choosing a new main army

[me_in_japan]

Heh in my case you're preaching to the choir. In the case of everyone else, you're preaching to the seventh circle of hell. Best of luck converting em. I've been trying for years, to no avail

[Colonel Voss]

Given that we are so into paints and painting I'll just add my thoughts here on how my armies are going to be painted up (and I mean all of them). I've broken it into three tiers, tabletop (or my current level), learning and developing armies (what I will paint and hopefully learn how to base and convert to improve my skills), and final high quality (the final goal, the highest quality I can produce).

Dividing up my armies

Tabletop:

Imperial Guard, too much already painted to bring up the standard
Skaven; in true raty fashion, only the most powerful and potent of the rats will get a nice painting, low quality for the unwashed masses
Khador; already mostly painted, looks good enough for now
Greeks: my flames of war work needs to start somewhere and they are by far easier than my fallschirmjager, good chance to also develop basic basing skills

Developing
Necrons; good to work with metals and unassembled models (warmachines). it'll also be my testing ground for conversions and GWs new paint line
Circle of Orboros; lots of new techniques to try in this army and it is one that I can see repainting as my technique gets better. Also the testing ground for P3 paints
Fallschirmjager: going for the simple early war camo and a good place to improve the basing abilities learned from the greeks
Late war schwere panzerkompagnie; good way to get use to painting the camo schemes by using the biggest tanks. both these and the fallschirm will also let me try vallerjo

Final:
Retribution of Scryah; these models scream high quality and I want to try free hand with them
Demons of Chaos: I like how my deamonettes look, but I still want higher quality and I will do just that! This army screams quality

And just to be fair, compared to MiJ, most of us are nowhere near his league. I want to improve my skills, but I know I won't come anywhere near his level. I'll choose the paints that work best for me. If I'm stuck with beginer level paints, then so be it. We'll just have to see how things go. For those who are encouraging higher quality, I would say the challenge goes to you to help me learn how to do a better job rather than just give your opinions on what is best. In the end, your opinions don't help if I can't do

[me_in_japan]

I'm 100% behind helping you (and anybody else who's interested) improve their painting. All of this stuff about GW vs Vallejo is just banter, in my opinion. They're all good paints (tho haven't personally tried new GW yet) and I have no doubt they can all be used to produce compo winning miniatures with the right techniques. That's what it comes down to: technique. How do you learn the techniques?

If I may borrow a quote from a certain CMoN member's sig...

"The secret? Practice, and a desire to get better."

There are lots of different ways to achieve a given effect. Some will work for you, some won't. You just have to try them all and see how they go. For me, if I had to give one piece of technical advice to a newb painter who wanted to get better it'd be:

use a wet pallette. (or at the very least a pallette).

I found it helped hugely with my painting. Try to not think in terms of one layer of paint = one colour. Each layer should be transparent so the colour below shows through. Thus, even if you don't change the paint on your brush you can build up a smooth transition by making the layer thicker (by layering multiple coats in the same place and thereby reduce transparency)

If folks really want to improve you really need to go over to CMoN and look at their tutorials, or search for your own. There's bugger all point in me writing a description of something when GD winners have posted step by step photo tutorials of it elsewhere on the net. If you want help with a specific thing or feedback on a mini then I'm more than willing to help, but the fact is that getting good at painting takes time, research and practice. The plus side is, if you do the research and practice then you will get better, even if you think you're a crap painter now.

[Ichibanpainting]

It's true that paints are nothing compared to technique
As for a wet palette it does help tremendously
Actually on my YouTube chanel I have a tutorial up on how to make one that works great for 500yen
Check my website it's up there
http://ichibanpainting.com

Funny that everyone is talking about you MIJ lol like you are a god lol can wait to see your stuff at Nagoya hammer!

