First I wish to join the happy voices in welcoming a new sub-forum. I like seeing enthusiastic hobbyist personalising their collection.

I'm not a good painter. But I want to start. Never painted a model before.

Please help me and those like me to start.

SHALL WE BEGIN

been painting 30 years, won a few awards along the way.. suggest you start with:

1) good quality paints ( I recommend P3)

2) good quality brushes ( I recommend Army Painter)

3) a surplus of patience

4) an acceptance that you need to make mistakes to learn from them..

5) a willingness to accept constructive criticism

then set aside an hour and watch some youtube vids on basic applications of base coats, highlights and washes in order to get depth in your minis..

golden rule - many thin coats are much better than one thick coat...

I'm just getting back into it, and my comments on Odinson's very appropriate starter steps are thusly:

1) nice, but maybe not necessary from the get go. Unless you know you want to

2) yes, very much yes. My $8 for 5 worked nice for a few models, but is already fraying. Oh well, I bought them just to see if I still was interested in painting minis. Now that I know, I'm shopping for nicer ones

3) there'll be no comments on that ...

4) essential, aiming for perfection from the get go is the path to pain, a lot of personal, shameful pain

5) this applies to life in general IMHO

On the Golden rule, if you're asking, it's probably not thinned enough, in my limited experience. See 4) above

No, you don't need to prime, but it might be good to give the mini a quick wash with soapy water and rinse it well to get rid of any accumulated oils before you paint.

Learn to use a wet palette . I always plug Tabletop Minions for this, because he keeps it realistic and inexpensive (though I prefer my glass dish to plastic, but that's preference).

For me, I began painting on something else. Namely, my wife's Zombicide addiction where I have 200 zombies to finish painting. It won't make me a great painter, but I am learning my brush control and how to keep paint thin on less than optimal plastic pieces (and who cares if a zombie goes bad).

This is exactly what I mean by help. Loving the comments so far. Thank you!

Patience is definitely something I need for painting.

I've never painted an Xwing mini, so take my comments with a pinch of salt, but if I were to paint something that sized, from scratch, I would expect to spend around 2 hours if I wanted to be really happy with the result - no joke. A lot of inexperienced painters (or non painters) think that 5 mins is appropriate. You get out what you put in (much like life) - so be prepared to spend quality time to get quality results. If you want to throw the mini in the trash after 30 mins that probably means you are on the path to greatness (no joke).

10 years ago I wrote a basic painting guide for Impact Minis. I still stand by the steps I outline:

http://www.impactminiatures.com/Gallery/PaintingGuide.pdf

I've never painted an Xwing mini, so take my comments with a pinch of salt, but if I were to paint something that sized, from scratch, I would expect to spend around 2 hours if I wanted to be really happy with the result - no joke. A lot of inexperienced painters (or non painters) think that 5 mins is appropriate. You get out what you put in (much like life) - so be prepared to spend quality time to get quality results. If you want to throw the mini in the trash after 30 mins that probably means you are on the path to greatness (no joke).

10 years ago I wrote a basic painting guide for Impact Minis. I still stand by the steps I outline:

http://www.impactminiatures.com/Gallery/PaintingGuide.pdf

I hope the last pair of minis in your link have aged well, without too much chipping or scarring.

they turn 11 next month, that's why I'm getting into XWing NOW - I will play Rebels, they will each have Scum and Imps (their choice, not mine), so it's pretty perfect. I love having two boys that I can teach to game and spit and cuss and stuff..

For x-wing minis I've noticed that you don't need to prime (as others have already stated), and you want to make sure you thin your paints so it doesn't cover the neat details of pipes and such on the ship. What you want to look for for a "just right" thinness for hand painting (not airbrushing) is about the same thickness of milk.

As for other useful tips I hate turning a model and then I get paint all over my fingers and now I have to repaint an area so I made me a very cheap turnstyle for my figures, and for X-wing this works even better because of the pegs that they sit on all already.

