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okay, I cant keep up with all the minis I have unpainted, I just started collecting orks their my first army and I started with the box of 11 boyz, and before I even finished that my step brother got my AoBR set, and than I have the ork battleforce coming in the mail....I just cant keep up with all the painting/assembling so what do you guys do to stay on track with painting, because sometimes I'll go to were I paint and just not paint because theirs SO much to paint.....

bombboy1252 wrote:okay, I cant keep up with all the minis I have unpainted...

Just like I said to the guy whose minis are starting to overtake his room: welcome to tabletop miniatures wargaming and modeling. It just gets worse.



Ghidorah

...........that's reassuring, thanks for being honest though

You have several options here.

(1) Keep painting. It's going to be a never ending tide (kind of like the Orks, but at least you'll have a continuous stream of painted miniatures to play with.) The good thing is, as with any creative exercise, you'll start to get faster, and your painting will improve the more you do it. There are several really great P&M guides here on DakkaDakka that can help you break down your painting jobs into smaller, more manageable bites. Try looking some of them up.

(2) Hire a painting service. If the miniatures pile up too fast and all you want to do is have a painted army on the table, and you aren't concerned with price, then pick a professional outfit and send the miniatures to them to be painted. There are many very good studios that would be happy to part you with your money. Painting isn't for everyone.

(3) Learn to play with bare metal/plastic/resin. Many gamers simply want to have as many miniatures as possible, and don't care if they're painted or not when they put them on the table. Even at tournaments you will see bare plastic, though speaking personally, I really hate to see that. Just because a miniature isn't painted, that doesn't make it useless. If you can stand the good-natured ribbing you'll take from fellow gamers who have the time and the inclination to paint, you can concentrate on having fun with the hobby instead of getting lost in the work.

(4) Wash your hands of the whole mess and toss the baggage out. There are other ways to play 40k, including several video games, an RPG, or a CCG. If painting isn't for you, then don't do it.

In my experience, it's better to have more miniatures than you can use than not enough miniatures at all. The reason is, the more miniatures you have (even unpainted) the more gaming options you have. Having 500 points in painted miniatures means you're limited to 500 point games. Having 10,000 points in unpainted miniatures means you can field anything from a squad to an an Apocalypse sized army whenever you want, and that's a good thing.

Zarry

Set yourself small targets. Don't think 'I've got to paint this whole army.' Instead think 'I've got to paint these ten Orks.' Then, once you've met your target, move onto the next. Breaking it down into achievable targets like this is surprisingly helpful.

Use speed painting techniques. Seriously, it will help you a lot.

I'm painting Orks right now and each Ork takes about 4-5 hours as the skin has 4 levels of highlighting and blending. I'll be finished in a year or so. You obviously want results faster so you would probably want to drybrush them and fix your mistakes later. There are plenty of Tutorials on speed painting Orks that will help you. If you drybrush, you can manage to pump out batches of 10 in an evening.

i think honestly the best answer is: divide it into parts!

So pack most of the minis away. have a space, a drawer, a box whatever, with your painting materials, you know the paints use are using, brushes... and simply have one squad/vehicle at hand, in this box/on this table. Concentrate on that. I have somtimes like made a plan: like : One squad this week. Then a tank next week etc.

And also make some decisions concerning painting speed / quality demand (this is hard for me)... so painting bix squads of 30 ork boyz , it can be a good idea to settle or a very basic paint scheme + a nice wash (i use da combo of devlan mud / badab black wash over lightly colored basic paint shcme, over white primer, works great + fast).

Well said Zarry.

I have found that switching up your painting projects keeps things interesting. After painting x unit of x type why not paint y unit of y type. After painting big squads why not go paint a small elite squad, hq, or a smaller vehicle. This keeps things fresh.

I'm in much the same posision. I got the AoBR box, battleforce and then was given some other boxes all at once. Now I have a huge pile of orks to paint.

Personaly I have found the best way to do it is to build everything and undercoat it all. I enjoy building stuff, and undercoating is easy. This leaves you with a force you can at least stick on a table top.

Then I made it up in to small squads (up to 10). Once I had all of these worked out I get two very diffrent squads out at a time. Start painting on one squad, going through each step at a time (base, skin, basic colour etc...). I have found this gives a good coheasive look to each squad, even if they don't realy match the whole force very well (to be honest I think ork forces look best if each squad is uniform, but looks diffrent to the rest of the force, but with some basic matching). If you get fed up with one swap over to the other to give yourself a change.

Yup, small batches are the way to go. Also, if you're painting orks, you might want to try using the dipping technique over Foundation basecoats. Makes for very quick, very nice paintjobs.

I agree with small alternating batches. Makes it more apparent that you're actually progressing through the unpainted models and by alternating between different unit types it gives you a break to stop it from becoming dull and repetitive.

Welcome to Orks. I also play orks and have the same problem. Way more models then I have time to paint. So, here's my advice:

1. Don't bother telling yourself, "I'm not going to buy any more models until I paint the ones I have." It's a lie we've all told ourselves at one time. Don't bother.

2. Working in batches definitely works best. I'll do like 10 models at a time. Do all the skin, then next time, all the clothes, next all the weapons. It really does make it easier.

3. The other thing I'll do to keep myself motivated is, I force myself to paint one fun model and one dull model at the same time. Meaning, I'm always swamped with unpainted boyz. They're just so similar, I get bored with them. However, really cool models like a shokk attack gun are fun to paint. So, whenever I paint a fun model, I make myself paint a boy at the same time. I recently did a full squad of 10 Diversified Nobz, but I also painted a boy for each nob. In the end, I had 10 painted nobz and 10 painted shoota boyz. 20 models down, 100 left to go.

