Andrea Miniatures produce a large range of Attractive pin-up
figures in small scale – they are great sellers but with all of the flesh, makeup , hair and eyes to paint what chance
do the rest of us have when we tend to paint everything grey and green and
usually male? Well none other than the master - Julio Cabos - has penned a book
to show you just how to finish your pin up as pretty as a picture…
Andrea Press
AP-046I
Painting Pin-Up Figures
(English)
By Julio Cabos
A4 Portrait softcover
88 pages
Colour photos throughout
Also printed in Spanish
Available from Andrea
Press Directly
Sooo many people say when you are talking about figure
modelling – “Yes I can’t paint figures very well” Well 9/10th of
people – even figure collectors would sometimes say it. SO when anything that
helps us understand painting figures – and especially figures as beautiful (and
as beautifully sculpted) we snap it up
so you can see it – hence our review today of Andrea Press’ new title “Painting
Pin-Up Figures”
This is a softcover A4 book in portrait form, the glossy soft cover is illustrated – as is the whole book – with pictures (there are over
300 of them) of these lovely little figures
that are a real sea change for hardened modellers who are tired of the
same khaki and field grey. I am not sick of camouflage but I thought this book
was good to have a look at.
The master and very talented painted Julio Cabos is the
author of this book and even though his fist language isn’t English there is
not even a beat missed in the translation and the book flows really well. The
text is not overwhelming and it is complemented by the captions that describe
in greater detail the specifics of each of the pictures. The pictures
themselves are well shot – all in focus and well laid out in their composition
as well as the book’s pages where they are almost places into the book like a
photo album. The little tabs look like they holding their fotos in the book,
nicely done and in keeping with the almost “pretty” them of the book.
There are some detailed sections on both the tools of the
painter and the consumables that Julio uses in his work. The first large
section is concerned with brush painting, and we learn the basic techniques and
indeed some tricks of Sr. Cabos’ trade. He takes us through how he paints hair,
eyes, flesh, dresses and clothing and a really interesting section on how to
paint stocking of all things. Indeed the book is a revelation as it showed me
how to paint makeup! Something a lot of blokes out there may not have the first
clue about – there’s a head-start to the ladies!
The other large section of this book is concerned with the
rather more advanced art of painting these figures with an airbrush – a black
art to some and easy-peasy to those in the know (it seems).
Although it probably is more practical to paint several
parts of the figures with a brush – like the eyes and smaller details – several
parts of the pin-up figure can be better painted with and airbrush with the
right techniques in your arsenal. Julio takes us firstly through paints and
materials he uses, the basics to airbrush painting (the air always comes on
first and off last folks) but also painting flesh, dresses and stockings. Julio
also explains how he mixes both the brush and airbrush to get the best results.
Lastly the desert – a whole gallery of Andrea’s pin-up
figure catalogue – I think they are all painted by the author over a long
period of time. So who better to write the book? They are stunning in metal as I
think they would look in real life.
I for one am not sick of drab army colours when painting at all –
yes I do paint nearly all male armed forces figures but recently have found some
fun in science-fiction and movie figures of different genres – even so if I was
just going to paint more German SS troopers I would still find this book a very
tempting proposition. Learning how to look at, and then paint a human-being is
the real selling point of this book. You could say it is the best brochure
Andrea has ever produced – being that all of their products are in this title
exclusively – but I think that these are the perfect subjects for a book like
this. A real point of difference and it sure is easy to read and re-read this
book – it certainly is not boring!
I really liked this a lot – it opened my eyes to the skills I
need to progress past what I can do now as a figure painter.
Adam Norenberg
Many thanks to Andrea
Press for sending me this book to read and to Julio Cabos for the enlightenment within
