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Help me enjoy painting?

1K views 10 replies 9 participants last post by  slorak 
#1 ·
I am really bad at painting, even tough I have been playing warhammer for many years! And I have hordes of plastic grey minis from all the armies I have collected over the years (and some which i never collected).
The only accual project I have completed was a Vampire Counts army I painted to be in a tournement, and I was also under a very desperate time pressure, and it became REALLY ugly.
What I am looking for is an army that is fun to paint, and not very hard to paint. I am not looking to take it to a normal point level just 400 or 500 points (40k and WFB respectivly). I would want them to be fairly few in numbers, but good practice.

Other then that, I could really use some ideas of how you find the time to paint? I am stressed out by school. I haven't got a lot of money, so could anyone help?

Please bear in mind, I want the army to be fun and pretty easy. But it is all in the name of trying to make me a better painter.
 
#2 ·
40K - the easiest way to paint something effective is drybushing, particularly metalics, there are three armies that leap to mind therefore:

Necrons (but dont tend to perform well at 400 points)
Iron warriors
Iron hands (or other metal coloured SM chapter)

All easily done by spraying with black, then dry brushing with boltgun metal. Although Iron Warriors subsequently require faffing around with gold, yellow and black
 
#3 ·
yes. I know the basic tecniques (altough not always good at using them, apart from drybrushing). But I have tried necrons, and they pose no real practice. They only fill the easy part, so I won't learn anything which I REALLY want. If I find a camera, I might upload some of my most recent and successful minis, but they are all in 'flat' colours...
 
#4 · (Edited)
Any of the space marine armies are quite easy to paint.

For example Blood Angels.

1) Identify the main colour (Red). Find the suitable colour, which with foundation paints now out would be the foundation red. take a large flat dry brush and dry brush the entire model red.
2) Now with a very red space marine you need to do the details, the easiest way is to colour it in metal tones. So Boltgun metal on elements like Grenades, the exhausts areas on the backpack and the brest plate using a small dry brush.
3) INK! Ink is your friend, your very best friend. Take some Black Ink and mix it in a solution of 1 part black ink to water, and using a standard brush, not to loaded up on ink as you can always add more, cover the entire model, yes the entire model. The ink acts to dark the red and it also goes down the crevases that you might have gone in with your initial primary colour.
4) Highlighting. Take a detail brush with blood red and draw a thin line on all the raised edges of the the model, for example the corners of the should pads, the top the the backpack and the raised parts of the helmet.
5) Details. Any remaining detail is then done with a detail brush.


Here's an example of some I did a while ago. Notice the highlighting witht he lighter tone of blue on the helmet, and the dark areas in the corners of the shoulder pads where the ink went in.




Hope this helps.

Von
 
#5 ·
Well how about an ogre army, i mean there a bit hard to use for only 500 pts but i guess you'll only be painting aobut 10 or so ogres plus they have large amounts of area for painting and such (so no reall fine detail) or anything else would be marines, simple, quick and little numbers or Chaos if you dont like marines... or try nurgle fantasy or 40k
i have seen young kids do nurgle and with there simple dirty painting it makes the perfect combination with Nurgle! :yes:
 
#6 ·
Try some inking. I find that fun, stress-free and quick. My entire Tau army was done up by basing white, ink chestnut, ink red and then black ink the weapons. After that, you can practice details on models that realistically need only minimal work, so your skills can improve and you won't eat up all of your time. I'm sure you can use this approach with other armies, as it looks coordinated and very striking.
 
#7 ·
Why not wait for the new colour ranges? Foundation will be fun and quick method in painting everything... Apart from that IMHO every army is fun to paint as long as you like it!

Now for the time you don't have to spend like 15 hours in every mini... You can spend about an hour or an hour and a half a day to paint! In that way you will not get bored and you will have a painted army before you know it! At least that is what I do... and I am engaged! Try that and see how it goes!
 
#8 ·
every army is fun to paint as long as you like it!
That is the honest truth. I got my start painting minis because I thought Titans were just the coolest things ever - this was back when the game was just called "Space Marine"

Like Tsele said, find something you think looks cool and just start painting it. Apart from that, Marines are easy to paint and easy to do a convincing job with.

As for finding time to paint, sounds like you might already have a pretty full plate. The one thing I can say is I've never found it to be a good idea to force myself to paint - that is to say, if you force yourself to paint when you're tired, burned out, or just don't feel like it, it'll probably never be fun for you.
 
#11 ·
I guess the first thing you need to ask yourself is - Do you really like to paint? Putting aside the lack of time or the rushed jobs you have been doing. Do you every find enjoyment just picking up the brush and going at it. If not - there is probably not much that can be done about your enjoyment level when painting armies.

I like th think of painting as a hobby all on to itself from the gaming aspect. A person can have more than one hobby - but really you should at the most basic level enjoy your hobby. Painting isn't necessarily for everyone. It does take time. It takes patience. It takes a lot of practice in order to get better. Most good painters didn't start off that way. Very few are true prodigies who just pick up a brush and work miracles.

As to your question on armies - it was pretty much answered. Necrons will be the single most easiest (from a technical aspect) to paint. Tomb kings could be fairly easy overall - though most fantasy armies tend to be more detailed. You already touched on how Necrons don't offer anything when you paint them... As for enjoyment to paint - I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that everyone will have their own opinion on what makes a model fun to paint. What I like - you might abhorr.

As for when to paint - again this would be a personal choice. I myself enjoy painting in the evening/night before I go to bed. I usually find painting to be relaxing. I try to paint for a couple hours a few nights a week. I wait until the kids are off to bed and retreat to my game room, turn on the radio and just paint... :)

Now if your problem with painting is that you are bored of it - especially if you are painting assembly line or lots of similar models... Usually the cure for that is to paint up a character model or something completely different. Trying new techniques, while they can be frustration, can also be very rewarding.

Cheers,

-Mike
 
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