I wish somebody told me that when i started painting Miniatures

👑👑👑 We have made a brand new fantasy Universe with 10 amazing looking miniatures to paint! You can check out the campaign and support the channel - it goes live October 2022 here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/squidmar/champions-of…

I used to be a really bad opiate addict and I sold my 1500 points of space marines to buy drugs. Went to rehab and got help, completely new man now. It's quite the story. But watching your videos has made me really regret selling my army so the plan is to rebuild and move forward.

I started painting collecting figures when I was almost 16. I'm 72 now. My advice is a little different. 1st. Figure out what you're going to do with these figures. Will you display or store.? Do you need a box or a glass case. I'm guessing you'll want to display some. Make that solution a priority. Never forget they need to go somewhere. 2. Finish what you start. No mater how bad you think it is ..finish it. You can always strip and repaint . I managed to keep some of my early figures that are bad..Now I like these figures as they are like old friends and that was my skill level then. 3. Don't buy more figures than you can paint. Never ! Along this line ,don't do deals to get lots of figures. unless you really need them .. I get gamers need lots of figures but if you're not really interested in the figures..getting the motivation to paint them will almost certainly never happen. Buy only what you like. Every collector I've met has more figures than he can paint. Save yourself the guilt, expense an trouble by buying only figures you want and paint as soon as you can to keep that motivation. 4.Never " SAVE" painting figures for when you get better. As I've said you can always strip and repaint when you're motivated to repaint.. that almost never happens. 5. You can mix colors so basic colors are best to start. Artist colors are the best ( but may be out of your budget) as they are true colors and you can predict what color you get when you mix. You need to learn how to mix anyway. I get gamers might find Game colors are useful as you need to paint so many figures in the same colors and this can save time... but plan so you know what paints you need. 6. There are trends and fashion in the styles ,display and painting of figures. Try to understand where you want to be.. you can always change when you want. 7. You need good brushes. They are a little expensive but they make painting way easier. 8. If someone insults your work... forget it.. Critics rarely finish anything but more criticism . 9. I can see 3D printing is the future of this hobby. But you don't need a printer .. yet... they will get better and when you get to that skill level then you'll know when you're ready for one. 10. If you don't like collecting, painting or assembling figures.. you're in the wrong hobby. And thats ok... find what you like.

One thing I learned is that just because you thin your paints doesn't mean you don't need to control how much paint is on your brush, thinned paint globbed on can ruin detail just as much as thick paint

Squidmar: "Glazing is over rated" Me who has never glazed correctly and barely ever paints: "that's what I been saying for years! glad someone is on my level!!"

As a former painter I want to add: There are many more ways to paint a miniature than the GW way. They use one set of techniques, you might like other. I got a friend that base painted everything in black, working his way up. The armies looked striking and heavy. Paint the way you like.

One mistake I made and now I know not to ever make it agian is: always check the cup you try to drink from or you might drink some dirty paint water... I lerned this the hard way :P

I got all my plastic assembled! Time to start priming and painting~

Squidmar: Try to paint without washes Me: i will pretend i didn't hear that

Squidmar: You don’t need to buy a 50 paints set to start Me who literally just received my first Army Painter set of 50 paints: Surprised Pikachu face

I am a new mini painter and just learned my lesson on the wash thing. I just slapped it on and was like O.O. I was much more careful with my last mini and much happier with the results.

As an alternative to repainting, also just consider painting another one of your 2000 unpainted minis instead

So I actually just painted my first ever mini today!! I painted the mimic chest mini and it turned out AWESOME! I owe you some thanks, you and a few other channels gave me the confidence to really sit down and start painting. A lot of what you said in the video rings true to me and to my first experience painting minis. you seriously don't need all the paints. I got two starter sets of paints, about 14 bottles of paint, and a cheap set of micro brushes. that's all you need. In almost every part of the process for me, I had to mix paints to get the color I needed. Treat a wash with respect! it can make a mini so much nicer and bring out so much detail, but it can also kill all the detail if used too much. I found myself slowly adding layers, and pulling off a lot of it. In the end, it looked amazing. I still need to learn how to really dry brush highlights and how to blend colors but I'm really proud of how my first one came out! I only have like 9 minis but I cant wait to paint them now! So thanks for giving me the push I needed to start! :)

The “don’t be afraid to repaint” tip is a great one. I just painted a flamer of tzeentch I’m not happy with but I think I can redo it

Fairly new to this but what I like about this hobby is it brings so many artists into it: model sculptors, graphic artists, mini-painters, traditional print artists ... and every other hobbyist. And the art is available to appreciate more freely than it has ever been. We live in good times!

Squidmar - got a painting tip for you. Get an angle/cutting brush to do the edge of the wall/ceiling transition. 😀

I had experience with painting on like, paper before I started painting minis. When started mini paintings with friends, and I did not have a book. I didn't even know washes were a *thing*. I bought the main colors, got a plate, mixed things, etc. My friends thought I was insane and made jabs at me the whole time. But those little dudes turned out great! And yours will too. Have fun!

Ive been painting miniatures for 35 years, i learned most of this the hard way. These are some solid tips good work dude.

Tip 9 really blew my mind when I realized that I look at miniatures exactly like that. It‘s helpful to know what to focus on when painting a mini

First miniature I painted was in 1979. It was a halfling made from lead for DnD and the maker was Grenadier or Ral Partha. Could have definitely used YouTube tutorials back then. It was a lot of fun to do and I think the last miniature I painted was in 1997-98. Your videos have brought back the nostalgia of it all. So much so that I have been thinking of looking into the hobby once again. Good work, congratulations on the new home and your success.