Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I bought the Space Marine battle force and it seems people have different opinions on painting first and then glueing or assembling, priming, then painting. Does anyone have any opinions? I guess the benefit of assembling and priming first is that I can play with primed minis. Downside is that some of them may become difficult to paint. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,
Oriphus

I like to assemble the marines but to leave the bolters and backpacks off. You can primed and the blue tack those on if you need them for play.

Personally, I:

*Clip them off the sprue
*Clean 'em up
*Glue together (some people like to leave the guns unattached at this stage, and attach them later after painting)
*Paint
*Seal (as appropriate)

That's it. I normally assemble the whole damn model *guns 'n all), spray it black and start painting. if I can't reach something with a paintbrush, it stands to reason that it probably can't be seen that well anyway, so I leave it

Hope this helps.

I leave the gun off so I can get at the emblem better. I also do the shoulder pads seperate because I find it easier to be precise with them off. I believe its more of a preference thing!

I have had the same question.

I am a new player, so I haven't bought any paint yet since I have been scratching up for an army.

I assume though that being able to do each piece seperate will help you get into all the "nooks and crannies" though I will agree with the point that if you can't reach it, you more than likely can't see it either. Just spray the base and detail it later. The whole point of the game is the play.

I have seen entire ork mobs at my local shop, and the player points out how long it takes to paint that many models. So he had the choice of either showing up and having fun with them, or spend every weekend painting as many as he can. Sure, he paints some here and there, and he will be finished... eventually. I am the same train of thought, I want my blood angels dropping out of the sky, not sitting on a table to dry!

I usually look which parts will overlap and paint them seperately, although at times it gets me in the awkward position of glueing the torso halfes of marines together and then paint all parts seperately.

With larger models (i.e. the chaos defiler) I really like painting all parts seperately and then glue them together as the get finished (the green stuffing comes afterwards and has to be repainted)- this way you can watch your model take shape

I stick them together completely. If you can't paint a certain area, chances are people cant see that area anyway

I do the same.

clip
clean
assemble(the only thing I will ever leave off is its a bolter that will be held infront of there chest as I am anal as hell when it comes to painting and I like to get everything)
paint
seal

If you never field an unpainted model, then you don't have to worry about the order of assembly and painting.

The world is not full of instant gratification and sometimes things are better when you spend a few weekends getting that core 1000 points painted before you play with them.

And you would be surprised how quickly you can paint models to an excellent standard with some of the techniques online. Dips and washes can make even the slowest painter crank out 30 orks in an hour or 2.

assemble, paint. assemble, paint, assemble, paint.

The only advantage to painting then assembling is that stuff that's behind other stuff is easier to paint. However, if something is OVERLAPPING you're not going to see what's behind the arm/gun/whatever. For those things that are ALMOST overlapping, then yeah, it's more difficult to paint assembly first, but this just gives you a lot of good practice with your fine painting skills.

The disadvantage to painting then assembling comes from the fact that you actually need to spend more time painting, as you're painting things you won't even be able to see. As well, lots of new hobbyinsts are just as bad at assembling as they are with painting. This means getting superglue on paint, this means ripping apart improperly-glued arms, and ripping the paint off with them, etc. This means you're going to need to do even MORE painting to cover up for your assembly errors, whereas if you assemble first, you can get all of that out of the way and fixed and then just put down a single set of paint.

The only real question is one between assemble-paint-base or assemble-base-paint, which is determined by how you want to do your basing.

I recently have been putting the bases on, priming the whole thing and then painting the miniature. Then I'll come back and drybrush the sand/gravel/ etc. I am not the greatest painter yet so I would not use my advice as a steadfast template.

I use pretty simple sand/grit basing for my ork boys and they don't have any tight overlaps, so I assemble the whole thing, base, then prime. For my SM, I leave off the bolter and backpack for convenience while painting, then attach, base, and seal afterward.

It's a vague answer, but it really depends on what you're painting. I can see people's reasoning when they say "if you can't reach it, you can't see it, so why paint it?" but there are certain things you can see that are SO much easier to paint (and paint well) without having to work around other parts, it just seems silly to glue it first.

I wish I hadn't completely assembled that Ork trukk. I think it will be the test of whether I can just jab some paint in the recesses and call it a day or if I'll drive myself over the edge trying to detail all the half-visible gubbins I blocked off in my overzealous push to assemble all of my models...

As for the base-paint or paint-base argument:

I find that most of my bases require drybrushing, and the models themselves dont (or at least not in that area) so it saves me a lot of time re-painting models feet if the bases are already done completely.

Only thing I'd leave off til the end is flock.

I assemble, base, prime, drybrush base, paint mini, & seal.
The only part Ive ever painted before assembly is the gubbins behind the grate on the Battlewagon.

I just stripped 40 nobz (20 reg 20biker) that the fella before painted, then assembled. Even my Ol Lady (who gives nary a bowel movement about my hobby) noticed the excessive need for superglue and the large gaps between arms and shoulders due to the paint not gluing well. So If you ARE going to paint first, make sure that you get the paint off the areas that match up.