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Pretty new to all of this and am starting a Blood Ravens Army, my question is do you stick them all together (weapons making the chest area difficult), or leave the weapons off and add them after painting the main area of the model?

Thanks

It's a personal preference. I paint in pieces and assemble the model after painting to ensure I have easier access to hard to reach places.

Generally I will assemble models completely and then paint them. The only time I might paint and assemble models as individual parts is for character models.

For marines, I assemble them entirely except for the bolters. I then paint the whole marine and paint the bolter seperately and attach them. If I know there are places where I didn't get paint, it would bother me so I make an effort to paint every surface possible.

I figure if you can't reach it to paint it when it's assembled, no one can see it anyway unless they are looking closely at it anyway. I assemble, then paint.

If I missed a spot, I'd notice, so I partially paint in sub-assemblies - prime, basecoat, wash, basic block highlights to reestablish the base color, then fully assemble. On a marine, that would mean leaving off both the weapon and backpack. Leaving final highlights until after the model is assembled lets me ensure a consistent light source, account for occlusion, etc. and since the now inaccessible parts are recessed, anyway, they don't require much further work.

There are a few exceptions, of course. I've painted so many AoBR Boys by now, for example, that I'm comfortable painting them fully before assembly (not too tricky, since only the head and one arm are separate). I'd also fully paint a marine's chest aquila while it's in the open, even if I've left the bulk of his armor unhighlighted. Particularly open sculpts are a tossup - the aforementioned slugga boys are done in parts for expediency (they're painted in batches), even though I could access everything after full assembly, while my Infinity minis are all fully assembled before I start painting.

Thanks all, i think i'm going with leaving weapons off if they cover the chest, i can alao spray them a different colour then to the body.

i just leave bolters off so i can paint the chests and glue on later same for heavy bolter

Peredyne wrote:
I figure if you can't reach it to paint it when it's assembled, no one can see it anyway unless they are looking closely at it anyway. I assemble, then paint.

This, definitely.
The risk of ruining the paint when assembling is too big, moreover.

I glue everything except shields on fantasy models. Then I paint. Never had any problem doing this way.