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I need to paint 45 guardsmen and 2 chimeras in 2 weeks... Tips?

Get offline and start painting!

Seriously though, I always make sure to paint all the things that require serious effort first. So, the heads, arms and guns. That way, when you start to get sick of painting them, you will be doing the easier body work. Then, break up the monotony by working on the chimeras. It worked for me, and I've got about a hundred cadians now.

Find a colour spray that matches your basic camo colour.
Do all the faces, metals & anything else that will be a different colour.
Develan wash or dip.

Also add the basing material before priming.

Drink lots of coffee, and stick on some music or a DVD in the background to help combat the boredom.

Find a can or two of Krylon or Rustoleum Camo Green. Drybrush/Edge with a little bit of Vallejo Russian Uniform Green. If you want a look that is more tan, Prime with Camo Khaki and wash with Devlan Mud (for the figures)

Prepwork:

Prime your sprues.
Do your bases as you're waiting for the paint and glue to dry.

Assembly:
Assemble the bodies first. Leave arms and weapons on the sprue for the time being.

Painting:
Put a pin in each foot and line them up on a piece of foam.
Go down the line with your colors in the following order: Uniform, Undershirts (Catachan), leather, skin.
Wash uniform and skin, then dry brush the same.
Paint the arms, weapons, and accessories on the sprue in the same order.

Finally assembly:
Assemble arms, weapons, accessories, and touch up.
Add models to bases.

Voilia. You're done. I did 30 models this way in two days (about 8 hours total).

sluggaslugga wrote:I need to paint 45 guardsmen and 2 chimeras in 2 weeks... Tips?

Get lots of skull white for bodies, then paint guns Tin Bits, then use lots of Devlan Mud.
A Spray gun also helps


My IG army, Svog 227th

Having a spray primer equal to your base color and dipping or washing are both quick paths to fast guard painting.

If you're not in a position to do that (such as myself), then the best thing you can do is batch paint. It causes you to take linearly longer, but you get multiplicatively more done.

Painting my guardsmen used to take me forever until I started painting them at LEAST in pairs. Sometimes I do as many as four at a time.

Yes, What Ailaros said. I always paint at least 2 at a time, but sometimes up to 4.

I've also refined my approach, so I spray the figures my uniform color tan, I paint the flesh on faces and hands, and then wash the entire figure in Devlin Mud (you could dip also using Army Painter's dips). After that I carefully paint the highlights on the uniforms and faces, leaving the armor, weapons, boots, and belts for the end. After all that you just need to do bases.

Practice makes it go faster, and I can now paint 2 in 2 hours.

Chimera's are even easier. Build the whole model. Spray it the base color. Put an appropriate wash over it, and then lightly dust it with a highlight spray paint. Not a perfect technique, but it gives good results. That plus some advance techniques gets me these results:

For tanks, get a big brush and learn how to drybrush. I was able to paint this Leman Russ yesterday in under 5 hours because I just painted it green and drybrushed the hell out of it with a lighter green -

I have found for the brown on the Cadian pants, use deneb stone with a quick wash of devlin mud gets the right kind of brown. Also as others have said doing a few at a time will make it go faster.

The best I can do is paint 10 Cadians at once... But despite my
bad painting skill I paint every detail.

Try doing a basic paint job on them first- skip the super fine details like eyes. Go for tourney legal first. Then you can go back as time permits and add in details here & there.

The rest of the suggestions above for base coating a camo color, batch painting, and dipping/washing will keep things moving for you.

paint the whole model overcoat color(on all and then go through each of them in detail

I drybrush the base layer for the armor first, it's faster than painting the whole thing. For ex, my gaurdsmen have khaki armor, so I drybrush white over the skull black instead of using khemri brown. Dunno if that helps.

The key to quick painting is to minimise the number of colours and shades you use, do things in bulk, use paints that dry quickly, and not worry about the fine detail.

40 Termagants done in two days.



1. Assembly. (All the bases had been cast in advance, and the upper bodies trimmed.)
2. Run through the dishwasher on 35 degree program.
3. Spray grey primer.
4. Spray pale sand belly.
5. Spray mid yellow sand sides.
6. Spray dark sand top.
7. Red mouths.
8. Pink teeth and claws.
9. Army Painter soft tone Quickshade, using blob on, sop off method.
10. Glue sand on bases.
11. Matt varnish.
12. A few bits of Highland Tuft.

The longest bit of work is waiting for the paint or varnish to dry at each stage. When possible, I use Montana Gold sprays, which dry in five minutes. The primer and belly colour were "recoat within 15 minutes" type paints. The Quickshade was left overnight to dry. You're supposed to leave it 24 hours, and I did get the odd bit of crazing when the matt went on, but who cares when you need to get 40 models done in a weekend.

You can speed up paint and varnish drying by putting the models in a warm place, but be careful about the temperature as it can melt the plastic.