Tavern Talk - Painting; Beginners and Beyond

This Tavern Talk we look at giving advice to new beginners in the hobby.  But, rather than gaming tips, this time I ask for your painting ones.

I have decided to try a different thing this time around. I thought I would offer you this scenario and see what your advice would be:

A new starter to the hobby has approached you, their army has been selected (insert your own preference if needs be) and rather than ask you questions about how to game or army composition they instead ask you about painting. Your reply is....

Basically, what tips would you give to a new starter in the hobby. Everything from paints, to basing. What are your top tips?

There are loads of tips for a new painter out there on the internet, from loads of forums to blogs or even just websites.  There is no reason why anyone would struggle with getting started with painting.  So, I will give my top seven tips and then we have links from others who took part.

• Practice!  This is perhaps one of the most important things when getting into painting, your first models will never look good but the more you try and paint the better your skills will be honed and increase.

• Avoid hard to paint colours!  For your first few minis, trying to do white or yellow is something that should perhaps be avoided.

• Washes!  These have become a staple of beginner painters.  They are great for doing quick shading on models.  A quick wash of these 'paints' and your miniatures gain lots of depth.

• Water down the Paints!  Painting out of the pot is a big no, no.  It will dry the paint up quicker and it is really quite thick.  Use a brush to transfer some paint to another medium - a plate or a lid - and add a drop of water.  This will help it paint smoother and not block any detail.

• Use Black Undercoat!  This is a good one.  The black will not look quite so bad if it shows through the painting as white does.  White tends to be quite glaring, while the black can look a lot like shading.

• Brushes!  These things are important, you paint with them!  So look after them, be a bit more careful with them and don't dip them all the way into the paint. 

• Start Small!  Pick a basic rank and file trooper first, these guys don't have to be amazingly painted individually.  So don't worry about perfection, but remember the two foot test.  If it looks good at that distance, then you're doing it right.

And these are the blogs where you can get some more advice.

Bringer of Victory
Quiet Limit of the World
Bovine Overlord
Inane Courage