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I recently started a subscription to warhammer conquest magazine to learn how to paint and play and thought I woud show some photos of my progress so far with the paints that I currently have from the subscription. Its quite enjoyable to do but its taking me ages, about 8 hours for the intercessor sergeant which was the first one I painted, 6 hours for the one with the bolt rifle and 4 hours for the one with the scanner which was the one I painted third. And thats with only four colours, hopefully I will get much quicker as I get more used to it. I will update this when I get the issue which has the washes included to see what difference they make. There is a little flaw in the gold on the skull on the sergeants chest and on one of the bckpack vents on the second intercessor. I only noticed this after the photos were taken and have touched them both in since. I like to paint the miniatures unassembled, then put them together and go back over any areas that need corrected as it would bug me knowing that there were some nooks and hard to reach areas unpainted. Any tips or guidance is most appreciated.

You've got good brush control, these look pretty clean.

But I can't tell if you've painted the whole model with blue paint or just painted select parts of the plastic. WH Conquest doesn't ship with a primer paint and primers really help paint from rubbing off, so I'd look into it.

Its not so much good brush control as a willingness to repeatedly go back over everything afterwards and tidy up any messy bits with the blue.
All the models were first painted with two coats of macragge blue, except the sergeant. He got three coats before I was happy. I think I had initially thinned the paint out a little too much for him. It would initially go on evenly but over the next few seconds I could see it sort of breaking up and retreating which was leaving small patches uncovered. The second and third coat sorted all those areas out though.

Primer sounds like a good idea. Does the macragge blue spray work as a primer as well as a base coat then? And does it leave the same surface finish once its dry as the brush on paint?

Cracking start, mate. You've nailed the basics.

Defo invest in some primer. Nothing worse then your paint rubbing off when you handle them.

get a grey primer. it gives you a neutral basecoat, and if you progress and start learning about light sources and shadows, it will help by showing where those areas should be. but for now it just provides a decent surface for your paint to grip. get a bog standard rattle can from a hardware shop, dont buy the overpriced GW sprays. they are just spray paint, not proper primers.

Get GW Macragge blue spray. You'll get a good looking finish and you can use the same color from a pot to fix any mistakes you might make later in your painting process. Saves loads of time too when you don't have to lay down the base color with a brush.

These look really nice!

I'd recommend a wash of Agrax or Nuln oil on the silver bits, but these look more than tabletop ready

Sincerely,

-A fellow n00b

Looks really good, time is never an issue when you start out
When I joined the community I hadn’t painted for at least 10 years an not played for nearly 20

I jumped straight into the unofficial paint comp and it took me about 6hrs to paint my 20y/o Mohican veteran sergeant, with AoS paint set and some crystal paint pots

Absolutely cracking start mate. I took my first stab at a model in over a decade a few months ago and well... it don't look good. I think a firm look into primers will be your next best step. As far as your comments about speed, well... you already did improve your speed! Keep it up and we'll see you going places soon!

Great start! As others have said the primer will make a big difference on time and evenness. I have used both a generic color (I stick with white or black depending) But a friend has had good luck with the colored ones (Like Macragge). In any case welcome to painting, welcome to Dakka, keep sharing the enthusiasm!