New guy, would like some advice

[glacian]

This is the first mini, hell, it really is the first anything I've ever seriously painted, so any advice would be welcome. I still have work to do on it in terms of touch up in some areas, but any advice at all would be welcome. Thanks! :bandit:

http://img23.exs.cx/img23/6076/Picture-5.jpg

PS. Sorry about the bad image quality, I guess I need to work on my photoshop and picture taking skills

[Knorretje]

Allright, firsy and foremost, thin your paints, do not paint straight out of the pot, it makes for a real thick paint.

What you can do for the metal areas is have a black ink (or a heavily thinned down Chaos Black) and paint it all over the metal areas, this gives it more depth.

Don't over do the base, try getting your hands on some smaller flock or sand.

Lastly :
have a look at these articles some are really great:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/article

[Somebody]

Thin your paints with water, it will do you good. Its not awful for a firt attempt.

PS: Wheres the boltgun?

[Willowwing]

Like mentioned before use water to thin your paints and use Vallejo or Model color paints. Vallejo I like better. A good way to do depth without using straight ink is using wonder wash. Wonder wash is made from Future floor wax bought at any grocery store. Pour out half the bottle then add water to the rest and put in about half a bottle of black ink. Use this after you paint a model and apply it to the entire model. It helps add a lot of depth and fill gaps. I also use it on metallics and other paints with the water to help with the application of the paint.

[glacian]

Thanks for the advice guys, I’ll defiantly water down my paints from now on, and I’ll try the wonder wash. As far as paints, the only model store around here that I've found only sells the GW paints, else I’d try something different.

Also, as far as watering down paints, is a 1:1 solution best, or is a 2:1 solution better?

As for his weapon, I’m not entirely happy with how the model looks, though I don’t think it’s going to get much better, so I have the bolter on the side until I'm tired of messing with him.

[Imperial marine]

now they look like mine but diff colour schme u have a basic technique like me keep practicing and you will get there mine are worse [no really]

[self biased]

for your metallics i'd use a 2:1 black ink to water mix, but please, use your metallics sparingly. second, flock your base before you even basecoat your model, then paint your base whatever color you like. static grass should also be used sparingly.

i've found that vallejo paints don't drybrush nearly as well as GW paints, which aren't as bad as alot of people say they are. GW paints also don't settle as quickly as vallejo paints.

[Willowwing]

a 1:1 should be ok for thinning the paints. A little more for metallics. I wouldn't drybrush anything at all unless it's part of the base. Drybrushing is a good thing to do if you need to apply a white or grey to a black prime coat for putting a lighter color on and that's about it.