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Pretty much topic. I think they're at a decent quality. If you're curious i have some photos of one in my gallery.

they look great, like the color sheme and the trim.

but, i am afraid i have to say "yes" to the thread question, that IS really slow... at least if you plan to have an army before 2020

I'll echo, they do look good, but a single kabbie per day is exceedingly slow when, or if, you have a full army to paint. My own goal with my figures is generally one unit (ten figures generally) per week.

No, a single model a day is not slow, I'd say its average. Considering one army can last you till a new edition or codex and even then, conservatively, you will only be adding a few models, after a few months (most armies are what 50 models?) youll be done for all intents and purposes. When you consider that against the years of use you can get, no it's not to slow at all.

Then there is the fact that maybe MAYBE half of the armies I have seen are still grey or just primed, it seems like any pace is a good one.

 JoshTheMadTitan wrote:

Then there is the fact that maybe MAYBE half of the armies I have seen are still grey or just primed, it seems like any pace is a good one.

well, point goes to you.

Meaning a full day of painting = one kabalite, or you're getting one done while also going to work/ school/ ninja academy?

^^ True, how are you calculating "one a day"? Is that an average? Are you spending an entire weekend to knock out what would be spread out over a week? In any case, I don't think t's slow. You go at the pace you're comfortable with - you'll eventually get faster the more comfortable you are painting rank and file. There's no need to rush through unless you're trying to enter a paint tourney or something, or the folks you play with insisted on all painted units (which I suspect is not the case). I can only squeeze in 20-30 minutes a day at the office and no time on the weekend - I'm cranking out a squad about 1 per 2-3 weeks. Do I wish I had more stuff painted? Yes. Do I wish to rush and sacrifice the level of detail I'm currently putting in? Heck no!

Im literally doing one warrior every day. So 5-7 a week.

So you wake up and then paint a kabalite warrior until you collapse, exhausted at the end of the day?

Having painted three models (and then stripped them) in the last 18 months I can confidently say that you are doing ok.

Painting my DA army has been exceedingly slow, though I work quite a bit and also do a lot of reading and video gaming too. Still, I'm considering going on a big painting blitz and finishing a few squads over the course of two or three days. We'll see!

How long does it actually take you? I assume you're not sitting down and spending the entire day doing it. Looking at the quality of the model, I'd be surprised if you paint it in less than an hour, then if you include assembly time, add another 10-20 minutes.

So if you're spending an hour and a half a day painting and you produce 1 model, I'd say you're doing alright. You could try and come up with faster ways to paint. The fastest models I can paint still take me about half an hour each and about 10 minutes to assemble, so if I have a free weekend I want to spend painting, I aim to get 10 or so done in the weekend, which is around 7 hours worth of work.

Other models take me a couple of hours each, so I might only aim to do 2-4 in a weekend.

Yea each one is taking me about an hour and a half to two hours. Also thanks for the compliment on the models, they look at least table top quality?

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Yea each one is taking me about an hour and a half to two hours. Also thanks for the compliment on the models, they look at least table top quality?

I'm not convinced that was a compliment...

Let me amend what i said before hand then.

I was under the impression that i was taking you a larger period of time during the day to paint up your warrior, i see now that was wrong. For how long it takes you, i would say that no, its not slow after all.

I would say that you are painting at a pretty good speed. And if you actually get 5-7 painted a week you have a higher tempo then most gamers I know

 granander wrote:
I would say that you are painting at a pretty good speed. And if you actually get 5-7 painted a week you have a higher tempo then most gamers I know

That's basically because a lot of people spend 0 time painting

I'd say 1,5hour isn't fast, but not neccessarily slow for that model. Seems about right for the average painter

Well, that's what I am saying... people are lazy... and if he gets the work done... good on him

1 a day is more than I manage mate. Although, if you enjoy painting at that speed and you like the results then don't change it.

 JoshTheMadTitan wrote:
most armies are what 50 models?)

Haha My Skaven army when at 2000 points is 180 models minimum haha

On topic though I think it is hard to tell you if it is slow or not because it depends how many hours in a day you are painting for.
If its 3ish hours that isn't to bad if you are taking your time etc

The models look awesome though and I think you should try a speed painting technique (assembly line) just put 1 colour on 5-10 models then move to the next colour etc so then you can speed up the painting alot.

 chiefbigredman wrote:

 JoshTheMadTitan wrote:
most armies are what 50 models?)

Haha My Skaven army when at 2000 points is 180 models minimum haha

On topic though I think it is hard to tell you if it is slow or not because it depends how many hours in a day you are painting for.
If its 3ish hours that isn't to bad if you are taking your time etc

The models look awesome though and I think you should try a speed painting technique (assembly line) just put 1 colour on 5-10 models then move to the next colour etc so then you can speed up the painting alot.

