mfxposé #6: Menic Rüttimann

We've finally got the interviews put together after a long hiatus!

This mfxposé featured artist is Menic Rüttimann, from the menix miniatures blog. He's done some beautiful work, particularly with ancient and historical periods. So surf on over to his blog for some in-depth info.



INTERVIEW

Daniel: Give us a little bit of background on yourself and where you started.

Menic: Well, I was born 1970 and brought up around dad’s N-Scale Baltimore & Ohio and Western Maryland model rail-road. As a kid I glued and painted 1/72 aeroplanes from World War I and II. As a fantasy role-playing teenager I wouldn’t paint my miniatures. I thought it sacrilegious to mess up the antique flair of pewter and patina with acrylic paint!

Daniel: What was your main source of inspiration for painting miniatures?

Menic: Hmmm, I guess the lust for painting loads of miniatures grew slowly but economics and geography where in the way. So serious painting started in 1994. I was always interested in games of strategy and tactics and started playing the Warhammer Fantasy Battle system. I built one big Bretonnian army, always lost, but kept on painting. Heraldry and the realistic background of my army finally led me to historical wargaming.



Daniel: What are your worst colours?

Menic: I hate red-yellow colour combinations. And the worst colour to highlight is red.

Daniel: And your key inspirations?

Menic: Archaeology, museums, textiles. I guess everything from Art History to Architecture, Sculpture, and building decoration. Even concepts from books, pictures and Illumination.

Daniel: Tell us a bit more about your passion for historical wargaming and painting this specific genre.

Menic: Sure. Nowadays I build ancient and medieval armies for Phil Barker's “De Bellis Antiquitatis” (DBA) and its fantasy spin-off “Hordes of the Things” (HOTT) and I still enjoy every game.



The good thing about DBA-armies is you don’t need a lot of figures. That way I can get finished in time, can use the army in play and move on to the next project and still have a life.

I started DBA in 2006 and can now field all kinds of medieval 10th-13th century armies and Saracen troops from North Africa, Spain, Syria and Sicily. Ancient Parthians and Seleucids are ready too.

I still have a lot of painted minis which didn’t make the transition from Warhammer to DBA basing standards.

Daniel: So what other sort of work do you get up to between projects?

Menic: In between I paint dragons and orcs for a fantasy army I hope to finish before my son looses interest. Right now I’m halfway through with an early Swiss army. It consists of about sixty halberdiers and some skirmishers. In game it is often hard to win with them but the mass of miniatures will have some psychological impact on the opponent, I hope.



Of course there is a lot of unpainted lead: Byzantine Cavalry, Turcopoles, Knights from the 13th-15th century, a pile of 15th c. Swiss pikes, a hillock of WH-Knights.



My aim is to paint all kinds of special or generic troops for every army in western Europe and the Mediterranean from the 10th to the 15th century. As for the Ancients, I do them in 15mm and the theme is Persia and the Mediterranean World. The 15mm stuff is still new to me but the next army will be Galatians, wild naked Celts in Turkey, haha!

Daniel: What tips can you give our readers on miniatures painting?

Menic: I think there are three important things to remember in good miniature painting:

1.) I try to do a clean job. This means the technical side of painting. How do I apply liquid plasticoid stuff on a metal background so it gives a neat surface and a trimmed border?

I try to control the consistency of the paint. I use a lot of water, but sometimes just as much as to keep the pigment flowing down the brush. I use expensive brushes with Rotmarder-hair, size 1, 2, 3.

I’m constantly fighting my brushes, I sometimes punish size one by painting intricate stuff with size three. I start with white primer and then paint the skin first, mostly face and hands. For the clothing I mix colours a lot and start with a darker middle-toned colour as a first layer. Then I paint the deepest shades followed by two highlighting layers.

I use different techniques to simulate different materials: for fury textures (horses) a kind of wet-in-wet technique, or a black underground for leather and metal – which helps details stand out, Eg. belt and buckle, armour, shoes etc.



2.) I want to keep it simple. This means I try to find a useful colour scheme for the clothing. To many different colours will blur the overall appearance. I avoid using more than three.

Keep an eye on alternating dark and light colours. Paint a tunic in egg shell, let it be covered by a dark brown cape and use simple colour scheme. It's realistic and always makes a good appearance on the game-board. Keep it simple also means abstraction: tricky stuff like embroideries or heraldry looks best if applied with lively strokes.



I learn a design with paper and pen first. I try to break it down to basic forms and lines. As soon as I can draw it freehand I start to scale it down to the right size. Then I practice with paint on paper. After some time I feel confident enough and give it a go.

Big goofs get erased with a blob of paint the same colour as the primer. The process gets faster with growing experience.

3.) I paint the light. I like to “break” colours which seem too saturated for my liking. I imagine the sun shining on these and I simulate this bleaching effect by mixing in some grey. I use the more powerful colours for rich cloaks, banners or other special equipment.

For some more great tips, tricks and tutorials, check out Menic's blog.

UPCOMING: Keep an eye out for some more featured artists and companies ...

Materials #3: Brushes & Equipment

Now time to return to our Materials series for a look at brushes and equipment. A few people have emailed me about this so I think it's time to blog about brushes ...

