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Vehicles are the quickest thing for me to paint, I suppose it differs army to army though.

hobojebus wrote:
Vehicles are the quickest thing for me to paint, I suppose it differs army to army though.

I find that for marines, simple paint schemes can look good on the infantry, but with the vehicles being so large the extra details need to be worked on. That's what slows me down. That and overall area.

I find my eldar vehicles just breeze off the bench, but the marine ones take forever to slog through.

I've been sticking to a policy of "never anything unassembled, never more than 3 kits unpainted at a time" for several years now, and my advice mirrors a lot of what I see in this thread:

1) Don't go by points painted, this leads you to leave off cheaper models like transports until later and procrastination starts a cycle. Just paint for a set time every day.

2) Make painting enjoyable. Don't paint in a cold, miserable, dank corner of your basement where the only thing you have to look at is the concrete wall behind your bench, paint in the room with the TV in it on your couch. When we watch TV or movies, I paint, my wife does stitching or writes, and we have our chill-out time together.

3) This is a big thing for me, but I almost never batch paint and I always put completed members of the unit I'm working on together on the bench, so I can look at them as I'm painting up more models. The more I'm reminded of how good the models will look together when they're all finished, the more I'm motivated to actually get them painted.

That last post ties in with something I changed too, but it may not be practical for everyone;

I started leaving my painted miniatures out on display, somewhere I could see them regularly, whereas before even the painted stuff was packed away in boxes in a trunk. As the_scotsman says, seeing a unit/force slowly grow helped my motivation a lot.

My apartment has cupboards over the fridge/freezer so they go in there and every time I go to the fridge/freezer I get a good ol' look at them and get excited about adding to them.

It took me a few months to finish 6 titans for AT...pretty much 3 months of anxiety followed by one week of painting and done.

I dont know why i have such a hard time getting started, things go fast enough when begun. Im having some serious stress over having started way too many games though :/

I really should clean out some stuff and just divorce myself from some of the games but being more a collector then gamer it just gives me heartache...

I definitely wouldn't set myself a goal of X points per week/month. That just leads to disappointment eventually, and then an excuse to slow down once you miss your target. Just make sure you're doing something every day or every two days or whatever is realistic. That way you'll keep momentum going.

I'm working through about 40 Primaris right now and the colour scheme is simple to allow me to paint lots quickly. I also make sure to do something every day. Some days I'll get the bolter casings and trim done on all 20, others I'll maybe only get the purity seals and detailing on the bolters done. What's important is always getting something done so you feel like you're making progress.

I simply cheated and started playing more skirmish level games of both 40k and fantasy. Units of similar guys started to become soul-crushing, so I lowered the goalposts for what it meant for me to "paint an entire force", lol.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I simply cheated and started playing more skirmish level games of both 40k and fantasy. Units of similar guys started to become soul-crushing, so I lowered the goalposts for what it meant for me to "paint an entire force", lol.

This honestly helps.

also games like cruel seas.

not a lot of miniatures, very easy to paint

Honestly, I wouldn't paint in batches based on points. If you're looking to get them done to tabletop quickly, I'd base the batches on painting scheme. In each batch, do all the priming at once, all the spraying at once, all the airbrushing at once, all the washing at once, but break it down for details if you like.

For example:

- Batch 1, all basic infantry with the same colour scheme (get it done all at once and you'll never have to paint one again!)
- Batch 2, all the vehicles in the same scheme. Same as above.
- Batch 3, a couple of variant scheme Elites
etc etc

That's how I do most of my armies. Especially if you're using an airbrush, or lots of washes, or sponge weathering, or any processes that aren't just brush painting.

I have a friend and every time I go around he's bought something new but hasn't painted what he's already got.

He's got orks from over a decade ago unpainted.

Imperial knights.

Dark angels, crimson fists and 30k imperial fist armies to finish.

Necromunda stuff from months back untouched.

A partiality finished AoS undead army to do.

That's without mentioning terrain.

And yet he keeps buying more.

Well, yeah. It isn't called gamer ADD for nothing.

I have a Kroot Merc army and some Space Wolves 13th Company to finish, too. I still have a Chaos Land raider from the mid-2000's that I never even got as far as priming.

My personal goal is 5 squad level guys, a character, or a vehicle/monster every week. It sets a nice, simple, matchable goal each week that can change based on what I feel like/need to paint at the time.
With about 5-9 hours of painting time a week (not much to be honest) it's totally doable for me as a college student. However, if inspiration strikes I sometimes end up going off the deep end and painting way too much (like painting the entire Rogue Trader box in a week).
Also, I told my friend about it and they nag me to keep me on track, works for me

Easiest thing is to find a good base, wash, highlight and add details. I did two Slaanesh Heralds in a couple hours last night. And they look very nice. Golden Daemon winning? Hell no. Great at a one-foot distance? You bet! I based, washed, let them dry, then added details and dry brushing. Excluding dry time, they were about an hr and a half each. And you can batch paint. Two 60pt characters in an evening.

It really depends on your standard of painting.

No matter what it is, get some audiobooks for your army and it stops being a chore and starts being something you look forward to. You'll be surprised at your own productivity

A friend of mine painted 2000pts of Necrons to a very decent standard in 4 days.