Using a paintbrush cap and my mini stand, which is only a half ball of Styrofoam and the blue gunk is simple blue tac (great for holding onto minis and comes off pretty easily without stripping paint), With this setup I can turn my ship without touching it and able to bend it to get to angles I need to paint at. All in all my stand might have costed $3-4 dollars tops.

You can also see in the background a Tupperware container that I use as my paint pad. It has a normal kitchen sponge on the bottom soaked with water then a paper towel layer on top of that, then parchment paper on top (not wax paper). This keeps my paints wet constantly, and keeps them longer when I'm using them. This is known as a wet pallet and is also cheap and wonderful for helping people out with their painting since it keeps the paint from drying out quicker.

Also when posting photos make sure to resize it to 800x600 or smaller so it doesn't take up the giant screen and so we don't see every single detail at the microscopic level that can easily make any ship, no matter how well done, look like an ugly blob. There are many free photo resizing sites out there. I recently found postimage.org that is very user friendly.

Normally I see bunch of people with painting tips or what kinds of paint brushes/paints to use but very little on other things that help out. I hope these tips help out other people as they have for me.

Another trick I recently learned is to use a small unopened water bottle and temporarily attach the mini to the cap. That gives you a nice handle to hold that has plenty of weight to set it down without worrying about it falling over.

Magnetized ships are also much easier to paint, what with being tiltable.

I use a pill bottle. I use one that's as tall as the width of my hand for a good hold. Epoxy a couple of washers in the bottom to weight it and glue a spare base to the top. A flight peg and some blue tack and you're ready to go.

Definitely use a wet palette. It will keep your acrylics workable far longer than normal. Saves money too.

Red, yellow and white are by far the hardest colors to paint. Their translucent nature requires under painting and there are several good tutorials on YouTube dealing with this. Tabletop Minions and Jay Did Painting are just two of them. If your repaint has any of these as a predominant color consider spraying it as a base coat but make sure it's fully cured before top coating.

Silly Putty, Tamiya masking tape and Post-It notes are great for masking.

Consider using a flow improver and/or a drying retarder for your acrylics if you see brush strokes and can't get rid of them. Acrylics don't self level like enamels do.

These are just a couple of tricks that I picked up over the years. Hope they help.

Edited for spelling. Again

I've got a Core Set X-Wing which is sitting unused.

All your tips and advice will be read again before I begin. I'm going to keep it simple, but I think my X-Wing should be sacrificed in the name of practice and showing people like me how easy/tricky it is to start.

Best part is, if I make a mess it won't upset me. My Core X hasn't been used in nearly a year. But it's sacrifice will help me on my quest to become one of the painters here.

Keep up the advice. Different people have different ways of doing things so it's good to get a broad range of approaches.

Does someone have the link to the magnetising and the weathering tutorial threads? This seems like the place for those, but I don't have the links handy.

Does someone have the link to the magnetising and the weathering tutorial threads? This seems like the place for those, but I don't have the links handy.

Yep

Modification advice and links are welcome here too. This is all about advice and help.

I've got a Core Set X-Wing which is sitting unused.

All your tips and advice will be read again before I begin. I'm going to keep it simple, but I think my X-Wing should be sacrificed in the name of practice and showing people like me how easy/tricky it is to start.

Best part is, if I make a mess it won't upset me. My Core X hasn't been used in nearly a year. But it's sacrifice will help me on my quest to become one of the painters here.

Keep up the advice. Different people have different ways of doing things so it's good to get a broad range of approaches.

If it doesn't come out to your satisfaction, give it a soak in Simple Green or Purple Power. Acrylics that haven't fully cured come off fairly easily with a little help from a soft toothbrush.

Rubbing alchohol for about 3 minutes and then a toothbrush under water will also help get the paint off without hurting the mini.

Rubbing alchohol for about 3 minutes and then a toothbrush under water will also help get the paint off without hurting the mini.