BRUSHES

With the brushes it depends on what sort of quality and longevity you're after.

Sable hair Brushes

Paint brushes are available in many shapes and sizes, and are made from animal hair or synthetic fibres. There's so many different brands to choose from it is true that the better quality the brush, the more money you'll save in the long run. If you use them correctly, clean them properly and store carefully - you'll be guaranteed a brush that will last.

Sable-hair are the best quality brushes out. The Kolinsky's can go up to $50+ per brush and are the absolute best in the world. They're generally associated with watercolour painting and are made from hair taken from the tail of a sable. The hair is hard-wearing, shapes well and can hold a point. It's also got great spring and flexibility and will hold water well. You need to take care of these as they'll be your best brushes. Some artists have moral issues with the production of the brush, which I perfectly understand.

There are so many others out there, squirrel hair, ox hair, goat hair, mongoose, sabeline, etc ...

What you'll essentially want to look for are Sable-hair brushes and Taklons (more on this below).

I've bought some Neef sable-hair brushes - they work wonderfully as long as you always keep the point. I use straws of different sizes to "cap" the brushes.



TIP: Always, always keep the tips pointy. Don't ever bash the brush into the base of your jar - or leave it sitting in the jar brush-end down. This will forcibly splay your brush tip as the bristles and hairs loosen in the water. Here's a little technique my water-colour illustration teacher showed us ...

Clean it thoroughly with cold water:

1.) Just jiggle it in your "dirty-water" jar, softly rub on the jar edge a few times and wipe excess paint with a lint-free cloth.

2.) Jiggle the brush in another jar of clear water, lift it out of the jar and hold it beside you as you sit in the chair.

3.) Flick it once. The action is like cracking a mini-whip but holding the brush how you normally would hold a pen.

4.) Then gently and swiftly glide it through your free-hand using the same motion as though you were pulling off the cap from a pen in one motion - but with a loose grip.

This will flick that main drop out of the reservoir of the brush-head and make a sharp point as you glide over it. Then carefully insert it into your straw cap.

NOTE: Dry, stubborn paint around the ferrule can be softened and removed with a little washing-up liquid or shampoo, followed by a good rinse in clean water.

Taklon synthetic Brushes

Taklons are your standard synthetic-fibre brushes - sometimes called acrylic brushes. These are the ones you'll usually find miniatures artists using (particularly those not familiar with sable-hair).

They're really cheap and easy to find. You can pick some good ones up for around $8 at various stores. I think Tin Soldier and Art on King (both in Sydney) have the best supplies for what I'm after.

The problem with your Taklon synthetics is that they'll hook much quicker or split down the middle eventually (hooking is when the tip of the brush literally bends over by itself). The reason why is because it's an extracted synthetic (polyester and nylon) so it will eventually want to bend in the shape that it was first "extracted" or pulled from.

Some people would prefer to go through a dozen taklons than use one sable-hair brush. Mainly because the hair is literally plucked from the tail of a sable.

When going for a taklon brush, I've found Tin Soldier has a good range of A.J. Leeman brushes (and others) with a great pen-like grib for a handle and is particularly useful when doing fine detail. For me at least, it reduces the amount of strain on your thumb, index and middle fingers and your thenar muscle. Mainly because you're not straining to do fine strokes with a thin handle.

MAKESHIFT STORAGE BOXES

Okay, I've got a number of things I use for storing and sorting my materials - be it tools, paints, miniatures, etc.

Naturally cardboard boxes of all sizes are great, I use these regularly but I'm leaning towards switching everything into clear containers so I can find things more easily.

Old Asian take-away containers, the plastic sort, are great. Throw them in the washing machine (be careful they can warp with all that hot water) or wash them thoroughly in the sink.



I generally use them for storing spare miniatures I've undercoated in the past.



I also use them for storing foliage like the Underbrush Clump-Foliage (Medium Green) that you can see in the picture (I got this from HobbyCo). This makes it easy to spray or paint glue onto twigs and dip them into the foliage sorted in different take-away containers. We'll have a tutorial on making trees later on.



OTHER STORAGE BOXES

I've bought this great storage box from Bunnings at Rockdale for around $14 bucks, only to realise I could've gotten the same one and more variety from Kmart at Hurstville for around $8 bucks! I'm going to buy a couple more from Kmart and will post up some pics on how I've used them.

This one is great for storing ad hoc bits and pieces I use regularly.



CUTTING MAT

I've got here a cheap-as-chips A3 cutting mat that only cost around $6 bucks at Roni's at Burwood Plaza in Sydney. I've seen this go for well over double (and sometimes) triple that amount. Don't bother spending top dollar for this, go down to your nearest bargain basement junk shop and see what you can find. It's self-healing and just as good as any other cutting mat.



Why a cutting mat? Well it works well just as a board for leaning on when cutting off the excesses on your die-cast miniatures. Keeps your desk a little tidier. But it's best for when you obviously cutting custom cardboard and polystyrene / foam-board shapes when creating terrain and buildings.

NEXT: Ibigawa rocks and other tools of the trade ...