Painting Wargaming Figures by Javier Gomez Valero (2016-01-13)

This book for miniature painters is aimed mostly at "army painters" - that is, people who play miniature wargames, whether it's Warhammer or Napoleonic or American Civil War games, and have to paint lots and lots of minis. So the advice tends to be geared towards making minis that look good on the gaming table with just a few different shades of paint. While the author does paint a few figures in detail that are display-worthy, this isn't a book showing the secrets of really high-grade painting - it's for painting a lot of figures in a relatively short amount of time.That said, the author's work is really, really good (he paints an entire army that looks better than the single, much larger figures that I spend hours on), but he's actually made a living at mini painting, so it should be.The basic skills are applicable to any painter and so this is a good introductory book even if you are more interested in, for example, individual figures for your tabletop RPG rather than painting an entire regiment of British cavalry. The first few chapters cover the basics of priming, basecoating, highlights, and washes, and then there is a chapter for each major color, showing detailed guides as several different figures are painted using a given color scheme. Finally, he talks a bit about different scales, with 28mm being the "default" scale for wargaming minis, but how to do larger and smaller figures as well.There aren't a lot of guides to painting miniatures out there - most of what is available is YouTube videos. So given that this is a very niche book with little competition, I'd recommend it for anyone getting into the hobby.

I have a lot of books on painting those addictive little figures (been doing it since 1982) and can objectively judge what is useful and what isn't. This book summarizes the style and skills needed to produce a wargame army. This is different from painting figures for competition or a diorama. One could call this the Games Workshop style of painting: bold contrasts of shade and highlighting. And there is nothing wrong with that. These little figures need to be painted this way to stand out on the game table, while still looking pretty sharp. It's funny how the up close pictures make them look sloppy, but any gamer knows that from a distance they look great. The author does a great job in describing many basics of how certain colors look and how to portray them accurately. The basics of assembly, tools, paints, etc are covered in good but brisk detail. More time is spent on how to use the colors on figures and this will appeal to both the beginner and the experienced painter. The author has an engaging, friendly style that had been missing in the painting guides from past years (sorry British writers you are at times too school yard master or sergeant major for the rest of us!). My only complaint here is that I like to paint medieval figures and the author barely touches on this except for how to paint metallics. Sorry I know more than that on he does. The author does a great job of telling you what colors he uses for base and highlights, mainly from the Vellajo line of paints (one of my faves). He does neglect the US brand of Reaper colors which are a personal favorite and as good as anything he mentions. The book is very up to date regarding painting (Army Painter's system of dipping and dunking is covered ) styles and one of the best pictorial series covers Jon Snow and his dire wolf from the "Game of Thrones" series (rather nice figures by the way). There has been a recent increase in books and DVDs on painting minis and because of the selective nature of the market these are expensive. Mr. Valero's book is as good as what I have seen and is a great bargain at the price. Highly recommended!

I wish I had this book when I first started painting. I would have avoided many mistakes early on. It also has a great overview of the relative strengths and weaknesses of different paints and techniques. The different themes and emphasis on problem areas like faces, minimal color palettes, and larger flatter figures are great. The writing style is very friendly and relaxing to read. I would suggest picking up some of the figures discussed ahead of time.My favorites were:-- First Miniature Discussed: Relic Miniatures: Pyrrhus (28mm)-- Black Colors: Dark Sword: Jon Snow-- Dry Brushing: Dark Sword: Ghost Dire Wolf (DSM-5040)-- Blue Colors: Perry Miniatures: Napoleon and Staff at WaterlooI do find the technique to emphasize quick painting for large armies to be observed at a distance. It would have been nice to have a section on more advanced glazing techniques for when you want to work on fewer figures of higher quality. Additionally, there wasn't much time spent on preparation for painting which is still difficult for me.I am still happy with the Kindle version, but it could be better and authors should do a better job of addressing common problems with digital editions. I did find that the Kindle edition suffers from the common problem of having images of too low a resolution which can make understand what is being referenced in the writing difficult. Also, figures can be far from the text discussing them. The Kindle Table of Contents isn't all that great, but oddly enough the one embedded in the text works well. So subsections are not easy to jump to which makes using this as a reference a little harder. Again, these are minor problems.