Good minis for young painter to start on

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Xoan ( 158 )
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Re: Good minis for young painter to start on

Post by Xoan »

When I first started painting, I was not very good... I kept my first mini which was a female dwarf druid from reaper I believe. I had painted model cars, airplanes, and rockets prior to that but it did not transfer well to humanoid miniatures. I did most of my paint on a Nid army I got for very cheap, my colors were not well thought out, they were orange and green with black colored claws.

However, I paid a 150 bucks for 178 models, so I had some time to get better before I ran out of models or even had to strip them back down to bare plastic. At some point probably 7 or 8 years ago I stripped all of them down, and painted them with a less glaring color scheme it was grey and purple with bone colored claws and teeth now. I have since sold them for nearly 3 times what I paid for them over about 5 different attempts to sell them.

They still were not my best work, but I was now able to paint much better than when I first painted. After many years of painting dnd models for friends, or all the RPG characters at my gaming group I now have a painting service and I people pay me to paint. I personally thought I knew I lot about painting miniatures prior to starting my business, but I still had a lot to learn about how to paint when you do not want to, how to paint faster than you normally would, and about how to paint to bring to life the client's vision of their models not your personal vision.


Depending on how much he wants to learn about this, there is a lot that you can do, I would start slow though. There are vendors that go to major conventions like Gen Con for example who sell miniatures by the pound. You do not know what you are getting, and it will a lot to ship, and almost more worth to just go to the con and pick it up, but you can get crazy amounts of miniatures at one time. I bought 70lbs of miniatures in 2000 when I was at Gen Con, which is only 2 boxes btw, and I am still painting some of them. The rest are doubles, so I give them to my game store on nights they want to have a painting night.

Right now anything that you can play is pretty hard to get in the top 4 game systems (40k, WHFB, Hordes, and Warmachine). However, GW is better known for not updating books as often as they should, I would consider looking at picking up an army that's rules are more than one edition old like Bretonnians, Woodelfs, Dwarfs, and Vampire Counts for WHFB or Eldar and Tau for 40k. These armies are expecting to get new books, and when they do they might be popular again this leaves you two options an Army Swap or having the new thing of an army with what ever new updated models they bring out. There are also armies that are not old books, but that are just not the top tier lists and not as hot right now in GW games like Beastmen, Tomb Kings, and Orks and Goblins for WHFB and ... well nids in 40k. The rest are pretty popular or listed prior as outdated books. I would avoid the hot armies that never last long in FS or Army Swap posts like Sister of Battle for example.


If you are looking just to paint as a hobby there are a lot of cheap ways to do that, if you want a functional army... that could cost you a lot. In almost every case you can build an army for under 500 dollars that is at the tournament size, but it will not be balanced or a lot of fun to play... prices tend to be based on how good they are in game, and how many points they are. Most tournament level armies are going to cost 500 to 1,200 dollars for a tournament size army. The far end of that is FW only models like the hydra flak guns for IG. I do not believe there is any other way to get those other than custom built or FW, and basically every army either needs something that flies or can shoot fliers in a 40k tournament list. imo


I am sure I am doubling what others have said prior to me, sorry about the repeat, but hope this helps overall.
Clark
I will ship out of the US please let me know within the first post where you are if not in the US, it does affect how the trade goes some times. Thanks Also lower rank ships first, and I always want to both use and receive a tracking number so I can know when to expect things.

I have a website and a blog, and I am a painting service feel free to ask for a quote anytime.
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