And ****, they're tiny. I might need a magnifying glass on a mount. Any tips would be most appreciated.

Don't sweat the small stuff.

Seriously.

I don't use a magnifier or anything... I paint with bold strokes, its just how you hold the model while you do it...

Remember that No Matter how well you paint with the Miniature pressed up to your face... You (and your opponent) will be looking at it from an average of THREE FEET away.... "YOU WON"T NOTICE THAT."

Made a mistake?
You won't notice that.

Didn't carve a mold line?
You won't notice that.

Cotton bud (q-tip) stems to hold them. I found the blue Johnson & Johnson type are a great fit for the stand nubs.

ultra fine sharpy pens are your friend.

Don't sweat the small stuff.

Seriously.

I don't use a magnifier or anything... I paint with bold strokes, its just how you hold the model while you do it...

Remember that No Matter how well you paint with the Miniature pressed up to your face... You (and your opponent) will be looking at it from an average of THREE FEET away.... "YOU WON"T NOTICE THAT."

Made a mistake?

You won't notice that.

Didn't carve a mold line?

You won't notice that.

And don't forget:

Spent 8 hours painting an ultra-tiny unit logo?

You won't notice that.

Don't sweat the small stuff.

Seriously.

I don't use a magnifier or anything... I paint with bold strokes, its just how you hold the model while you do it...

Remember that No Matter how well you paint with the Miniature pressed up to your face... You (and your opponent) will be looking at it from an average of THREE FEET away.... "YOU WON"T NOTICE THAT."

Made a mistake?

You won't notice that.

Didn't carve a mold line?

You won't notice that.

And don't forget:

Spent 8 hours painting an ultra-tiny unit logo?

You won't notice that.

Bright contrast- colored Circles, Squares, and Triangles make for excellent Unit logos in my opinion

If you are feeling really adventurous, take a sharpie and put a couple of different lines, circles, squares, or triangles inside of them.

Or do what I did and nab a pack of 1/2000 scale star wars decals from a different model set and paste them on. Though that ended up looking better for ships than Squads, as they looked a little big even at that size.

Should be done priming them this weekend, so i thought I might put pictures of the finished products here, even if the finished products aren't up to what I've seen here (seriously, some of you people are ASTOUNDING in your talent).

No worries mate, do put 'em up! We're always here for helpful critiques and advice if you need it (whether taking pictures or painting). My advice is that high contrast tend to look good. Bright colours make things really stand out and help when we get into Armada scale for fighters (compared to more sedate blending for X-wing and Imperial Assault scales).

Oh, and it's also not uncommon to see improvements in quality between the start of a project and the end.

Minor tips: if you need to paint a straight line, paint the line you want to achieve, then 'counter paint' the edge of that with your base colour. That tends to make the lines much crisp and straight.

I'd recommend starting off with 2 base colours (one slightly lighter than the other), two accent colours (again, one slightly lighter than the other), and a dark wash. For example, if you want a grey and blue X-wing, then paint it all grey, then paint the portions blue that you want. Use your wash to cover them both. Then go over most of the stuff not around joints and the like with your main colours again, and then hit just the 'leading edges' or highest edges with your lighter colours.

Well, they're in various stages of doneness. All of them are at least primed. Interceptors are closest to table ready, just a little touch up, bloodstripes on Fel, and some nuln oil.

EDIT: tried to attach a pic, but it was too big. Once the squints are done, I'll do it through my laptop.

Photobucket 'em, Weasel!

If you upload them direct here, you only get 500kb to play with. Permanently...

Upload them to Photobucket.
Click on the Pic itself
Then click on the link at the side that starts with

Then post that.

UNLIMITED STORAGE

I had to utilize photobucket as well. Trying to attach directly was a huge PITA

Ok, so, here's what I have basecoated and washed:

and here's what I have still to work on to at least get it decent (anything black is only primed):

And here's a closer look at the squints I'm using tonight:

So still a lot of work to do (and skill to gain) but they're going ok (even if Fel's Bloodstripe is more of a Bloodwave, going to fix it using Vykes's counterpaint tip)

I really like the blue and read squadron they really pop

Ok, so this is a necro thread, but it's MY necro thread so I don't feel so bad. Got some basecoated and shaded (Nuln Oil is MAGIC) so thought I'd show some progress. Quarters are in shots because I'm also putting these elsewhere where people may not know how small they are.

This last one I'm rather irritated at myself about. I over-inked the blue one with the silver beak

They look awesome. I especially like the blue TIEs. But the red TIEs are just... yuck No that anything's bad with them, they are just not my taste. I also love the B-Wings.

