Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I have space wolves, which are all one colour, so no issues there, glue it all then paint. But what about vehicles? I'm also considering starting Eldar and the articles on GW suggest doing the head separately because it's a different colour than the body usually. Does it really matter that much? I guess it's because they use chaos black for the body priming and skull white for the head.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
When I asked the manager of the local GW, he told me not to paint the guns on my wolves separately because the build up up paint can make gluing harder and the layers change how it looks when glued

I'm assuming your referring to dire avengers. I find it far easier to paint the head separate from the body, as it means you can get into the nooks and crannies better. In addition, the white primer helps a lot, as you only need to wash it with blue/black wash, and then repaint the flat areas white to shade it

I am working on a grey knight army. Before I started them I was working on an Ultra marine army.

With the troops I paint before glue. I hate to see half fast paint jobs on my armies. Nothing like a failed attempt to paint the gold eagle once I get the arms and bolt gun glued on. Its nice to pick up a troop and not see a paint line where one could not reach with a brush.

The vehicles it tend to put the main hull together first then prime and base coat the main color I am using. The paint each of the smaller items separate,

I'm just not sure how I would prime them separately, the cone shape would make it hard to lay down, and I have no way to hold them up.

You just leave the dire avenger heads on the sprue and primer that.

And clip out all the unused options I'd assume.

I love reading these… Finally I to wish to “jump on the box” and throw my opinion in to the fray on this matter…. Mind you this is just me.
My local game shop insists it’s better to paint once glued, you build your “guy” then primer, then paint. Although I’ve learned much from the store owner, his work is amazing. I found painting certain parts easier not glued. His reasoning being (I’ll use my first army as an example) Tau… He pointed out the center circle on their chest plates.
I go crazy painting the Tau without their arms and spend much time doing extreme detailing but as he points out “the Tau weapon covers most of that area” this is particularly true but lately )thanks to places such as Dakka I have found there are times when you modify your guys so there not exactly like everyone else’s. I have found I like to “modify” my pieces to tell a story if you may.
For an example I built a squad of 12 Fire Warriors… all twelve were pretty much the same.. same pose, same gun and so on. The next squad I said to myself shouldn’t look exactly like the first, sure colors could be changed and what not but no matter they still look the same, perhaps it’s a cloning thing within the Tau Empire(one never knows) so I started looking around the forums found articles about pinning and re-posing your guys… see other’s do think like me… with Fire Warriors it’s not to easy because their a “shooty” army so you won’t see to many running into the heat of battle.
The Tau battle suits are the worse, they need so much love… very little in the way of dynamics if you ask me but a snip here and a pin there and you’ve changed these guys to look more like a fearsome and not like a strong gust of wind will nock them over.
Ok… back to the subject at hand, I put my Tau aside (change of pace) and started building a Black Templar army… why? Well I picked up a Battle Box for next to nothing… and I haven’t looked back.
What I found with the painting or primering first is the glue doesn’t appear to like sticking primer to primer or paint to paint. What I have found that works for me is I start by priming on the sprue… and yes I have been called a “sprue painter” but I am changing my ways as I go along, I am finding it better in 90% of the cases to glue the legs to a base and even sometimes to add the upper torso.
What I have noticed and I’ve used a couple different primers is the glue would much rather stick to the plastic (hence the name plastic glue, I guess)
When building a guy I keep that in mind… if I know I’m adding something after the primer I’ll pin it for strength or I’ll lightly scrape off the paint in the two bonded area’s and let the glue do it’s work…
My recent project is five Neophyte’s.. they had such a spastic stance I had to do something…. So I modified legs, arms… to give them their own personality.
OK…. I babbled…
For reference, I’ve used GW primer, Army Painter primer and I even used a gray (I liked the shade) of primer I bought from the local auto parts store… I won’t say which I like best because all three are good. For glue I use ZAP and I have had much luck… plus my gaming store carries it, I’ve tried Testors and GW’s… all three do the same thing…. And my observation is that plastic glue needs to “bite” into plastic… it does soften the paint that’s for sure but I know what I’ve seen… and usually I’ll give a quick scrape then glue……

From what I've heard the plastic glue specifically melts the two plastic pieces together.

How does using black or white as the primer change the paint put on top of it?

Having paint on the joint will result in Polystyrene cement not working at all in some cases. If you have a specific piece that you need to attach later for some reason, you will need to mask the join areas or scrape the primer off before you glue.

For 90% of my models (rank and file) I completely assemble, and texture the bases before priming. Believe me, no one is going to notice the tiny bits that are still black deep under the bolters.

For HQ and Heroes etc... sometimes you will need to keep pieces separate due to the extra time and effort involved in centerpiece models.

I paint before glueing, Excluding certain part that have to be together, such as SM torso parts.

For most bit you can drill into them where you will be glueing, and then you can rotate the parts as you please.

And the drill holes secure the glue better as well i find.

And anything you want to pin to a base, such as assault marines, already have the hole when the time comes.

I build up as much as I need to. I aim to have as much built as I can before painting. With Marines, I leave the bolters off to do the chest. A cursory glance at the model will tell you if you're wating your time detailing the chest, as it's easy to see where the bolter will go.

Arms that come across and partially obscure detail stay off. Key word there is partially obscure! If you can see it when assembled, you're going to want to paint it.

Heads, I tend to stick on for marines. If the errant gorget obscures a face, like on my previously pictured captain, I blend up from where I can easily reach to.

It's all about preference.

As for sticking glue over paint, I don't. The glue bonds to the paint, not the model, so if the paint chips, the glue comes off with it, along with the part you glued.

You can solve this by pinning, or you can file the contact area and retouch if you need to.

Eff it, I have no time to paint and then glue.


I create my dudes, and then prime... YES I SAID CREATE DUDES!

I have an Ork army, and am just starting out on a Marine side, the way I paint my infantry is to glue the legs and torso together (and the backpack if it's a Marine) then (very) carefully mask off the spots where the arms and head stick to the torso with blue tack. Prime and paint the body, then pick the arms, head and weapon, trim them, mask off the contact points with blue tack again then prime and paint. when it's all dry peel off the blue tack and glue it all together (carefully) using plastic glue.

It's fiddly, and I'm the only person out of my group of friends who paints this way. But, it makes painting details on models a lot easier. It also means that I can 'Production line' loads of bodies and then tailor arms and weapons as and when I need them.

But then that's just me...