New to Wargaming/How do I learn to paint?

[Wargamer30]

Painting is the one thing that intimidates me most about wargaming. I know my miniatures won't look amazing the first time I paint, but I don't want to ruin them either. My local GW store offers free painting lessons, would this be a good place to start?

[Chaoschrist]

I guess it wont hurt to give it a shot. Unless you're really short pressed on time and need to really, really, really plan ahead to attend. If that's the case I would recommend tutorials online. I've always found they have these extensive painting programs, which don't really suit everyones schedule.

The time I started with 40k they didn't even have foundation (or now; Base) paints around and there was no such thing as a pre-mixed wash/shade from GW. I attended the local store to get some pointers on painting but all they did was teach me how to get the high quality look they had in their showcases. Granted, said standard is great, but I'm not sure if everyone should learn the same technique.

What might actually be a better start to learn, IMO, is to go on ebay and see if you can get some metal GW figures to practice. They're way easier to clean and clear up from paint so you don't have to throw the model out if it's a big mess with thick paint. That's how I actually learned more. Sad thing is GW doesn't do a lot of metal figures so they might be a bit harder to come by. But GW isn't the only manufacturer of mini's luckily.

GW did, and perhaps they still do, offer a free space marine mini for people who are new to it. Perhaps your GW has this going on as well and you can ask for a free mini of theirs to paint.

[Wargamer30]

They do offer one free space marine.

[Tommie Soule]

Gw is a nice place to start. But they will err towards selling you the "answers" as opposed to teaching you skills.
The gw how to guide is good for army painting.

My advice is to keep things cheap and simple.

I do private tuition if you prefer btw

[Wargamer30]

I was going to ask about painting services as well. Frontline Gaming has some really nice work, and their prices seem reasonable for the amount of labor time spent.

[The_Gonk]

The G-dub is a good place to start and it's free - they should show you brush care and to thin your paint etc. You'll also get a mini out of it. I'd definitely have a scout around Youtube for some basics tutorials before you splash any cash out on anything.

The main thing is practice though, once you've got some basics down. Good luck mate!

[rallyfox]

There are a bunch of options for you to learn to paint, friends, private lessons, internets, other gamers/painters etc. But you're really going to have to get over the "i don't want to ruin them" line of thought. And I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but odds are your first models will look like crap. But hey that's ok, you have to start somewhere right? Because you're not going to get any better without trying and practicing and just painting over and over again.

Don't worry about your models looking bad, you can always go back when you are better and strip them and repaint them to a higher standard.

[Krefey]

I'd also recommend youtube. There are a lot of tutorials on youtube covering basic and advanced painting techniques to get you started.

[CoffeeGrunt]

As a painting newbie myself, I've found GW's recent tutorials on YouTube really handy for learning the basics of painting and modelling, and it's really improved my painting a lot. I'd recommend checking them out.

[Darren Richardson]

one piece of advice I would give out is start on simple troop choices when starting to paint, they often have the fewest amounts of detail and are great for beginners to start with, you most certainly DO NOT want to start with character figures, as they are very heavy on the detail and can be quite intimidating for beginners.

Despite what the "COOL" part of your heart screams at you, don't start with the character! :)

[Ang56]

Troops is a good place to start, and Youtube is a really good place to go for free. The other thing is I've gone back and updated armies as I got better. As long as you don't change your mind on the base colors later or use transfers until you think it's done you won't have a lot of work if you want to go back.

I guess more the point I'm trying to make is that modelling and painting is a really big part of the hobby for me and it can be very enjoyable. You shouldn't not paint because you don't want to mess the models up. Watch some you tube tutorials (I really like SS82), and dive in. Just try and paint cleanly at first and worry about technique and the finer detail work for later. Try things out see if you enjoy painting before you have someone else do it. Which, if you don't really want to paint and just want good looking models to play that's totally fine too, I'd just recommend trying it out.

Worst case you'll be watching some tutorials on how to strip paint back off later on :P.