I know somebody who 3D printed these Romans and then lost interest in the project, so I got a box of free minis. They were FDM printed and black primed in cold weather with some kind of mystery black spray paint before I got them, so painting them was going to be an uphill fight. I figured they were perfect candidates for some cheapo craft paint. I thought it would be an interesting creative challenge to use such cheap paints for an entire project. Stripping them was more trouble than it was worth, but I did rebase them since I have an excess of 25mm rounds.
The OP picture is decently recent in progress, here’s an album of some earlier stages
These look surprisingly decent. Completely fine minis in fact.
Now considering the circumstances of FDM prints, suboptimal priming and craft paints these are absolutely amazing. Goes to show that you can make some decent minis to play and nothing has to be perfect for it to work. Great job!
Thanks yeah. It has been fun. The key to craft paints is to add a very tiny amount of flow aid to the paint to thin it without causing it to separate. Damp brush but otherwise very careful to not introduce too much water- no water thinning as you’d do with normal paints. Once you establish a feel for how the paints react to changes, they become quite useful.
There’s a lot of surface greebles between the print and priming history, but I think as a whole they’ll get a “cheerleader effect” when they are all done up.
