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Hi there,

I've decided to get back onto the tabletop after a long absence, but obviously I'm going to need a painted army before I can join in a game.

However, it has been about 20 years since I painted something properly and wondered if the community could give me any pointers on where to improve.

(This is the last photo I took, the eyes have been painted red on the final model, by that's about all that is different)

That is not a bad looking model.
What level of quality are you aiming for? Are you looking for painting speed or a better end result?
Painting marines are mostly about two thinks applying wash to the right places and keeping the edge highlights thin.
From what i can tell from the picture you are doing both of these. Your edge highlight could be thinner, but this will come with practice.
Be sure to paint all the details like the vent in his mask.

Here is also a video about painting green marines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfPN6F2DHMU

Try to be as neat as possible and keep doing it and you will improve quickly.

Thank you, I wasn't so sure when i'd finished after not painting for so long, I like making paint but not so good at painting

I'm aiming for at least tabletop quality but at a fairly decent pace so i'm not spending too long getting bogged down with one model. I thought i'd try a space marine first to brush up on my skills as i'm starting to build a Tau army to take on the tabletop so that's going to take a substantial amount of time to do so the faster I can do it while maintaining the quality is a plus for me!

I agree though, the edge highlights could be thinner but because of the technique I employed for creating the darker parts of the armour, I couldn't tidy them up to make them thinner.

Thanks for the push though, it'll be good to get back into the gaming side of it again with a half decent looking army