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So recently I've been letting my niece and nephew paint some of my figs.

http://pokeminiatures.blogspot.com/2010/10/babysitting-on-columbus.html

It's mostly been models I know I won't personally be using any time soon, so it doesn't
really hurt financially to let them have at it. But eventually I will run out of such models
(gasp! horror!) and then I'll have to think about either a) buying miniatures specifically
for them to paint or b) digging deeper into the piles of stuff that I intend to paint "someday."

On top of that, it's clear that maybe some of the 40k/Fantasy stuff might be too
expensive/too detailed to let them paint.

So what miniatures do think would be fun for a kid to paint, cheap-ish to buy, and
still fall under the category of "toy soldier"?

Thanks.

depending on their ages, you might be able to buy pirates, knights or ninjas at the dollar store and prime them.

Orcs aren't bad per box, and are a lot of fun for younger painters. The exaggerated details help, too.

I used to paint regular plastic army men all the time (the green ones like in toy story) can't get any cheaper than those. They are bigger than 28mm which could be in their favour...

Though knowing kids they might not be happy being fogged off with army men, and would probably rather paint miniatures like yours

Maybe you could scour ebay for some cheap models from old boxed sets.

Something like this might be right up your street.

Linky

Space marines, they look nice under an orks brushes

Felix, if you can find old Warzone figs in your area, they are perfect. Lots of flats, exaggeration, and still little army men.

Rygoth wrote:Felix, if you can find old Warzone figs in your area, they are perfect. Lots of flats, exaggeration, and still little army men.

The plastic guys? nice and cheap too

http://www.princeaugust.ie/target_games/tg2420-1.html

You might try getting a set like Skull Pass from ebay.
Lots of figures to paint there.

I started out painting plastic army figures myself many years ago. They are great for beginners if you prime them.
Plastic Airfix figures are good too.

I turned my sister loose on some of my Battletech stuff back in the day. A hot pink Urbanmech certainly was interesting...

Reaper figs would probably work ok for them. Pretty cheap, nice detail too.

Island of Blood/Assault on Black Reach would be awesome choices, except
they are mostly the same models, are they not? Guess I'll be looking for models
with variety in them but low price. They don't have to be super-unique takes
on archetypes like Avatars of War.

Reaper is probably going to be my go-to company. But there has to be
fantasy/sci-fi stuff that's cheaper that doesn't necessarily do mono-pose models.

Maybe the Wargames factory and Kings of War stuff...

Mantic Games Skeletons? Cheap and easy to paint.

Some of the LOTR box sets go pretty cheaply and come 20-24 models. I let my 8 and 10 year old daughters practice with Wood Elves as the color scheme was easy and the models were elegant and not scary.

Mantic and LOTR plastics. Good choices.


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Actually I had one particular hesitation with LOTR plastics. Their scale.

A nice thing about heroic scale 28s is that weaponry and other attributes
jump out at you, making it easier to paint. Any options for more heroic scale models?

Old west packs can be has pretty cheaply from several manufacturers. I had alot of fun painting my gang for Legends of the Old West and they were pretty easy to paint with good detail on them.

Plus it's Cowboys and Indians. Don't get much better than that...

How about Dungeon and Dragon miniatures, I've been painting up the ones you get with the old board game and they seem easy enough. You should find them cheap on ebay.

Yeah, that would be a good reason to pick up the old Chainmail miniatures wherever I see them.

I helped a kid get started today and while I do not like the GW sculpts, the AoBR and BfSP sets are quite a good starting point.

Kids get snap-together minis; paints; brush and some diagrams (I would not go so far as to deem them real instruction).

Go to pound land or whatever you have where ever you are they usually have some army men things in stock and occasionally they have ones that cut them off their bases and prime look pretty much like imp guard.

Is pound land like our dollar stores?

Malfred, yeah ppundlands the same basic thing

try something like the airfix snap together models , they are painted but you could just prime over that.

Airfix is mostly historicals, though, right?

The easiest to paint would be necrons, though not very exciting for kids.

I painted on ork battlewagon with my 9 year old sister, and it looks really good.

What's the model count/cost for Black Reach again?

Mage Knight miniatures. Seriously. They have bad paint jobs but good sculpts, and you can buy a whole dang lot for cheap because it is discontinued. Just prime them and they're ready to go. Also a wide variety of choices and more often you'll have a bunch of different minis so you won't get board. Plus you don't have to assemble it, the plastic is bendable so it can handle more stress than your usual plastic figs, and it's dirt cheap for very very good quality. Find some in ebay now.

Were the sculpts that good?

go on ebay and buy a ton of black reach space marines....they are usually pretty cheap and I would think that a larger model (bigger than the eldar they are painting now) would help their skills along. I think you can dind them online for about 5-10$ in most cases (w/o shipping).

Depends on what expansion. Some are so-so, especially the earlier ones. Some are insanely good, but you can't appreciate it because of the the horrible paint job. try priming one and you'll see they're A-Ok.

Which sets do you like?

I found an online vendor. If I buy enough of these, I have birthday presents for years to come.

I personally don't know the names of the sets, and their online gallery have somewhat disappeared. Judge them by the base/dial: there are dates there. I'm sure if you buy enough, you'll get more good ones than bad ones, and you can always use the bad ones to do some Frankenstein-ing and using
them as bitz.

Aren't they rubbery soft plastic though?