I hate painting- suggestions?

So this would be my first modeling project since I was twelve or thirteen. As it turns out I don't have a steady hand for painting details, and no patience for it either. I've been using enamel paints from hobby lobby, and only have primary colors, although mixing isn't much problem. I'm hoping a wash will make everything turn out okay, but as it is right now my models aren't looking so hot. I've been priming everything in black , but at this point I'm thinking of just painting shoulders and legs, with some trim here and there and leaving everything else dull black. I don't really have a set color scheme as of yet, just practicing my painting and seeing what I can come up with.

I have some pictures of my progress, but I couldn't figure out how to get them in here. Nothing is finished yet, and if I don't like what I have I'm just going to re-primer and start over. Airbrushing is probably not going to be possible for me for quite a while so I'm stuck with brushes right now. Any input and tips would be great, thanks!

Use acrylic paints. When you are base coating models, thin down your paint and use a larger brush. I found this to be the biggest improvement in paint speed and quality for myself. I thin all my paint on a palette with a couple drops of blending medium.

Other quick and easy techniques are dry brushing some simple highlights on, or using the dipping method for some easy shading on miniatures (you can probably find instructions for both on youtube.) Both ways take very little time to do and don't look terrible. I also agree with Bdix. Your best bet would be to drop the enamel paints.

You are heading down the right path to get your models done quick and to have them look good on the table.

The way I paint mine are as follows -

prime black
base the model in one solid color - this is the predominant color on the model. GW Foundadtion paints are great for this.
Pick out a few details - trim on marines, guns, skin, boots, etc. Just pick about three colors and go with it. I suggest one metal color, a skin color, and one color for trim on the model.
Wash the entire model with either Badab Black or Devlan Mud depending on how dark you want the model.

I have painted about four armies like this and they are crazy fast and look great on the table.

I just washed my first marine in a dark brown acrylic over my enamel . The base color is caterpillar yellow, and without completely drying yet the wash is looking really good. Thanks for the tips everyone! What color would give darker based models the same effect, a light grey or white?

It's really hard to 'bring up' the colors on a model using a wash. It is better to start of brighter and then use the wash to darken it up and add shading.

One way to brighten the colors on a darker colored model is to do a dry brush over it with a lighter color. If you have a mostly black base coat and are going to work from there you can use a grey dry brush to brighten it, and then when you put the wash on it will bring it back down but still leave a lot of definition.

My favorite technique is to use a large dry brush, put a small amount of paint on it, and then wipe it all off on a paper towel. This leaves just a hint of paint on the brush. Then I will dry brush the whole model very heavy handedly. This will basically 'powder' the model and bring the colors up very evenly and slowly. It takes one or two passes to get it where I want it. Just play around with it and you will find a good way that works for you. It is pretty hard to mess up a model using dry brushing and washing and when you find what you like you will get really fast at it after about 5 or 10 models.

I finally have all ten marines painted up. Thanks to everyone's advice they look pretty decent considering they're my first ones. Some of the wash turned out a little too dark, but since they're chaos it just looks like they never polish their armor or just ran trough a mud hole or something. Now I need to get a rhino and some terminators to start on. Thanks again for all the advice, I can't wait to get my first game in!

What blending/thinning medium seems to work best with the GW paints? I've used water, but sometimes I get bubbles when I paint doing that--which is very frustrating.

If anyone wants to check out what I have done so far feel free to check out my album on Facebook. I tried uploading some pics here directly but from some reason it isn't letting me; user error more than likely. I am still waiting to get some metallic paints to finish out guns and the tank details. After that I can wash everything one last time, decorate the bases, and finally call them done.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.206014512830948.42023.100002672031365&type=3&l=d1276acfdc

They are looking great! I'd recommend using a matte finish on them to take down the glossy look. Just a preference thing though.

Yeah, the glossiness is the one thing that I don't like about working with enamel paints. They don't look so shiny in person as they do in the pictures, but I'm probably going to slap another coat of acrylic wash on them to help dull them down a bit more. I didn't have enough enamel to cover the major surfaces of the rhino so the dull acrylics I used turned out okay on it. It was tricky covering that much surface, but being my first one, I think it turned out better than I was expecting.

Try Testors dull cote spray. it can be found at hobby lobby and works like a charm.

Sweet, I'll have to get me some of that. Thanks. Is it just a clear coat?

Yeah, it's a clear coat that dulls out glossy models. It will not effect detail at all. I use it on everything I paint.