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Opposed to minis I find tanks take stupidly long to paint compared to what the end-result is.

I haven't really got any uploaded examples of tanks I've done that I'd consider "good" but I'm about 3/4 of the way through a Deathwing Land Raider right now, I had to spray it with Tallarn Flesh, wash that with Ogryn Flesh, go over that in desert yellow and now I'm doing the final pre-highlight layer of Bleached Bone (which will need multiple coats as it's coming out all rubbishly)...

All of this is just to achieve a darker pigment on the edges and underneath of armour plates as well as form divisions and just get a nice colour underneath... so much work for such a minor result :p

I also find it strangely exhausting and uninteresting... Minis have more life to them.

Any thoughts?

Painting tanks kills me I don't have the attention span to stick with all the highlighting and extra details.

I'm the opposite I love painting tanks, the large surface area makes it easy to get some really neat effects on your models.

I have been experimenting on my vehicles , i dont really know if its good or bad.

tried white color scheme on sentinels
and dark / black on chimera.

Large brush with subtle dry brushing seem to work well

I don't like vehicles either.

The problem is that you get these huge spaces that not only show brush strokes, but defy adding detail to. Sure, you can add scratches or weather tanks, but if you go in and color the rivets a different color, and all the little folds and creases and pieces, just like you do on an infantry model, you get a terrible mess.

As such, without the ability to be detailed, tanks look boring to me, so I tend to do them pretty half-assed.

I hate tanks. They take forever to paint. When I start IG, I'm going to have a footslogging horde of troops.

Well,if MC's count as tanks,i absolutly HATE painting them,there alot of cracks and crevaces on fexs,and alot of places that you cant reach.

I like painting tanks more than men, what I hate painting is cavalry type stuff. for some reason I just get burnt out having to paint the mount and the rider

At this point, I'll definitely agree that tanks are different and more work. To be honest though, I haven't done enough of them to really make a definitive call. Once I've gotten two or three done that I like, I'll be able to make a better judgment.

One thing's for sure though. Definitely more work to tanks.

I hate painting everything, so I'm totally fethed in this hobby

I hate painting them but I hear if you use air brushing then tanks aren't so bad as you don't have to worry about showing brush strokes and it's a lot faster. I don't personally do it because I don't care enough to actually pay for an air brush and all the necessary parts and special paints.

I've been having fun with mine. Try using a different color primer. For example, you could use Rustoleum Camo Khaki, which would give you a nice tan base that should take Bleached Bone ok.

I like painting ONE from time to time as a break from terrain and infantry, but they take SO bleedin' long to finish that after that one is finished, I have no desire to do another one for a good while.

And poor me has a big game coming up in a week with a squad of berzerkers left to highlight, a rhino and defiler to paint, and a terrain board to make.

/shootself

There's a reason why my armies consist entirely of infantry.

I find them annoying at best. Just because they take so much time (not only to paint but to build...treads on a LR anyone?) if you want them to look decent, and for some reason I just get the primer and a base color down and them move back to giting the minis that hit the table painted. However I love painting walkers, they are just small enough that i don't mind the extra work.

Never painted a tank...

SamplesoWoopass wrote:I hate painting them but I hear if you use air brushing then tanks aren't so bad as you don't have to worry about showing brush strokes and it's a lot faster. I don't personally do it because I don't care enough to actually pay for an air brush and all the necessary parts and special paints.

This is true, tbh my Dark Angels aren't too big a pain... It's just the Deathwing stuff that requires multiple layers.

With my Rhinos it was just a case of Chaos Black spray and then using my spraygun to apply Dark Angels Green, paint the details, add highlights and voila!

Still, my last Rhino took 8 hours.

Tanks, of any army, are big metallic lumps. Get spray cans from your model shop, 2 coats of the colour of your choice should paint a tank in, ooh, 3 minutes.

If you want to add mud, spray brown from underneath, the "splatter" along the lower sides looks better that way-- more natural.

Detailing, all you really need is a drybrush to highlight things like imperial eagles, a bit of colour for lights/ periscopes and so on, and whatever detail you want on any crew.

I can now build and paint a Rhino, for example, in under 2 hours, altough I'll then faff about for a week adding transfers and matt varnish.

