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So, ive been in the 40k hobby for about a year casually, but never got around to painting anything. I now have the time (and disposable income) to do so!!!! The only downside is that i have absolutely no clue where to start.. I have never painted anything in my life, let alone a small model. I've looked at some tutorials about general model painting, but I'm still sorta at a loss. Any tips for a novice painter? Any sort of advice would be much appreciated.

Now a couple specific questions:
GW paints seem ridiculously over priced. Someone pointed me in the direction of Vallejo and their GW mimicking lines. Can anyone here confirm that this is a good brand? I've done the math, it is much cheaper per ml. Alternately, what do you guys use?

Also, brushes. I assume i need small brushes, but what kinds? any particular brands?

I think after i get some good brushes and paints ill be able to figure it out. I'm just not the visual art kinda guy.

Can't comment about vellejo paints cus I never used them. But all accounts seem positive for them on this here internets.

GW ones are good, but yes overpriced... but hey so is every last little trinket ever to be concieved in the GW product design room!

Paint is paint... Maybe try a few brands out and see what you like to work with as they can all feel slightly different.

Do get yourself a nice set of brushes... GW ones are actually not too badly priced (its like the only thing they do that isnt)
But some to look at are Windsor and Newton Series 7 for premium quality... and many othe rbrands of artists sable brush.

If you have an airbrush, or are looking to get one at any point, then I hear vallejo also do their colours in a pre-thinned line for spraying, which sounds convinient. Personally I have no problems thinning down almost any acrylics with the right reducers and mediums.

Spray primer in cans or airbrushes is great, will save time and give superiour results usually.
Just the GW can is hellishly expensive, shop elsehwere for it! hehe.

Army painter do basecoat colours in sprays that seem popular, or like me any colour can be sprayed via airbrush

You said you view/read tutorials, all i can suggets is to have a go at some, practise, stick with it... cus hardly anyone is da'vincci on their first try, make small achievable goals with regards to painting skills. Don't become disheartened that you can't pull off a bunch of new techniques straight off the bat and just bear with it and reap the rewards of your efforts!

edit; a good system I used was to only worry about improving on your last model, as long as you try to learn one thing and improve just one bit each time round then thats a good level of progress... and if you run out of figures and still arent happy, strip the paint off and do them all again

My best advice is get a few brushes and some paint and get to painting. Vallejo makes a wonderful paint line, but here the kicker most new painters do not know where to start due to it being so large of a line. It has many colors, textures, and needs based on the different lines.. Your best bet is to start off with the Game Color line, seeing they are the closest match to the older GW colors.. Primers are easy, get some krylon and your golden..

GW and Army Painter primers are not worth the price tag they come with, seeing most of there paint are relabeled other brands.. The best advice I can give on brushes are to look for a brush that keeps a good sharp point when loaded. If it splits when you load it, don't buy it. Most brushes comes with a protective cap when you buy it, take it off and load it with spit to see how it reacts.. At least that is what I have done over the years and have passed up some over priced brushes do to them not reacting right to this test..

Also you need to practice, never get discouraged when it does not look right.. Start off doing a three color figure with a wash and highlights, don't worry about building up a transition of colors to your highlight.. Think of when you were a kid coloring in a coloring book.. At first you did not stay in the lines, but now you could probably throw down some badass crayon action lol.. Its the same with painting, it will come to you one day and you will look at your earlier work seeing the progression that you have taken..

See the last link in my signature? It's a huge list of painting tips, check it out!

Since your a beginner in every sense of the word, I wouldnt recommend the GW paints, or any other pricey line, as your skills simply wont be there to make use of the quality paint. I paint with Americana paints, you can find them in Walmart or any hobby store for a buck a bottle, and theres about 3x the amount of paint in each bottle. That way you dont have to worry about ruining your supply of pricey paints while you learn. Best part is, when your skills sharpen, the paints STILL look rather nice, heres some of mine








See, I wont win any competitions using the paint, as the quality isnt as high, but it still can leave a nice result. And if you want, you can move onto better paint lines when your skill improves. Best of all, the bottles have droppers made into the lids, its so nice

My best advice is just to get stuck in.
Your first few attempts will probably not be great but don't be discouraged - we were all a bit pooh to begin with.
You're luckier than old guys like me as you have the internet available to show you how to do things.
Do some youtube searches.

Buy a pewter model and some simple green.
Pick a pack of old metal marines or whatever your army is from ebay.

So roughly 5 Models, get the paints you want to use. Look at some tutorials on higlighting and shading on dakka or more advanced things like NMM or OSL.

