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Hello Dakka Dakka.

So I have purchased a ticket to a up and coming campaign weekend down at Warhammer World in August.

I have to have my 1500 points of eldar fully painted by August.

Now I must confess, I am no painter, never really had much interest in painting and in the past year have painted 1 model only.

However now I have no choice due to purpose, to get this army painted and stick at it.

My questions are the following.

1. Where to start as a beginner painter?.

2. Out of the painting brands, Games Workshop, Army Painter, Valejio etc which are considered the better ones to use?

3. Any tutorial guides or videos which are recommended?.

And just any other advice you have for someone who has hardly painted but must now crack on and get a army done.

Cheers

Wow that's a good amount of points to get through, I am personally too slow hah.

If you aren't already hooked on GW paints (like me) then I'd start fresh with Vallejo though Army Painter is decent if you have easy access to it.

Check out the GW painting tutorials, they are excellent: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEaPE4sLDA7s-26V0v6SepDFiznb3y6hx

The usual stuff, get decent brushes, thin your paints, use a pallet, cheat with colored primers (army painter is good for this); utilize the base/wash/dry-brush technique for quick and dirty paint jobs.

Good luck!!

With that many points in that short of time, I think rattle cans are going to be your friend. Even with stock nozzles you can get some nice shading effects. You can probably get a model 75% ready and then finish off the last 25% with a brush to pick out a few details, and then do a wash or two.

In my list I have around 30 models.

Im aiming to do the best I can but they dont need to be perfect just viable for the event and I can touch them up after if needed

I'd recommend an Army Painter spray in the colour of your choice and a shade, that should be enough for basecoats. Add details, shade. Done!

Are army painter sprays much different compared to Games Workshop spray?.

And also could anyone explain the difference between Vallejo model colour and game colour.

Thanks

VGC and VMC are just different color palettes. VGC are brighter colors, VMC is focused on military scale models with a lot of camo and earth tones that are more muted. I prefer the air range since it's already thinned down.

I have yet to find a half decent orange from Vallejo though. Nothing beats GW wild rider red, at least as a base.

An airbrush will save you a huge amount of time as you can block out several colors on a model, not just one.

For the sake of speed I would try to make clever basecoat-shade combos. Some colors look great after a wash, typically mid tones. White and black are hard to make look nice.

I am planning on doing the Saim Hann colour scheme and saw games workshop do a Mephiston Red model spray, would this be good use to save time with the base coating?

Just a note, rim your bases properly.
They're very relaxed with painting standard, but if tourney staff spot that your bases are sloppy or unfinished, they will take you to one side about it.
I did some skitari bases entirely silver (brushed metal) and they weren't happy.

1500 points in a week?
to answer the question
1) start with the hairy stick and paint get a free gw model to practice on. even if its a marine. learn to control how thick and thin the coat is. dont forget primer too. (you dont have to go with all GW stuff since its stupid expensive)
2) All 3 brands have advantages. some individual paints are better than others
3) eh not really. depends on what you are going for.

my real question would be what scheme are you going for.

you could literally knock out an entire army in like 3 days and not look half bad. though with maximum focus.

by doing a colored spray primer off army painter > touch up with army painter paint of the same color > line highlight and detail colors with any paint range (easy would black and a metal of some sort or a contrast color for the gems which are simple enough to do) > gw wash of an appropriate color > base (however far you wana theme it) seal.

1500 Points by end of August .

I was maybe thinking Ulthwe as it looked relatively quick and simple, black with grey highlights etc.

Oh woops i put together upcoming campaign and weekend as this weekend

But still. google up a scheme you like and there are usually recipes. then get some practice models and give it a shot

Most eldar stuff i recall seeing needs airbrushes but you can still achive it with a hairbrush. its mostly glazing IIRC.

Ok so for ulthewe, I have primed grey on a Eldar jetbike, and then base coated black.

What would be recommended for the next step?, do the edges in dark grey and then build up to a light grey?.