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Some friends and I are just getting into WH40K and we have been watching building and painting videos like crazy on YouTube. I feel like I come across a lot of the some content and I don't have anyone I know to ask questions. So if you could, what would be your #1 tip or trick for a beginner GW40K painter/builder. Thanks for any help.

Don’t give up.

Your first minis are probably going to not look as good as you’d like them to be. But that’s OK. You are new, and starting out. You will get better with practice. There are so many resources out there these days to take advantage off. Watch tutorials, ask questions, post pictures asking for constructive feedback.

Welcome to the hobby and Dakka.

 Nevelon wrote:
Don’t give up.

Your first minis are probably going to not look as good as you’d like them to be. But that’s OK. You are new, and starting out. You will get better with practice. There are so many resources out there these days to take advantage off. Watch tutorials, ask questions, post pictures asking for constructive feedback.

Welcome to the hobby and Dakka.

Thanks for the tip. Practice makes perfect!

 Nevelon wrote:
Don’t give up.

Your first minis are probably going to not look as good as you’d like them to be. But that’s OK. You are new, and starting out. You will get better with practice. There are so many resources out there these days to take advantage off. Watch tutorials, ask questions, post pictures asking for constructive feedback.

Welcome to the hobby and Dakka.

Hard to come up with a better tip than this one, honestly.
Because, yes, your first mini is going to suuuuuck. Especially compared to all of the amazingly painted ones you see online in videos and tutorials. Some people have the talent and hand-eye coordination to get there quickly, while others (like me) have had to take the long way.

For my own #1 tip after Nevelon's: You don't need the "best" stuff to start with. You don't need the Kolinsky sable brushes, the full lines of GW/Vallejo/Reaper/Scale75/ProAcryl paints, airbrush, etc. There is a certain amount of "you get what you pay for", but start with what you're comfortable spending your money on, and practice.

Learn how to base models. Sand/glue/drybrushing/picking correct colors/clean rim. It helps take a very mediocre model and make it look complete/nice.

 Nevelon wrote:
Don’t give up.

100% this. It really cannot be stated enough. There will be times when you aren't always happy with the way something's going or the finished result. Chalk it up to experience and keep chugging along. If you really need too, strip the mini and paint it again.


Another oft forgotten/ignored thing i'd say that almost rivals the Don't Give Up, is don't let people tell you how to do your hobby.
It is YOUR hobby, not theirs.
There are some stonkingly good hobbyists out there who produce really fantastic work. A lot of them are down to earth and give good advice, but then you get some of the melon-fethers who've started huffing their own farts and think their way of doing things is the only way of doing it and will put you down if you do something they don't think is "right".
Those hobbiests I've come across who are like that are more often found on the like of Instagram and Reddit where the visible popularity goes to their heads. I think forum goers are less inclined to this, but I certainly wouldn't say are immune. People who belittle others for doing the hobby their own way that might be different to their own are nothing more then bullies and are to be publicly shunned in all instances.
But I digress. My point is, do what you like, do what works for you, do what you want and don't let any bastard tell you otherwise! It's a good thing to listen to other peoples advice, It's not so good to blindly stick to it. Because you'll get people telling you that drybrushing is a noob technique that you'll grow out of. Or that the 'Eavy Metal method is the best/worst way to paint. Or any number of other nonsense things.
Do YOUR hobby YOUR way and feth anyone who says otherwise!

Thank you for coming to my rant and I do hope you enjoy the hobby!

 Arcamedies wrote:
Some friends and I are just getting into WH40K and we have been watching building and painting videos like crazy on YouTube. I feel like I come across a lot of the some content and I don't have anyone I know to ask questions. So if you could, what would be your #1 tip or trick for a beginner GW40K painter/builder. Thanks for any help.

Buy a magnifyer lense lamp.
Its a lamp with a led ring light around a big loop.
Trust me on that.

(you have all kinds of em, some cheap some expensive, a mid range costing one is fine, I also bought mine for about 50 bucks or so and appart from a hinge being wonky now it works fine after a whole year of ongoing painting)
https://www.amazon.com/LANCOSC-Magnifying-Stepless-5-Diopter-Magnifier/dp/B08Z36N7MH
for instance.

Another tip would be to start out with cheap brushes because you'll probably ruin a 100 before you learn to treat them well enough to afford expensive ones.

Have patience, and accept that screwing up is part of the learning how to do stuff. It teaches you what not to do.

We all learned by screwing stuff up. Even hobby "veterans" still do it.