Unless you're entering the thing for a Golden Demon contest or similar, don't waste time on tanks: in real life they're either new and 1 colour, or used and an overall shade of mud.

After playing 'nids before I switched to IG, I can at least say tanks are more fun to paint than 'Fexes!

Black Templars FTW. Prime a rhino black and you've got your basecoat, too. Just highlight, weather, detail and matte varnish. Tada, a tank.

EDIT: well, not in that order, obviously. Detail before you weather.

Nightwatch wrote:I hate tanks. They take forever to paint. When I start IG, I'm going to have a footslogging horde of troops.

To be fair, infantry hordes take a lot more work - it's just that they don't take nearly so much work per model. Tanks are like being stuck in a traffic jam for an hour, while infantry is taking the two detour around the traffic. It takes longer to go around, but it feels better because at least you're moving.

And also, I think my biggest problem with tanks is lack of tools. I have everything I need for infantry, but said tools work poorly on tanks. If I had an airbrush on the other hand...

Infantry is faster per model if you're not me.

Henners91 wrote:

SamplesoWoopass wrote:I hate painting them but I hear if you use air brushing then tanks aren't so bad as you don't have to worry about showing brush strokes and it's a lot faster. I don't personally do it because I don't care enough to actually pay for an air brush and all the necessary parts and special paints.

This is true, tbh my Dark Angels aren't too big a pain... It's just the Deathwing stuff that requires multiple layers.

With my Rhinos it was just a case of Chaos Black spray and then using my spraygun to apply Dark Angels Green, paint the details, add highlights and voila!

Still, my last Rhino took 8 hours.

If you can find Army Painter Primers around you, look for the skull white primer. I use it for my Terms, ven dreads, and LRC's. I thoroughly prime it, then I do 1 air brush coat of bonebleach. Bam, you are done. Takes me no time to base coat it. The primer is soooo close to bone bleached, that all it takes is one fine layered coat of bone bleached to make it look nice =D!

I hate painting Space Marine tanks. Highlighting those big shoeboxes is a chore. Imperial Guard tanks though? Couldn't love it more! You just slather green on the whole thing, then drybrush it all with a slightly lighter shade of green. All the superfluous rivets and armor plates pick up the highlight, and it looks fantastic for very little effort.

I sort of dislike painting my DE raiders, because they are so detailed. Sure, a boring 'dark colour then drybrush' works but only if you're doing a dark scheme to start with. They just take me stupidly long because I pick out the appropriate detail and most of it is fiddly enough that a large tank brush cannot be used. Try painting half a tank with a normal and half with a detail brush. -_- Although once I've got the base colours finally down and the freehand on the nose I can finish the rest in only a few hours.

I am a tread-head from way back, so I love to paint tanks.

For everyone who is having issues with painting a tank, use an airbrush (not the gw sprayer, ewww). It gives you nice even coverage with NO brushlines, and speeds your painting up by a factor of 100.



Just grab my airbrush, a half dozen colors, dilute the colors, and go.

I have three battlewagons that are all highly personalized and converted. They're all painted in the same blue/green/red color scheme as my stompa. I had a great time building and painting them. Of course, that was compared to assembling and painting 120 assorted Orks in a year...

Can't stand painting large vehicles.

My painting style is too crisp to transfer well onto them, I spend stupid amounts of time on each part and eventually rage so hard I just stop.

I've tried with 2 smaller space marine ones now ( Sorry, no speaky 40k) and both have completely defeated me and ended up 70% unpainted, but 30% very nice ¬_¬

I love painting tanks, I get to use my big brushes and actually feel like i'm accomplishing something.

way better than my normal mini's who look basically the same until last few steps which bring out the colors >>

I was building model tanks and planes for years before discovering 40k. I don't pretend to have some of you're guys skills with blending and highlighting but I really think all of that effort is wasted on a Leman Russ. My Tallarn vehicles get sprayed with gray automotive primer and then with a coat of Testor's Modelmaster Afrika Mustard (WWII German tan) I then detail guns and hatches and things but real military tanks DO just have gobs of basic colors sprayed on and you don't need to model a lot of lighting effects.
That said I do have a different opinion on marine tanks, because I imagine them to be more spit and polish. More likely to use bold colors and go away from the camoflage so I'd like to learn to do some more advanced techniques with them but there isn't anything wrong with a simple spraypaint basecoat