Then just paint and strip and repeat. That way your not wasting models and have a good way to practise things.

Cheap start may be to pick up the manic paint set on wayland or totalwargamer

gets you some army painter paints a brush and about 6 models.

Also the 40k starter set gets you a bunch of models cheap.

I think the best advice i can give is just start small. Start painting with a just a few basecoat colors and you can learn some easy trick from there. For example, Say you're painting cadian shock troops. Start with just maybe 4 colors, A green, a tan, a skin tone and a metal color. Focus on getting the colors on as clean as you can. If you're painting a whole army it'll look just fine. Plus, you can learn to apply highlights and washes later and not have to re paint.

Well, don't take this negatively, but your first army will look terrible. Incredibly terrible. The fact is everyone who picks up a brush for the first tiem will have miserable painting skills.

That said, go and finish painting your army notwithstanding the bad paint job. Your skill will have improved by the end of it, and you can always strip the models of paint and repaint them again. Most importantly, claim your army by painting it. I made a right bloody good mess of the current paintjob of my marines, but I went and finished it anyway, because now I have an army with the same colors, they all belong to me.

GW paint behaves differntly from vallejo paints. That said, vallejo gives you more value for dollar, the bottle has a better design....stick to valejo paints. As for the burshes, it's goign to take you a while to learn to handle the smallest ones, like the 1, 0 or 00. learning brush care and brush control is going to have to come first, so I don't reccomend going smaller than 0, else you might ruin the brush before it's ready to retire. Go down to your FLGS, or your art store (there's a LOT of people in art stores who can help you out with miniatures), and throw questions at them, they will also help you.

Thanks for all the tips and info. This should get me headed in the right direction!

Also see

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Painting_for_the_first_time

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Paint_Five_Colors

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Painting_a_New_Army

I started out on bare ground a couple years ago myself, so I know how daunting it is to hold a model in one hand and a paintbrush in the other for the very first time.

A couple of tips that would have saved me a lot of stripping and re-painting are these:

Any acrylic paint which comes in a dropper bottle is okay to use. The dropper bottle is a LIFESAVER because of the next tip.

Thin your paints. Don't have to thin it a lot. A little thinning goes a long way in the beginning.

Last, don't be afraid to try more advanced techniques early. It might be a steeper learning curve, but you'll get good sooo much faster. I got into the habit of using only basic techniques, which made it so much harder to learn the advanced ones. I still haven't learned half of what I consider essential for a result to be proud of. I'm serious about this. Even just trying out an advanced technique makes you realize how easy the basic ones are. If you've ever played a pc or console game, I'm sure you know what I mean. Learn the game at a harder difficulty than you want to play at, so when you go back to the easier difficulty, it's really easy.

Slightly off topic, but not really:
My friend and I are hooked on racing games. For a long time we played the games on the default difficulty. Somewhat easy in the beginning of the game, a little bit harder later in the game. Then we started turning off driving assists, turning on manual transmission etc., it got real hard, real fast. When we now go back to default it's so easy it's almost boring.

Paris.in.Flames wrote:So, ive been in the 40k hobby for about a year casually, but never got around to painting anything. I now have the time (and disposable income) to do so!!!! The only downside is that i have absolutely no clue where to start.. I have never painted anything in my life, let alone a small model. I've looked at some tutorials about general model painting, but I'm still sorta at a loss. Any tips for a novice painter? Any sort of advice would be much appreciated.

Now a couple specific questions:
GW paints seem ridiculously over priced. Someone pointed me in the direction of Vallejo and their GW mimicking lines. Can anyone here confirm that this is a good brand? I've done the math, it is much cheaper per ml. Alternately, what do you guys use?

Also, brushes. I assume i need small brushes, but what kinds? any particular brands?

I think after i get some good brushes and paints ill be able to figure it out. I'm just not the visual art kinda guy.

For paints on a budget you can't beat Folkart paints from walmart its basically the same stuff as GW's but much cheeper. Squeese a drop out into a water bottle cap (or a jam jar lid) and thin it out with a few drops of water.



On the same note the 99cent spray paint from walmart (flat black or flat white) also works great.

For brushes its more of an open feild. Buy a few smaller detail brushes from GW and the rest (larger brushes) from... you guessed it walmart.

For washes and metalics go with armypainter or GW. GW washes are amazeing, and used in every one of their painting turorials.



.

I second Folk art as an A- off brand. It's a little thicker than GW paints, but all you have to do is thin with some water and it goes on smooth. More than good enough to cut your teeth on. Just remember: thinner is better.

