed that there are tiny little details that you saw, like the studs in the leather armor, or the buckle on the belt. Take the tiniest brush you have, and just barely touch it to your paint so just the tip is colored. Then use it like a needle to get the very slightest amounts of paint into those tiny details. Try it with metallic colors, like for a belt buckle turning bronze, and see if you like the way it works. If you don't, then just skip this, the mini probably looks great as it is.

Basing and Flocking a D&D Mini

And the last thing. This is so unimportant that its almost not worth mentioning. Most of the minis I make don't ever get based, since that black paint we put on in step 1 is fine enough to make it table-ready. But if you are really proud of your paint job, you might want to put some more details on the base. I wouldn't try painting the bases, since it is almost impossible to make plastic rocks look like real rocks, or plastic grass look like real grass. Instead, use white glue, like Elmers glue, and a little bit of water, again mixing the two in your pallet. Use a brush you don't care about, like, not one of your good detailing brushes (the glue will ruin your brush, no matter how well you wash it afterwards), and put that glue on the base. Be careful not to get it on you mini's shoes or feet, cloak or any other thing that touches the base. Now, grab some flocking. What is flocking? whatever you prefer. Playground sand is a good option. Or some fake floral moss. Crush it up in your fingers, and sprinkle it onto the places where you put the glue. Then set the mini down, and leave it alone for several hours. When you pick it up, most of what you put on there will fall off. That's okay, because some of it will have stuck. And thanks to that black paint you put on the base, it will stand out, and the black paint will look great underneath it. If not enough of the flocking stuck, just do it again. its okay to get glue on top of the flocking that is already there, it will only help hold it down more, and it will dry clear.

Clean up after yourself

You don't get to play with the minis you didnt finish. and you didn't finish, if you didn't wash your brushes (to keep them from ruining), wash out your pallet, and set your wet minis aside to dry.

Now, Go Have Fun.

Remember the first rule to role playing games....its all about having fun. So go do that. And remember how righteous your uncles are.