# Painting miniatures, but extremely lazily? \[or other techniques\] (As in tabletop games) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** arts-crafts, board-card-word-game, rpg-dnd-wargames\ **Created:** [July 13, 2025, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painting-miniatures-but-extremely-lazily-or-other-techniques-as-in-tabletop-games/1020821 "2025-07-13T18:29:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 12
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painting-miniatures-but-extremely-lazily-or-other-techniques-as-in-tabletop-games/1020821/12 "2025-07-14T04:03:40Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > You don’t need a thick coat of primer for it to work. I really should’ve paid more attention to this sentence 😅 They ended up all looking like the Michelin Man… From this… [![](https://fightingignorance.org/edd4b5c6-5914-4884-abc0-60b1998a84d0-photo-google-photos-july-13-08-59-39-pm.jpg) ](https://fightingignorance.org/edd4b5c6-5914-4884-abc0-60b1998a84d0-photo-google-photos-july-13-08-59-39-pm.jpg) To this… [![](https://fightingignorance.org/23fff07c-df1d-4771-9052-3d8d1f4446e8-photo-google-photos-july-13-08-59-56-pm.jpg) ](https://fightingignorance.org/23fff07c-df1d-4771-9052-3d8d1f4446e8-photo-google-photos-july-13-08-59-56-pm.jpg) Lost all the detail and texture… whoops [![](https://fightingignorance.org/c8235c46-e61b-4317-9689-886a0c7dbeb6-photo-google-photos-july-13-09-00-07-pm.jpg) ](https://fightingignorance.org/c8235c46-e61b-4317-9689-886a0c7dbeb6-photo-google-photos-july-13-09-00-07-pm.jpg) That said, the primer made a HUGE difference. None of the colors ran off the figurines anymore. > [@Cervaise](#): > > Why worry about realism at all? Just make each one a different solid color, like a green army man. Well, I was just trying to find the optimal ratio of effort in vs results out… trying to maximize beauty per unit of fucks given 🙂 Ended up spending about 10 minutes priming them, thick enough to be body armor, and then an additional 10 minutes per mini painting them. [![](https://fightingignorance.org/77a1e2a0-8307-4c84-8cd0-99583f4cd886-photo-google-photos-july-13-09-01-28-pm.jpg) ](https://fightingignorance.org/77a1e2a0-8307-4c84-8cd0-99583f4cd886-photo-google-photos-july-13-09-01-28-pm.jpg) Pretty hideous, lol, but slightly better than the grey blobs. It’s still quite a lot of effort. The priming, especially, was horrendously toxic 🤮 Probably lost a few billion brain cells. The painting is also really hard on the back and eyes… I could barely see the details to begin with, much less paint them with a fat, felt-tipped market. Lower back hurts now from bending over so much. I gotta find a more ergonomic set up, maybe some watchmaker’s claws… Ah, still, for $30 in markers, they’re at least more visually interesting now than the gray blobs I started with. 6 down, 30 to go… 😮‍💨 --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painting-miniatures-but-extremely-lazily-or-other-techniques-as-in-tabletop-games/1020821)._