Miniature paint schemes reference

Many years ago, I wrote reminders in a little lined book. This contained the proportions of each paint I had used to create a specific colour and notes on what painting techniques achieved a particular result.

I can afford to buy more paints now, so I rarely mix a colour from scratch, therefore I don't need to keep a record of that, but what colours and techniques I have used for specific models and results is still handy. This page will become a reminder of those and an index to other more detailed articles.

I'll refer back here, as I used to with my little book. It will be handy when creating additions to an army or just to produce something similar.

Power armour - green

Base: Russian green (71.017) airbrush.

Wash: black

Dry brush edge highlights: Goblin green (72.030)

Gecko skin - blue scales

Base: Royal Blue (70.809)

Wash: Sepia (73.300)

Dry brush: Sky blue (70.961)

Saurian skin - greenish yellow scales

Base: Beasty brown (72.043)

Wash: Black

Dry brush: Gold yellow (72.007)

Reptile - green scales

Base: Olive green (71.007) airbrush or black primer

Dry brush: Goblin green (72.030)

Green reptile skin and steel plate

Steel plate

Base: Silver metallic.

Wash: Black.

Dry brush: Silver or silver highlight.

Suit of armour

Suit of Armour

Base: Black primer

Dry brush: Silver metallic.

This technique covers a lot of surface very quickly.

Reptile - green with brownish scales

Base: Olive green (71.007) airbrush

Dry brush: Beasty brown (72.043)

Cast Iron

Base: Gunmetal metallic.

Dry brush: Silver metallic.

Cast iron, dark bronze and green with brownish scales

Dark Bronze

Base: Bronze metallic (70.998).

Wash: Ancient copper shade (Vallejo 77.144 from the true metallic metal set.)

Dry brush: Bronze metallic.

Reptile - green with reddish scales

Base: Olive green (71.007) airbrush

Dry brush: Gory red (72.011)

Dry brush edge highlight: Orange fire (72.008)

Red reptile skin

Washes

See the separate page.

Dry Brushing

For edge highlighting, see the separate page.

Bases

See the separate page for how I prefer to base my armies.

Gold Visors

See the separate page for how I have done gold visors.

Paints

I nearly exclusively use acrylics. Oil based paints irritate my sinuses, so with all the jobs I do I try to select water based paints. From a modelling perspective, I like the very fast drying time of acrylic paints. Although, obviously that makes blending colours more difficult than with oils.

I mainly use paints from the various Vallejo acrylic ranges. Model Colour, Game Colour, Game Air and Model Air.

Unless otherwise stated, the part numbers listed refer to Vallejo paints.

I also have a very small number of AK Interactive paints. I find the pigments in these dry a little thicker, which gives them good coverage but they are more prone to hide fine details. I bear that in mind when using them. I'm unlikely to replace them when they run out.

Years ago I used Citadel paints, but I have not tried them recently.

I'm sure there are plenty of other good paint ranges, but as I like the Vallejo that I have, there is no point in me trying alternatives.

Primer

See the separate page for a review of primers.

Clear Coat

See the separate page for matt clear coat reviews.

Brushes

See the separate page for a review of the brushes I have tried.

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Dry brush for edge highlights

I'm sure there are lots of reasons to use dry brushing. It's a technique I like to use for highlighting texture on fur and hair and for edge highlighting.

I can remember the first time I successfully used dry brushing. That was for fur, well over 30 years ago. It was on a troop of Ork Wargs. I was so pleased with the results. It is when my painting results changed from "just colour on tin lead" to "these look nice."

I have had good results with metallic colours. Silver dry brushed on to black and copper dry brushed on to brown. I now think I have the technique sorted for edge highlighting with dry brushing.

The edges of the containers and barrels are highlighted

I've written these notes as a reminder to myself.

Edge Highlight Colour

I find that I need to use a lighter brighter colour than I expect.

Edge and curved surface highlighting

Light grey on black, white on light grey, very pale green on dark green etc. If in doubt, regardless of the base colour, I might use light grey or white.

