Hey funkyh,
I'm afraid this is gonna be a long one, so get comfortable. I'm gonna start from the very first Marines you posted up and work my way up to the most recent posts. But before I even begin talking about your paint job, I have to talk about your bases. You have to pick something, at this point, ANYTHING. I don't care if you have Golden Daemon quality models, a blank base takes so much away from a painted model. You don't need to get fancy, Take a small container, topper wear or whatever, and head to Home Depot. Once there, steal a handful of sand from the many, many open sand bags. You can even get different size grains of sand. You can chop up your sprues to create rubble or buy some fish bowl gabble.
You can see here how much difference a finished base makes.



You don't need static grass or sand, you can use Plastruct HO Scale 1:100 diamond plate for an industrial base.



Or you can even do plain gravel or dirt/rock.


You can even buy some resin bases on ebay for around $0.70 per base, if you don't feel like making your own.

Here are somethings you're gonna need. Black Wash, 1mm drill (search for 1mm drill on ebay and get this one for less that $5)

Micro pen (optional)

Ok, let's start with these guys.


The Bad.
They look like a WIP. I literally see 3 colors, maybe 4. There is SO MUCH detail that you missed. The chest eagles, skulls, guns, purity seals, respirator hoses on helmets, joints, panels, helmet optics.
I see no highlights or shadows. It is a solid mass of red plastic with a few colored pieces.
Some of the poses are awkward. Only one of the Marines is looking in the direction that his Bolter is pointing. The rest look like they're distracted.
Both the Marines with grenades are looking straight ahead and not in the direction they're throwing to. They should both be looking left.
I don't like the way the first knife is being held. It's not natural.

The Good.
You seem to have a good, solid, smooth coat of red on your models. If you've read forums you know that red, yellow and white are notoriously difficult to paint, bu you seem to have nailed it.

The Fix.
Simple, more color and a wash. Wash the model in black and make sure you get the wash inside the armor panels, between the fingers, abdomen, etc.
Once wash is dry, go over it again with 50/50 red and water, making sure you leave the dark/shadow areas.
If you don't want do do a wash, you can use a micro pen to draw in the black lines.
Here's an example of both techniques.


You can see the clearly defined micro pen line on the shoulder pad, arms, fingers, knees and feet of the left model. The right model has the wash and you can see the more subtle, blended look of the wash, this is most noticeable on the shoulder pads and feet. You can really see the difference between the two.

At the absolute minimum, you have to paint the joints (back of knees, crotch, etc.) black. This will break up the solid red look to the models.
Paint the chest eagles dark grey, then carefully paint each individual feather lightest grey. Or if you're not up to painting individual feather, simply paint the entire eagle with the lightest grey and then give it a black wash.
I can't see the packs to well, but at the very least, the left one will need a touch up to clean off the red. I would suggest highlighting the pack with a mid grey.
You need to paint those guns black. If you want them red, you at least have to paint the bottom part and barrel in metal.
Moving on...


You see how some parts of the models weren't covered with the primer? That's cause it has release agent and they need to first be washed with soap and water.
I give my metal models about 5 very thin coats of black primer. By the 5th pass they will be completely covered. This is essential for metal models because they chip easily.



Not much to say here. If you're gonna use this as all the variants, you have to incorporate the colors better so it doesn't look like this...

If you're gonna make one leg blue, make them both blue. I would personally just paint the one I would use most often and just make sure people knew I was playing it as something else that day.
Blue, Black, and Red are so drastic, that it will be extremely hard to work these into one model.
I would paint the body, Furioso patter, then paint the arms with Talons DC black, The legs DC black with a Blue (Librarian) X instead of red, and I would paint the Librarian arms Blue.


First, let's start with the obvious. You jacked up the tracks. It's probably too late to start over, so you're gonna have to cut that track and cover it up with some Sgt loin cloths.
Needs color and/or shading. You can paint the exhausts, window vents, and tracks metal. Make sure you paint them brown first if you're doing gold, and black if you're doing silver, DO NOT paint any color directly over the red because the red will show through.
Headlights can be colored, top hatchets can be washed. I would give a brown or black wash to the metal front. I would even paint the side hatchets metal instead of red.
The white writing on top is too thick. Paint it over with red and start again, or better yet. Once you have the turret, put white hash marks on the side of the turret.
I'm not crazy with the white pigeon on the hood. White on silver does not look good. I would paint it solid bleach bone and then give it a brown wash and once dry, highlight it with bleached bone again.


The Bad.
His pose looks awkward as hell. Specifically his head. Look at the difference between the left GW marine and yours. They have nearly identical poses, but yours looks like he was just shot in the head and his body is lurching back. Looks very monotone. Are those straps brown? Metal needs a wash. Gun needs to be drilled out. Sword and gun need to be painted black, there's too much red as it is now.

The Good.
I love the way the jump pack came out around the back.

The Fix.
Look at this picture and look at all the detail. The dark panel lines on the thighs, the black on the joints (elbows, crotch, neck), the eagle on the chest.



