How do you do to paint a large number of troops efficiently?

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**Doctorcheese**

I personally have a large Skaven army with 100+ Clanrats. My technique is just to batch paint 20-30 of them once a week. Works like a charm, even though your neck is probably almost broken afterwards

So how do you do it?

**Small, Far Away**

An air brush generally works well, but with 100 guys, no one is going to notice if a few of them are badly painted.

**FearPeteySodes**

Biggest tip for me personally is don't let your "to paint" pile get that big.

My brain shuts off and i tend to lose interest if i don't paint as i go.

Seriously though, i'll take 5 or so models and paint all of a certain color on all then rinse and repeat with all colors.

**Ralin Givens**

I sit down with a full unit and bash it out (this can differ from my different armys, 50 marauders or 20 archers) then reward myself with a hero, that is usually a day long job

**marielle**

Patience , persistence, and not having a cigarette until that colour is done for the unit.

**Ralin Givens**

marielle wrote:Patience , persistence, and not having a cigarette until that colour is done for the unit.

Gah...no smoking? And I thought my reward system was good....

**Doctorcheese**

Woo got them done today! Applied sand to their bases and then coated the bases chaos black by hand, in a few days I'm gonna finish the bases

**Son_Of _Deddog**

A neat, basic paint job-a bit lighter than you want to end up with, then Dip them-or use quick shade. Do then in a production line, so do all the basecoat first, then all the fleshtones etc. You can drybrush over the dip/quickshade to bring the highlights up, then same matt varnish..

**UltraPrime**

marielle wrote:Patience , persistence, and not having a cigarette until that colour is done for the unit.

Heh, I thought I was only one who did that

**Coolyo294**

Assembly line.

**jonolikespie**

marielle wrote:Patience , persistence, and not having a cigarette until that colour is done for the unit.

Dam... I need to take up smoking so I have some motivation

I use the "if I leave the unpainted models on my desk long enough they will paint themselves" method.

**kenshin620**

Son_Of _Deddog wrote:A neat, basic paint job-a bit lighter than you want to end up with, then Dip them-or use quick shade. Do then in a production line, so do all the basecoat first, then all the fleshtones etc. You can drybrush over the dip/quickshade to bring the highlights up, then same matt varnish..

This, it may not look "professional" with dips/washes (espeically if they're really shiny but thats what matt varnish is for) but it makes them TT standard ready in a faster way

**A Black Ram**

I have 100 skeletons in my vampire counts army.

I set them all up in the unit as they would, ranked up etc etc, and then paint them from there. I get to cheat a little because my army is supposed to look like it's at night and such, but still.

I just have to base them now..

**scarletsquig**

Brown Primer.
Drybrush Base.
Paint Skin.
Paint Metal.
Devlan Mud.
Static Grass.

That process works out at about 5 minutes a figure... can't be beat for getting an army on the table.

Of course, you can always come back to it later and do additional highlights and washes and paint more of the details to raise the standard, but it's best to get the basics sorted first, then you can relax and enjoy the rest of the painting process knowing that they are "done".

Do not varnish initially, you might want to come back to them later and improve the existing paint job. This is also why I recommend devlan mud over dip.. once a model is dipped, that is it, end of story for the paint job, it needs to be matt varnished. Washes are much more flexible, and look nicer IMO.

You absolutely cannot skimp on mould lines though. However quickly you want to paint your army, the mould lines have to go or it will look terrible, especially with wash/ dip techniques.

**marielle**

Dam... I need to take up smoking so I have some motivation

I'd try the gum first and work up...

**Flashman**

One approach with hordes is not to worry too much about detail with the rear ranks. Get that front rank looking good and just do the basics for anything after that.