[Primarch]

Well, as for myself, I am not a painter. Never have been and never will be. Painting is that incredibly long boring period I have between putting the kits together and putting a finished army on the table. Dont get me wrong, painting can be a relaxing thing to do if I am in the mood for it, but it is always going to be the dullest part of the hobby for me. Anything the paint suppliers can do to make that easier for me is a benefit. So if using GW paints for the past 18 years makes me a noob, then I guess I am a noob. Of course, should GW ever take it upon themselves to ensure that all of their customers are good at painting, all of the pro-painters out there will suddenly find themselves with a very small market to work in.

I know there are ways to improve my skills and I am sure that I have gotten better over the years, but frankly, that's not how I want to spend my hobby time.

Or course, for those out there who like painting, developing your skills can only be a good thing.

[job]

You've started basing your Greeks? That is awesome!

I think you are right about Greeks being a simpler scheme to work on to start with. I think I've mentioned this before but also your regular Wehrmacht soldiers will also be good starting point, too.

Good work with breaking it down. It looks like it is going to shape up to be a nice painting schedule.

[Ichibanpainting]

Well, as for myself, I am not a painter. Never have been and never will be. Painting is that incredibly long boring period I have between putting the kits together and putting a finished army on the table. Dont get me wrong, painting can be a relaxing thing to do if I am in the mood for it, but it is always going to be the dullest part of the hobby for me. Anything the paint suppliers can do to make that easier for me is a benefit. So if using GW paints for the past 18 years makes me a noob, then I guess I am a noob. Of course, should GW ever take it upon themselves to ensure that all of their customers are good at painting, all of the pro-painters out there will suddenly find themselves with a very small market to work in.

I know there are ways to improve my skills and I am sure that I have gotten better over the years, but frankly, that's not how I want to spend my hobby time.

Or course, for those out there who like painting, developing your skills can only be a good thing.

Wasn't saying GW paints and everyone using GW are noobs
I'm saying that the way the made and developed their new range is axed thoward beginner painter. That's all.
Everything is a matter of perspective and preferences
Like brushes and airbrushes
Some people like WN no7 some people like other brands hairs or different and suite different styles
Same as airbrushes I have 5 of them and one of my old favorites was the cheap Iwata eclipse then I changed for a more expensive badger and hated it now I run a H&S infinity and I'm in love. Something that will be different with different people.
I'm not the best painter in the world I learn everyday, I practice everyday and that how everything goes. There is always room for improvement. I'm lucky that my work is nice enough that ppl buy what I make.

[me_in_japan]

Funny that everyone is talking about you MIJ lol like you are a god lol can wait to see your stuff at Nagoya hammer!

*shrug* I ain't all dat. I just take my painting seriously enough to put in the time to research and practice. Most folks on this site are more interested in gaming than painting, and that's all fine and dandy. I fully believe that anybody on the site (or in the world, come to that) can paint as well as or better than me. I'm an 8.1 average on CMoN, and I think that's a reasonable representation of what I can do. Better than some, not as good as others.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/me_ ... id=1235851

[Ichibanpainting]

If I remember well my CMON average was 6.7 ~ 7 but the only minis submited on there were clients project and due to the business nature lol I can't spend to mamy hours on clients project so I guess I'm happy with being a 7 =p lol
Same minis I'll bring to the contest in may will be what I call ichibanpainting table top quality. That's a down side of doing Comission painting you can't spend so much time on minis for clients and once you get popular you can't spend time on your minis anymore lol
But I still like it!

[me_in_japan]

Yeah, I can totally see that. I think theres a huge difference between painting for competition or personal improvement and painting for commission. The time constraints and client expectations take precedence when you paint commission work. It's a different ball game. I've painted a couple of pieces for other people on this site (not-El Jonson and an ork junka spring to mind) and while it was fun painting them, both Prim and Badruck (the clients) were incredibly understanding of me taking ridiculous amounts of time to get them finished. If I was painting for an oversees client rather than a buddy it'd be a very different story. I don't think I'd make a good commission painter at all, truth be told. I wish I had the time to paint more, but the job and family life just don't leave time for it.

Meh, still - cant complain I enjoy it as a hobby, and as long as I keep getting better little by little, then tis all good.