Models are getting better now. They have more color and poses look better. You STILL need to base your models, though. The black power fist looks like it needs a touch up, I think I can still see some red underneath.


If this is your HQ, I think he should have more gold and be brighter than he is. The black pack need a ton of attention, I can see most of the red base. Eyes need to be green instead of red. The face mask should be washed.
You can paint the sword wings shadow grey and then highlight with white. Your Chapter Master should definitely be based.


Wings look great, but this guy does not fit the rest of the army. It looks like you started a second army. At the absolute minimum, I would paint his loin cloth red as well as the shoulder pads.



Face and hair looks bad. Paint hair dark grey and highlight with a lighter shade of grey. I know you're going for a light, vampire skin tone, but it does not look good. Try painting with the lightest gray then highlight with white with a hint of shadow grey. The whole model looks shinny. You need some Testor's Dull Cote. Black HAS to be highlighted otherwise it looks like an unpainted primed model.The Exhaust and intake part of the pack needs to be painted metal and then washed black. Metal bars on pack need to be touched up.



I have to be honest, I don't like the "superman" flying pose. That "pole" is too thick, too. A black painted paper clip would be more subtle. The white needs some work so it wont look so flat.



Cammo patter looks AWESOME!!! Colors, however, do not. The fourth scout has a much better color palette.




This is the opposite of all the others. There is too much color here! It looks like he's drinking beer at a Mardi Gras party. Tone it down some.The blue box on his pack and the cable on his right arm should be metal. Same goes for the light.




Well, it's still a WIP so there's ton to do to finish. I'm not crazy about the white chest, but that is simply my personal opinion. I think it would look better with a red torso and a white eagle. I know it's not done, but he helmet looks bad so far. When you paint gold, make sure you first base with brown.


Way too dirty looking. As a Chaplain, he should be using a skull/bone paint job on his helmet, and maybe the shoulder pad too.




Needs highlights like crazy. Needs more color. Some red "X" on knees, the red jewels, red eyes, What the hell is up with the green hair and black skin? I do not like that red skull on his chest. Gold or bright silver (Mythril) would look better, with a gold chain.




Again, this does not fit with the rest of the army. I know they're Vets, but it has too much purple. They look like a different army. Ease of on the purple, Maybe paint just the helmet and both shoulder pads?




Damn, I'm tired from all this typing. I hope this helps some. Go to youtube and search for "how to paint ___________" they have amazing tutorials on black armor, red armor, chaplains, dreadnoughts, etc.

D'oh!! Bad prime job here. The base almost looks textured. There are several reason this could have happened. Most likely you were holding the can too far away and the primer began to dry in mid air and that's why you have that textured, rough finish here. Less likely is that you didn't shake the can well enough (I shake for 3 minutes), you primed in damp/humid environment, or you have a bad can.
It looks so bad on camera, that I would seriously consider stripping them.




I like the color scheme here, but I see a ton of detail you've missed. I see a bunch of jewels (chest, forehead, swords, gauntlets) that you've missed.
Do you use GW gold paint? For some reason (maybe camera or flash), the gold looks glittery and sparkly. If you can get your hands on it, buy some Vallejo Liquid Gold. Either, Gold, Old Gold, or Rich Gold.
Vallejo LG has extremely fine particles and is suspended in an alcohol medium instead of water.
You can find it here... http://www.maelstromgames.co.uk/index.php?act=cat&cre=hob-val&sou=cat
You have to base the area brown before you paint it gold.
The base needs to be painted in a different color. It blends in too much with the model. If you want, you can leave that color in the cracks so it looks like there's energy coming from beneath the floor.




Take a look at this one that was posted on www.coolminiornot.com. I like to pull of pics of stuff I'm working on and get ideas or try to copy from better painters.




The red armor looks good, but the helmet needs work. You should have first painted it with a foundation paint (or whatever the new GW equivalent is). The base/primer is still showing through.
Looking at your models, I would guess that you primed them either black or gray, then painted the entire thing yellow, then gave then whole thing a red wash, then painted then guns grey last.
You have to paint over a clean base. That means you'll have to paint the guns black, brown or some other solid color, before you can start to paint it.




This is guy definitely earns the Skittles award for armor colors. It's way over the top. It's almost Harlequin, but with out checkers or stripes.
I'm assuming that you want each weapon to be a different color, right? It just doesn't look good, thought. It just screams 'Rainbow Warrior".

Look at the left palm. See how it is a solid mass of purple?
You either need to first paint it a darker shade of purple and then what you have now, or paint it purple then give it a purple/black wash and highlight with the same color purple.
You also need better control of your brush. Loo



You've also missed a ton of detail on the guns. It looks like you were trying to go for a source lighting effect on the right shoulder gun (purple), but it just looks messy. It's not uniform, or translucent.
You need to make it look like there's light coming from the crystal. I think this is what you were going for...



Here are some pics to inspire you.