Painting is a skill like any other, the more practise the better you get!
I used to work in a GW store and used to do extreme basic painting as follows, for any colour do the following:
Basecoat, wash, drybrush highlight.
Take your time, rushing will only increase your chances for mistakes. Practice thinning your paints and trying to apply smooth consistent coats. Clean color blocking I’ve found makes your paint job look WAY better than it might be. And with any skill you want to learn, it takes lots of practice.
While it doesn’t always apply, there’s that saying that to master any skill takes 10,000 hours. It just means you need to commit and keep going, even if you feel like you aren’t making progress. Look back at your first few minis compared to your current ones. Comparing your work against yourself will be much more useful than comparing it against other people.
Youtube. Youtube. Youtube.
Watch any of the million tutorials on painting. From basic brush care to NMM, there is a video for everything you could want to learn.... including videos on \*what\* you should learn!
Have fun!
It takes years to get "good" at painting. I agree with some of the earlier advice. Prime then basecoat. Gw sells rattle cans which makes this one step. Wash the model. Plenty of washes out there. GW has a ton. Just pick a color that works with your base coat. Then dry brush on the same color as your base coat. Dry brushing is getting a mostly dry brush and getting most of the paint off of it. Artis Opus on YouTube is the drybrush king. Then pick a highlight color. Gw makes this really easy to do. The store person can help you find it or they make a paint app which can help. Then dry brush on the highlight. Right there is a good model.
Alternatively, contrast paints are easy and look great. What army are you trying to paint?
Honestly I’m not really sure. I’ve got Space Marines and Tyranids so far. But I’m really looking at grabbing some Death Guards today.
Also thank you for those tips. I really appreciate it!
I cant recommend Eons of Battle youtube channel enough for beginners. They have DOZENS of great in depth tutorials painting to an amazing degree as well as just all around fun hobby videos.
There is also a super easy quick and dirty painting style called slap chop I believe it's by the youtuber "the honest wargamer" but there are multiple other channels showing how to do it as well.
Here’s one of my first minis vs one of my latest:
https://preview.redd.it/yj9odjhcq7xc1.jpeg?width=2133&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad008691a68c86acf5cb1f445f7e6be406d91b07
Learning to paint takes time and practice, but you’ve got access to more resources than ever before to help you out. Just start by looking up a tutorial for the models you want to paint, and go from there.
I highly recommend the Citadel Colour App if you haven't already seen it. It's free and is a fantastic tool for beginners and experienced painters alike. There are many different recipes all sorted by color spectrum, as well as video tutorials ranging from the fundamentals to advanced.
And *please* don't listen to people who tell you to stay away from painting yellow and white because they're "hard" to paint. In the past few years, paints have improved drastically from when I started, and there are ways to paint "tough colors" very easily now. For example here's one on [white](https://youtu.be/UxkbEG2GwMI?si=qo98NLN5MmwHOACN)
And finally, Contrast Paints are amazing but you need to use medium with them so they spread out smoothly.
Experimentation and journaling the results. If a method comes to mind or comes to you via a tutorial try it out on things like thrift store toys, chunks of sprue, or takeout cutlery and write down what you did and how it worked out to help you recall and replicate what worked later when painting a real-mini.
This will also help answer some common questions like "brushes seem hard what if I used a pen instead?" you'll be able to work out for yourself what situations work for the tool and which don't(spoiler: pen ink rubs off easier than paint, it will need to be varnished if it's going to last)
Painting is a skill like any other, the more practise the better you get! I used to work in a GW store and used to do extreme basic painting as follows, for any colour do the following: Basecoat, wash, drybrush highlight.
Take your time, rushing will only increase your chances for mistakes. Practice thinning your paints and trying to apply smooth consistent coats. Clean color blocking I’ve found makes your paint job look WAY better than it might be. And with any skill you want to learn, it takes lots of practice. While it doesn’t always apply, there’s that saying that to master any skill takes 10,000 hours. It just means you need to commit and keep going, even if you feel like you aren’t making progress. Look back at your first few minis compared to your current ones. Comparing your work against yourself will be much more useful than comparing it against other people.
Youtube. Youtube. Youtube. Watch any of the million tutorials on painting. From basic brush care to NMM, there is a video for everything you could want to learn.... including videos on \*what\* you should learn! Have fun!
Rules change, plastic is forever
Get contrast paint, and maybe an army that's mostly skin like Tyranids, you'll get an army that looks good on the table in no time. XD
It takes years to get "good" at painting. I agree with some of the earlier advice. Prime then basecoat. Gw sells rattle cans which makes this one step. Wash the model. Plenty of washes out there. GW has a ton. Just pick a color that works with your base coat. Then dry brush on the same color as your base coat. Dry brushing is getting a mostly dry brush and getting most of the paint off of it. Artis Opus on YouTube is the drybrush king. Then pick a highlight color. Gw makes this really easy to do. The store person can help you find it or they make a paint app which can help. Then dry brush on the highlight. Right there is a good model. Alternatively, contrast paints are easy and look great. What army are you trying to paint?
Honestly I’m not really sure. I’ve got Space Marines and Tyranids so far. But I’m really looking at grabbing some Death Guards today. Also thank you for those tips. I really appreciate it!
I cant recommend Eons of Battle youtube channel enough for beginners. They have DOZENS of great in depth tutorials painting to an amazing degree as well as just all around fun hobby videos. There is also a super easy quick and dirty painting style called slap chop I believe it's by the youtuber "the honest wargamer" but there are multiple other channels showing how to do it as well.
You can't be good at something without being bad at it first. How else would you have learned to walk, read, talk, write etc?
Here’s one of my first minis vs one of my latest: https://preview.redd.it/yj9odjhcq7xc1.jpeg?width=2133&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad008691a68c86acf5cb1f445f7e6be406d91b07 Learning to paint takes time and practice, but you’ve got access to more resources than ever before to help you out. Just start by looking up a tutorial for the models you want to paint, and go from there.
I highly recommend the Citadel Colour App if you haven't already seen it. It's free and is a fantastic tool for beginners and experienced painters alike. There are many different recipes all sorted by color spectrum, as well as video tutorials ranging from the fundamentals to advanced. And *please* don't listen to people who tell you to stay away from painting yellow and white because they're "hard" to paint. In the past few years, paints have improved drastically from when I started, and there are ways to paint "tough colors" very easily now. For example here's one on [white](https://youtu.be/UxkbEG2GwMI?si=qo98NLN5MmwHOACN) And finally, Contrast Paints are amazing but you need to use medium with them so they spread out smoothly.
Experimentation and journaling the results. If a method comes to mind or comes to you via a tutorial try it out on things like thrift store toys, chunks of sprue, or takeout cutlery and write down what you did and how it worked out to help you recall and replicate what worked later when painting a real-mini. This will also help answer some common questions like "brushes seem hard what if I used a pen instead?" you'll be able to work out for yourself what situations work for the tool and which don't(spoiler: pen ink rubs off easier than paint, it will need to be varnished if it's going to last)
Tips for new Warhammer readers? My son is a horror freak.