I like my models to have a lived in look. I often use a black or sepia wash and then add highlights. A similar technique to edge highlighting can be used to add a little brightness to curved surfaces such as shoulder pauldrons and the pipes in the above picture.

Brush

I've tried specialist dry brushing brushes, but I find those too large for miniatures and their round shape make them difficult to direct the brush to the specific edge that I want to hit.

What I do use and my favourite is a makeup brush designed for eyeshadow. They have soft flat bristles about 8 to 10mm wide.

These are great for most edge highlighting, from small scatter terrain down to delicate miniatures. Being flat I have two choices of direction. The wider is good for long edges and by dragging the brush with the narrow face forward the brushes can get into fairly small spaces. In that rotated position they have a long enough stoke to deposit sufficient paint.

In tight spots where I need to avoid getting paint on adjacent surfaces, I use a 3mm angled shader brush. Again a flat bristle brush. This gives me lots of control and I can be very specific about which edge is highlighted.

Paint Loading

This I find a bit trial and error every time.

For cleaning I use a sponge with just a finger or two dipped in water to dampen it. I also use this to slightly dampen the bristles before I start loading the paint.

Most of the time I use undiluted paint for dry brushing. I find that if the paint is watered down, it smears rather than it catching the edges.

I like to get paint on all sides of the tip of the brush and then wipe nearly all of it off on a cotton cloth. If I can see paint depositing on the cloth, there's usually still too much paint on the brush. That's not a perfect guide, just a starting point.

My first stoke will be very light to see how easily the paint applies and either add or remove paint, as I feel. It varies by colour. Some paints work with very little effort and others need constant care to get the amount of paint on the brush just right.

Technique

I lightly drag the brush over the edge I want to highlight and can usually see the layer build up as a fine line. As the paint gets used I need to apply a little more pressure on each stroke.

The more I've use the technique, the more control I've gained about where I get the colour.

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Less is more painting miniatures

I did not have enough time to complete any complex models ready for the game today, so I opted to paint a unit of Prime Strikers from Puppetswar Miniatures. As it happens, I ended up using a different army, so they didn't get to the table, but they were ready.

Very Quick Process

The order was significant in making sure there was minimal time wasted.

• Prime with black from a rattle can - this had been done weeks ago
• Airbrush army dull green all over
• Dark grey paint in the folds behind the knees and between the legs
• Black wash all over
• Dry overnight
  
  
• Dry brush in light green to highlight some of the edges - using an 8mm flat makeup brush
• Paint the eye lenses in yellow - using a 00 short bristle sable brush (W&N s7 miniature)
• Tidy up the yellow - edge in black wherever I had gone over with the yellow
• Paint in any details I want, could be; missile caps, belt buckles, sergeant's pauldrons, banners etc.
• Paint all the weapons black
• Dry brush the edges of the weapons in light grey - using a 3mm wide flat angled shader brush
• Base using grass flock which sticks to thickly applied brown paint
• Paint the edge of the base in black
• Dry overnight
  
  
• Clear matt spray varnish

I am very pleased with the finished result even though very few of the details have been painted in. This is a very good example of "less is more."

I don't know exactly how long it took for this unit of 11 troops, but I spent a few hours on each of two days and 15 mins to varnish this morning.

Where a model has well defined edges, I prefer the subtle result from dry brushing rather than my attempts at hand painting edge highlight lines. I will use individually painted edge highlighting where the alternative would not work.

Some models by their design are complicated and time consuming, no matter what paint scheme is selected.

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Post-battle report

We had another great couple of games of One Page Rules - Grimdark Future a couple of weeks ago. Following that I've made a few improvements ready for the next encounter.

Each time we've played, the table setup has looked better. I've had more variety of scenery prepared and much of it is painted. I'm particularly pleased with the tyrannosaur skeleton. Modelled from a complete structured cut and assembled to look part buried and useful as cover. 

I've added to my modular buildings. For the last game I had just finished the alien fort.

