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Alright,

I've been trying to put my DA army together for months and every time I get some gas after a day or two of clipping from sprues scraping little lines from them so that they don't look ridiculous when they are put together I question why I'm putting myself through this and go straight back to playing Counter Strike. That's not even the time consuming part... painting will probably take me a few decades.

So I pose a question to you fine gentlemen. How do you keep yourself motivated and sane while putting together a big project!

haha, I have 2 projects going right now, one being Forgeworld Sons of Horus pre heresy, and the other being a Deathwing, I rather enjoy the painting and modelling aspect of it, but the de flashing does take some of the life out of me at times, my real motivation is to see a painted force on the tabletop putting foot to ass. I don't play an army until they are painted and assembled properly, so that is also a driving factor because I want to play the game that I spend so much damn money on.

Do a bit, have a drink, do some more, have another drink, then go bacccck forsh morsh, und anotherish drinkz .... zzzzzz

Eventually, you'll finish.

One model at a time... If you clip all of the pieces, then remove mould lines you'll constantly be looking at a huge pile of pieces.

When i build my Tactical squads, i do them model by model. eg, i get the front and back torso out of the sprue first, clean the lines, then glue it together. Then i get the legs out, clean them and glue it to the base. Cut the head out and backpack out clean them up, then glue the torso to the legs. cut and clean the arms, then glue the backpack and head in place. Then cut, clean and drill the bolter. glue the arms on, followed by the shoulder pads. start next model, once glued the two torso pieces together, go back and glue the bolter in. I get the 10 marines done in 30-45 mins

basically, keep the amount of bits your working with minimum, while passing the glue drying time by cuting and cleaning the next bits.

Good luck with it

Cleaning up mold lines is soul crushing. There's just no two ways about it. It is by far my least favorite aspect of the hobby. To get through it, I try to do it in small batches. For marines, I'll clip the bits for 4 of them from the sprue and then clean all the legs, take a break, clean all the arms, take a break, etc until I've got all the bits for those 4 cleaned up and ready. Then, I'll assemble and paint those guys to give myself a break from prep work. For vehicles, I do a sub-assembly at a time (weapons, left side, right side, hatches and other small bits, etc) until everything is cleaned up, then paint and assemble from the inside out (paint interiors, then build and paint the hull, then paint and attach weapons and bits, go back and do highlights and details, etc).

It's worth pointing out that I am really anal about prepping even basic troop models, so it takes me forever. Probably why I hate it so damn much :p nothing ruins a paint job like a nice mold line, though. Gods help me if I ever start a horde army...

What I've been doing, is about like Zambro suggested, but I'll change it up between figures and tanks. I have a huge army I'm building, I've already removed flash from 11 Rhino kits, 3 Land Raiders, 10 bikes, and over 50 troops, plus some other stuff. Work an hour, do something else, work a bit more, and you'll knock it out in no time, and be painting, and playing your army.

I also take figures or parts with me when I have to travel for work. I'm not flying so I can pack my knife and files and work on them while I'm in my hotel room. Can also do it if you are visiting family or friends for awhile.

Have fun with it and you'll get it done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What I've been doing, is about like Zambro suggested, but I'll change it up between figures and tanks. I have a huge army I'm building, I've already removed flash from 11 Rhino kits, 3 Land Raiders, 10 bikes, and over 50 troops, plus some other stuff. Work an hour, do something else, work a bit more, and you'll knock it out in no time, and be painting, and playing your army.

I also take figures or parts with me when I have to travel for work. I'm not flying so I can pack my knife and files and work on them while I'm in my hotel room. Can also do it if you are visiting family or friends for awhile.

Have fun with it and you'll get it done.

I don't do it unless the mold lines are absolutely horrendous. Nobody notices.

Assemble the models, clean the really bad mold lines quickly, and be done with it. I'd rather have a whole squad finished, painted, based and weathered than one model perfectly cleaned, painted, based, and weathered and 9 guys waiting on the treatment.

I find having an inexplicable joy when wielding sharp objects helps.

