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Okay, so this is probably a dumb question that gets asked a lot but I've always been a very mediocre hobbyist/painter. What are some good, general steps I can take to becoming a better model painter?

-Thin your paints with water. Lots of thin coats look better and smoother than one thick one.

-Look after your brushes, if the paint goes into the metal bit at the top of the bristles they will fray. Keep a good point on them.

-Make sure you clean up your models (remove flash, moldlines, dust, bits of superglue overspill etc) before painting, and prime/ undercoat them. Again, thin coats of primer.

-If you want bright colours, use a white undercoat and paint a brighter colour first. For example, you want red Blood Angels, so prime them white and paint them pink first, then paint the red over the top. The red will really pop then.

-Washes are your friend, they help a lot with shading, but I like to put another highlight after the wash.

-When you drybrush, your brush should be really really dry. If you rub it across your hand nothing should come off on your hand.

-If you want something to look black, reserve black for the very darkest shading. Instead use very dark grey or very dark blue/green/red and then progressively add more grey for the highlights. Dark grey actually looks more like black to the eye than black itself.

-Have a go at making a wet pallet. It's really easy- all you need is a small tupperware box, kitchen paper towel and some greaseproof paper. There are lots of tutorials online. It really helps to keep your paints wet for longer, and makes it much easier to thin them and mix them.

-Try to work with either natural sunlight or get a white light bulb (these often have a blue tint to the glass) If you use a yellow light everything's going to look weird when you look at your models in daylight.

-Post your work on sites like CoolMiniOrNot.com and the Dakka Painting and Modelling forum and ask for feedback on how to improve specific techniques.

-Good luck!

Hi bocatt, this is the wrong place for requesting tutorials, as mentioned in the sticky http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/233614.page

However, since you've asked the question, and in the spirit of Dakka, here is a link to a sticky with a bunch of Tutorials http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/233565.page

Also just having a general browse of the tutorial section here and watching painting videos on youtube etc, is a good way to pick up ideas and techniques.

I know the videos for me help the most, I find it easier to emulate a technique when I see someone do it rather than describe it, each to their own though.