I then glued the models to a piece of scrap card ready for  painting. UNDERCOATING Undercoating is essential as it provides a consistent surface  on which to apply the next coats of paint, and it shows up the  detail on a model much more clearly than shiny bare metal.   The Undercoat For undercoating the baboons I used Humbrol enamel matt  black. You want the undercoat to be as matt as possible so the detail on the model is easier to see. For an acrylic undercoat it  is a good idea to use a matting agent, as acrylics tend to be  naturally a bit shinier. I brushed the paint on with a Small Drybrush brush making  sure I covered the entire model. Don’t let the paint pool  anywhere as this will dry very thick and could obscure  details. Also watch out for any stray hairs detaching from  your brush and sticking to the model during undercoating.  Pull them off with tweezers before they become permanently  attached! Take particular care not to clog up the face and fur,  don’t be afraid to go back and clear runs or blobs of undercoat off with your brush. I then let the undercoat dry completely  before going on to paint the models. PAINTING The figure painting follows my well known method of  working from dark to light shaded form a black undercoat.  This three or more colour painting method uses successive  tones of colour (shade, middle and light) which are added to  the model in layers, working up from dark to light. This  creates a bold three-dimensional effect of shadows and  highlights, the layers of colour giving greater depth and  subtlety to the model. For the facial detail I used a Warpaints  Detail brush and for the eyes I used an Insane Detail brush.

BACKGROUND Amongst the North Star Africa range are a number of useful  animals, whether to use and creatures in their own right or as  decoration on a large base with human models. Being fond of  monkeys I wanted to have a go at the baboons. For this article  I am painting the pack of models AA04 - Baboons, which has  three rather sedentary baboons in lifelike poses. PREPARATION So I had to do some research, which mostly involved asking  my anthropologist niece, “What do baboons look like?” From  which I got a Niagara of pictures and other useful information,  leading me to conclude these models looked most like Olive  Baboons (who of course are not Olive!) from equatorial  African countries, very nearly ranging from the east to west  coast of the continent, which makes them ideal to go with the  North Star Africa human models, a lot of whom hail from a  similar area. The other pictures also gave me some other  ideas… Mandrills they might be a bit of fun, how different are  they from baboons? Could I convert these models to one of  the most peculiar and colourful primates? Yes why not, they  are to closely related to the baboons after all, but it would  need some work, more of which later.  Cleaning These models required some “cleaning up” before painting.  Using a scalpel and needle files I removed all the visible  mould lines – these are the thin lines that run right around the  model. Scraping the knife blade carefully along the mould  line, as if you are peeling the skin from a potato, holding the  blade at roughly ninety degrees to the surface. Finishing off  the scraped surface with a small file to ensure that the area is  all nice and smooth, but try not to destroy the texture of the  fur as you go. As a final word on preparing models, please be  careful when using any sharp modelling tools.