Anyway, good luck, and just keep at it. You'll get there eventually.

I paint when I feel like it. And like madmax said, swap between fun models and dull models.

I liek to do maybe 5 to 10 boyz then paoint a killa kan or an HQ unit. then go bakc to boyz. Also, I found that keeping the boyz paint easy is nice. My boyz have mayba total of 8 colors (goblin green, scorpion green, chaos black, gunmetal grey, chainmail, codex grey, scab red, leather brown) and it will take me around an hour to do one boy, oh and forgot the washes (thraka green, badab black, gryphonne sepia)

Step 1: Banish all models from your painting area.
Step 2: Randomly select a few models and allow them back onto your table.
Step 3: Paint them then hide them again before picking a new batch.

That way you dont have to look at a horde of unpainted models everytime you want to paint something - its what I do

Don't know how you feel about distractions but I like to have something going on in the background. I have a bunch of podcasts I listen to as I paint, helps me not get bored with the umpteenth cadian I'm painting exactly the same.

Also breaking it into chunks is really the way to go. I like to paint half a squad of gaurdsmen at a time.

thanks guys, seems like doing a squad at a time is the way to go

What I find helpful, http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Paint_Five_Colors

Also for MASS painting, there is the option of the "Dipping" method. I'd suggest a spray of dullcoat to get rid of the glossy look (note you don't dip the model in paint). Usually yields "ok" results from what I can tell.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Dipping_Tyranids

I use the five colors method as well, although I might expand it to 7 or 8 colors to complete the basecoats and/or highlights of a squad.

Dipping is great for large lots, but it produces more than just "ok" results if done right. It's important to pick out details after the initial basecoating and dipping to get a quality result. I do agree that a dullcoat is necessary as well.

bombboy1252 wrote:okay, I cant keep up with all the minis I have unpainted, I just started collecting orks their my first army and I started with the box of 11 boyz, and before I even finished that my step brother got my AoBR set, and than I have the ork battleforce coming in the mail....I just cant keep up with all the painting/assembling so what do you guys do to stay on track with painting, because sometimes I'll go to were I paint and just not paint because theirs SO much to paint.....

Haha, it will only get worse! I got back into the game with about 30 orks to paint, then I got a deal on some AoBR boxes and bought 4, then the battleforce went on sale so I bought 2 of them... then I saw the Lootaz and Burnaz box... and so on and so on.

Long story short I have an Ork army half finished, 1/5th of a large BA army, a full SW army to assemble and an IG army that I've just started to crack into

Anyways, none of that matters., There's two ways to go about it.

1) Figure out the army list you want to play RIGHT NOW, as in a 500, 1000, 1250 list or something, and just paint that up.

Then build up from there.



2) Assemble what you want to play with now, and just pick a few models to paint at a time, try to keep it simple like 1 model a week or 1 batch of 5 per week, something easy that you can stick to.

Once you get started you'll be amazed by how much you can get through in a short amount of time.

Oh also, forgot to mention, keep your painting area clean. Put away models you're not painting, keep your paints organized and a nice neat space free to paint on, that always helps to keep me motivated.

As my friend says, and I quote:


"I only paint at one speed; happy."

And thats the trick. Forget the giant pile, just paint at whatever pace you are comfortable with. you may go faster, you may go slower, if you keep at a pace you are comfortable with, you will eventually get done what needs doing. My friend paints very slowly, but he gets the job done, and thats more than enough that needs saying. Some people do speed painting, some people spend three hours on a model.

Just make sure you don't ever rush yourself, either in assembly, prep or painting, or you will be upset with the result later. Take your time, and it will be well worth it.

use speed painting techniques for (generally speaking) all of your models, save models that will stand out like a warboss, an similar HQ choice, or even just a cool vehicles or unit you really like for last because then you can your time on them.

also don't start work on anything all at once, finish one unit, and then move on to another box, or you could also try using assembly line tecniques, (file all the arms, then all the legs, etc etc)

most important thing is that you need to make sure its not tedious, because the more bored you get with it, the more its going to be intimidating, and the higher chance you have of getting bored and doing something else and do another thing entirely different to delay yourself and make it worse. (which I'm doing right now...)
play some music or a tv show or a movie while you paint, it should keep you "awake" good luck man!

I've never seen so many people on Dakka agree about the same thing on one thread.

I do mostly what everyone else already said:


1- pick out a manage number of miniatures (5-10 works best for me)

2- prime everything w/ a spray can (black works best for me, it might work for your Orks depending on what you want to final product to look like.

3- drybrush the primary colors

4- go back over for detail

5- wash w/ Devlin Mud, Griffon Sepia, or Badab Black (sometimes Ogryn Flesh) all depending on final look you are going for

6- flock base

7- repeat step 1 through 6 until you fall asleep, get sick of it, or finish the project.

Be careful of burnout! If you don't feel like painting, DON'T. If it starts to feel like work, you're already lost before you start. I had a huge painting slump this last winter, gave up on everything for months because I got so overwhelmed with the project I was working on. I've gotten back into the swing of things but in a sane and measured way.

But to contradict what I just said, don't let it go too long. Sometimes you have to make yourself sit down and grab a brush. You might find that after taking a break it's a lot of fun again. I have some huge armies. They didn't get that way overnight. This is a lifetime hobby if you want it to be.

Good luck!!!