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I am thinking of getting into the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop battle game (with a Tau army, if you're interested ).

I tried to do this once before with Space Marines, but it didn't turn out well. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't do a good job of painting the miniatures; and by "good job," I just mean a decent paint job, not a flawless one.

I know that a few of you play Warhammer 40k, and that there are a number of artists on the site, so I want to know if you have any tips that could help me be a better painter.

These tips can be as general or as specific as you like. Any advice at all is appreciated.

I've just barly goten into warhammer 40k very fun. But i can't help you with painting thing, because im prabably worse than you.

What army do you play?

I've been painting miniatures for years, so I know a few tricks. Some general recommendations:

1. Acquire an assortment of tools: brushes, bits of wire, bent pins, etc. Different tools for different jobs.

2. Use acrylic paints, not enamel. The base for enamel paints is thinner, which makes it impossible to do multiple coats.

For painting

1. File down all the flashing and mold lines
2. Prime the mini, this will ensure that the paint stays on better. You can usually get primer in either matte gray or black. Use the black.
3. Start with the dark washes. If your mini isn't primed with black, apply a black wash. When that's dry, apply a watery version of the colour that that section will use (e.g. for a red cloak, apply a watered down red). This will add shading.
4. Carefully apply the main layers
5. Do the drybrushing and highlights. Use a special brush for drybrushing, since this technique is hard on your brushes. Also do the detail parts at this stage.
6. When your finished painting, you need to apply a sealer coat (preferably matte)

That's the basics, the rest is practice. You can probably find additional tips on the WOTC website.

Technomancer wrote: Do the drybrushing and highlights.

I am a little unclear on exactly what is involved in drybrushing. Is it the same as highlighting? Is it used for shading or lightening? More importantly, how is it done?

Dry brushing does bring out highlights, but usually highlighting refers to straight painting of the small details (things like beltbuckles, sword pommels, etc). Drybrushing is when you wipe off most of the paint from your brush, so that it's semi-dry and then lightly brush the area that you're interested in. Usually, a lighter shade of the colour is used in this step, in order to enhance the sense of depth and shading. Chances are you'll also use a less-dry version of this technique on things like chain mail, bones, etc.

Knowing how dry your brush should be for a particular effect is something that takes a bit of practice.

Some other sources for tutorials:
Very old back issues of Dragon magazine
Ral Partha Battlesystem rule books (long out of print)
Some of the minis companies probably also have info (Ral Partha, RAFM, GDW, Citadel, etc). General web searching should turn some stuff up as well.
Stuff on plasitc modelling (This is where I cut my teeth).

Thanks for the info. I've found a lot of resources online, but I hadn't thought about consulting plastic modeling sites.

I will probably buy "How to Paint Citadel Miniatures" eventually, just so that I will have some pictures to refer to for the various techniques.

cbwing0 wrote:What army do you play?

my army is the Necrons.

Hey If you go to http://www.games-workshop.com you can get painting tutorials. It looks pretty good.

P.S. sorry bout the double post.

I play Eldar - Altansar to be exact, using the Biel-Tan craftworld rules.

Some things I've found helpful when painting:

1. Undercoat black. Even if you're painting the model white, undercoat it black.

2. After that you do a layer of a darker shade of your main colours - If doing Red use Scab Red or something.

3. Then do a middle layer which is between your darker colour and your main colour. E.g. with Red it would be Red Gore.

4. Then do your main colour. Do NOT go in the cracks. Keep it to the main bits of the model. This will keep shadows in the recesses and looks cool!

5. Do a lighter shade of the main colour along the edges. In the case of Red you do not highlight white, you highlight yellow/orange.

If you're interested my colour scheme is Midnight Blue with Ice Blue tips and Bleached Bone. This is to keep within the deathy look of Altansar (Maugan-Ra's craftworld)

I'll tell you how I do my bone because I've never seen anyone do it this way:

Undercoat black.

Solid coat of Scorched Brown
Solid coat of Bestial Brown
50/50 mix of Bleached Bone and Bestial Brown (it looks pink fleshy) semi-drybrushed/semi-painted on
drybrush Bleached Bone
Drybrush a mix of Bleched Bone and Skull White - ratio depends on the model. A Farseer gets a lighter colour than say a Guardian.