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If I may talk of saving you money on tools, I think we have paint well covered.
Boyes in the UK offer a large range of small scale model tools, from fine saws to knives. They also sell plastic glues, tapes, thinners, Vallejo paints and much more. If you have one nearby, go and stock up.

The Range and repair good car shop will sell auto primers at a fraction of the cost of GW for the a lint you get. Make sure they are acrylic.
When you have been back in longer, you'll find people have various favourite methods to prime, that they guard to the hilt. You want affordable and easily replicated, get car primer. P practise spraying on sprue and old models.

Buy second hand well photographed models and strip with brown Dettol, Biostrip 20 (Amazon), or Iso alcohol (Amazon, Maplins).
Thus far I have 175 space marines and paid under £45, there's something to be said about the second hand market.

You can get auto primer from 99p / £1 shops.

Awesome stuff, can't rate it highly enough

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
If I may talk of saving you money on tools, I think we have paint well covered.
Boyes in the UK offer a large range of small scale model tools, from fine saws to knives. They also sell plastic glues, tapes, thinners, Vallejo paints and much more. If you have one nearby, go and stock up.

The Range and repair good car shop will sell auto primers at a fraction of the cost of GW for the a lint you get. Make sure they are acrylic.
When you have been back in longer, you'll find people have various favourite methods to prime, that they guard to the hilt. You want affordable and easily replicated, get car primer. P practise spraying on sprue and old models.

Buy second hand well photographed models and strip with brown Dettol, Biostrip 20 (Amazon), or Iso alcohol (Amazon, Maplins).
Thus far I have 175 space marines and paid under £45, there's something to be said about the second hand market.

I went through my bits box and worked out if i bought just legs from Ebay I could make roughly 32 more space marines, so im loving this whole 2nd hand thing, it didnt exsist first time round for me

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

Thus far I have 175 space marines and paid under £45, there's something to be said about the second hand market.

Isn't this the truth? Wargaming models depreciate faster than new cars driven off a lot

And... that's a lot of space marines! ^.^

There's a toy/collectible shop near me in Weston called MT games that sell lots of cheap second minis. I picked up 3 orks, area of effect templates for 40k and a couple of terrain basing pieces for £1.50 at the weekend, bargain.

Second hand is awesome but don't you find that stripping old minis can be hit or miss?

I've had some that just would not strip in places, I'm guessing where the previous owner has painted with oil based paints or something like that.

Well, I'm going to 365 plus vehicles. The last 150 will be targeted buying, so I'll have to start looking at termies and such to make it a playable army. That will bring up the average per marine!

And sometimes a strip is a dud, absolute. I wouldn't buy certain things second hand from the Internet.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
If I may talk of saving you money on tools, I think we have paint well covered.
Boyes in the UK offer a large range of small scale model tools, from fine saws to knives. They also sell plastic glues, tapes, thinners, Vallejo paints and much more. If you have one nearby, go and stock up.

Now I know the OP is looking to spend as little money as possible but on the subject of tools and there being lots of cheaper options away from GW, I'm going to be slightly unfashionable and recommend the GW precision clippers. £20 true but they have really made prepping models soo much easier. I just bought them on a whim in one of those "in a FLGS so just buy something to show support" and I bought these. Sharp as anything, and cut right really neatly, I love 'em.

Then get a Swan Morton scalpel and blades, needles files and maybe an Xacto knife and you good to go.

 notprop wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
If I may talk of saving you money on tools, I think we have paint well covered.
Boyes in the UK offer a large range of small scale model tools, from fine saws to knives. They also sell plastic glues, tapes, thinners, Vallejo paints and much more. If you have one nearby, go and stock up.

Now I know the OP is looking to spend as little money as possible but on the subject of tools and there being lots of cheaper options away from GW, I'm going to be slightly unfashionable and recommend the GW precision clippers. £20 true but they have really made prepping models soo much easier. I just bought them on a whim in one of those "in a FLGS so just buy something to show support" and I bought these. Sharp as anything, and cut right really neatly, I love 'em.

Then get a Swan Morton scalpel and blades, needles files and maybe an Xacto knife and you good to go.

This info is still good, my budget is low at the moment, but will increase in the future
I wont need to spend anythign on Models themseleves for a while (huge amount of back log from my old stuff) getting tool info etc is great for me so I can use my budget wisely untill it increases.
A low budget doesnt always mean I dont want to spend money, it just means I want to spend wisely

Vulcan wrote:The trick to using craft paints rather than hobby paints is to make the transparency of thin layers work for you.

This is what I'm talking about. Not to sound argumentative (just trying to clarify) or to make out that craft paints are the bestest paints evar, and I take your point about thin layers, but the opacity of some holds up pretty well compared to mini paints. I remember a bottle of Anita's wedgewood blue slotting in well between ye olde shadow grey and space wolves grey, even as a basecoat, when I was using a blue-grey scheme.
And most decently-thinned paints will usually need at least two coats, anyway. Even GW bases. Opacity holds up pretty well? Heck, I've had craft paints that are more opaque than the Death World Forest base...

