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I recently started the hobby aspect of 40k after several years of being interested in the lore. Today I painted my first model with the army painter starter kit. Could you guys give me some tips to improve. And also I've been wondering, how do you use the quick shade ink that comes with the set.

Focus the camera on the model

And from what I can see, thin your paints.

 IcarusDA wrote:
Focus the camera on the model

And from what I can see, thin your paints.

I'm going to post some better pictures here in a minute.

Picture 2

Picture 3

Make sure to thin you paints down a bit if you haven't already, It's better to do several thin coats rather than one large one. A good thickness to aim for is a tad thicker than whole milk. But really you'll have to try it a few times to get a feel for it.

Other than that all I can say is to practice, things like brush control and all the liitle tricks you'll need to paint well only come with time.

For quickshade (wonder in a bottle) pour a few drops out into a small container (The top of a plastic soda bottle 'washed of course' works great). Then take a large brush dip it in and then brush over the model letting it pool in the recesses. Be generious with it.

Which quickshade do you have, strong tone or dark tone?

Strong tone is brownish and works well on browns, and reds (be warned however it will strongly dull down the color so try it on a test model first). Its not the best for faces imo, but you can try it and see how you like it. Personally I use it on every model I paint. Not over the entire model, but in choice parts it looks great.

Dark tone works well on greens, blues, and I personally like to brush it over silver metal. Again it takes the "shiny" down a few notches.

Experiment on your first couple of models to find what colors go well together and what you like. Also it's all about practice.

When you tire of your first attempt you can easily strip off the paint and primer with "Simple Green" or "LA's totally awesome".

The former you should be able to find in walmart or home depot, the latter I have found in the dollar tree/family dollar/dollar store.

Best of luck

 Ma55ter_fett wrote:
Make sure to thin you paints down a bit if you haven't already, It's better to do several thin coats rather than one large one. A good thickness to aim for is a tad thicker than whole milk. But really you'll have to try it a few times to get a feel for it.

Other than that all I can say is to practice, things like brush control and all the liitle tricks you'll need to paint well only come with time.

For quickshade (wonder in a bottle) pour a few drops out into a small container (The top of a plastic soda bottle 'washed of course' works great). Then take a large brush dip it in and then brush over the model letting it pool in the recesses. Be generious with it.

Which quickshade do you have, strong tone or dark tone?

Strong tone is brownish and works well on browns, and reds (be warned however it will strongly dull down the color so try it on a test model first). Its not the best for faces imo, but you can try it and see how you like it.

Dark tone works well on greens, blues, and I personally like to brush it over silver metal.

Experiment on your first couple of models to find what colors go well together and what you like. Also it's all about practice.


When you tire of your first attempt you can easily strip off the paint and primer with "Simple Green" or "LA's totally awesome".

The former you should be able to find in walmart or home depot, the latter I have found in the dollar tree/family dollar/dollar store.

Best of luck

Thank you for the advice. Will thinning the paint down with just water be enough or will i need something else?

Yes water will work fine.

If you're ever in doubt you can look on the label of the bottle. If it says "water based" then you're good to go with thinning it with water. Also words like "Non toxic" are good if you're one of those who suck on the ends of their brush to bring it to a point.

I have noticed however that some army painter paints are really liquidy right out of the bottle so you might not need to do to much to it.

If you don't have a painting pallet with little cups in it the plastic water bottle/soda cap works well for those dropper bottles. Or if you don't have that you can use small bases that you've flipped upside down (not the slotted one's of course).

One more thing, it's best to choose a brush that you use only for metalic's. Metalic paint always seems to dry faster than usualy for me and sticks to the brush. Also you might get little metal flakes that fall off when you try and use it to paint other colors.

 Ma55ter_fett wrote:
Yes water will work fine.

If you're ever in doubt you can look on the label of the bottle. If it says "water based" then you're good to go with thinning it with water.

I have noticed however that some army painter paints are really liquidy right out of the bottle so you might not need to do to much to it.

If you don't have a painting pallet with little cups in it the plastic water bottle/soda cap works well for those dropper bottles. Or if you don't have that you can use small bases that you've flipped upside down (not the slotted one's of course).

Ok. I'll try thinning the paint down some tomorrow then.

Elcheapodeca wrote:

 Ma55ter_fett wrote:
Yes water will work fine.

If you're ever in doubt you can look on the label of the bottle. If it says "water based" then you're good to go with thinning it with water.

I have noticed however that some army painter paints are really liquidy right out of the bottle so you might not need to do to much to it.

If you don't have a painting pallet with little cups in it the plastic water bottle/soda cap works well for those dropper bottles. Or if you don't have that you can use small bases that you've flipped upside down (not the slotted one's of course).

Ok. I'll try thinning the paint down some tomorrow then.

You only need to use a couple drops of paint at a time. Even though army painter is cheeper than GW it's still a shame to throw away any of that $3 bottle.

Water usually always works. You don't need fancy paint thinners. Just do a few light coats, then a wash, and try some highlights

 Color Sgt. Kell wrote:
Water usually always works. You don't need fancy paint thinners. Just do a few light coats, then a wash, and try some highlights

Do you have any tips on how i could use highlights.

Dry brushing is a quick and dirty way to get highlights on models. Get paint on your brush, then wipe off nearly all of it until all you get are streaks when trying to paint. Run the brush lightly across the model's raised surfaces that you want to highlight with that color multiple times and it should do a passable job.

Second model almost done. Needs face and touch up. Any comments on how it lolls so far would be greatly appreicated

Are you priming your models?

Picture 2. Sorry for the poor quality of the pics so far my iPhone the only thing I have right now.

Picture 3


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ma55ter_fett wrote:
Are you priming your models?

I might not be priming enough.