Lego Star Wars Painting Help?

[ToaofPlasma]

Ok, I need to know how to paint small details on my minifigures. I paint custom clones and I have trouble painting the torsos, and I know it is possible because a Clone customizer, NobleArtist on YouTube, fully paints his figures. Look up his youtube channel so you can see what I mean. He only uses paint! No decals, no sharpies. Please tell me how to paint the small details. Ask for pictures of my customs if you need them.

[Borador]

I'm not 100% sure I understand what you want. Are you asking what tools or paints to use, or do you want techniques?

If you want tools and paint, I'd directly ask someone like Bilbobful, FlamingBricks, or someone of the like. Most pros on Flickr always tell their materials when asked, so you might have more luck there.

As for technique, I hate to tell you, but practice makes perfect. What works for me might not work for you (and since I rarely paint, I don't know what works for me, so I can't help there). You have to experiment. Get some cheap figures from Bricklink that are faded and full of cracks and just practice. Reading glasses might help you to see the small details better (for me, they're a placebo; they don't actually help, but I feel like they do).

Learning how to draw (assuming you don't already know, good if you do, fine if you don't since you can learn) will help you out too. Even if drawing on paper and on a figure are two different things, the skills you need overlap a bit, so it'd be worth your time to do so. If nothing else, it would help you develop the skills of turning a real thing into a LEGO design.

I mean, I wish there was more I could tell you, but frankly, that's it. You need to discover what works for you; all anyone else can tell you is what paint and tools to use (not me, though. Ask a pro). This is a very non-standard thing, as it should be, since it's about creativity. So just practice until you get it. Sorry there isn't more I can say...

[Robianco]

I'll only echo what Borador has said.

It's just down to practice.

Get yourself some decent brushes... maybe from a Games Workshop or similar. I've used Tamiya Acrylic model paints as well as Games Workshop's own. I prefer the Tamiya as they stay liquid better and for some reason my GW paints have dried up pretty easily even when sealed up straight away. It may also help to pick up a magnifying glass stand that can help you see those small areas much closer and see the details you're painting better. These are something that gaming miniature painters use.

You may want to look at masking areas of figures with tape and spraying or painting them... that way you can achieve sharp lines but this also takes a lot of practice and good motor and hand skills to get things steady and in the right place.

I'm not personally a fan of painted Lego figures and recently I've only took to painting up head pieces with ears for customs of Namor and Azazel.

Even those that manage to achieve a lot of detail on their figures still have the issue of them 'looking' painted rather than like they've been printed that way.

I wouldn't rule out decalling as something inferior to painting... with sealing the decal with clear acrylic it can be just as hard wearing as painting and you can achieve much better, sharper and neater detail than any custom paint work I've seen.

The person you mention on Youtube also glues details such as ammo pouches etc onto their figures to enhance them. That's something that's also going to take practice and good knife and hand skills to achieve right.