Just saying in general, thats probably accurate. I know horde armies can be much larger, and the higher the points the more models you get. But it seems even some of the horde armies are leaning towards MCs rather than hordes, and at 100-200 points alot of even 2000 point armies have 50 or less these days. But I do love the look of wave after wave of nicely painted models just swarming the table. It's much more epic that way, even if I have to wait longer for my turn

Thanks for feedback gents. The reason I'm not doing the speed painting technique is because most of them are edge line work and highlighting, and its nice to do one thing on a model and move on to the next... if he whole army looked way, would you say it's a little better than tabletop quality?

I think if this is representative then, with all honesty, tabletop quality would be about as high as I'd go. There's a number of things you'd need to work on (the smoothness and even application of your line highlights and better definition on the body suits where the contrast colour isn't used) before I'd class it any higher.

"Table top quality" is a meaningless term. Every army I've ever painted I consider "table top quality" and they have all varied wildly in quality. Compared to the first army I collected when I started playing... I'd call what you have table top quality.

What a commission painter calls "table top quality" is a higher standard than what you have there, so what you have would be called below "table top quality".

But IMO, "table top quality" is basically just what you can paint reasonably quickly to put an army together... that's why it varies wildly from person to person. The quality I can paint in an hour is not the quality you can paint in an hour and is not the quality a commission painter can paint in an hour and if you have a lot of free time on your hands you might consider an hour per model too short of a time anyway.

TL;DR.... table top quality has no strict definition and even if it did, it would vary from person to person.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
"Table top quality" is a meaningless term. Every army I've ever painted I consider "table top quality" and they have all varied wildly in quality. Compared to the first army I collected when I started playing... I'd call what you have table top quality.

What a commission painter calls "table top quality" is a higher standard than what you have there, so what you have would be called below "table top quality".

But IMO, "table top quality" is basically just what you can paint reasonably quickly to put an army together... that's why it varies wildly from person to person. The quality I can paint in an hour is not the quality you can paint in an hour and is not the quality a commission painter can paint in an hour and if you have a lot of free time on your hands you might consider an hour per model too short of a time anyway.

TL;DR.... table top quality has no strict definition and even if it did, it would vary from person to person.

^THIS.

always thought that when the term "tabletop quality" turns up....

So they aren't looking pretty good? For min i fooled myself. That's the best i can do. I guess I'll stop wasting my time.

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
So they aren't looking pretty good? For min i fooled myself. That's the best i can do. I guess I'll stop wasting my time.

Yeah, well, if that's really the best you can do, it is probably for the best....

Seriously?

Do you think anyone turning out half decent stuff just magically started doing that from their first mini?

Get a grip. You'll get better, but the only way you'll get better if by practicing and asking for guidance from those further down the road that you're on. DE have a lot of fiddly detail and they're not easy to get looking good (but have great potential) so just suck it up and either stop concerning yourself with what other people think if you are happy with what you've achieved, or take some time to figure out how you could get closer to whatever level it is you'd like to be at and work towards it.

Slow and fast doesn't matter unless you're doing commission. It's how happy you are with the end product cause you're the one who'll have to look at it the most.

I'm not sure how long you've been in the hobby, but that model isn't bad for someone's first or maybe 2nd army, but there's a lot of room for improvement.

Don't be discouraged, other than a few exceptions, most people aren't awesome right off the bat without either some help, lots of practice or both. My first army was Lizardmen, the entire army just drybrushed hurriedly, your stuff looks better than that did!

If you want some tips on either improving the quality or some tips on how to paint faster, this forum and the internet in general is a good resource.


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 n0t_u wrote:
Slow and fast doesn't matter unless you're doing commission.

I think slow or fast matters to most people, lol. Most people don't have unlimited time to paint an army. I've chosen not to collect certain armies simply because I know it'd take me more time than I have to paint them.

If you can come up with a good looking scheme that you can paint in 30 minutes per model, it goes a long way to actually finishing an army instead of getting bored half way through. For the most part I stopped collecting WHFB Orcs and Goblins because it was taking me too long to paint.

I think your warriors are looking good personally. I like the scheme and an army of that quality will look nice on the table.

I haven't painted anything since before christmas, but I did paint up a 1500pt csm army in the 5 months leading up to it (37 models + 3 vehicles).

I will get back to it soon as I have ogres, eldar and chaos marines that all need paint.

As far as speed goes, I can paint a squad of 10 marines including basing in a week if I do at least 3-4 evenings of painting.

I have managed a tank or character in one evening but that was with some late nights!

My Iron Warriors are what I would consider table top quality but I am happy with them and I have no illusions about winning golden demon or anything so it's fine.

Some of them are in the gallery if you want a look.

Here's another photo. My camera isnt very good and the flash hides some detail on the archons eyes.