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It just hit me that almost five years ago from today I started painting and playing with warhammer 40k models. So I thought I'd look at some of my very first models and laugh at how terrible I was. So on the left side of the picture is one of the very firsy Ork boyz I painted and on the right is an ork boy I just painted ( before you say anything I know his sword hilt isn't painted, I ran out of leadbelcher). Please feel free to wax nostalgia with me and post your now and then photos.

Wow. that gives me some serious inspiriation. I just posted the first model I painted yesterday. Cant wait to see where I go from here. Thanks for sharing (:

I remember when I entered my first tournament I was a little embarrassed about the quality of my army, but I think we all start at this level, just keep painting and experimenting.

I have an image of my first ever - it's from about 2007... I don't think I've got any better, but on the plus side, I haven't got any worse.


I just loved this figure, it's so happy. I sat in a tiny student flat in Nottingham listening on how to drybrush and shade-midtone-highlight. Then tried my damnedest.

I guess my most recent is this week (unfinished - most of my work is):

Nice! Really inspirational!

Ok ignore what I just said about first models being bad, that wolf looks better than the thunder wolf Calvary I painted for a contest a few weeks ago.

First model, 1992ish:



Versus 2011:




I guess that's what roughly 20 years of practice will do for you!

bluhhhh

This just reminds me of the first things I painted. I don't have anything from that era. Everything has been stripped or slagged into terrain and for good reason.

 Dust wrote:
bluhhhh

This just reminds me of the first things I painted. I don't have anything from that era. Everything has been stripped or slagged into terrain and for good reason.

Varnish baby, VARNISH!

The last steps of every model I painted back then was to give them a black wash and then a varnish seal (well I guess painting the top of the base 'green' would be in between those two). I actually thought a model didn't look right unless it was varnished.

And I like to keep all my old painted models. It helps me remember where I came from.

 yakface wrote:


Varnish baby, VARNISH!

The last steps of every model I painted back then was to give them a black wash and then a varnish seal (well I guess painting the top of the base 'green' would be in between those two). I actually thought a model didn't look right unless it was varnished.

And I like to keep all my old painted models. It helps me remember where I came from.

I think I might have a few kicking around somewhere.

What stands out the most to me in my original models is how gaudy they were. Everything worth painting a metallic hue was absolutely doused in it I even had some golden spray paint that I used for primer. It was like a Kardashian army or something 2Chainz would paint.

 chazz huggins wrote:
Ok ignore what I just said about first models being bad, that wolf looks better than the thunder wolf Calvary I painted for a contest a few weeks ago.

In my defense(?) I was at university for a fine art foundation degree at the time, and in a relationship with an ex Citadel demo painter.
It was all my own work, but I had a lecture of how to do things like prime, wash, pin, drybrush, etc.

Left to my own devices I accidentally used gloss radiator paint to prime a figure and had to throw out a perfectly good Wolfen. So technically this is my second. My first never got painted.

I love when these threads pop up! I've been painting for three and half years, coming into the hobby as an adult (with a wife, kids, house; all that good stuff) so I was lucky enough to have the bevy of information on Dakka, YouTube, and other places on the internet to help me hone my skills.

This was the first miniature I painted, sometime in late January 2012:


Then this, sometime late last year:


And this a couple of months ago:

Well I did have a bit of a steadier hand back when I was younger. I took a long hiatus from painting miniatures.

1989 or so


2015


To bad both pictures are taken with a potato.

Quake in awe at my late 80s paint job.

VERY first mini I ever painted. 1985 or 86. Got to love those enamels lol!



First Space Marines. Sometime in 1990-91 I think



Mid 90s sometime, 96 or 97



2002 or so



Just last night

I don't have any pics from when I first started, but needless to say my first outings were... poor lol. Here's one from 3yrs ago when I tried to actually get some serious painting done...
Not too bad but not great.


Present day: Pretty awesome IMO

Haven't been doing this yet for thaaaaat long. Four or five years I guess.

One of my first squads painted, Dire Avengers

I knew some washing and drybrushinng and that was it. Were pretty bland.

Midway I changed armies and tried new stuff. It turned into this.


And nowadays it's

 yakface wrote:

Spoiler:

First model, 1992ish:



Versus 2011:

I guess that's what roughly 20 years of practice will do for you!

That's a great improvement from then till now. I almost didn't see it was a Termie at first.

I don't have any pics of my really early stuff, as it's mostly broken or redone. However, in the last couple of years I've made more progress painting than in the 5 years before that. Here's mid 2014, passable at a distance but once you start looking closer they are pretty poor:






This is around the end of 2014. Getting there, I think.




And from the last few months:







Incidentally, this improvement seems inversely proportional to how many actual games I get in. I've barely played since last autumn, so been able to spend more time on my paintwork and do more one-offs and display pieces.

Here's one from 2011, prior to my 4-year hiatus, long before I even created this account:


Here's one from a few months ago when I finally ended my hiatus:


Here's one that I'm working on right now (although my photography skills certainly haven't improved):

As you can see, I'm still figuring out how to de-uglify bases and how to do photo color balancing, but I think that I've improved since January, and gotten significantly better since 2011.

Mid/late ‘80s:


Latest work (although not my best)


HG is fairly recent, and closer to what I normally paint:

Okay so my first model about 2 years ago (A raven guard jump pack chaplain) and my latest DKoK death riders

I've posted this before (but more as a thing about how much bigger space marines have gotten), but the red one on the left was probably one of my first squads.

really inspirational

So this is one of my early models that I still use to test posing new weapons with after ripping his arms off...


More recent stuff;