My number one tip for anyone starting out with miniature painting is, you will save yourself a lot of headache if you study acrylic paints as a painting medium before you even start painting.

You can get the hang of painting with acrylics by painting on paper, no need to learn painting sticking only to models.

I also recommend getting a hold of "rubbish models" to practice painting with. Old toy soldiers, table hockey players, toy cars, anything you can get your hands on for as cheaply as possible, just get a few of these so whenever you want to try some new technique, you can test it on a rubbish model first.

A few things you'd ideally want to get confident with before starting painting your expensive models are:

- how diluting acrylic paints with water or brand appropriate acrylic thinner affects the properties of acrylic paint. You want to develop a feel for thinning out acrylic paints a bit, this will make the paint flow from the brush better, and your resulting paint layers will be thinner. Paint thickness is an issue with acylic paints, since they basically become plastic/gumlike material that covers the miniature's surface when it cures, kind of like growing a new layer of skin. Too many layers of such skin, or too thick layers, and you will lose the fine details of the model

- Paint colors are not all created equal. Some colors of paints are very easy to use, and have superb coverage (black, blues and greens), while other colours are very annoying to work with due to weak coverage (whites and yellows are notorious). So before you start selecting colourschemes for your army or warband, I recommend painting at least one test model (can be a rubbish model), just to see how easy it will be to use the colours you have selected to pull off your planned scheme. There is a reason why Ultramarines are often suggested as a good army to start with in 40K, painting blue is as easy as it gets!

- Be aware of the existence of a wet pallette. You don't need to start painting with one right away, but after you have painted a few models, and basics of painting have pretty much sunk in, its a great tool to have when you want to take things to the next level (creating custom colour shades and color gradients from one shade to another)

- Ideally, you should have appropriate lighting setup for painting. Old adage goes "natural sunlight is best", and it has merit, but if you cannot achieve a naturally sunlit painting area, the next best thing is a 6500K daylight LED lamp (you can even purchase 6500K daylight lightbulbs for most lamps with removable bulbs). The more lux power you can get, the better you can make out small details (Did you ever wonder why Hospital Operating Rooms have those insanely bright operating lamps? now you do)

As already stated, #1 priority is persistence. Don't give up if things feel difficult in the beginning, miniature painting is a skill where the "10 000 hours" rule for paying your dues applies to the max. Your hand eye coordination, paint mixing etc will improve over time, as long as you put in the reps "at the gym"

If you have any specific questions regarding painting, remember Dakka's painting & modelling subforum is a great resource, full of helpful and talented users, just ask a question there.

With all that said, get stuck in!

All good advice above. My contribution would be to be careful on assembly and prep. Nothing spoils a good paint job like really obvious mould lines or random bits of sprue still attached. This becomes even more important if you are considering using contrast style paints as the way they work will naturally highlight this kind of thing.

 Flinty wrote:
All good advice above. My contribution would be to be careful on assembly and prep. Nothing spoils a good paint job like really obvious mould lines or random bits of sprue still attached. This becomes even more important if you are considering using contrast style paints as the way they work will naturally highlight this kind of thing.

If I could go back in time and tell starting hobby me one thing, it would be this. I look back on my older stuff, and it’s not the paint that makes me cringe.

Participate in the Dakka monthly painting challenge (it’s in this very forum!)
It will motivate you to paint at least one mini a month and the community built around it is very positive and encouraging.
As others have mentioned, it seems simple, but the number one thing anyone needs to do to progress is to paint. It also helps to have others provide constructive feedback so you know where to best focus your improvement efforts.

 chromedog wrote:
Have patience, and accept that screwing up is part of the learning how to do stuff. It teaches you what not to do.

We all learned by screwing stuff up. Even hobby "veterans" still do it.

^ This. Elaborating a bit. Nobody was born a master. And therefore you should appreciate your first forays into the hobby. Be content and happy with your minis even if they don't look like a "pro-painted" masterpiece. Find enjoyment in your hobby. Actually you will look back fondly to your first tries.

And then push yourself. Try new techniques, new painting styles...

And from a pure technical point of view: Learn how to thin your paints.

a lot of great advice here. Since many of my favorite pearls of wisdom are already covered, I'll just add:

Learn very basic color theory. Understand that contrast is what makes paint schemes interesting, but that there are different ways to achieve contrast: hue, saturation, etc.

Thanks everyone for the help and great tips. I know that my figures wont look great starting out. I picked Ultramarines because their paint scheme looked much easier than some of the other models in WH40K. I bought the munitorum munitions terrain pack to start with so I could get a feel for how the paint flows as I learn to thin it out on my wet pallet. I figure worst case scenario, I prime it again if I mess up and start over. It came with plenty of pieces to practice on. So hopefully I can learn to dry brush and edge highlight as well.