BillyC wrote:
This info is still good, my budget is low at the moment, but will increase in the future
I wont need to spend anythign on Models themseleves for a while (huge amount of back log from my old stuff) getting tool info etc is great for me so I can use my budget wisely untill it increases.

If you ever feel the need to muck around with putty, dental quality wax carvers can be bought for a couple of pounds each on ebay, or from some online retailers. Much finer, smoother edges than some of the cheaper, rougher sets offered up to hobbyists, and especially GW's set, which I can only assume are blunt 'safety sculpters' for the kids. Sold beside their sharp knives.

Though on that note, you can also make use of old blunted blades; sewing or darning needles; shaped and smoothed toothpicks, bamboo skewers and chopsticks; homemade wire loops; ball burnishers for paper embossing, etc. etc.

Without having bought loads of different brands I imagine the quality can vary significantly between brands. There Daler Rowney stuff in Hobbycraft seems workable but then I've had paint sets with like 12 little metal tubes from a discount store that was impossible to use in any way. The white was so coarse you could actually see the mica particles.

I see what you mean about layers and would agree that you could get some neat effects, but you would want a solid base under that to begin with. I remember the nightmare of trying to paint yellow pauldrons with rubbish paint and needing like 7 coats ughhh.

I can't comment on the quality of the GW clippers and certainly they look the business, what I can say is the £2.50 pair I got off of ebay have never served me wrong.

If anyone knows a source of cheap but good quality brushes I'd be interested to hear as a lot of brushes I buy seem to let me down after a few uses even with good brush care and cleaning.

Like tools and paint, you pay for what you get with brushes. All should be considered consumables, in time they will wear out/loose effectiveness. I've been through a fair few clippers in 28 years and the only thing that has lasted all that time is my Xacto knife (Trigger multiple blade/handle joke denied! ), I find the GW clippers of similar design quality so am happy to recommend it. The joint or the spring on Clippers tend to loosen or break giving you more of a squeeze than a cut pock marking components. I'm a few years in on them and still happy.

I use Folkart paints for terrain not models but I don't really have the patience for multiple coats of paint. I appreciate other can but I don't have that skill.

Similarly I like small model paint I can use from the pot. Yes I can get types an mix but I just don't use that much paint or have the time for such efforts.

Hobbycraft is actually quite a good example on tubed Artist paints. They have a big range od paint lines that can look surprisingly similar but have drastically different properties. They have at least two lines of own branded acrylics in tubes. Both come in very similar tubes and are only a quid different in price. I bought one tube of each (meaning to buy two of the more expensive tube) in Yellow Ochre for a terrain project; the idea was to match a tube of Windsor and Newton (metal tube) I had used for bases.

Boy was there a difference! I knew the Hobbycrft stuff would have less pigment than the W&N (It can cover pretty much anything and fill gaps!) but the more expensive Hobbycraft paint was noticeably different. The cheap one was like a jelly wash/watery pus in its coverage rather like GW Red Gore from 25 years ago.

So I guess what I'm saying is that if you go the Artist paints route the is a big variance in quality. A £4-6 a tube of W&N or Galleria paint will net decent results when thinned, I wouldn't recommend many other budget products for much more than terrain.

Well that was a bit of a ramble, and would take too much time to edit into sense. please make of that what you will.

andywalker wrote:

If anyone knows a source of cheap but good quality brushes I'd be interested to hear as a lot of brushes I buy seem to let me down after a few uses even with good brush care and cleaning.

Rosemary and co, 9/10s of a winsor and newton, 1/2 the price, by all accounts anyway.

As for clippers, Talys did a full comparison - the gw ones are very good, but xurons are arguably better - and of course the xurons are much cheaper

Thanks to all your guys advice I finally got round to painting again, and because I felt so at home here I've even decided to blog/chronicale my raise from the pit of newb

 BillyC wrote:
Thanks to all your guys advice I finally got round to painting again, and because I felt so at home here I've even decided to blog/chronicale my raise from the pit of newb

awesome! I'm looking forward to seeing/watching your progress!!!

 General_K wrote:

 BillyC wrote:
Thanks to all your guys advice I finally got round to painting again, and because I felt so at home here I've even decided to blog/chronicale my raise from the pit of newb

awesome! I'm looking forward to seeing/watching your progress!!!

Thanks dude, I'll be honest I was at a fork in the road, deciding if I wanted to get back into the Hobby, or if I'd sell all my stuff, and this forum and the welcome I got had a big part in the choice to continue

You're god damned right

Those orks are looking nice. I've just started an ork army and am finding them much more enjoyable to paint than marines.

 andywalker07 wrote:
Those orks are looking nice. I've just started an ork army and am finding them much more enjoyable to paint than marines.

Thanks

those where some test models, ive aquired more paints now, and im hoping to try my hand at some much better detailed highlighting and blending