Hello gents. I'd like to start painting Guard minis and would like some basic tips from people who actually play the game and not just run a YouTube channel.
Tips regarding painting, primarily, as I'm not very artistically inclined.
The standard older style speedy tabletop ready method for infantry:
Assemble and glue the models but don't glue them to the bases yet. Use plastic glue, Citadel brand is fine. I prefer to paint the arms separately before gluing them on but it's a personal thing. Not gluing everything makes the details a lot easier to paint but the overall process is a bit fiddlier. *By detaching the models from the bases it's easier to paint the feet, legs, crotch etc. By leaving off the arms it's easier to paint the torso and "inside" parts of the weapon. But because these bits aren't readily visible you can potentially skip this and glue everything at the start if you don't care. But of course you care, you wouldn't be here if you didn't.*
Attach to base with blu-tak, paint a layer of thinned PVA glue on the base (you
must clean your brush thoroughly after doing this - ideally use a dedicated supercheap and nasty brush just for this purpose) and then dunk it in sand and tap off the excess.
Undercoat white using a cheap acrylic spray. Try to keep this layer thin, it's better to miss a few nooks than douse the miniature in paint at this point.
Leave to dry for 24 hours.
You should add another layer of thinned PVA to the base while it's drying to seal in the sand a bit. *Or just use a special basing paint instead of basing material, it's a good time saver and you do it during the painting step*.
You'll want to use decent sable hair round tipped brushes, nothing too expensive required. Don't get the ones with the superlong handles, those are for painting on canvas. At a minimum you'll want a size 1 and a size 0 brush, probably a 00 or 000 as well for the smaller details. Novices tend to do better with smaller brushes .You can also get an acrylic-haired size 2 or 3 for the wash process and another dedicated small brush for drybrushing, because this process wrecks the bristles.
You'll want to thin your paints. Every paint is a bit different in how you manage this. Sometimes it's okay to just wet your brush before dipping it in the "raw" paint, sometimes you need to add a drop or two of water to some paint on a palette and mix. Experiment a bit until you get a thin flowy liquid that coats "reasonably well". Again thinner is probably better than more coverage, because you can always add another coat, but too thin to the point it runs off like water isn't helpful.
Start by using white paint to touch up any spots you missed with the spray. Non-undercoated sections are a bitch to paint and always rub off so get em good now.
By batch painting ten miniatures at once by the time you've finished a coat on the last one the first one should be dry enough to add another coat.
After two coats of white touch ups you should be okay but keep at it to ensure you get all the raised areas. There should be basically no grey plastic visible once this is all dry. It's okay to use a slightly thicker paint to ensure you get the last spots which the thin paint pools away from. Don't paint the joints you'll need to glue later.
Did you pick a colour scheme yet? Assemble your colored paints - for example, light green for the uniform, dark green for the armour, brown for the boots and straps, grey for the weapons, flesh for the flesh god, gunmetal for highlighting the weapons, maybe gold or copper for doodads, and beige/bleached bone for highlighting the flesh. Keep it simple is the name of the game. Basically you want two colours, plus metal, leather and skin.
Now with your size 1 brush you want to paint the base uniform colour onto the body of each model. Don't worry about neatness or details, just get two thin coats of green (or whatever) on every part of the model that should be green. Repeat for the armor, trying not to get dark green on the uniform, then carefully paint the leather bits brown, metal bits grey and fleshy bits fleshy using your smaller brush.
*By using thinned paints over white you should be able to produce a "natural highlight" effect where the paint pools away from the raised areas as it dries, creating a relatively nice color gradient. The purpose of things like Speed Paint and Contrast paint is to simplify this process by "pre-thinning the paint for your convenience" but I'm too much of a grognard (boomer) for that newfangled crap.*
After this point you should have 10 minis with bight clunky looking base colors covering everything. They may look a bit mottled so touch up some spots but it's okay to have a bit of white showing on the raised details for that "natural highlight".
Now use your drybrush to highlight the weapons and grey bits with gunmetal and the skin with bleached bone (Ushabti Bone from Citadel) or a mixture of bone and flesh. Google how to
drybrush, it's pretty straightforward and less is usually more.
Next you should glue the mini to the base and complete the assembly of the other parts now. *Getting plastic glue on painted areas is bad, try not to do that* After about 10 minutes drying time use your small brush to touch up all the painting mistakes and details etc you care about.
Then it's time to wash each miniature in Agrax Earthshade using you size 3 brush. Just go to town and slather the whole mini in goop, it'll look fine when it's dry trust me. You might get a few stains on the flatter areas but you can prevent that by "pushing" the wash off them into the crevices, or adding a highlight later.
Leave to dry for 24 hours, don't even think about trying to work on a mini with wet wash on it.
After it's all dry your unit is done except for the bases. You might want to re-apply some colors on some raised spots if the wash made them too dark but be sparing with this. I usually drybrush a metal highlight on the guns just to make them pop.
Paint the sand on the bases using a very thin "ground" colour you like and drybrush it with a layer of that colour mixed 2:1 with bone then a lighter touch mixed 1:1 with bone. Paint the rim of the base a nice solid color; You can use a thick coat for this because there are no details to obscure and you want nice solid coverage, because this is the part of the miniature that gets handled the most.
