Glossary

Acrylics -Acrylic paint is fast-drying paint containing pigment suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry. Depending on how much the paint is diluted (with water) or modified with acrylic gels, mediums, or pastes, the finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting, or have its own unique characteristics not attainable with the other media.

Blending-Blending itself means to create a smooth transition from one color by fading it to a target colour. Generally there are 2 different forms for blending: one is for acrylics and the other is for oil paints.

Conversion-Figure conversion techniques may tentatively be classified as Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced.

The Beginner category consists of basic modifications. A basic modification is a figure change where the original figure remain unchanged except for accessories. Some Beginner conversion examples include; (1) equipment ‘conversion’ (changing the shape of a helmet, adding a ‘rim’ and/or ‘boss’ to a shield), (2) “bend ‘n’ twist” repositioning, and (3) equipment additions (belts, skirts, shields, weapons).

The Intermediate category consists of modifications made using minor techniques. Minor modification includes: (1) reposition of arms, hands, and heads; (2) modifications to the upper torso; and (3) conversions limited to rebuilding or modifying on the original ‘figure’.

The Advanced category consists of modifications made using major modification. Major modifications includes; (1) torso and leg repositioning and (2) original sculpting or design of limbs, torso, and or face.

Diorama-The root word diorama means to tell as story in the round. It can also be defined as a scene that captures a moment in time. We often think of dioramas as being small in scale but they don't necessarily have to be small scale.

Dioramas can also be life size as in many museum dioramas. The definition of a diorama can be pretty broad and covers a lot of areas but that is the nature of a diorama.

Drybrushing-Drybrushing is a method to highlight the raised surfaces of a miniature figure by applying a very small amount of paint to your flat brush and then dragging the brush across the grain of the texture. For example if a miniature figure has a clothing which drapes towards the ground, your drybrushing should move perpendicular to the direction of the drapery.

Enamel-An enamel paint is a paint that air dries to a hard, usually glossy, finish. In reality, most commercially-available enamel paints are significantly softer than either vitreous enamel or stoved synthetic resins.

Some enamel paints have been made by adding varnish to oil-based paint.

The term sometimes refers to oil-modified polyesters that were introduced in the early 1930s. The oil is required to stop or enhance the crosslinking of the paint in order to achieve sufficient flexibility of the paint film.

Typically the term "enamel paint" is used to describe oil-based covering products, usually with a significant amount of gloss in them, however recently many latex or water-based paints have adopted the term as well. The term today means "hard surfaced paint" and usually is in reference to paint brands of higher quality, floor coatings of a high gloss finish, or spray paints.

Feathering-Feathering is a blending technique in acrylics. In acrylics there are two kinds of methods widely used. The first blending method is starting from the basecolour and making it lighter or darker by adding a lighter colour or darker colour by incrementals of 33% till it reaches the highlight colour or the darkest shade colour.

The second blending method is by painting the extreme highlight and darkest shade first and then blending in the mid-colours. Both blending methods are similar except the approach are different.

Both these techniques uses a watered down paint and generally have 3 highlight transition colors and 2 shade transition colours. This blending technique is also called feathering. Acrylics blending is more of an illusion or visual effect since the colours do not really blend into each other but consist of many layers that make it appear so.

It’s best to have all the colours laid out and mixed in a palette before blending. Adding a retarder is good since acrylics dries up pretty quickly.

Filter-Filter generally can be classified as changing the basecolour or adding a texture onto a basecolour. Filters cover a wider area of a model and may be applied to most parts of a miniature. Applying filters can also to be used distinguish a horizontal plane with an angled or vertical plane. The diferences are noticeble but yet subtle enough to be believable.

Flash-Flash are excess casting material that comes about during the casting process of the miniature figure. This is due to poor mold quality and always appears when using 2-part molds. Plastic miniature models tend to suffer from excessive flash due to mass production.

Oils-Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint consisting of small pigment particles suspended in a drying oil. Oil paints have been used in England as early as the 13th century for simple decoration,[1] but were not widely adopted for artistic purposes until the 15th century. The most common modern application of oil paint is domestic, where its hard-wearing properties and luminous colors make it desirable for both interior and exterior use.

Primering-Primering is to apply a coat of paint to allow better adhesion of the the basecoat paint. It also prevents the paint to easily chipped away when being handled accidentally. Primers comes in spray cans. An example is the Tamiya primer that comes in grey colour.

Washes-Washes are the traditional terminology of adding diluted paint onto small areas to shade or emphasize subtle details and make it more pronounced. We add washes to deep recesses, or to details that will be lost once the basecoat and blending are done on a miniature. For miniature figures you normally apply dark to black washes to trouser seams, folds, belt and strap edges etc...

Weathering-If we study closely photos of soldiers in real life situations, we will see that their uniforms and equipment have some signs of wear and tear on them. Muddied boots tells us that the subject came from a wet terrain while worn out uniform can tell us that the subject could be a combat veteran. This are the subtle details that can be easily missed but can actually add dramatic effect.

There are many different ways to do weathering. Some miniature modellers use drybrushing, some scraping paint while some other use the stippling technique. No matter what it is, the more techniques you try out eventually you will setlle upon what you like most.
Certain miniature figure manufacturers also come up with their own versions of weathering sets like the Tamiya weathering sets and Mig Production Pigments.

Sealers-Sealers in general art and craft work are three types -matt, satin and gloss. When we talk about miniatures we only deal with matt and gloss sealers. Understanding which one to use and how to apply it correctly will definitely aid me alot when I first started the hobby.
The purpose of sealers is to protect the paint layer against natural elements and allows them to last longer.

Stippling-Stippling is the technique of using small dots to simulate varying degrees of solidity or shading.

In a drawing or painting, the dots are made of pigment of a single color, applied with a pen or brush; the denser the spacing of the dots, the darker the apparent shade—or lighter, if the pigment is lighter than the surface. This is similar to—but distinct from—pointillism, which uses dots of different colors to simulate blended colors.