My friend introduced me to warhammer 40k about 4 years ago, and ever since then my fascination with it has been growing. I tried to start an army once, but I was too worried about fucking up the expensive models with my noob painting skills to paint them. I've done some Dark Heresy campaigns, and read some of the books now, and I really want to start a Death Guard army now.

My question is this: how many models did you fuck up before you got good at painting and how much did it cost?

I'm a poor bastard and can't afford to by 15 boxes of plague marines just to learn how to paint them.