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Title says all!
I want to learn how to do new things! I want to learn how to do different paint schemes, but I don't want the hassle of painting my current guys and having to strip them if it looks bad
Is it wise to pick up those $12 packs filled with three or four dudes to practice different things? (Orks to practice skin tones, marines to practice edge highlighting)
Currently I am practicing on some old Saraphon I picked up, and also letting others use them to teach them how to paint!

1) this should probably be in straight p&m rather than p&m tutorials
2) I wouldn't know about buying the mini packs of basic dudes (I think they're phasing them out anyway) I just practice new techniques on the models I'll be playing with. Yeah it might not go as well as I'd like, but it's never been so god awful I couldn't bring myself to use the model, plus it's not like I'm trying to win any golden deamons here, the first time (and to date only time) I tried painting a power sword with that alternating blend you often see I didn't pull it off, but it's ok, part of the learning process and it doesn't look so bad it distracts on the tabletop.

One of the best practice dummies for painting are Reaper Bones models. You can pick them up for super cheap, and they don't need to be primed so just paint away.

I just get the cheap armymen and what-not from the Dollar store. They're cheap enough to screw up and throw away.

You don't have old minis sitting around that you'll never use? They make good test subjects. I thought we'd all have heaps of them. I know I do.. lol

Old minis you don't or won't ever use are great practice. Also try eBay and get some quantity of units you either won't use or don't care enough about how great they look and practice on them!

Start buying models just to paint; buy stuff that you think is cool, and paint it with the goal to learn something each time you complete a mini.

Buy the tau crisis suits.
Paint in subassemblies.
Large flat surfaces,
like beginner boarder on fresh powder.
Plenty of edges, broken up for colour schemes.

Be prepared for the anticlimax of not finishing. Half the suits are unfinished on the undersides and backs for small details.

Before them, my stuff was ok, then i finished nine of them and the broodlord i did afterward was a big break from the monotony.
Was mainly a thin your paints exercise though.
My guard fatigues are also verging on cell shading now, so i must stop.
My shading/blending is non existent however.

Never finished the army, but now have 9 suits with some chickens.
Check out miniac, a youtuber. Got some dark imperium vids.

Sorry if the thumbnails are blurry, im uploading from my phone.

A lot of kits come with a tonne of spare bits, you can practice a lot of your techniques on those.

Spare bits of sprue are good for testing how different colours look together.

Hell combine the two ideas and cut up some sprue as an armature to stick your other spares on to, so they at least have the vague silhouette of a mini.

Slowly descend into cannibalistic scratch building and realise that you are spending more time throwing junk together than you are actually painting.

For testing my new and upcoming INSTAR paint range, I found eBay a good place to pick up models to play around with rather than spending alot of money on something that will just get ruined. I tend to just go for job lots that way you can end up with many different parts to play around with. One set I picked up contained 5 Marines, Tons of shoulder pads, plenty of different weapons and different arm and leg poses.

This guy came from one of those job lots and has been tested quite a bit with my INSTAR paint

OverlyGrumpyTau wrote:
Title says all!
I want to learn how to do new things! I want to learn how to do different paint schemes, but I don't want the hassle of painting my current guys and having to strip them if it looks bad
Is it wise to pick up those $12 packs filled with three or four dudes to practice different things? (Orks to practice skin tones, marines to practice edge highlighting)
Currently I am practicing on some old Saraphon I picked up, and also letting others use them to teach them how to paint!

Hi! I am also working on practice! I do not think that you need dedicated practice models per say! I think the secret is to not to be too uptight about it if you screw up! As long as your paint isn't applied thick, you can always paint over any color scheme fails. In addition, sometimes it is ok to stop work on something that didn't turn out the way you wanted!

See attached recent practice models I am not happy with, but I am leaving them alone for now! The warjack still has casting line problems and the camo IMHO looks like balls. The entire model is too flat! It will be painted over in the future, but not now! Valachev has a whole host of deficiencies, mostly in his skin being really terrible and the whole model lacking contrast, but again... is good enough for now! These guys can still kill for the motherland in their unsatisfactory glory!

Haha, I've never heard of a Warhammer player not having enough models to paint!

There are always people selling models on the cheap - swap meets, ebay lots, local gaming groups, etc.

I also have the problem that i dont want to damage my favorite minis with a bad paintjob.

What i did was buying some cheaper one piece metal minis which i can paint and then strip easily.

Another great option is to buy an age of sigmar starter set as it has a great variety of minis to practice on for a fairly decent price. And after you exhausted them you can sell them for at least some kind of money and then buy another set.

The 4 pack snap fits is not that good value Cost 2.5 US dollar per mini.

Age of sigmar starter set its 2.6 US dollar per mini and you get big monsters, heros, armored soldiers, and barbarians with skin. Pretty much ideal for practice.

And if you are afraid to damage the starter set, buy another one.

But of course, depends on how much money you can pay up front

If it is variety you are after then job lots on ebay come up all the time with bunches of random minis. Often they need stripped, which is suoer easy to do, but should be far cheaper than buying new minis to practice on.

Then again, since stripping is super easy just paint what you have and if you dont like it strip and go again.

An easy way I have found to test paints and techniques is to use the underside of large bases, because theyre mostly flat and out of sight.