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So i finished painting miniatures for the first time. I hadn't held a brush since i was in school as a kid, but i really had a great time with it. I would appreciate some advice on how to improve my painting. This starter set had a citadel brush M, which was a bit too broad to do the finer details the way i wanted them to be. So i order an S brush along with more paint for my next batch of Ultra Marines.

Anyway, i thought they turned out okay for a first try, what do you guys think?

I had worse first try

First to try and do is improve the picture - try doing it in well lit room against some white wall (or white paper placed on said wall) with white paper underneath. Then focus on either one miniature or get them side by side rather than one slightly in front of the others - helps to focus camera. Great picture of a bad model is better than bad picture of a great model! (Though I still learn how to do this right)

Second advice I can give is to thin down your paints on a palette. The paint straight from the lid is a little bit too thick to paint with. Water it down a little bit (a drop if you have eye-dropper or let your clean paintbrush have a good "fill" of the water in it's belly) and mix it with a paintbrush until you get better consistency. You'll notice the difference though you may find it annoying that the first layer of paint don't cover that great anymore - it will need a second layer.

Overall it's great that you enjoyed the experience! Keep at it and you'll notice that your hands gets steady as a surgeon's.

Thanks a lot! I'll try to take a better pic tonight. And I'll definitely use your tips on watering down the paint.

You're on point. While the photo is bad, the models are absolutely fine for tabletop quality gaming. Sure there are plenty of tips to improve (from people far more skilled than I), but you're already ahead of 80% of the armies/painting I've seen in person.

Lots of big brushes are OK for smaller jobs, if you can get them to a point, and use the edge. You'll probably end up wasting paint, but can be used until you get more brushes.

Those models are better than most of mine. I paint to table-top standard, then I get bored.

The first way that I think might help is to get the raised shoulder pad emblems neater. Pull the brush along the edge of the raised part, just touching it. It might be the model being a bit bumpy, though, as I have a few like that. Getting a straight line on them was tricky.

The other thing might be to use washes. Nuln Oil helps with silvery metal parts. Try a dark blue wash in the joins in the armour plates.

So far though, keep going as you are. They'll get better with each model anyway.

looks good and honestly even just painting another 10 guys your skills will improve, the biggest thing I saw it mentioned earlier is thinning paints with water or a thinner this will make a big change much smoother layers but i like them so far

I agree with those above. Pretty good first shot. Working with thinned down paints and doing multiple, thin layers as necessary are the obvious tips, other than that you can explore additional techniques to suit your style at your leisure. You have done a great job of blocking out the colors in a neat manner and that's always the foundation of a great paint job.

Don't overlook the basing. Something simple like textured paint, with a wash and dry brush, can look really effective.

As others have said, there's little wrong with the work you've shown so far. Keep it up (and keep the enthusiasm!).

Poses look good, and colours are largely where they belong - so that's a cracking effort for a first try!