What have I learned so far

1.  Thinning paint is very important.  These little plastic guys are crazy detailed.  You do not want to cover up any of that with a layer of paint that is so thick the details get lost under it.  I have seen a lot of comments about doing multiple thin layers.  So far, I have mostly doing only base coats and washes over them.  I have not done much with highlights or dry brushing or other techniques.

2.  Plan and research before doing the work.  I have spent probably more time thinking about what I want to do that actually doing it.  This may not be for everyone though.  I like to really research things before following through to make sure it is what I want to do.  Because of this, I do end up changing my mind on things a few times before I actually get to doing the painting or conversion work.

3.  Rinse the paint off of your brush often.  I think I am just now understanding this one.  So far I have been painting assembly line style most of the time.  I pick a color or a part that I am going to paint on a lot of models and do one after the other.  This method is not as exciting since I have a lot of models that are halfway done, but I think I waste less paint that way.  Since I am not changing colors a lot during a painting session, I had not been rinsing out the paint from my brush often.  By the time I was done, the middle section of the brush was a dried mess and the bristles were beginning to splay out from all of the dry paint.  Last night I rinsed off all of the paint after each model of the color I was working on (Leadbelcher).  This resulted in a much cleaner brush by the time I was done for the night.  Additionally, I think the quality of the painting started to suffer the more dried paint that was in the brush.


My next steps:
I am going to take pictures of the other models I am working on and their current status before painting more.  Then I am going to start timing my sessions and count down from 100 hours (Inspired by http://paintandplaywarhammer40k.blogspot.com/search/label/100%20Hours%20-%20Sculpting ) so I can keep an idea of how I am progressing over time.

I plan on doing the same timer based tracking with converting, sculpting, and maybe basing.

My current projects:
The list I am working on right now is a Typhus Chaos Space Marine list.  That means Zombies and Plague Marines.  I have been having a lot of fun with the Zombies (pictures soon) and I have what I hope will be a good idea for the Plague Marines...but you will have to come back for both of those.