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So I've just recently started the hobby again after a pretty long hiatus and am finding painting a serious chore (just like I did when I was little :3 ) I'm painting Firewarriors right now and it takes me around an hour and a half to paint and base one dude! Regardless of if that's standard or not I was wondering if there are any tips or tricks to speeding it up?

For reference I paint them in 5 steps:
1. Drybrush the cloth and wash (doesn't take very long at all)
2. Base Coat. I outline the armor doing my best not to get any paint inside the lines segmenting the armor (takes around 20 to 30 minutes)
3. Main Coat and Wash. Same as base coat but with the main shade and then a wash once its dry (takes about 30 minutes)
4. Details and Sept Markings. These take anywhere from 15 to 30 mins depending on how anal I'm feeling about the details at the time but are a simple one or two layer job.
5. Clean Up. Usually doesn't take to long, I go over any of the places that I made mistakes!
(All of this is not counting drying time, time I can spend doing things I like like racing sports cars or dancing around in my underwear)

What I want to know is if it would be faster to do the base coat quickly, over the whole armor, and only outline the armor plates in the end at step 4? Or should I carry on the way I have been? I'm afraid that if I don't outline the armor from the beginning my already average paint job will look down right awful or that I won't end up saving any time at all since I'll have to painstakingly fill in the gaps on every segment of armor and gun the Firewarrior has!

Might be worth a look at the Army Painter system, search online and their site will come up.

ids1984 wrote:
Might be worth a look at the Army Painter system, search online and their site will come up.

I was thinking the same thing. What color are you priming your models? If you're using black, you may have to put on several layers of paint to build up to the base color which adds extra time as well. Go with an army painter primer, use a wash to get the recessed color you're wanting between the armor (unless its a white), and then do your highlighting.

I just primed black, and then painted the armor the color of choice, used a black wash, then highlighted the armor. the cloth could be done in the same way.

Painting 24 warriors was practically done in a day with batch painting.

Fastest way would be to get a coloured primer and put down the base coat with a spray. Then pick out details, then use some sort of wash.