Figmentia

Brushes

You need probably ... four from: size 00, 0, 1, 2, 3 and medium drybrush depending upon the figures you're trying to paint. I opt for the watercolour ones, not acrylics so you get more bristle (holds more paint, provides a more even flow). I bought mine from this company and those brushes have lasted me around six or seven years so far and are only now beginning to approach the point where I'll need replacements next year as the bristles don't spring back to their original natural position any more.

An interesting point here is that I've found myself using the larger brushes far more than I used to. Loading the brush up with lots of paint gives me a much better flow when working on traditionally fiddly areas which came as something of a surprise, but it's rendered my originally beloved size 00 and 000 obsolete for the daily work.

You could also consider an equivalent range such as these which will cost you less but offer a not dissimilar quality level, and ensure you invest in a wider, flatter brush for the drybrushing. Until about two minutes ago I would've said just pick one up from Games Workshop as their old tank brushes weren't bad value but then I saw their new prices! Instead, opt for something like this and size-wise go for the 1/2" which does all your big area dirty work for you, and also acts as your drybrush for edging work.

This selection won't turn you into a high quality painter, but it should give you enough variation to go from bare plastic to painting a selection of figures through the character, rank'n'file and vehicles categories to a tabletop standard. By this point you should now be the proud owner of at least three brushes.

Paints

Brushes in hand and you're ready to rock, just before realising you have no pots to go dipping these lovely sable brushes into. Now comes the part where you've got to work out your army's colour scheme and buy paints accordingly. If you're genuinely planning upon covering quite a range of colours over the coming year, then the Foundation Paint Set would probably work out as good value (from a reseller) as 18 paints for just over £30 is excellent.

If you're going to be focusing upon a particular army and not using that many colours then buy individually and replace as you go. My current recommendations for paints are the Vallejo Game Color and Citadel Foundation series and each pot will set you back on average about £2.

Using Mr Eldar as our ongoing example, his force is from an unspecified craftworld that happens to be covered in blue and purple at the basic level with quite a lot of specialised Aspect units and about 400 Warlocks :) Key colours here would be Foundations (Mordian Blue and Hormagaunt Purple) for the bulk of the forces, but the variety of Aspects mean it's worthwhile picking up a whole Foundation boxset then augmenting with Vallejos for white, black and metallics. This will provide some injection of colour to details on armour (spirit stones and eye sockets) and also allow a wide range of simple colour mixes with the addition of white or black for highlighting and shading respectively, and counters the fact that Games Workshop (for me anyway) make terrible metallic colours!

What else? For the easy painting, opt for a couple of the Citadel Washes too as by applying these to the basecoat you will get immediate depth of colour and they go very well over metals in particular. Opt for a brown (Devlan Mud or Gryphonne Sepia) and a black (Badab Black) to start things off.

By this point you should now be the proud owner of:
- Games Workshop. Citadel Foundation boxset. Citadel Washes boxset.
- Vallejo. Game Color Black (#51), Skull White (#1), assorted metallics.