With ANY acrylic paint you'll have to prime all your models. On the subject of cheap paint you can use Krylon plastic spray paint (found at most places with a paint section, at least in Canada) to prime your models, give it the first coat if you find the proper color even. (read the instructions on the can)

I have a couple of the Walmart brands as well, and have never had an issue with them either. As for painting I've been in it for about as long as you have and the one thing I can suggest is to be patient and dont be affraid to mess up. Also avoid some of the more diffcult techniques for now. I tried to do all that in the beginning and it just came out bad....sooo very bad!

poda_t wrote:Well, don't take this negatively, but your first army will look terrible. Incredibly terrible. The fact is everyone who picks up a brush for the first tiem will have miserable painting skills.

I disagree. The reason peoples first models look terrible is people just start painting without knowing how to do anything and no one shows them how to do it.

My biggest suggestion is go to a hobby shop or games club where people paint in the store/club and get someone to walk you through how to paint your first few models. I've seen new kids paint some really good looking models for their first models, stuff that took me years to learn how to do, simply because they had someone looking over their shoulder explaining what to do, how shading and highlighting works and showing them the correct consistency for the paint. One guy I saw painted a Blood Raven-like scheme and I saw his first ever model and it was better than what I was painting after years of being in the hobby, then his 2nd ever model was a full blown Land Raider which looked superb.

I don't know what it's like where you live, but out here the local official GW store is EXTREMELY helpful. You can go in, tell the shop keepers you're new and have never painted before and they'll help you out.

Trust me, it's really really useful. I was painting for years before I went to the local GW and sat down and started painting and the guys came over and told me all the things I was doing wrong and my standard jumped massively in the space of a few hours. You can look at all the tutorials you want and look at other peoples' models, unless you have a lot of natural talent you won't be able to reproduce without either a LOT of practice or 5 minutes of someone sitting down with you and actually showing you how to do it.

I've also heard the new painting guide from GW, though incredibly expensive, is a good reference for new painters. Again, I wouldn't necessarily say "go out and buy it", as it's friggin expensive, but my local GW store has an open copy which they'll let you read through as you're working at their painting tables.

The other good thing about all the official GW stores I've been to (and it may not be the same where you are) is they let you use store paints and brushes. So you can save yourself a lot of money by learning which paints you need to do the scheme you want and which brushes you might need as well (though admittedly all the store brushes are pretty tatty, most the good painters bring in their own brushes and use the store paints, but it's still useful to get an idea of what size and type of brush you need for what job).

strange how both your time and disposable income went up at the same time... i have been in the hobby for about 18 months now, and my disposable income went through the roof, but my time diminished to like an hour a day max... (and thats if im lucky)

Tel wrote:Also avoid some of the more diffcult techniques for now. I tried to do all that in the beginning and it just came out bad....sooo very bad!

I do not concur. Sure the first two or three models won't look amazing, but that's what practicing is for. Even just going for basic techniques in the beginning will produce bad to bad-ish models. And in my personal experience, getting decent at the basic techniques won't make the more advanced techniques any easier. They're different techniques after all. Anyway, producing a few terrible minis is not a problem, and is so worth it if you get practiced with advanced techniques early. Stripping models is so very easy once you get to a level that doesn't hurt the eyes.

Getting good at the basic techniques and then starting on the advanced ones is (still in my personal experience) really disheartening, because you'll take models that looks decent and ruin them with a technique you're not at all comfortable with.

Again, in my experience, it's a bit daunting to try out new and difficult things on a model you're reasonably happy with.

Like I said in my earlier post, it's a steep learning curve, but in my opinion it's soo worth it.

Another tip for new painters, me included as only returned to it after 17year break.

TIP:
Be organised, have an area set aside just to paint or if you can't do that buy or build a mobile paint station. Citadel do one but I'm not keen on it so I bought a real nice paint station from HobbyZone.
I'm awaiting delivery of the Professional Paint Station which cost £37 with delivery to UK. I'm sure you can find cheaper alternatives or build one yourself if you're handy with tools.

It will make life much easier to be organised, keep paints and brushes tidy while working and means if you need to move you can pick up the lot and move. This won't hold all your paints but all you need is the ones you will be working with.

So to round it up.... BE ORGANISED!!

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

poda_t wrote:Well, don't take this negatively, but your first army will look terrible. Incredibly terrible. The fact is everyone who picks up a brush for the first tiem will have miserable painting skills.

I disagree. The reason peoples first models look terrible is people just start painting without knowing how to do anything and no one shows them how to do it.

