Good luck finally getting into SMD! I always used to shy away from SMD myself. The last time I was doing hobbyist electronics, I'm not sure it was a popular thing for hobbyists yet. A few months ago I did my first big project in ages, and I still went out of my way to avoid SMD completely.
Now, something has changed. Probably the discovery that many modern components are SMD-only, and the eagerness to try something new. So for the project I'm currently working on, I decided to finally go ahead and just embrace SMD everywhere.
My first real attempt at SMD soldering was tacking a
VSSOP chip to a breakout board, using a gigantic DeWalt hot air gun. It was only after this that I discovered that chip actually came in a slightly larger package. Doh!
After that, I bought myself a more appropriate hot-air gun (similar-looking to the Atten), which was much easier to use.
Over the course of this project, I've managed to solder a lot of SMD components to various breakout boards. I'm no longer scared of it. Just a pair of good tweezers, 5x and 10x loupes, and the hot air gun. (I should really get myself a microscope at some point too.)
The only time I've really had trouble was when I run across a component whose footprint isn't available in the common catalog of breakout boards. The one I ran into with this was a
UFDFN. I eventually found a "close enough" breakout board, but it took a whole evening of attempts to get it contacting all the pins correctly.
Now I'm looking forward to doing full-board reflow for the actual PCB. Will likely use an oven or hotplate of some sort. (Got a ReflowR on-order, hope it eventually ships.)