The idea is that the base colours are the same, so that all the components are interchangeable. I found I was a little short of some of the bits to finish off the edges so since then I've printed and painted some more bits.

I've honed the painting technique to be as quick as possible. I've skipped the primer because the Rust-oleum Switch Limestone spray gets good coverage and adhesion on the PETG without the need for a primer.

I've watered down the off-black emulsion wash a lot more. This gives the effect I want without the need to further dry brush over the top. I remembered to mask off the floor, so that could be finished just by a quick dry brush of Vallejo sombre grey. This quicker process means that the basic building blocks can be ready to use very quickly.

There's always more scenery to paint. Like the buildings, I found a quick method for these rocks. Prime in grey then a sepia wash over the top changes the grey to a more khaki colour. This is then dry brushed in a very light grey to get the finished result.

Lastly for now, a scoreboard. That's something I wanted for our previous games, but it was always too far down the list of jobs.

I had tried to buy something but everything that included appropriate counters was a size more suitable for a stadium rather than an intimate tabletop game where we had squeezed it into our living room!

There were a few 3D printable designs but none that I could find were quite what I wanted. As I find fairly frequently, I had to design and print my own. It only took two iterations to get exactly what I was after.

The rings have an octagonal cross section and clip into matching holes. The team names and even the turn name can be swapped out.

Unusual for a 3D print of this size, I've printed it solid. This gives it a nice weight.

I'm sure I will continue to add and paint more scenery and I've starting to assemble another army. I'm looking forward to the next match.

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Painted gold visor effect

I have a lot of sci-fi miniature infantry to paint and many of them have closed visors. Inspired by Halo's Master Chief, my initial idea was to paint the visor gold. With a few images in front of me I soon realised that needed more thought.

I stumbled across an easy method that I think works to produce an acceptable visor at a distance.

To be clear, I am sure there are more attractive solutions with layering and blending, but that is time consuming to do for a tabletop army.

Step 1 - base coat in black

Step 2 - brown dry brush

This looks best with a midtone or dark brown colour. It helps to give some depth and variation to the lens.

Step 3 - gold lines

To get an initial reflection effect, I paint two vertical metallic gold lines. They both have a gap between the peak and the start of the line and end before the lower edge of the visor. The first is about a third of the way round the visor facing the assumed light source. The second is shorter and between that line and the centre line.

Step 4 - gold dry brush

Next, I dry brush the same metallic gold very gently over the whole lens.

I have a narrow makeup brush that I use for this. It is small enough to restrict the area the dry brushing affects.

The effect usually looks acceptable at this stage. The next step is optional.

Step 5 - gloss clear coat

Adding a gloss clear coat is not essential. I usually clear matt coat the entire model to protect it for handling. The gloss clear coat is added only to the visor area, after the matt coat has dried.

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Defender hazard and indicator light diagnostics

Defender 1984 to 2016

Hazard and Indicator Lights Diagnostics

“Many problems with the indicators are actually faults with the hazard switch.”

 

Wiring Differences

The various models of Land Rover Defenders from 1984 through to 2016 have similar wiring but have slightly different colour wires connected at the hazard switch.

The wiring colours are written as the main colour first with the stripe colour after. As an example, a light green wire with a white stripe would be written as Light Green/White (LGW). A grey (slate) wire with a brown stripe would be written as Slate/Brown (SN).

After 1998, the colour of the ignition feed changes to White/Green and the permanent feed to Purple/Brown.

Operation

To better understand the significant functions, only the indicator operation is described in the following. The panel lighting and tell-tale light functions are not noted here:

When off (not depressed)   Indicators can be used.

+12V to the flasher relay is supplied from the ignition feed. The ignition has to be in position two for the indicators to work from the column controls. == +12V ignition, Dark Green or White/Green, depending on the model year, is connected to the Light Green wire to the flasher unit.

When on (depressed)   Hazard lights in use.

