So I was hoping to get some opinions on basing and brushes.

Regarding bases, I have tried small rocks/dirt in the past and then painted them for flavor. I have also tried flock but truth be told never found a brand/color that really appealed to me that represented foilage and grass in 6mm. Any suggestions would be fantastic.

Lastly does anyone recommend a good paint brush for super fine details in 6mm? I base and highlight with assorted brushes ranging in sizes but I don't think they are sufficient for those super fine details like gold trim on an ultramarines pauldron for example. It could just be my technique of course. Still a noob painter, especially at this scale.

I would post pictures and brands/sizes of brushes I use but am currently at work. Any advice would be most helpful.

bases: Vallejo pastes

brushes: i find a good point is more important than brush size, citadel fine detail brush doe pretty much everything i need

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Do the pastes give it a nice earthy look?

Agreed on a sharp point. I think my brushes are too old. And after your painting in black examples I will never question any advice you give!

My main brushes are a Windsor & Newton Series 7 Miniature size 1, which I use for anything that doesn't need to be really super-fine, and for the few things that's too big for, I use an Escoda Reserva Series 1212, size 5/0. I also have a slightly larger (it's also supposedly a size 1 but it's considerably bigger than the W&N) no-name sable brush that I use for painting larger areas where I don't need to be all that precise, an old, worn-out GW standard brush that I use for applying glue to bases and other things that might damage it, and four old Citadel drybrushes that I use for (surprise, surprise) drybrushing. And that's about it. I have a large flat brush that I use for drybrushing larger models, but at 6mm that's only occasionally useful for very large War Engines.

Only the first two are anything fancy. The W&N is particularly amazing; when it comes to keeping a really fine point relative to the overall size of the brush, I've never seen anything like the Series 7 brushes. The Escoda isn't quite as great in that respect, but it's pretty damn good and goes down to a smaller size than the W&N.

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My suggestion would be the Basing System sold by Baccus specifically for 6mm figures. This has been used in all of these pics :








Essentially, PVA glue, fine sand, dark ink, highlight colours and finally short flock strands.

Thats it !


Phil

@axel- haven't heard of W&N before. Will definitely have to check that out.

@glorfindel- those bases look great! About to go look it up right now.

Thanks for the awesome tips guys. Now to get back to painting!

Yeah I've been thinking of splurging on some W&N series 7 0,00, and 000 since I hear nothing but goodness about them. Got a set sitting in my Amazon cart as we speak (just waiting on a deal).

As I seem to be the painting brush equivalent of a mass murderer (and that I use plenty of enamels and oils which are death to sable) I've taken to using Tamiya HF 87048 for most every day work. They have the interesting intersection of good enough to get a good tip with and simultaneously cheap enough (for how I purchase them) to not care. I buy boxes of 50 of them straight out of Hong Kong (takes forever to ship but is dirt cheap) and get them under a $USD by watching for over stock and trigger deals and just mob them when they come up. I've got a drawer full of them in their plastic sleeves whenever I feel one's gone crap.

I cannot possibly recommend vallejo pastes (any of them are awesome) more than I do. They are pure awesome. I especially like the Sandy Paste as being essentially an egg color you can paint, wash, or mix paint directly into it to get whatever color you want. Being an acrylic medium base you can thin with water to get the consistency you need. I often do a first pass with fairly thin stuff to get it up in all the recesses and between legs and tracks and a thicker application after that is dry. It's got a great binder so you can liberally mix in sand and aquarium sand, cork bits, chopped up plasticard, etc to make detritus. Best of all it comes in a giant tub that will last years.

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I have two W&N brushes - the first one always wants to split into two points. $20 down the drain. The second one's been great, but I'm still scared of expensive brushes after that experience. I also had unusually good luck with one of the older GW brushes so maybe I'm living in bizarro world (but that was a dark blue one, before they switched to more expensive and lower quality black-handled brushes).

If you do get a smaller brush, go for the more tapered ones instead of long, narrow bristles. Otherwise the paint dries as you raise the brush to the miniature.