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I've got a friend who never paints any miniatures and as a little joke I'd like to buy him one of those kits that come with a few paints and a model or two and hopefully an illustrated instruction booklet. On the off chance he does take on up more seriously than I intend I'd like to make sure he's got a gold guide, and to be frank I've gotten lazy with my painting so back to basics probably will help me as well. Any particularly good ones out there?

None that I'm aware of. There are bundles available that include both model(s) and paints, but they tend to be very basic - nearly useless instructions ("apply the appropriate color of paint to the model's surface using a brush"), crappy molding, and a tiny selection of paints that are rarely up to the standard of the company's stand-alone offerings, if they have them (you know the type - the strung together, soft plastic pots of colored goop you'd expect to find in a birdhouse kit for children at a dollar/pound shop).

I seem to recall GW once offering a "Space Marine practice pack," of sorts, but the closest I could find currently is a trio of repackaged AoBR snap-fit marines for $10. If you want a gag gift, get him an unrelated "intro to painting" kit - a child's paint-by-numbers book or the like. If you want to get him painting his models, find him an experience mentor, buy him a book on the subject, or point him to useful online resources and, perhaps more importantly, get stuck in alongside him.

mantic has a paint kit that comes with a brush and some models. Dont think it has instructions though.

Reaper has a few learn-to-paint kits...
Miniature Heroes sells them in the UK...

cheers
jah

The problem is less in the models/paint and more in the instruction. The GW book is great, and includes a DVD that is WAY better than the P3 DVD (Core Techniques 1), which I found a waste of money.

The citadel book also comes with a handy layering chart, to help aspiring painters know which groups of paint will look good together. It has excellent coverage of basic and intermediate skills, with great photography. However, it's something like $50 :(

There are many basic paint sets from various vendors. However, some, like GW, are a lousy deal, because paint is not discounted as compared to separate pots.

 jah-joshua wrote:
Reaper has a few learn-to-paint kits...
Miniature Heroes sells them in the UK...

cheers
jah

This was my first thought as well. That said, I have no idea if they're any good, but they do have paints and an instruction booklet.

Overall though, most paint kits like that aren't really good. You're better off googling some "how to paint good" tutorials and then buying the specific paints you need, they can't possibly make a kit that contains all the paints you specifically will need to paint your army.

Well, army painter has a FREE how to paint booklet that's no worse than what comes in a foldout

There is a printable/PDF guide from the vault at Miniwargaming.com (I think that's what they're called). I only glanced at it, but it looked pretty decent. It comes free if you do a trial subscription, and you can keep it even if you cancel the subscription before the first payment kicks in. You don't even have to feel guilty about it, because they tell you can keep it, along with all the downloadable videos, if you decide against the subscription. Obviously, if you find them useful, you should give them some business

The problem is that it's not humanly possible to cover miniature painting on one sheet of paper

A very cheap and really awesome kit is from Rackham/Confrontation. You can still order them from Ludikbazar a french webshop. The paint is awesome and it comes with a very rare beautiful mini...

i thought the point was for this to be a sort of gag gift...
thus, cheap and cheerful, not a serious set of guides to becoming a great painter...
did i read the first sentence in the OP wrong???

cheers
jah

It's part gag gift, however if it does get taken seriously I'd want it at least to be semi useful. Rackham one sounds like a good bet.