I'm currently doing a 2k Tau list, to a similar overall standard, and it's taken about 3 months so far. Fire warriors are the toughest part of painting Tau, Suits and drones are easy and quick. I have 36/72 fire warriors left to paint, hoping to be finished by the end of January, if I can put in about 10 hours a week, which should be manageable.

I painted all of my custodes guard over a weekend. but the bikes are taking me 6 hours each, it's rare I can find a solid 6 hours to paint and it feels like a grind so I'm struggling with motivation for them.

When chapter approved dropped I painted 7 paladins in 2 days to what most would consider an exceptionally high standard in order to make my list legal again. Was highly motivated to keep my list playable.

So it will vary a lot, depending on, your desired standard, the complexity of the models, but most importantly your motivation to paint. If you're highly motivated you can race through stuff, even if you are painting complex models to a decent standard.

Here’s my opinion: I’ve always painted for fun and taken random units to paint at a time to relax. However, unless you find painting cathartic and are at a high skill level, then get someone else to paint them for you. Earn money in the time you would be painting and it will very likely be cost efficient to get a commission. Warhammer is an expensive hobby, why settle for your models to be looking subpar when you spent hundreds on the plastic to begin with? Just an opinion

I paint in "bursts". Sometimes I paint a squad in a week. Other I spend a month in a model, especially if I get "stuck" on something. I managed to paint maybe 1500 points of marines this year.

One year worth of progress. 2,637 points of assorted oddities. Plus spare weapon bits, but I’m not counting points on them. This is with a full time job, and ugly commute for 2 months of the year, and moving to a new place. Which did free up time, but made for a big disruption.

Try to sit down a little every day. Progress will add up.

I added up my total for last year and it's 103 painted pieces, including some terrain and AoS Endless Spells. But that also includes the 31 miniatures I did in the last week of the year in a big push (I'll polish off the last 10 guardians of my 1000 point goal today). That's 4-5 hours of painting a day, every day, for 10 days. So I figure a 2000 point army is at least 100 hours of painting, less if you're going for the simplest tabletop standard. That doesn't include assembly, BTW, and will vary by the army - horde armies will take far longer, while elite armies (custodes) will take less.

Now, if you can only scrape together 1-2 hours a week of hobby time, obviously it will take you a solid year to make a tournament army. If you have the free time to sit down for 2 hours a night, 5 days a week, it's a few months. The real barrier is the motivation to sit down and get it done, I often go weeks between painting sessions.

My painting ability varies wildly due to a unlucky combination of one fully functioning eye, dyspraxia and intermittent double vision in said one working eye.

I paint as much as I can before A) Frustration overtakes me B) My head feels like it's be struck by Khornes own damn sword!

Best advice I can give is occasionally meet up with other games who doubtlessly also have a lot of unpainted minis/ one's in need of a touch up and paint all together. It really turns what can be a chore for some into an enjoyable experience!

There are two things that I've found helpful in getting through stuff in 2018 - doing a painting stream on Twitch, and focusing on getting things to a usable tabletop standard. As a result, I finished 367 models last year.

Now, these cover a fairly wide range of games and manufacturers, so I don't have a functional 40k army at the end of it, but bouncing between things keeps me from getting burned out.

When it comes to "realistic" goals, only you know what is realistic for you. You might try to stretch yourself by pushing for 10% more, but I wouldn't advise going too far, lest you end up not getting anything done.

Grimlineman wrote:
First of the year I plan to buy and paint 2000 point army and just play that list for most of the year.I have painted a few other army’s before but I usually buy a few units paint them then buy a few more. Then by the end of the year I have a bunch of painted models I never play with because I didn’t plan the army out very well. That’s why I plan to buy the whole army at once.

Anyways what’s a realistic goal to get the army built and painted and not burn out?

Just aim to paint. Don't set a goal, just try to paint, even if it's only for 30 minutes a day or something. Get one of those project boxes so you can keep the unit you're working on, the paints and brushes all together if you don't have a dedicated painting space available. That way you can just set it up quickly on the kitchen table without wasting too much time.

It really all depends on how dedicated you are to painting as well as how much time you have. For me, the GW color spray primers do wonders to cut time down considerably.

Just before 8th launched, I spent from when I got home to when I went to bed... or when I got up to when I went to bed (depending on the day) painting up most of a 139 model, 2000 point Tyranid army as they were pretty terrible in 7th (so most of the models I had didn't get painted) but got a big boost in 8th.

Now, I'm married and have a stepson. Do I have time to paint? Yes, I do. But, after spending a good bit of the evening with my stepson, I really do like spending some time relaxing/catching up with/talking to my wife. Does she mind if I went off and spent that time painting instead? Not at all. But, I like spending time with her.

That said, I was able to get my hands on Renegade a few months ago and already had a Knight left over from last time Renegade was out. I went from bare plastic on two Knights (in sub assemblies) and one Knight already covered in black primer. I used the Averland Sunset spray primer, and it made my House Hawkshroud Knights almost a pleasure to paint (which is something I've never said about yellow before).

tl;dr - Time and dedicaton. It really all depends on how much you have of both. Not necessarily the best way to paint as I've burned myself out SEVERAL times. But, time and dedication... and colored spray primer.

SG