Recently I was asked about my approach to painting a unit of 28mm figures. These days I am mostly working with plastic figures - a trend I had avoided for many years, but about 3 years ago, I tried out my first plastic kits, and I was very highly impressed by the quality of the figures, and the smart design of the many different options - this is a very different opinion that I had from when I tried plastic figures back around 15 years ago, when the first figures from Victrix and Wargames Factory were coming around. I saw the value in the multi part figures, but at the time I still preferred metal. Not so much anymore.
Okay, the very first step is in getting a suitable base. There are a lot of different options you can use here, that are based both on whatever size and shape of base you want to use for your chosen gaming, as well as some personal preference. A lot of the games that I play these days are (not surprising, given trends in wargaming since around 2020) skirmish games, so I often opt for 25mm round bases. With some of the excellent options for bases with round wells in them (so you can temporarily gather your skirmish figures into a group base, if your rules require it - more on that in a different post), this is a great compromise.
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| Plastic 25mm base |
For bases I use the round plastic bases you can buy in bulk packs. They are similar to the old Citadel slottabases, but without the slot. Here is a picture of the type I use. I usually get these from Amazon (early 2026 prices, I can get 100 of these in a pack for about $10.00). But they are very light. So I opt to give them a weight. And what I have chosen to use is a magnet. Again, you can use anything. A Penny or a Washer work well, or many people don't put anything under their bases. But I use magnets. With the 25mm Round bases, the well is perfect size to fit a magnet approximately 20mm in size. Sometimes I use the heavier, but much smaller, rare earth magnets, but lately I have been using these, which are made out of some composite material. Again, I get mine from Amazon, there are lots of options, the ones I usually get come for about $10.00, for 120 magnets. The size I use are ones that are 0.8" across (which works out to just a hair over 20mm), and ones that are 0.08" thick (which is about 2mm). That thickness fits perfect under the bases that I employ, but if you are worried about thickness, there are many available in the diameter I prefer, that are 0.04" thick, which is about 1mm. There are thicker ones as well, but they won't fit under the base. Here is a picture of the magnets I use, they come on a sheet, with one side covered with 3M adhesive.
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| The .8" round magnets I use |
I will then glue the magnet into the base, using super glue. These days for this sort of application I usually will use Starbond Thick Gel (it comes in different levels of thickness, I like the Thick gel for this type of job). I just put in a blob of super glue, and then press the magnet into it. The adhesive is nice, but on it's own, it wouldn't last very long, so the super glue is a great adhesion multiplier.
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| Bottom of the base with the magnet glued in |
The next step is to assemble the miniatures - again, that will be a different blog post. But for now, I will take the miniatures I have assembled. Remember this is painting a unit, which these days makes it easy for me to do 12 miniatures at a time. The miniatures are all hard plastic, so an excellent glue to use is liquid Plastic Model cement. This is a solvent that melts the plastic on both sides, and lets the melted plastic merge together making for a very, very strong bond. And it takes only seconds to cure. So now, I have my assembled miniatures glued to a base. Here is an example of a Wargames Atlantic Medieval Serjeant glued to his base. This tutorial will be looking at the painting of a unit of Fireforge Medieval Sergeants, but I had that Wargames Atlantic figure sitting around waiting for his turn.
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| Assembled plastic miniature, glued to his base |
The figures then get primed. These days I use brush primer. It only takes a few seconds to do. Just squeeze out some primer in a tray or palette well, and then give the figure an all over coat. In years gone by I might have used just plain old Craft paint (any matte color would do), but these days I will either use purpose made brush on primer (my favorites are Micro-Mark Acrylic Primer, which comes in white, grey or black - or - Vallejo brush on primer, which comes in about a dozen colors), or lately when I don't use pre-made primer, then I have been experimenting with artist gesso. Gesso is a primer coat for painting, usually on Canvas. But white gesso has a great property (other than the fact that it dries with a nice white matte finish). Gesso, when it dries tends to shrink a little, so it gets down into all the nooks and crannies on the miniature, Gesso is a bit thick, so I tend to water it down (just clear water), but then it goes on quick, and covers well, leaves a nice matte finish, and as I said it shrinks down into all the details of the figure. Other colors work well, and I often will reach for a grey primer, but this unit I did in white.
Once the figures are assembled, glued to bases, and then primed, the very first step (for me) is to do their skin. Sometimes there is a second step to priming - sometimes I will give the figure a wash of sepia or umber, but I have found that just a straight primer coat works well.
At this point, I should mention an alternative priming method that I used to employ. That was to completely prime the figure black. and then do an all over dry brush of white. It gives a very similar effect to what the cool kids want to do with Zenithal priming these days, but I didn't worry about aiming the lighter color from the zenith, or apogee, of the figure. I just drybrushed all the high parts all over the figure. I wrote up an article for Historical Gaming magazine, with lots of photos, years ago illustrating that method, perhaps I will do another tutorial highlighting it here as well. It has benefits.
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| The figure from the unit I will paint in Part 2, primed and with Skin painted in |
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| The unit, all assembled, glued to bases prepared with magnets, primed, and with Skin painted |
Next time (part 2) I will cover the painting in of armor, clothes, belts, and equipment.
