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Hello all,
Looking to start painting my first army here soon, but I dont want the first time my brush touches a unit to be one that I am going to be using. After some research I am going to go with Vallejo paints for my GK army.

Does anyone know of some cheap figurines that I could buy/ebay (not necessarily warhammer) to practice painting?

Any suggestions for a new 40k collector for painting? I've read most of the articles in the painting tutorials section.

Thanks!

-Mike

Vallejo is a good line. If I could start over again, I would go with Vallejo.

I only really know Warhams, but you should be able to get things from the starter set pretty cheap to practice on off ebay - $1.50/ea shipped for these Marines, $1.30/ea shipped for 10 cultists, for example.


Since you're just practicing, go to the home store and get some Simple Green. It's pretty cheap. After you get them painted, if you're not happy, soak them in the Simple Green overnight and brush the paint off and repaint. Repeat as needed. I'd recommend keeping a few of the first ones you do unstripped so you can see how you're progressing.

Well my vote would be a model that strikes interest to you that you want to paint. I'm guessing you looking for a model in the 40k size range to practice on correct. So I'd go with something that you feel you would like to paint would be the best. Also if you can get your hands on a metal Grey knight that would be my answer cause you can practice if you don't like the results a day soak in some simple green and an old tooth brush you can remove all the paint and try again.

Cheers and good luck

I'd recommend jumping on Reaper's website. They have an insane amount of different mini's in different styles / genres so finding something that would interest you enough to want to paint it would be easy. Most are metal (if your not looking at the Bones line) so stripping and repainting isn't a problem.

One thing I will say is that painting a space marine is not really challenging and honestly they make pretty good starter / practice models. I would personally just pick out a non-discript trooper and practice on him. Save your Squad Leaders and HQ's and stuff for when you feel more comfortable.

Good Luck and post up some picks when you get going.

Mantic are very cheap.

 darefsky wrote:
I'd recommend jumping on Reaper's website. They have an insane amount of different mini's in different styles / genres so finding something that would interest you enough to want to paint it would be easy. Most are metal (if your not looking at the Bones line) so stripping and repainting isn't a problem.

One thing I will say is that painting a space marine is not really challenging and honestly they make pretty good starter / practice models. I would personally just pick out a non-discript trooper and practice on him. Save your Squad Leaders and HQ's and stuff for when you feel more comfortable.

I want to second both points made here. Reaper is a great, made-in-USA company and they have a lot of cheap models to look into.

But why not just buy your first GK minis and start with them? You can practice your paint scheme and as everyone already said, use Simple Green to remove paint if you don't like it. This is the approach I took with my army and I'm glad I did. I turned out to need 10 times more time than I thought I would to paint a mini just because I've never done anything artistic before.

Oh and post pictures!

GK are actually pretty new painter friendly. You can prime with silver. Brown base coat where you are going to paint gold. Paint the face and hit it with a dark wash = profit.

When I came back to painting I bought the Empire Militia set, because it seemed good value and I knew I wanted to paint humans. Not sure what the equivalent is for 40K though.