My biggest suggestion is go to a hobby shop or games club where people paint in the store/club and get someone to walk you through how to paint your first few models. I've seen new kids paint some really good looking models for their first models, stuff that took me years to learn how to do, simply because they had someone looking over their shoulder explaining what to do, how shading and highlighting works and showing them the correct consistency for the paint. One guy I saw painted a Blood Raven-like scheme and I saw his first ever model and it was better than what I was painting after years of being in the hobby, then his 2nd ever model was a full blown Land Raider which looked superb.

I don't know what it's like where you live, but out here the local official GW store is EXTREMELY helpful. You can go in, tell the shop keepers you're new and have never painted before and they'll help you out.

Trust me, it's really really useful. I was painting for years before I went to the local GW and sat down and started painting and the guys came over and told me all the things I was doing wrong and my standard jumped massively in the space of a few hours. You can look at all the tutorials you want and look at other peoples' models, unless you have a lot of natural talent you won't be able to reproduce without either a LOT of practice or 5 minutes of someone sitting down with you and actually showing you how to do it.

I've also heard the new painting guide from GW, though incredibly expensive, is a good reference for new painters. Again, I wouldn't necessarily say "go out and buy it", as it's friggin expensive, but my local GW store has an open copy which they'll let you read through as you're working at their painting tables.

The other good thing about all the official GW stores I've been to (and it may not be the same where you are) is they let you use store paints and brushes. So you can save yourself a lot of money by learning which paints you need to do the scheme you want and which brushes you might need as well (though admittedly all the store brushes are pretty tatty, most the good painters bring in their own brushes and use the store paints, but it's still useful to get an idea of what size and type of brush you need for what job).

trust me, i got the starting hand, started painting, somewhere along the line i ended up somewhere different, and then had to go back and redo it. You also get a better eye for blending, lighting etc as you paint more. My current armies look much better than my initial starting army, and besides which, you're better of making a mistake and screwing up because you learn more from that than getting it "right" the first time.


EDIT:
OH I FORGOT!!!!!

most people who write on their tanks, cheat. With micron pens.

Which Micron Pens are good? I'm googling some online and I would love to have a set to draw small decals/letters on my tanks/space marine Purity Seals but I'm not sure what type/size to buy...

What about this set?

http://www.shopatron.com/products/productdetail/Pigma+Micron+005%2C+6-color+set/part_number=30064/294.0.1.1.8816.9956.8787.0.0?pp=8&

poda_t wrote:trust me, i got the starting hand, started painting, somewhere along the line i ended up somewhere different, and then had to go back and redo it. You also get a better eye for blending, lighting etc as you paint more. My current armies look much better than my initial starting army, and besides which, you're better of making a mistake and screwing up because you learn more from that than getting it "right" the first time.

We'll have to agree to disagree then Coz I went down the other path of looking at tutorials, lots of practice, posting pictures online or getting guys at the shop to give me suggestions and it took me years before I even learnt some really basic techniques which as soon as I had a good painter (and granted a good teacher as well) looking over my shoulder picked up immediately what I was doing wrong, told me what I was doing wrong and I learnt how to do it right. Of course later armies are gonna look better than your early armies, but I don't think there's any reason why your first army has to look flat out terrible like mine did Also you can waste a lot of time and expensive models before you learn how to do something through trial and error.

Maybe it depends on how good the teacher is and how long you actually spend in the shop. I can see if you just go in and paint one or two models and the guy just just tells you what to do you might go backwards from your initial models. I was more thinking the new guys I see in the store time and time again painting and the shop keepers explaining different techniques and a couple of months later I see their completed armies and they look great (maybe not awesome, maybe not as good as someone who's on their 5th army, but sure as hell a lot better than my 1st army or even my 2nd or 3rd army).

I'd say I probably learnt as much through trial and error as I have going into the LGS and people telling me when I'm doing wrong... however the trial and error took me ages and many crappy looking models (wasted time and money, models were expensive to me back then) where as the people telling me what I'm doing wrong usually only took 1 or 2

Mamox wrote:Which Micron Pens are good? I'm googling some online and I would love to have a set to draw small decals/letters on my tanks/space marine Purity Seals but I'm not sure what type/size to buy...

What about this set?

http://www.shopatron.com/products/productdetail/Pigma+Micron+005%2C+6-color+set/part_number=30064/294.0.1.1.8816.9956.8787.0.0?pp=8&

That's overkill. You likely won't need all of the colors, most writing you'll probably do in black. But yes, I use that brand. Otherpeople use permanent marker with an incredibly fine tip... .but.... permanent marker is permanent. Micron needs to be sealed in, but you have the chance to go back and correct it. If you have a custom symbol, micron pens give you the greatest chance of repeating with highaccuracy.