First post, and starting something new...

Well, I guess it's finally time to getting around to making my first official post on this blog. I aim to post once a month at a minimum, depending on how productive I am. Aside from predominantly being modeling and painting articles, I may occasionally toss in some stuff about gaming, collecting records, skateboards, bicycles, cars, and whatever else I feel like ranting about. You know, inspirational things.

Something that has interested me for a while in the miniature world has been flats, otherwise known as zinnfiguren, meaning tin figures. In case you are unfamiliar, they are flat castings with raised detail that are painted to resemble a 3d model. They were predominantly popular through the mid or late 1800s through the early 1900s. There are still some producers around, and it seems some of them are beginning to expand into fantasy subjects.

I picked up my first flat at this year's MFCA show in Valley Forge, PA. I couldn't pass up the dwarf smoking a pipe and drinking a beer. I got it from The Little Tin Soldier booth, they were friendly, helpful, and enthusiastically answered my questions. Highly recommended. Flats are usually 25-30mm tall, but this guy is a larger 70mm scale.

Flats are traditionally painted with oils over a base of white primer, but I decided to be a sissy and use the good ol' acrylics. I have a crap set of oils, and I've always wanted to try them out on a miniature, but I wasn't gonna push it this time around.

It should be mentioned this is the first time I've used Tamiya Fine Surface Primer, and I'm really not happy with it. It looks like in the future I'll be sticking to my old standby, Bondo flat black auto primer. I'm not completely knocking the Tamiya primer, but in my opinion it is too glossy and fine for my Vallejo paints. I expect it will work better with plastic models and airbrushed paint. I'll let you know when I get to work on the Gundam models in my stash.



After ~1.5 hrs. of work.

As you can see, I've been blocking in colors before working through highlights. I can already tell this is going to get interesting. As I mentioned previously, I usually work from a black primer coat. I'm used to building from the shadows, and working up through highlights in many layers. Here I am going to need to work up through the highlights from a base color, and then add additional shading.

Anyways, back to the paints. Next post I will return with some more progress, and some recipes for the colors I use. I'll leave you with these links if you would like to find out more.

• http://www.zinnfiguren-bistulfi.com/
• http://www.flats-zinnfiguren.com/