things I do when I am painting...
1.) I always use black primer...it makes armor look a lot better than using white primer....now it does stink when you are painting a model with a lot of light colors (esp yellows and red), so you have to use several layers of that light color to make an even coat, but the end results always are well worth the effort...
2.) the only time I paint a model before gluing it together is when I am painting a large, multi-part model (like Stalker's FB Chariot, which I still haven't started yet, since I'm trying to motivate myself to get it done)...
I almost always go bottom up, getting the interior stuff done in base coats and finishing upper layers before going back to finish the bottom layers...the only exception to this is skin and faces for me...I usually get these done first so I can be as messy as I want to be and then I can cover up any areas that happened to get paint on them with black...
3.) Brushes...GW brushes are garbage, with the exception being the large tank brush...but for the price you pay for a GW LTB, yuo can go to a craft store and get a large brush that will last longer for about the same price...
4.) Paints...here, I've been using the Vallejo paints almost exclusively since I discovered them...they just seem to cover better, especially with the lighter colors (GW yellows are way to thin)....another good set of paints is the recently released Privateer Press Formula P3 colors (especially the reds), but the only downside of them is that you have to buy these paints in sets, so unless you play a specific faction of Warmachine, they may not be worth the cost...
hope that helps a little...
B...
back to painting...