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I recently picked up the hobby again after almost ten years of absence. I never really liked to paint when I was younger but mature me gave it another go.
I present to you my first ever fully painted model. A space wolves wolf guard

To be quite honest for your first miniature that is really good, way better than my first miniAture by far. You have good concept of the basics. My only advice is keep practicing! You got it!

For a first mini it's quite good. Heck, it's better than what I paint now, with 3 years experience under my belt

That is not bad for a first miniature! The only thing I might recommend is some shading to add a little depth. Certainly better than my first crude effort.

Be careful to check for mould lines, there is one on the chainsword hand guard, also you forgot about the right shoulder pad. Good effort though, he is looking sharp and I like the base. Very well done.

Warden wrote:
Be careful to check for mould lines, there is one on the chainsword hand guard, also you forgot about the right shoulder pad. Good effort though, he is looking sharp and I like the base. Very well done.

Thanks for the advise. I personally like the look of just one shoulderpad, is it really necessary to have 2?

Looks good. As mentioned some depth on the armour would help, it looks very flat.

Even just a sepia wash in the recesses and a wild rider red highlight would help.

I like you're choice of colour scheme. Very unusualy for SS, but cool.

D

That is a very good start, and you'll quickly get better with practice. The one shoulder pad makes sense when you think of it, trades protection for a lighter sword arm in close combat. But if you go this road, as mentioned above, do remove the mold line on that shoulder.
Maybe freehand or decals on that shoulder would help asserting that this look is on purpose, but in the end, if you like it best this way, feel free to chainsaw the hell out of any one who disagree. That is the SW way.

Keep it up !

Check for mold lines, wash, dry brush.

Really nice first effort. Two bits of advice for you.
1) be careful to paint only what you want to get paint on. You can see where the metal from the gun has gotten onto his hand as an example.

2) try to make the colours look separate and not run into each other. By this I'll use the necklace as an example. After painting the armour, if you had gone over the necklace in black before colouring it you would have defined the outlines of that part and it would have boldly stood out from the armour. I pretty much always do this with my minis - paint the large parts first, re-black the details, then colour the details.

Keep at it, you're looking good.

ALOT better than I for a first go

If this is your first mini in a decade, you've got a future in painting! There is definitely some room for improvement, but comparing this to what I managed for my first few miniatures and you have a wonderful start.

The first issue I have is with your snow, it's very fluffy and flock-like. Snow can be quite difficult and it could be worth looking around, seeing what different techniques other people use, and testing them on a couple blank bases to see what works best for you before doing this over a whole army. The snow being that tall on the base, even if an aesthetic choice, is hard for any kind of glue to hold and may over time start to lift off.

I REALLY love that you've added little bits on the backpack and knee where it could collect like actual snow. It's a great touch!

The orange itself is nice, rich and surprisingly smooth! A big issue new painters have is with coverage, particularly if using light colours over a dark undercoat. Now that you've got that out of the way, contrast contrast contrast. Your shadows could be a little darker, and your highlights and edges a little lighter. With the scale of our models, we have to exaggerate light and dark so they can be properly visible. They're just too small to let natural lighting do the work for us.

I really like the skull hanging on the front, but it being so good makes the bone tooth necklace and teeth look a little weird because they come across as very flat when alongside the good bone.

Finally I love the tone that you've got for your skin, but again I feel a little more contrast would mean the world. The top of the head isn't really lighter than the bottom of the jaw, and the light situation would be very different on both areas.

A good trick for contrasts and where to place lighter colour, is to hold your model really close under a strong lamp or similar, and pay attention to what areas the light hits the most.

Keep up the great work!

What hasn't been said already?

Great mini especially for a first go.

Love to see any future ones you do!

As mentioned, great job on the mini.

Another way to break it up, especially marines, is to paint the ribbed areas behind the knees, elbows, hips, etc. On marines, its a nice easy way to contrast the large plain plates. Either black for the ribbing, or silver washed with black ink would be a simple addition.

Keep at it!