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 Dheneb wrote:
I've got an Infinity model I bought last thursday that I haven't finished. In my defence though I didn't have any primer or gap filler for a week.

Thats nothing, so far its taken me a year to sort of nearly mostly paint a few models, ohh the shame!
The killer for me is the fine details, maybe I should stick to tanks or titans, at least that way the fine detail is a little bigger.

Back when I was first painting them, some 15 years or so ago, I painted them a lot faster....and sloppier.

Coming up to my third month on my infinity >_>; though thats been spread out some. Probably a good 15 hours work though @.@ I'm incrediably slow and prone to stripping paint if things dont end up going how I want them to.


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And thats just a single model ¬.¬

One reason I actually like the snap together models is they massively reduce the time to get a model from box -> table. I wish GW would put a bit more effort in to posing them nicely, I'm happy with monopose for rank and file models, but only if that pose is good.

Anyway, it really depends on the model. My Space Wolves, it's about 2 hours painting + assembly (never timed assembly). My IG I can get done in a bit over 30 minutes, add another 10-15 minutes assembly for the regular guard models, subtract 5-10 minutes for snap fit models. I recently figured out a really fast way of painting fantasy Orcs which cuts them down to 20-30 minutes each. The hormagaunts in my gallery are about an hour each + assembly which means in the end closer to 2 hours, and you can see I haven't painted their eyes or anything. My big models, the Trygon took me about 30-40 hours, the Hive Tyrant I bought 2nd hand and was already assembled, so I just undercoated it and painted it in about 5-6 hours. The Carnifex, also bought it already assembled, so I just undercoated and painted it, took about 10 hours. The gargoyles, including assembly were about 4-5 hours each, the Raveners around 6 hours each. My Leman Russ, spent a day assembling and a day painting, didn't count the actual hours, but probably close to 20.

So it varies a lot. I tend to focus either on armies that I can come up with a way to paint them quickly, OR each model is worth a lot of points so if I don't paint them quickly it doesn't take forever to finish an entire army.

I paint while watching TV. So its not like the model has my undivided attention. For example, it took me all day yesterday to paint three reaver jet bikes + rider. But that was while watching football, eating, doing laundry etc. I really have no idea how long it takes to do one model because I have never just sat down and painted one model.

Jayden63 wrote:
I paint while watching TV. So its not like the model has my undivided attention. For example, it took me all day yesterday to paint three reaver jet bikes + rider. But that was while watching football, eating, doing laundry etc. I really have no idea how long it takes to do one model because I have never just sat down and painted one model.

Sounds like you and I had the EXACT same day yesterday Jayden63. What is on TV really dictates how long it might take me to paint something.

I usually take about 2-3 hours per model. I try to production line them to speed things up but I have a nasty habit of missing small details like forgetting to paint a soulstone or not touching up a leather strap.

My harlequin on the other hand take me around 5-6 hours each. I blame their diamond-print tights. That step alone takes most of my time. The final result is definately worth it though.

Tanks don't take me much longer than normal Infantry. They simply require more paint than the foot soldiers and have fewer "fine detail" pieces.

Tabletop quality takes me about 5 hours per model. You can see examples in the link in my signature. Certain things took longer than others though. For example instead of painting the gold lettering on my GK a solid colour and washing it, I painted each letter. I feel it looks better, though it was much more time consuming.

For tabletop quality minis? About 4-5 hours for standard marines and about 10 for the tanks. Special characters I usually stretch out to 8-10 hours as I put a lot more work into the detail work for the things like Librarians and Chaplains.

Keep in mind that I do assembly line a squad at a time usually and end up averaging the total time spent. Some squads also take longer (like the Terminators).

On troops, probably 4-5 hours each, give or take, from sprue to display cabinet, discounting spray paint/varnish and glue drying times. You can knock off 1.5-2 hours, if you only start counting when I pick up a brush. Granted, this is the roughest of possible estimates, as I usually work in small batches (3-5 models) and that time is usually spread over the course of a few weeks, at least (sometimes months, if I'm in a hobby rut).

I'm not a great painter, by any means, but I'm somewhat meticulous, by nature. I think experience has improved my speed in slightly greater measure than the quality of my results. My first few models took me probably twice as long as they would now, but they looked better than merely half as good as my current work. Depending on your style and the resultant quality, 8 hours isn't necessarily long, at all, especially for a beginner. You're bound to get both faster and better, with experience, to the point where you can decide whether to produce higher end paintjobs at a similar rate or crank out more models to a comparable standard.

noisypickle wrote:

Jayden63 wrote:
I paint while watching TV. So its not like the model has my undivided attention. For example, it took me all day yesterday to paint three reaver jet bikes + rider. But that was while watching football, eating, doing laundry etc. I really have no idea how long it takes to do one model because I have never just sat down and painted one model.

Sounds like you and I had the EXACT same day yesterday Jayden63. What is on TV really dictates how long it might take me to paint something.

I paint while I'm watching TV as well, I tried timing myself when not watching TV to see if it was slowing me down, it wasn't really, I mainly listen to the TV and can see it out of the corner of my eye. I have found, however, I find myself rewinding the TV because I miss things all the time, so a 1 hour program may take me an hour and a half to watch coz I'm constantly rewinding bits I missed.

So watching TV doesn't slow my painting, painting slows my TV watching :p

Hanith wrote:I usually take about 2-3 hours per model. I try to production line them to speed things up but I have a nasty habit of missing small details like forgetting to paint a soulstone or not touching up a leather strap.

I actually never found production line to speed up my painting. I paint production line so that when I get to the end of a batch, I feel like I've achieved something, where as painting single models "feels" like I'm making less progress. But time wise, the difference is quite small, if anything at all.

The one thing I painted where painting them production line helped was the Battle of Skull Pass night goblins, because I actually painted them in the sprue itself. There aren't too many models where you can do that easily, but it speeds things up if you can do it because you never have to put down the models and can get in to a rythm.

Just like pretty much everyone else it depends what I am painting. If its 28mm a 1-3 hours per guy (more for independent characters etc).

For display though it can take me much longer.

For guants and the like, I can usually finish a box in an hour or so. However I do use a very simple paint scheme. Bigger stuff varies, but again with the simple scheme, not as long. Things like carnifexs take less time then hive guard.