Painting HO Scale Miniatures - Because I stuck my foot in it - Part 1 Getting ready

I may have made a recent comment on a model railroader's youtube video about better ways to paint HO scale miniatures. I may or may not get some backlash from it. Now I really didn't criticize anything just suggested a few ways to make painting small things a little easier, like adding a handle of some kind, don't use rattle cans to prime with or at least not a thick chunky one (sorry, I do put Krylon into this category) and last add a wash to make some of the details pop out. I think the backlash is going to be more along the lines of prove it can be done.

Now having run my mouth off I realize its probably been 30 years since I last painted anything in 1/87th scale (although 15mm is technically 1/100th and 18mm is probably about HO, I don't think I have seen a conversion to scale for it). I do get terribly frustrated looking at model railroads that feature gorgeous scenery, magnificently weathered locomotives and freight cars, buildings that look like the real thing and then next to all of that beautiful work are a out of the box Preiser miniatures or something hand painted in what appears to be old Testor enamels (are you old enough to remember the Testor PLA line? The line carried by virtually every hobby shop from at least the 60s into the early 80s?). Or, perhaps worse maybe not, there are no miniatures on that layout what so ever and it looks like a ghost town or an industrial district on the weekend.

Here are the goals for this little project:

1. Paint an HO scale person better than what you see on the average layout (heck, any layout).

2. Follow the wargamer painting maxim: never paint 1 miniature when you can paint a unit. Spoiler Alert; I'll be painting 30 because that's what was in the package I found in the basement.

3. Do it fast and good enough. We aren't looking for competition level miniatures here. Achieving a result that looks good from a viewing distance of 12 - 18" is the goal. I am specifically aiming for the viewing distance I anticipate operating my own Warehouse Row from.

4. Document the process (the whole process), as close to step by step as I can without going to video mode, mostly because I can't think of a more boring video and it will probably make a cringe worthy blog series.

There we go, actual achievable goals.

To start I went looking for some HO scale folks on the web, of course there lots of choices but I didn't really want to spend an hour trying to decide what to buy. It occurred to me that I probably had something packed away and I should just go find it. A little bit of searching (seriously not more than 5 minutes, I had a good idea where to look) and I found just the thing; a pack of 30 unpainted Preiser figures...perfect.

The detail on the Preiser figures is actually quite nice. So pay more attention to the nice white plastic being shown rather than the standard model railroader paint job at the bottom half of the package. That's basically the level I need to exceed.

And a few of the actual contents. They look pretty nice from here. It shouldn't be a problem to get these looking pretty good without a lot of effort at least that's what I'm hoping.

I rarely manage to start a project with everything actually in hand so things are off to a good start. I'll keep the tools pretty basic; hobby knife, files, popsicle sticks, PVA glue, airbrush, paint brushes, primer, paints and washes. The only "special" tool from the point of view of a model railroader is my #1 DaVinci kolinsky sable brush, I'll mostly be using other brushes for the bulk of the work, I only need the DaVinci for detail work and there may not be to much of that.

Basically just the tools you should find on any modeler's desk. With the possible exception of the airbrush and the kolinsky sable. Off we go!