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Before anyone asks why this is not in painting, it's because I think you'd get a biased response want a more general one.

So as I plough through my eldar, I normally set myself a target every month something like 10 infantry or, 5 infantry and a tank etc, I find this helps motivate me and work out when the army should be finished - or I allow myself to make more purchases.

Over the last few years this has basically worked out as 8 months to get about 1.5k fully painted to field, and got me thinking how quickly does it take you guys to paint an army?

I also play Eldar, and I am very slow. I spend the odd hour or so here and there to do a colour or base coat, or wash on a squad, depending what stage it is at. Nothing fully finished up yet.

Nice to see a Rugby Avatar on the forums. Bath is a good team, and my top choice when it comes to an English team, but I prefer Llanelli Scarlets. I also play, do you?

Approximately a week on each marine. You do the maths

I play fantasy these days but for me about 5 minutes an elf. When I used to do 40k it was about 4 minutes a guardsmen and I paint both elves and guardsmen in batches of 20+

Glacially. I occasionally get a big urge to paint a lot, then it goes away. The problem for me is by the time I get home from work, it's dark, and without a daylight bulb, painting isn't very easy if you want a satisfactory result.

Ralin, the shot of your Tyranid army makes me so jealous. Two Heirophants? Drool. I'll have to make do with one.

I paint slower than a sloth.....can barely do 5-10 boyz a week

That Tyranid army was something I was moving for a local guy. Their gone now but man where they scary in game

Well, I still haven't finished my second veteran squad. After about 6 months. They're getting closer, though! CLOSER! CLOSER!!!!

-Loki- wrote: I occasionally get a big urge to paint a lot, then it goes away

Same here except then I get the urge to make terrain or go on Minecraft

Not fast enough...

I'm slow, takes me like 6 months for a single mini (because I paint for 30 mins once every 2 weeks).

I get about 5 space marines done every 2-3 weeks, things have gotten slower and slower lately though, haha.

Really ridiculously slow

I spent the last two days, staying up until 3 am, and spending nearly all day on it, to paint 15 Necron Warriors.

Granted, my scheme is a bit more involved than 'spraypaint it boltgun and paint the eyes', and the models were a bit dodgy (got them in a trade) requiring me to smooth bad paint and fill a few gaps, but even so..

It took me about a year to paint one of my Boyz squads (29 boyz, inclding 3 Big shootas, plus a PK nob and a BC nob) to a decent quality. I ended up going back and forth on the unit a lot as I got better at painting, and i'm STILL painting their trukk.

I could just slap paint on them and call it good, but i'm trying to paint all of my models to my best painting ability.

I have 17000 pts of orks, and about 2 painted units, so this'll take a bit

Ascalam wrote:I could just slap paint on them and call it good, but i'm trying to paint all of my models to my best painting ability.

I can't remember who I heard it from but they were right. If you want a painted army without taking years, you can't go all the way on every model. Figure out levels of quality for different "tiers" of models.

For example, my Tyranids. Gaunts/Gants/Gargoyles get a quick job. Spray red, mud, drybrush red, paint red on larger areas like tails and arms. Paint the carapace and weapons black, highlight cara pace with shadow grey, weapons with codex grey, light badab black on the weapons.

Next line up are mid range models. Warriors, Zoanthropes, etc. They get a two stage carapace and weapon highlight, and a one off light highlight to the red on things like exposed vein areas.

Big units. Tyrant, Carnifex, etc. Three stage highlight on carapace and weapons, two stage highlight to red areas.

Centerpeice models - Things like the Heirophant. As long as I feel.

Ive been trying new techniques... like dipping with wood varnish, and it makes my overall time per model go up. Because the drying times, but ive got it down to a science, paint 5-7 models 25min, Use Varnish 2min, Dry 6hours, Spray with Krylon Flat varnish coat 3min. So usually when they are drying if i want to ill paint more. But ive been working more at work so... god i just hate painting, i hope they'll just paint themselves one day. Still have about 1,200 pts to paint im 2/3rds done with my ORKS.

After 2 years. I'll let you know when Im done... >.<

Generally I can paint a squad or a vehicle in an evening. So, painting an army in a month or two is not a problem.

~10 Guardsmen a week.

But this it the first tabletop army I'm building and still in the first batch of figures.