+12V permanent feed is connected to the flasher unit. The return from the flasher is connected to both the left-hand and right-hand side indicators. Both sides indicators will flash. == Permanent +12V Purple or Purple/Brown wire is connected to the Light Green wire to the flasher unit. The Light Green/Brown return wire from the flasher unit is connected to both the Green/Red and Green/White feeds to the indicator lamps.

 

Diagnostics

I like to make up a test wire using an inline fuse. This is to avoid mistakes accidentally shorting out a live to earth. A 5A fuse is suggested. It needs to be less than 10Amp to avoid the fuse box fuse blowing first.

Most indicator faults can be diagnosed via the hazard switch connector.

To Test	Method	Expected Result
Indicator wiring	At the hazard switch connector. Connect the permanent live, Purple or Purple/Brown, to the Left and Right indicator wires, in turn. Left is Green/Red Right is Green/White	The indicators on one side would illuminate. Not flashing.
Flasher unit and indicator controls	At the hazard switch connector. Connect the permanent live, Purple or Purple/Brown, to the Light Green flasher feed.   Operate the indicator stalk switches.	The appropriate indicators should flash.
Ignition live feed	At the hazard switch connector. Repeat the above two operations using the ignition feed Green or White/Green wire, in place of the Purple wire. The ignition switch must be in position two.	Same results as above.
Indicator stalk switches	At the indicator stalk pins. Bridge the Light Green/Brown common wire from the flasher to the indicator wires, in turn: Left is Green/Red Right is Green/White	The appropriate indicators should flash.

Just in-case anyone notices. The photos are from a 1998 300TDi re-wired to use the switches from a newer 2002 onwards TDCi.

Troubleshooting

Bridging any of the wires at the connector works but using the switch fails.	Clean the connector pins on both the connector and out the back of the switch.   If the above fails to resolve the issue, it will be necessary to replace the switch.
Either bridging of the permanent or ignition wire tests fail.	Check the appropriate fuse.
The indicator lamps illuminate when connected to a live but do not work through the flasher unit.	Remove the flasher unit from its socket and clean the pins.   If the above fails to resolve the issue, it will be necessary to replace the flasher unit.

Cleaning Connector Pins

This can be done with a pencil rubber or more commonly with fine sandpaper. A needle file can be useful to get into confined spaces.

Where the electrical interface is inaccessible, a chemical contact cleaner can be used, however this often also needs the connector to be inserted and removed a few times to assist the cleaning process.

If the connector pins do not hold tightly, small, pointed nose pliers can sometimes be used to gently close up the female portion of the connector pins.

 

Fuses

Ignoring the main fuses and links because there would be other symptoms if they had blown.

Up to 1998 300TDi	Permanent Feed, Purple – Central interior fuse box Fuse 1 (15A) Ignition lighting feed, Green – Central interior fuse box Fuse 3 (15A)
1999 to 2001 Early TD5	Permanent Feed, Purple/Brown – Central interior fuse box Fuse 31 (15A) Ignition lighting feed, White/Green – Central interior fuse box Fuse 21 (10A)
2002 to 2016 Late TD5 TDCi Puma	Permanent Feed, Purple/Brown – Central interior fuse box Fuse 31 (15A) Ignition lighting feed, White/Green – Central interior fuse box Fuse 21 (10A)

 

Switch Types

Defender 1983 to 2001 TD, 200TDi, 300TDi and early TD5 YUF101490 Lucas switch
Defender 2002 to 2016 Late TD5 and TDCi Puma YUG000180LNF
Freelander 1996 to 2002 YUG102220	The early Freelander hazard switch body is the same as the late Defender. It uses the same wiring and connector but the key cap is different. In the event that a Defender hazard switch is not available, that era Freelander switch can be used as an alternative. In order to make it fit the dash panel, the key cap needs to be carefully removed and swapped over with the Defender key cap. It is held on by two plastic clips, one top and one bottom.

 

I'll add to this if I discover any more tips.

I only have direct experience of a 1998 300TDi and a 2009 TDCi. All other information is taken from manuals and third-hand information. There are likely to be exceptions and some cars, like my own, will have been modified.

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