GW figures

The best way I find to paint D&D fig's, as I call them, is to start by painting the entire figure with a base coat of flat white. This will help the paint stick to the figure better and the white let's you see if you have missed any spots as you paint. Then paint the rest of the figure from the skin out. Skin tones should be painted with darker shades and then high lighted with lighter shades of the base skin color. When painting armor like chainmale the "Dry Brush" method is the best but plate armor is best painted silver and then out lined with black. Strap's, belt's and bag's can be painted any color but I just try to find a shade of brown that I like and that compliments the figure. Hope this is of some help to you.

I love the GW miniatures. I would love to get into the Lord Of The Rings stuff they have, but I've already spent a ton of money these past couple of years on the Warhammer Fantasy stuff.

They have a guide on their website in regards to what you're asking about.

Painting Workshop: Painting Basics

Anyone interested in reading more about the miniatures, can find out more information at the Games Workshop The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers website.

I found a couple more links that discuss starting off with a base coat of black.

Realm of Fantasy: Painting Black

Painting Camouflage on Miniatures

Warmaster Painting Guide

Warhammer Ancient Battles: Painting Guide for Ancient Briton figures

Warhammer 40,000: Painting

After looking at these sites, I suddenly have a desire to go home and paint tonight.

BTW, I found these by looking through the list of results from a search of "warhammer base coat black" in Google.

edit: had to fix a couple of links

Do you use only figures by GW or have you picked up figures by other companies and have armies consisting of models by different companies?

i dont know if this is much of a help but i paint game workshop figures usually warhammer 40,000 if you are using the game workshop paint use "smelly primer" it seems to work very well then according to a painting tips book you start with whatever color is the most then dry brush or shade them do the limbs like the hands face and so on then dry brush and shade again and so on and so forth.............i hoped that this helps if not im sorry good luck

Well, I don't play WH Fantasy, WH 40K, D&D, I just play LOTR. I'm also looking at Flames of War and Gear Krieg.
I found out a bit more on Elvenjess's forum on that.

In addition to BayonetRecon's excellent web sites for info, you
can purchase White Dwarf magazine which has tons of articles
devoted to painting their figures. White Dwarf is published by
the GW people. I pick mine up where i buy my LOTR figures.

Here's a couple more sites I found for painting miniatures:

Doctor Faust's Painting Clinic
DBA Tips and Techniques - scroll down to find the section labeled "Painting Your Miniatures" and you'll find a ton of articles to read.
The Painted Soldier - Tips

[edit: 1/19/2003]
another site to add to the list:
Golden Demon Paintshop