Once I finish this batch I hope to roll out 20 to 40 guardsmen a week, mostly using this method of patining http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Paint_Five_Colors

Reaver83 wrote:how quickly does it take you guys to paint an army?

if I sit down and just paint, with no interuptions from work, I reckon I could easily get 70 figures a week done, 10 each day, no problem
though my record is 64 models in 1 day, primed, painted, based and varnished

thats assuming its basic line units, and depending on what the models are, because that was based off ECW infantry, if it was anything like napoleonics it goes down to maybe 24-36 a week, and if its any GW models, maybe 1 week per model, as I get very bored quickly with them

Anywhere between 5 and 80 models a month. I paint a lot but I get burned out once in a while.

-Loki- wrote:

Ascalam wrote:I could just slap paint on them and call it good, but i'm trying to paint all of my models to my best painting ability.

I can't remember who I heard it from but they were right. If you want a painted army without taking years, you can't go all the way on every model. Figure out levels of quality for different "tiers" of models.

For example, my Tyranids. Gaunts/Gants/Gargoyles get a quick job. Spray red, mud, drybrush red, paint red on larger areas like tails and arms. Paint the carapace and weapons black, highlight cara pace with shadow grey, weapons with codex grey, light badab black on the weapons.

Next line up are mid range models. Warriors, Zoanthropes, etc. They get a two stage carapace and weapon highlight, and a one off light highlight to the red on things like exposed vein areas.

Big units. Tyrant, Carnifex, etc. Three stage highlight on carapace and weapons, two stage highlight to red areas.

Centerpeice models - Things like the Heirophant. As long as I feel.

I'm not in a hurry I play my orks at friendlies, and am deliberately painting them as well as I can. My friends are fine with my glacial progress, as they like playing against well-painted units and are still ok with unpainted (as long as they can use their unpainted too..)

My Necrons are more in accord with the above painting method. Warriors are pretty basic, lords much nicer and with more time committed etc..

basic gausdmen? if im not distracted i can done on in about 5 minutes including touch ups, this doesnt include the base coat obviously, however for my centre pieces, eg my armored sentinel quad about 6 hours went into 3 models

It takes me about 30min to 1 hour for me to paint a basic guardsman and most other infantry, for my IG force, I have no clue about how much time it has taken me to get to the point I'm at with my whole IG army (the Italian FoW infantry I am now painting hasn't helped my speed).
I do not feel motivated to paint to often, Especially now after my infantry is almost all done, I usually paint in spasmodic burst; getting a lot done in a couple days, then painting nothing big for a week or two ( for example, in 3 days I brought 3 LRBTs from unpainted to fully painted except for the gunner on one and washing. They have now sat in that state of semi-completion for a month... )

When I still had my Orks, I did 24 Boyz in one afternoon from primed to fully painted. Granted, I dipped them, but still, the fact I did that considering I'm still very new at painting compared to a lot of users here (only 7 months!).

I counted up last week that I already have painted 121 models in these 7 months. Kind of ridiculous IMO. However, this is over what's left of my Orks and my Marines, and my Marines are not at a quality level that I want them to be, so I still have a ways to go.

my blood angels are still 1/3 painted after 8 years.



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half my eldar are painted the rest are based black at least they aren't grey

Depends on what model.

IG, I can do a half a squad in a usual day and thats with 6 seperate paints.

CSM, like 2 or 3 a day, with an Iron Warrior thats like 8 seperate colors.

Due to my skill level and the fact my hands aren't naturally steady, I aviod highlighting on smaller models.

I would probley count myself as an average painter, not great, but not bad.

1850 Mech IG army took about 2 months from start to finish.

Depends

usually around 0-10 models a month, more often 0 than not.

I'll get a big painting urge, and then I won't touch my paint for 6 months, followed by like one model a month for a while before i get another big urge

I typically spent 90 minutes per power armor grey knight, 120 per terminator. Razorbacks/Dreadnoughts in 3-5 hours each, HQ infantry/Stormraven/Land Raider over a weekend each. That's from 'partly assembled and primed' to 'fully assembled, detailed, washed, and based' and discounts all assembly including customization and magnetization. About 3k points assembled and painted in 2 months.

Assembly line Ork Boyz get about 36 minutes each all told, loota/burna/tankbustas take 90-150. I find it goes a lot faster once you just fixate on a color scheme and repeat it ad infinitum over the army, the first couple of each type probably took 1.5 to 2.5 times as long.

Ive found I really need to break up my painting. either I switch between my three armys or take a long break. Painting mass gaunts, Ig troopers or black templars over and over can get old quickly. So I would have to say probably two weeks or so per squad. That said......I still dont have a painted army, I buy this stuff faster than I can paint!

I will let you know if I ever finish painting an army

The closest is my CSM, but that is because I sold/am selling about 50% of them

My downfall is that I tend to have too many different projects on the go at once.