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I've been on the fence of painting miniatures for quite some time, as I just couldn't get into a certain brand either because they are way too costly or just not having an interesting era. I have never painted a miniature in my life, but that hasn't held me back from giving it a go. My friend has quite the assortment of Bolt Action, and despite him of course trying to bring me into that brand, I want to start my first paint with some models that I really like.

Here they are!

I'm new here, so if this URL doesn't work, It's the Illusionist and apprentice wizards from Frostgrave
illusionist

I'm pretty sure it's metal, but that's okay for me.

My plan is this:

-Primer - Citadel technical: Imperial primer - Apparently this needs a few coats on metal miniatures. Will this work alright?
-Cloak and tunic - P3 paints: Cygnar Blue Base - Will the black bleed through, and can I use water dilution to make the tunic a little bit of a lighter blue?
-Boots and gloves - Vallejo flat brown - Will this be a nice dark brown?
-Flesh - Vallejo Light Flesh - I don't want to do highlights on the face, so would this do the trick? And would it be okay with a wash?
-Fur lining and and sleeves/trousers - Vallejo Ivory - Would this be a colour that wouldn't stand out too much? and can I mix it with other paints to create highlights for most of the other colours?
-I don't know what wash I should use... Are there any sort of "beginner washes" that are neutral and can just be applied to the whole model after as a finale?

A few final questions...
I understand that black and white primer is sort of a preference, but in this model's case, which one would be more suitable? What would you use?
Is it wrong for me to not do eyes or any highlights for the face since this is a smallish scale model? I don't want to break the bank more than it already is for flesh highlights.
My friend said Varnishes are important for metal miniatures. Can you explain why? and am I "dooming" my model in the long run if I don't apply one?

Thank you for your time. I know it's long, but I just want to know these things before I start with the hobby. I just don't want to make an error and ruin these nice models

Cheers, and nice to meet you DakkaDakka!

Plan seems good to me. Im also still quite beginner at painting but as the saying goes, practise makes you perfect. Youtube is full of different tutorials and I highly recommend you to watch them.

Id use white primer but if you're plannig to make model dark or use black in model in general then use black. As for Vallejo paints I have no experience of those so no I idea what they look like.

For wash I,d use some black wash. If you want a tad dirtier look then some brownish/sepia wash. What I usually do is paint the basecolors, give it a wash of wanted color and then give some highlight. Maybe one more wash, depends on my mood.

Not experienced with varnish but I belive it is applied to protect the paint. All pointy bits in metal figure tends bump into stuff and paint will peel of abit.

Someone smarter and more experienced can orobably help you way more than I can.

I will try to practice, thanks for the advice!

You definitely need to varnish metal models, paint doesn't adhere to it as firmly as it does plastic, which means it will rub or chip off with handling. Varnish protects the paint and stops this, but you will need two or three thin coats, as thick coats can cloud and obscure the paint work beneath.

The best way to view paints is to consider them as tools, and different tools have different uses (obviously). For example, citadel paint dries very quickly and essentially uses a paint by numbers approach for shading and highlighting, so if I want to paint something quickly for the table, I'll use citadel paints. Vallejo on the other hand has a much longer working time, making it better for blending. If I want to paint something to a higher standard than tabletop, I'll use Vallejo.

As above though, thin coats and practice is what you need, and posting pictures and asking for feedback will help immensely.

Mixing paints for new colors works just fine, as long as you stay base with base (ie acrylic water based with same, so citadel, p3, and vallejo, but not with oil base like testors.) And keep in mind that color mixing pigment is a different set of color combos than mixing light (look up additive vs subtractive mixing). Layering different bases is fine as long as one is fully dry before covering. Not sure about ivory off the top of my head-I'd just shell the few more bucks for a pure white and a pure black, but once you had those, a simple face recipe is to rough in the eye colors, carefully use your flesh tone to cover up where it went outside the lines, then wash it (actual wash or heavily water thinned brown), and go back over it with the origial flesh, leaving the wash showing down low. Mix a drop of white with two three drops flesh if you want a higher highlight, and keep lighening with more white up to pure til you get where it looks good to you or you brush skills give out.
On the cloak, water dillution will let more of the under color show through. White will actually get a lighter highlight color, and black a darker one for washing.
Primer wise, I didn't like imperial brush on, but its worth a try. I like vallejo polyurethane, a lot of other people hate it. The usual advice if you have area for spray paint is two thin coats white or black cheap spray primer from walmart or equivalent. Black is usually better with dark colors, because light ones struggle to cover fully over it...but for somebody new, black also preshades a bit and hides mistakes better.
Wahses, heavy water thinning can work, but army shader soft tone, and some of the gw browns, can't recall which are nice premixes, and occasionally refered to as "skill in a bottle", because they go at least ok, though not necessarily great with most things, slightly hide and blend things a bit, and generally help bring things up to the 6 foot across-the-table level a little quicker. As you get better/have more money, other colors are available for other purposes.

...This may have ended up longer than I thought it would.

Edit: aaand to make it longer, prepping minis (washing off mold release agent with soap and water, lightly scraping off mold lines) helps alot with final product results. Also, keep in mind if going for "thin but controllable", too much water can leave the paint not holding where you put it with the brush. Good for washes, highlights not so much. Experimentation helps you figure that point out, and thinners or mediums, like liquitex brand stuff or lahmian medium from gw help if you need to go past that point for some reason.
Super bonus edit: tutorial I follow for doing faces:
https://www.reapermini.com/TheCraft/12

The Vallejo Ivory is almost white, so keep that in mind. I would normally only use it for extreme highlights or something that I wanted to be white.

You could use pretty much any brown or black wash, like Nuln Oil or the Army Painter shaders.

Since you aren't planning to buy multiple shades, the quickest way to get results would be to prime, base coat for each different color (may take multiple thin coats to cover), wash the entire miniature, then highlight back up to your base color. If you want to get fancier after that you can mix lighter shades of your base colors to highlight.

But other than that, it really doesn't matter which colors you decide to use. It's all up to you! Just keep in mind that in order to bring definition to the details of the model you will typically need to have a plan for a mid, shade and highlight for each color.

With the primer it's quite complex as to which you should choose.

Black I use to paint darker models and works best with metallic colours especially dry brushing it's also easier to hide your mistakes which is enevitable when you first start painting it is also easier to blend on a black base as opposed to white where you can see every brush stroke.

White makes the model stand out more it's easier to see the detail as the light bounces off it so that your eye can see better, it also helps to give you the colours true shade but with this it is easier to see the mistakes you have made, White works best with skin tones and pastel colour.

Out of the two I'd say use black for starting with then once your are confident change to white.

All that said some people just prefur either or and comes down to personal preference.

For generic fantasy miniatures, I recommend the Reaper Learn to Paint Kits. If you can't find them locally, Reaper does ship overseas with a free shipping threshold, and has a "miniature of the month" promotion.

The kits have plastic Bones models, which you practice on before tackling your own miniatures.

For washes, I like to use the Army Painter Quickshade Ink Set (the eyedroppers). They will add three more colors in the set as of June.

You can use black *and* white! Greyscaling is a useful painting technique, in which you start with black primer, then gradually paint from black to grey to white. Then you paint your colors on top of it. It's a convenient technique, since you're not swapping colors and cleaning your brush all the time.

You should practice eyeballs, but, yes, the reality is that you won't see them from more than a foot away.