My tip would be that ultimately a model will look good if you paint 'in the lines' but you don't need to hit it first time, go back and touch up as many times as necessary!

There comes a time when you need to stop watching videos and paint.
You don’t need fancy equipment like lights, paints and a huge list of gak to buy.

Pick up the brushes and start painting.

Be patient with yourself! It takes time and practice to learn. Don't get disheartened with your initial efforts.

Unless you're using contrast-style paints, a black primer will help fill in the awkward bits you can't get a brush into easily - you can just leave stuff black, especially if it's in the shadows of the model.

And about those awkward bits - it's easier to do them first, rather than trying to reach in past a bit you've already painted and don't want to mess up...

Relax and enjoy it. Your first stuff will not be the best you will ever achieve. Badly painted minis will look better than grey plastic on the table.

So relax, enjoy it.

Use a wet palette. It saves a lot of time and the extra time spent on painting rather than mixing/diluting paint will help you rack up that experience faster.

In the same vein I would try to have a nice setup at home with some nice lights and if possible have your paints and tools already in place so you can sit down and paint without having to spend 5-10 min to set up and put down after each session. If it only takes you 30s to fill up on water to start a new painting session you will get more painting sessions in there and it will help you improve massively.

Paint different models, use different colours and use different techniques (dry brush, washes etc) and from time to time watch a tutorial on something different. Easy to fall in the trap that you need to master one thing before going to the next step but most of us will never be masters of any technique and finding your own grove is what is important. So try new stuff and you will most likely learn way more from painting your first Necron Warrior than continuing with your Space Marines going from 50 of them to a 100. That 1 model will teach you more 9/10 out of then than doing another 50 of the same as you did just prior. So even if you have a goal to paint a complete army in the same style paint something in between each unit that is different as a bit of palette cleanser and your skills will skyrocket.

 laam999 wrote:
Relax and enjoy it. Your first stuff will not be the best you will ever achieve. Badly painted minis will look better than grey plastic on the table.

So relax, enjoy it.

Exactly this. But also, it’s ok to paint some things to a very basic tabletop standard just to get them done in time for a game, or to spend a bit longer and put more effort into characters or just a mini you really like or for a competition or something.

And if you don’t feel like painting take a break and clean/assemble something instead. Or do some basing, or dig through a bits box and consider some conversion options. (You’ll gather bits in a bits box over time but maybe to start it could be fun to find some cheap eBay junk lots- spares and repairs. You never know what you might find that might come in useful)

My point is maybe just don’t push yourself on one task for too long or you get sick of it and feel burnt out. Small amounts and diverse tasks help to keep it fun.

Best advice I can give is learn to thin your paints. It's better you give 2 thin coats than a gob of paint. Take you time with painting and assembly.

Don't think you need detail brushes to paint miniatures. I used to run a school wargaming club and saw plenty of students think you need hours of work to finish a model...only because they were using brushes that were too tiny for the job.

Especially with modern products, like speedpaints, you can get entire miniatures painted in just a few minutes using brushes that are 5mm thick and still get perfectly playable results.

One of the beginner tips I still use is finding what the majority color on the model is, paint the relevant parts in those colors, drybrush a highlight, and then start picking out the other colors. It works especially well on organic models like Tyranids & Daemons, but it also works well on models in uniforms like Guard or Empire.

One tip "Do undercoat your mini's and seal the mini's if they are done.

Thin your paints, many small layers vs one big one.
This would've saved me a LOT of trouble starting out- including over-priming minis and losing details.

I appreciate the new tips from people who have taken their time to reply. I will be starting on the terrain pieces of ammo crates etc to begin with this weekend. Ill post some of my WIP.

There is a lot of great advice in this thread. The only thing I can think to add is the Arm's Length Test. No model looks its best in super close-up photos or under a magnifier. The best way to judge your work, in my opinion anyway, is by how good it looks on the tabletop.

Have fun with it.
It's not a job, it's a hobby-so do what you enjoy. If you want to spend ten hours on each mini, go nuts! If you want to batch-paint ten squads in two hours, do that. If you just like building models and don't even like painting, then just build.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
There is a lot of great advice in this thread. The only thing I can think to add is the Arm's Length Test. No model looks its best in super close-up photos or under a magnifier. The best way to judge your work, in my opinion anyway, is by how good it looks on the tabletop.

Awesome tip, thanks!