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I've got a new post on my blog with some painting tips that have helped me improve a bit. Not tips for amazing painters to get award winner results, which I will never be able to aspire to. But just stuff that has helped me make good progress while getting decent results. Have a look if you're interested, and feel free to leave comments with feedback or your own painting tips.

http://adventuresinminiaturegaming.blogspot.com/2016/06/painting-tips-for-rest-of-us.html

The best tip and I think it is sometimes overlooked is this one;
Aim to be as tidy as possible. If you do this,gradually you will learn how to do more fine work like shading,highlighting. Too many people start painting and try to add as much effects as possible.If you aren't neat all other things will look a mess.

When painting around your recesses after shading be sure to paint a consistent distance away from the recesses. This is super easy to do but I've seem many new painters lose out on some easy to get quality by not doing this.

A couple of quibbles:

1) I think when brushes wear out, they can still be useful for dry brushing or stippling. But it's important to make sure that you're workhorse brush holds a good tip.

6) If you can hit a mistake immediately with a wet brush, you can sometimes just wash it away. Aside from that, I agree that it's better to layer your colors, and then have a cleanup stage.

I'll give a huge plus one to #7. If you want to get faster at something, just do that thing faster!

The most important piece of advice I can give to any new painter is simple: Do your homework! Have a clear vision in your mind of how you want your model/army to look. Research ways that you can paint the varying colors. Everything has been done and tutorials are everywhere. Even if you need to find a different tutorial for each color, do it and follow them to the letter. It's easier to figure out where your own shortcomings are if you follow a few tutorials exactly early on. Once you get the feel for the basics (layering, thinning paint, color theory, etc.) then you can wander off on your own with confidence.

When I first started painting, I averaged at least 2-3 hours of research for every hour of painting. I got much better much faster by learning from other peoples' mistakes as much as possible.

 Nodri wrote:
The most important piece of advice I can give to any new painter is simple: Do your homework! Have a clear vision in your mind of how you want your model/army to look. Research ways that you can paint the varying colors. Everything has been done and tutorials are everywhere. Even if you need to find a different tutorial for each color, do it and follow them to the letter. It's easier to figure out where your own shortcomings are if you follow a few tutorials exactly early on. Once you get the feel for the basics (layering, thinning paint, color theory, etc.) then you can wander off on your own with confidence.

When I first started painting, I averaged at least 2-3 hours of research for every hour of painting. I got much better much faster by learning from other peoples' mistakes as much as possible.

I would have to agree with this. There's just so much content with step by step pictures, or youtube tutorials on painting. Learn dry brushing. Every time I layer on paint it just doesn't look as smooth unless its drybrushed on. Looking at my models and some of the various techniques I've been learning on them. The ones that are dry brushed well always look the best.

Paint a variety of stuff.
It's all well and good grinding through your SM army ad nausea but paint some other stuff too and push yourself.
For instance, painting a couple of high elves will help with your white and fabrics and cloaks.
Painting a couple of killa kans will take your weathering to the next level.
Then it's time to go back and apply what you've learnt to your SM and reap the rewards.

Decide your colourscheme before painting!

My best advice to beginners is to "just do it" as Shia would put it.

You can read as many tutorials as you want, but it takes time with the brush in hand to translate all that information.

Sometimes you just need to learn by doing.

I think it was #8: to display your good work gives it respectability.
Had the mother-in-law keep calling them the "little toys" until I replied: "Can you make something that looks better?". No reply there.

Stick the miniatures on some kind of handle or base (corks, plastic shot glasses, nails...) with a bit of blue-tac.
It makes them easier to get at, easier on the hands and keeps your finger oils off the miniature so no unexpected beading happens while painting.

Lots of light. Enough to make the miniature squint. Your eyes will thank-you. Especially those who black-prime.

I have learned to paint leaning back on my chair with the miniature pretty much on my chest.
I have swivel desk lamps so they can reach far enough to light well.
My back feels so much better than hunched over the table.
It gives a good break from painting in the spray booth where I have no choice.

#1 way for your paint job to look good: remove those mold parting lines!
So many paint jobs depend on washes/shade and that is the first thing they find.
Take the time and clean up all those unwanted extra bits.

To "refresh" those darn paint pots that keep trying to dry-out, do not use water, add "Matt medium" like from liquitex.
It is not so much the water in the paint evaporating off than the pigment "carrier" firming up so a bit more makes a world of difference.
Plus, paint with too much water gets all "beady" and wont stay where you paint it very well.

I am unsure if extreme care of your tools is the trick, it is more what you are used to.
My #1 go-to brush has the enamel worn off the handle at the finger tip area, it has this slight curve to one side that still goes to a point which is ideal for painting eyes or hitting edge highlights along the curved bit. Every stray hair that develops gets carefully cut off at the root if it cannot be "styled" back (there are plenty more to go).
I have given it no special care other than rinsed very well and never letting paint dry on it. It is funny, just by how it is used, the brush became the tool I desired by literally bending to the use.

One that gets overlooked distressingly frequently.

THIN YOUR PAINTS.

You'll get a much better, cleaner result from two or three (or more if necessary) thin and smooth layers of pain than one thick layer globbed on.

 Vulcan wrote:
One that gets overlooked distressingly frequently.

THIN YOUR PAINTS.

You'll get a much better, cleaner result from two or three (or more if necessary) thin and smooth layers of pain than one thick layer globbed on.

I mention thinning paints, or more specifically pre-thinning them in the pot. But I can't say I agree with the rest of this. A couple of layers for some colors that need it, sure. But doing three or more layers of the same color seems like a huge waste of time. If I was doing that, I would find a better way to achieve what I was going for. And if you thin your paints so much that you have to do three or more layers of everything, that just makes it take three times as long to paint everything. And they certainly won't look three times as good. Even if they did, I don't have time to spend three times as long on everything I paint, so I still wouldn't do it.

 Vulcan wrote:
One that gets overlooked distressingly frequently.

THIN YOUR PAINTS.

You'll get a much better, cleaner result from two or three (or more if necessary) thin and smooth layers of pain than one thick layer globbed on.

And generally on top of that, use brushes not cigarettes to apply the paint..

To be frank, most darker colors come through just fine with one thin coat. Most of the rest come through with two.

It's really just yellows, whites, and some reds where you need to apply three or more thin coats to get proper coverage. So it's not as if you're endlessly painting things over and over again to get coverage with thin coats.

 Matthew wrote:
Decide your colourscheme before painting!

Soo much of this.

also write everything down.

i already forgotten a ton of my own schemes that way

My number one tip is to learn how to use a colour wheel: