New painter getting discouraged (tips pls?)

[sickpuppy]

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[Shadow Raven]

Don't be hard on yourself, experience is what imo makes a good painter. Try watching tutorials online and then using the techniques as described. Never try to rush layered affects as the paint is going to blend rather than sit as you intend. My own personal tip is always paint in good light!

[40kGamer]

Learning to paint is like learning to write with a pencil... It takes a lot of repetition to build the muscle memory and to achieve really good brush control so stay positive and realize that it's a marathon not a sprint. Plus we all tend to be super critical of our own work and art is totally in the eye of the beholder.

Searching the internet for tips and tricks can improve the learning curve for you. The best trick that I learned late in the game was thinning the paint. Most paints are just too thick coming out of the bottle and thinning them (even a little) makes it a lot easier to blend them in and preserve the detail on the model. It takes practice to get this to work well as you don't want to get the paint too thin or it ends up behaving like a wash.

I also learned to use a wet pallet or some Vallejo slow dry to extend the working time of the paint. The slow dry is really great if you want to venture into wet blending at some point. And I second the paint in good light tip... it may seem obvious but natural light or a daylight bulb can make your task a lot easier! Best of luck!

[Zaonite]

40kGamer nailed it on the head.

Painting takes practise. You aren't gonna be golden demon level in two weeks. I've been painting for years and my local group loves my work but my Golden Demon entries get a sticker with "that's cute" on them.
A good daylight lamp is a must as is a palette. It will allow you to thin your paints and see the true colour.

The recent GW paining tutorial videos are really good for beginners, as is the "how to paint citadel miniatures" book with accompanying DVD.
I've found that when I did a paint job in the past, I loved it. Move on a few years and (I think) it looks awful, you may end up going back and repainting them anyway.

Don't lose heart. There'll be people worse than you at painting and even master painters can always learn something new. Don't forget that Fantasy is about the overall look of an army not the individuals that make it up. So who cares if the odd elf spearman is bug-eyed? In a unit of 30 models it won't even get noticed.

[40kGamer]

I've found that when I did a paint job in the past, I loved it. Move on a few years and (I think) it looks awful, you may end up going back and repainting them anyway.

I'll add the option of keeping a sample of your work over the years as a reference. It makes it easier to measure improvement and visibly see the effect of any changes in your technique. Once you get into the right frame of mind painting can be as much fun and just as rewarding as actually playing. Heck there have been entire decades where I painted thousands of models and manged to not play a single game.

[Shadow Raven]

Must admit that I would be very concerned about not spoiling miniatures though if I were buying at Australia's prices!! (Though I am from Yorkshire) Where copper wire was invented by two blokes fighting over a penny

[Ben_S]

My first thought was don't worry about stripping and repainting the ones you've already done. They're almost certainly better than bare plastic, so just leave them as they are and get on with painting the next ones. You'll get better as you work through your army (which is worth keeping in mind - save painting characters and the like until a bit later).

Of course, I appreciate that if you thinking you're ruining models, this will only mean 'ruining' more - but once you have a whole army painted and can do a better job of it, then you can go back to stripping and repainting your earlier efforts (while still having a fully painted army in the meantime).

If you really must use some sacrificial practice miniatures, you can usually pick up cheap ones (including old GW, pre-mangled Space Marines, other companies like Mantic or EM4, etc) and use those for practice.

[sickpuppy]

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[Shadow Raven]

I normally swap to another squad or vehicle if I hit the wall. But there again I normally have four or five squads on the go and paint for other people too. When I get sick of hard lining Raven Guard I swap to painting my Space Wolves, as I use different techniques painting grey (Not gw blue), never seen a powder blue wolf yet lol

[daboarder]

Practice.

Make sure you are always using good brushes, dont be unwilling to get new ones when they get tattered.

Try new things, you never know what technique may work best for you until you try.

let the paint do the work, if you need to force it to cover an area then its probably to thick, water it down (water is fine for GW paints) if the paint is flowing into areas you dont want it too, then its probably to watered down, either add more paint or wait a little bit for the water to evaporate.

Armypainter brushes are great I really like them.

Another tip for brush maintenance, dont ever let paint get further up the bristles than half way, if it gets up near the end the paint will get caught and dry between bristles forcing the tip out of shape.