Just make sure it's not the good stuff. You should never waste good booze

Some of my 'repaint' advice.

1. First of all good brushes and good paint as others have said. I recommend 'foundry system' acrylic paint. It comes in three shades per colour so you can easily 'drybrush' up a colour you like.

2. Drybrushing and inking are your friends. Drybrushing is a technique for creating quick artificial highlights (google it) and it looks great on spaceships in this scale as it adds 'battle wear'. Inking/washing is its hand in hand sister. Once you've made a ship looked scraped and worn a wash of weak black ink thats then wiped off the upper areas can give it that 'used future' oily FFG look and stop your model looking too clean.

3. Use several *thin* coats of paint rather than one thick one. The temptation is to use thick paint to get strong colour but this will clump and you wont get any 'detail'. Much better to use two thin coats than one thick. if you have to paint a light colour over a dark one put a white base down first.. for example if you're painting orange on poe damerons black xwing then paint the 'orange' bits white first, then perhaps yellow and lastly orange (yellow under orange makes it really stand out).

4. Try and stick to two or three main colours and an accent metal. Tons of colours on a model can make it look really messy unless you're very good. I usually have a main colour (grey or white say on a z95), a secondary colour (say red stripes on the wings and up the fuselage) and then an 'accent' like a yellow 'beak' on the end, i prefer using blacks and greys to metal shades on xwing minis but sometimes i'll use a gunmetal on weapons etc

I don't think that stripping paint is necessary - coats of factory paint are very thin. Personally I advice:

1. washing ships before painting (soap+water are fine)

2. priming models (eg. Vallejo Primer)

3. using varnish after work is done, so the paint won't come off easy.

If you want to start painting, you have to be patient - use thin coats of paint, dont be haste, accept your mistakes and learn on them.

I don't think that stripping paint is necessary - coats of factory paint are very thin. Personally I advice:

1. washing ships before painting (soap+water are fine)

2. priming models (eg. Vallejo Primer)

3. using varnish after work is done, so the paint won't come off easy.

If you want to start painting, you have to be patient - use thin coats of paint, dont be haste, accept your mistakes and learn on them.

That's probably how I'm going to handle it. I hate painting, and I'm a little impatient and lazy when it comes to doing it. But I have such plans.

So I'll wash with soup and water.

Make sure I've rinsed properly.

Prime the areas I want repainted.

Thin coats and build up to beautification.

Bit ink if I want that old and well used look.

Varnish.

VOILÀ! It is finito!

Time to start a repaint topic of my own now I know how to upload images.

But once I get paints and do my sacrificial X-Wing I'll post it here. Just to show how a newbie dummy does it. Or doesn't lol it could go horribly wrong.

Do or do not. There is no try.

I havn't done it to any X-Wing Ships, but on the Stripping note:


I found, in Armada, for some reason, the AFMK-II's paint is different to just about everything else. The Paint surface is pitted or something in comparsion to everything else.

This meant, when it was primed, repainted, and then washed....... The Wash didn't flow, it just stained the surface... Like an Ink rather than a Wash.

I had to strip the original down to plastic and repaint it before the Wash behaved...

So hopefully X-Wing never has that issue, but its something to keep in mind as a possibilty or potential

Or maybe I won't ink

If you're going to ink wash use a satin or gloss varnish over the paint. It will protect your paint job and prevent the ink from staining the finish. You want the ink in the crevices and not over the whole finish. This applies to acrylics and to flat enamels. There are some good vids on YouTube that explain the process.

Priming may not be necessary depending on the base color and your paint color. Be aware that some models aren't painted but molded in color. I found this out after having an X-wing in the soup for three weeks using everything that's worked on non FFG models. Including straight IPA, oven cleaner, simple green, purple power, super clean and an ultrasonic cleaner.

After the initial learning curve, I soak in simple green long enough to remove the ink wash. Some of the ships have a very heavy wash.