Re: painting minis

>I see some nice paint jobs.
>But how do you paint those really tiny rectangles indicating
>surface sections?

This can be much easier than it seems. You'll need a fairly small brush
for
this, but not too tiny as it will need to hold some paint. Select the
raised bit or panel you wish to pick out. Load your brush with paint and
barely touch it to the center of the area you wish to paint. The paint
will
be drawn off the brush by contact. Now edge you brush around the
surface,
keeping that very light contact. Because the brush is "high" on the
model,
the paint won't slop onto adjacent panels. With a little bit of
practice,
you'll becaome adept at working the paint into the corrners and edges by
moving the brush around the surface. Remember, let the surface contact
draw
the paint off the brush for you; don't attempt to "paint" it.

>How do you get those beautifully straight lines?   Someone
>mentioned professional/technical pens but are there other
>ways?	Tape or does that pull off paint?

A tape mask can work, but unfortunately on figures with as many surface
bumps as GZG figs no mask will be perfect, and there's bound to be some
"slop." Unfortunately, getting a really straight line takes some
patience.
There are many techniques:
1) Masking
2) Drawing a line on the figure with a pencil to serve as a guide
3) Winging it
No matter what technique you start with, the key is how you deal with
the
inevitable "mistakes." What has worked for me is to touch up one side of
the line, then the other, back to the first side, and so on until I'm
pleased with the result. It helps to thin your paint slightly for this
so
you don't get a "raised" line from paint buildup.

Hope this helps,
Schoon