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Many of these models are so cool and I want to paint them all!

I just started painting, lol. I'm having a ton of fun painting my second space marine (don't laugh) and am learning a ton each time I pick up a brush and mix my paint.

At what point do you start thinking about painting other models? I read a bunch before starting and everyone said to start with Space Marines, so here I am.

How did everyone here do it? Did they pain a ton of one kind of model to get more proficient and then really dive into the models they wanted to paint over and above the Space Marines?

I'd love to hear everyone's feedback and experience on this.

Glad you are enjoying painting Space Marines. Nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve painted hundreds of the little guys and still enjoy it!

If there is a mini you want to paint, and want to try some new techniques, it might be worth giving them a shot on a test mini first.

You can move on whenever you feel up to it. The only cost is your time and a little paint. If you screw up, you can always strip the paint off and start over. The important thing to do is just keep working. With time, you will get more proficient and your results will improve. Try new things out. Push your boundaries. When you are ready to move on to something new is going to depend a lot on how you feel you are doing. Mastered getting a smooth base down? Move to highlights. Try washes. Drybrush. It’s up to you.

I peronally just always paint what i like the look of.
Thinking back the first things i remember painting where early Eldar and Pink horrors , no concern for an army just painting what I thought were cool models.

Nowdays I generally paint models in maybe 500pt groups for a specific army , but still if something takes my eye , I buy it and paint it

Do you have plans to play, or are you just painting and collecting? If you want to play, then you probably want to be picking a specific army and working towards an army list - and if that isn't Space Marines then I wouldn't be wasting any more of your time on them. Otherwise, whatever you want!

There's definitely something to be said for 'learning' a type of mini; having painted well over a couple of hundred Space Marines (when I think about it, that's rather depressing... ) I now have a method that can be applied regardless of the scheme. Where the highlights go, where and how to weather, what order to paint them in, what shortcuts can and can't be taken ect. If you plan to paint an army of Space Marines, sticking to them for now and 'learning' them in that way will definitely help.

However, the more you branch out, the more you will learn, and it's all cumulative. Painting a couple of Elves might teach you metallics and fabrics that can then be applied to Space Marine weapons and capes respectively. Painting a few Dark Eldar might give you some experience with skin. A bike or two will be good practice with large, flat surfaces before going on to vehicles. With all of this, the more you paint, you'll improve your brush control, your eye for colour, your general neatness and all that.

So basically, there's no rules, and everything you do will contribute to your improvement as a painter. All I will say perhaps to practice on cheaper minis first, not because your first minis will necessarily be bad, but because you'll look back in 6 months or a year and know that you could do a better job, that's just how it goes. Better to get that feeling over a Tactical Marine than a £15 character mini.

Good luck!

Thanks for all the input!

I took the advice and ordered a few individual Necron Warriors and Tyranid Termagants on E-Bay and will try my hand at painting them. I'm not sure when/if I will ever play, but am slowly get more and more interested in the game and rules.

I have both necrons and Tyranids.

Lets me give a couple of simple advice tips for them.

Necrons are by far more interesting to paint imo.

To start I do my base coats, then some highlights, shade with nuln oil and THEN I do all the energy effects (inside of ribs, eyes, chest ankh). I then touch up any areas around the "energy areas" I might have messed up with the highlight color, use a glaze to brighten or help blend energy colors, and after top coating with a satin spray I hit all the energy with ard coat. The gloss effect really makes that energy pop on the models. I will try to get my necrons loaded into the gallery and in my WIP thread tonight. Been meaning to do that for awhile.

Nids are fine, but kind of dull and very monotonous because of the sheer number of models. Some of the bigger things get pretty interesting but you might be in for some mind numbing work on the hordes.

That seems to be pretty good thinking. Just paint different individual troop units from different factions to see what you enjoy painting and also gaining that experience of different techniques. I agree with Paradigm in that you shouldn't paint up any centrepiece character models until you feel happy with the basic troops.

With my personal experience, I ended up selling off all my painted models from when I first started as I found looking back at them a year or so down the line, they just didn't fit with what I was painting in the present. You will find that your painting skills will improve considerably over time and a lot of it is muscle memory too (similar to playing a musical instrument) where it feels a lot more natural and almost second nature.

In terms of starting an army, your best bet is to work out say 500 points of a faction you want to start with and then paint it up to the best of your ability. You can still play 500 point skirmish games and they are a lot of fun. Once those 500 points worth are painted up, then look at a 1000 point list where you add and paint up an additional 500 points worth and so on.

Myself and a friend of mine made the mistake of just getting everything at once because we were desperate to play. Started out playing 1850 games (which took ages since we were new to the rules) with only half painted armies. We've pretty much managed to catch up and get most things painted, but I think we would have been better off starting with smaller armies and painting up what we had before adding to them. We actually ended up finding that playing the smaller 1000 point games allowed us to not only finish a game within a respectable amount of time, but also learn the rules better/quicker due to less models on the table to think about.

Basically, start small and build up over time. Don't have boxes/cases full of lots of unpainted grey plastic that you will battle to get round to painting.

btw - the painting tutorial videos that Duncan does on Warhammer tv youtube channel are a good place to start for beginners.

Good luck!

 Slaphead wrote:

You will find that your painting skills will improve considerably over time and a lot of it is muscle memory too (similar to playing a musical instrument) where it feels a lot more natural and almost second nature.

That's good to know!! I've been playing an instrument of some kind since I was 4, and guitar for the last 25 years.

btw - the painting tutorial videos that Duncan does on Warhammer tv youtube channel are a good place to start for beginners.

Good luck!

I've been watching them for weeks now! That's basically how I'm learning. There is another guy on YouTube "The Apathetic Fish" I've been watching a lot of, too. Extremely talented!

Cool :-)

You should also post some pics on dakkadakka to get some feedback.

 Slaphead wrote:

Myself and a friend of mine made the mistake of just getting everything at once because we were desperate to play. Started out playing 1850 games (which took ages since we were new to the rules) with only half painted armies. We've pretty much managed to catch up and get most things painted, but I think we would have been better off starting with smaller armies and painting up what we had before adding to them. We actually ended up finding that playing the smaller 1000 point games allowed us to not only finish a game within a respectable amount of time, but also learn the rules better/quicker due to less models on the table to think about.

Well you have...

Life does keep getting in the way!

I've personally found that painting marines can be quite tricky if you want to start line highlighting and get some good contrasts. I've just started painting orks and am finding it very enjoyable and they take about a third of the time per mini for me.

 Slaphead wrote:
Cool :-)

You should also post some pics on dakkadakka to get some feedback.

I will!

Mt first marine was really just kind of a tester for all kinds of things, so that one came out, errrrr, rather unappealing, LOL.

I am now working on my second one and once it's done I will post some pics.