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Waaaay back when before the days of the interwebz, GW stores in Ireland, hell even FLGS's, me and my mates used to simply paint up all our new shiny models as per GWs schemes via white dwarf pics and images or codex spreads.

Did you do the same? If so what was your first deviation?

Mine was probably a chimera circa 2001 painted in a sort of semi-cadian scheme I did. I think I based it on old WW2 airfix pictures.

Arguably, despite using Ultramarines colors, my first space marine was so badly painted I would definitely call it a "deviation" from what GW likes to show.

When I started Space Marines in 4th Edition. What few marines I painted were Crimson and Grey with yellow eye lenses.

In 2nd edition, paint schemes for CSMs varied wildly. I can tell you mine had no consistent color scheme. Not sure if that's a deviation or expected behavior at the time.

I never follow the GW schemes.

My second model. After the first one (a 3rd edition Genestealer), I realized that I couldn't paint at all like GW did, so I had to get creative. I did an atrocious yellow and white Nid scheme. This scheme has caught on, and now looks like this; https://spikeybits.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Commande-Thomas-Tyranids-12.jpg . Mine were not that nice by any stretch, but were essentially the same thing, minus any shading or blending or glossing or other advanced techniques.

I considered myself to be a much more accomplished painter when I was able to actually paint the GW colour scheme in a way that I was acceptable with it. I have now just started to move away from GW paint schemes again, but only when I have a really good reason to do so (I don't like GW's Mortarion on the box, so I'm making my own).

My first army was Necrons, and I did the basic silver bodies and black guns but I guess the key difference is I did golden spines and shoulders.

Rogue trader - harlequin- painted them "gray scale" with purple highlights.

It was a horrifying paint job of dry brushing, unthinned purple paints. Those were the days.

 Lance845 wrote:
I never follow the GW schemes.

This

Did Ultramarines and Behemoth as per the pictures on the box when I got Macragge at twelve, and I did some fairly by-the-book Dark Angels later on, but my Eldar have never borne any resemblance to an official scheme and when my Space Marines were rejiggered into their current incarnation a couple of years ago I went about modifying/updating an official scheme (adapting the pre-Mortarion Dusk Raiders) rather than copying one wholesale or making one up from scratch.

Back in RT days, my Squats were custom colored to similarly match my Salamanders (green is my fav). When I got back into 40k after 25yrs i decided to change up the scheme for my Primaris Salamanders.
I guess the Squats were my first deviation from "normal" (who wants to be normal anyway).

Eldar. I Just followed the iris colors assigning one plus variants to each aspect. All with white helmet and details calling other units, red details always present.

My first army was ultramarines, painted as such. (Like 20 years ago) My next army (also vanilla marines) was started in order to begin deviating.

Although prior to all that I had already done custom schemes on Battletech models.

Back in 1994 I painted my first GW miniatures, 2 high elf archers, red and blue. Shortly afterwards, I painted two Eldar guardians similarly. After those my high elves, and eventually Ultramarines, followed the paint schemes found on the boxes.

As soon as I got my hands on some models. My Orcs (from the 6th edition starter set), while the requisite Goblin Green, dared to wear...Lich Purple vests. And some of them had purple tattoos.

The only armies I ever did with a colour scheme from a book were the Grey Knights and Guardians of the Covenant Marines. Everything else has been whatever colours I damn well pleased.

I always felt like the subtext was "here is the starting point to provide context, now go off and do your own thing". So basically from the beginning.

Perhaps I should have used the guides more to get started though, as I had no artistic knowledge or ability and emulation is a good learning strategy!

My first squad i painted was a metal/hybrid ultramarines tactical squad from back in the day. So i went off the box: blue bodies. Only the arms had crenelations on them (that would be totally hidden by the pauldrons anyways) so i thought, hmmm maybe they're cloth and painted them brown. Then i painted the shouldpads orange - this one i just can't explain. Needless to say they were repainted at one point, but that was my first deviation. After that, i went pretty hardcore on the official schemes.

My first army was orks, and aside from the green skin, nothing else was an offical scheme. In fact the only army I have that has an offical color scheme is my space wolves. However, I started those in 5th, but I gave them a 2nd edition Space Wolf color scheme.

I came from RPGs, so I didn't follow the schemes from even the RT days.

In fact, the first army I painted to match a GW scheme was my AdMech, which I got about a year ago.

I painted my Carcharodons Astra with silver details instead of brass.

I tried hard to make my own chapter of space marines, and I almost went with a black and white scheme with a 'killer whale' sort of theme, but I backed out at the last moment and just went with Space Sharks XD

I moved the other day, back when I started, I managed to paint things in my own colour schemes, using non-GW paints.

Having returned decades later, I look at the GW schemes and sometimes artwork to find a scheme I like.

At least I dont use enamel paints any more.

When I first started all those years ago my paint schemes were limited by the paints I owned, and also those I found went on easiest. Hence my early Space Marines were painted terracotta (yep, GW used to do a terracotta paint)

My first GW army was a 6th edition WFB Empire army in a custom paint scheme. For my 40k Praetorians I started with the basic scheme (red tunics with yellow trim) but I changed the trousers to khaki.

Flashforward a few years, and I'm finding that I actually use the "official" paint schemes more and more. I might tweak the exact colors, and if nothing else I use few citadel colours, but on the whole, I find that the studio paint schemes look better than almost any combination I can think up.

My first army actually - Dark Angels. I found the base scheme too dark, so I started adding bronze trim to the shoulders and I didn't like the look of Ravenwing and Deathwing, so I did everything in a unified colour scheme.

Ive always painted all my weapons Black and Silver to maintain consistency, whether they are supposed to be in Camo shade/army colour or not. I also did my Imperial Fists in Averland Sunset rather than the official shade Yriel Yellow, but then a lot of people do that.

I don't believe I've ever used a normal GW paint scheme that I can think of. If anything, painting something GW esque is actually the rare instance (I think I painted a single Eldar dreadnought in Ulthwe colours in high school?). Painting something the way you wish is the best freedom in wargaming - I can't imagine painting something to a set scheme (unless I had a hardon for a particular army/chapter?).

What is a gw paint scheme?

Never followed them until very recently.
Started an Imperial Fists HH army when that came out.

Always thought space wolves were too pale so I did mine built up from shadow grey instead.

I started with Rogue Trader. My Dark Angels have black armor.

I didn't deviate from GW, GW deviated from me.