I have to admit I'm rather happy with the B-Wings. The brown and green, in particular, I'm considering using on an XMG B-Wing

I really like the paint scheme on your squadrons, man! I've been debating painting my own minis and I may utilize some of these designs.

In addition to this game, I also play Warhammer 40k...because I apparently have an excess of expendable income and alarmingly few responsibilities. A bit of advice I got early on in my mini painting career was that painters tape is your friend at any scale. For the TIE Fighter wings, for example, you can slap some tiny pieces of painters tape (I used an Xacto knife to custom-cut the tape) and place it on the black bits, then paint the blue on the edges. It helps keep your lines razor sharp and crisp and keeps you from having to re-paint over any hand slippage mistakes. I haven't tried it, but I feel like that would help with the blood stripe for Soontir Fel as well.

It will add some setup time and some tediousness to the job, but honestly the results are pretty good, I would post pics of my work but I've painted no Armada models and seeing that this is a FFG board...prolly shouldn't post Games Workshops stuff here

Foe me since I am 50+............my steps

1) black undercoat

2) base color diluted, is next

3) dry brush base color

4) follow with a wash of nuln oil

5) dry brush, lighter shade of base, gradually increasing the base color

6) to show wear dry brush the detail colors carefully, the mix the detail with white to highlight the detail

7) nuln oil the canopies and when done drybrush with the base color, or detail color

I have trouble painting fine details now....goes hand in hand with age.

Well, new squadrons = new painting. I had them looking pretty good....and then I shaded them. Not sure if my water-shade ratio was off, shade was old, or just overdid it, but it is what it is, for right now. Still going to show them, because why not. At tabletop distance they look ok. Sorry for the picture quality.

Imperials:

Defenders look good in blue

Imperial Grey and Royal Guard Red work OK too

Imperial Grey Lambdas: Had these looking great, then inked them. Tried to fix it, but now they look better at a distance

Lambdas: Again, looked better before the ink.

Decimators: The bloodstripe one is probably my favorite out of the 4. The Imp Grey one probably needs a dry brushing or something

Decimators: The Royal Guard Red looks better in person, the other looks better form a distance

TIE Phantoms: In blue, I'm kinda happy with these

TIE Phantoms: Can't go wrong with Imp Grey (unless you screw up the ink) but I'll probably redo the cloaking one

Rebels: Again, sorry for picture quality

VCX-100s: Honestly kinda happy with these. Only 3 here because I'm going to try to make one look like the Ghost (Hera with a pair of E-Wings going hunting sounds sooooo fun)

E-Wings: The blue is a bit darker in person, and the brown and green continues the paint scheme from my favorite set of my B-Wing repaints.

E-Wings: The ink on the white did not go well, so I did my best to fix it. Yes, the green is for Corran Horn

Z95s: The Partisan ones turned out OK, but the grey and brown I don't think have enough contrast

Z95s: The red and white look better with a different background, and the others are in keeping with my green and brown scheme

Lancers: The Green may be too dark to use as a main base color but otherwise....

Lancers: These look better in person and I'm actually rather happy with them.

Looking good, keep it up, love the bright colours.

As far as inking, my personal preference to inking is step 2, right after priming. You tend to be inking recesses, and i don't want base coat in them, I want them as deep as possible (for the fighter cockpits and such anyway, I base before panel lines) so it works well too keep them deep for better dry brushing later on tie cockpits.

Foe me since I am 50+............my steps

1) black undercoat

2) base color diluted, is next

3) dry brush base color

4) follow with a wash of nuln oil

5) dry brush, lighter shade of base, gradually increasing the base color

6) to show wear dry brush the detail colors carefully, the mix the detail with white to highlight the detail

7) nuln oil the canopies and when done drybrush with the base color, or detail color

I have trouble painting fine details now....goes hand in hand with age.

This... 57 here and my right hand now has a tremble in it... (the VA says it's nothing ) I was a bad assed painter before age decided to pull this evil joke on me. So... now base coating, washing and dry brushing are my friend,

Not sure if this is ok, but if I hear from the mods, I'll take them down. Any minis that I sub for I have purchased and use the cardboard and stand for.

Picked up some TIE Avengers for when I want multiple Aggressors in a fleet

Some Assault Gunboats for Firesprays so a fleet doesn't look like a Fett Family Reunion

A WIP Lancer Frigate to put in for a Raider kitted for squadron hunting and below, a DP20 Corellian Gunship that I originally picked up for variety when running multiple CR90s, but now I might put in for an Assault Pelta.

You can show those off, no problems.

It really gets more complicated if you're trying to sell them

Lancer Frigate... ohhh yeaaah!