Okay.  Joe M. from Models Workshop here. First I want to apologize for this not going out last week.  I was very sick.  However being sick is behind me so now on to the article. In Part 1 I talked about planning your venture into the world of painting models and gaming with them.  In Part 2 I covered the tools you would need and your first models to buy.  In Part 3 I talked about how to build and prepare your test models.  Now I’ll talk about painting the test models.  I want to stress that these are test models and this is not the way to paint a finished model.

Ok, so now you have test models, but what to do with them?  Well if you took my earlier advice and bought the $10 pack of Space Marines you have 3 models.  So you need to get paints.  Buy the paints that are in the scheme you are wanting to do for your main army.  Here is a hint, if the scheme works on the marine, it will work on anything.  So you have your paints.  Take one of your models and just do a quick paint job on it to see if your colors work together.  If they do, great.  If not, back to the drawing board.

Your other two models are going to be used a lot and it is going to be a bit tedious.  What you are going to do with them is just practice painting techniques.  And keep practicing them.  Line highlighting is a perfect example.  Paint the model a base color, then just practice making as thin a lines as you possibly can on each edge.  As you get better start adding in smaller lines to show spots of greater light.  At the same time on the other model practice layering techniques with smaller and thinner layers.

You will be coming back to these test models time and again as you learn new techniques and pick new paint schemes.

Okay.  Now we know what our paint scheme will look like and we have practiced our techniques for a while (like a week or two), so now you think it is time to move on to your actual models?  Yup, we are finally there.  What you should now start with is your most basic line troop model.  These are the models with the least detail needed.  You will also be painting a lot of them.  This will further refine your techniques and just give you more practice.

Keep buying and painting the line troops (don’t forget to either use superglue for plastic bases so you can replace with good resin ones latter, or if you are going to stick with the plastic to figure out what you need to buy for basing material and how to paint/apply it).  Then move up to the next level of difficulty and so on.

The final models you should be worrying about are your HQ and Character models.  These are your showpieces and you will be applying every technique that you have learned and practiced on them.  You want these to look the best you can possibly get them.

Alright, now don’t forget even after you do this army you are still going to be learning lots of new things.  So be ready to start over and keep practicing.  Eventually try other armies and models so you are forced to learn new techniques.

Ok..next time I will talk about setting starting goals for yourself as a painter and some ways to go about that.