This is the one thing I hate about the hobby. Whenever I see lines in the end product I end up regretting being lazy about it, and whenever I'm meticulous about it I want to murder small animals. Everything else I enjoy. I hate mold lines with a passion. :(

I do like the loving sharp objects suggestion...

You can also look into a file and some fine sandpaper. It's less nails-on-chalkboard than a knife for me in most spots. Just have to be careful on weird surfaces.

get yourself a seam scraper. much more solid than a knife blade so you don't get that nails-on-chalkboard sound and it's also not sharp enough to cut yourself with if you slip. I love mine.

As above, it's soulcrushing and the worst aspect of the hobby, despite being necessary if you want a good looking model. I do it at my computer desk (and vacuum afterwards ofc) and half watch something that I wouldn't otherwise watch. Could be a doco so I learn a bit or something silly and amusing like TotalBiscuit playing Terraria. I'm up to ep 16 or so in TB's Terraria on these 'crons, and have a couple more Attenborough's under my belt working on 80 mantic zombie marines.

No tips to speed it up sorry.

Cleaning flash/mold lines is also one of my most hated aspects of the hobby.

Usually I end up taking a week to clean a model, doing 5 mins here, 5 mins there because a) I get annoyed at doing the task b) I get even more annoyed when I find that I've missed a bit/ there's a major mold line on a part that is nigh on impossible to clean without damaging (such as a really thin ribbed hose on a weapon). By the time I've finally cleaned up a model I usually don't have the gusto to bother painting it, and it joins the others in the box of shame...

can someone pop up a pic of what you're talking about because I've never had an issue with this unless I'm just not noticing what you're talking about. I hear people talking about cleaning mould lines but still havnt had to and my finished models look normal. When assembling and painting though I have to listen to music or have tv playing as a semidistraction. I also get frustrated/tired quickly and have to walk away now and then. I notice my painting getting sloppier and sloppier the longer I do it straight

Exalbaru wrote:
can someone pop up a pic of what you're talking about because I've never had an issue with this unless I'm just not noticing what you're talking about. I hear people talking about cleaning mould lines but still havnt had to and my finished models look normal. When assembling and painting though I have to listen to music or have tv playing as a semidistraction. I also get frustrated/tired quickly and have to walk away now and then. I notice my painting getting sloppier and sloppier the longer I do it straight

These little buggers!

Just have to add my voice to the choir of hatred for flash, it is without doubt the single dullest task in this hobby. Of course it gets even worse when you're happily priming a big batch and you notice that one line you missed so you have to take it back to the bench deal with it and reprime it, and of course in the time you're doing that the rest of the primer dries so you're waiting for one chap before you can basecoat, which of course is when you find the second line.

I've always used a hobby knife for this task, however, I would like to try a seam scraper. Do hobby stores carry these?

I was actually doing this last night with some Orks. I just want to say right now that the AOBR boxset seems to be really bad for mold lines.

The way I am getting through it at the moment is finding full concerts on Youtube from bands that I like, sticking them on and work on the models.

if it's any consolation, the space marines in the aobr set aren't any better. I remember having to smooth over huge lines up the sides of the legs and down the arms. bleh. the dv models seem to be a lot better in that regard, at least.

Do you have a set of needle files?

I notice the OP only mentioned clipping and scraping.

They aren't for everything, but there are alot of areas where filing is faster than scraping.

A cheap set of needle files is less than 10 bucks and something every hobbyist should have.

still dont see any on the ones here, maybe the DE stuff doesnt get them. we do have those annoying gaps in shoulder bads you have to fill with liquid green stuff though

LOL you guys have no idea, I started this hobby back when the only good looking models were METAL!

That being said, flash cleaning is pretty soul crushing, I usually do it infront of the TV with all my parts in a box top on my lap.

Be sure to use a very sharp craft based exacto knife. This is the kind that takes new blades each time, not the kind with a retractable blade that you snap off as it gets dull (this is a box cutter and shouldn't be anywhere near your minis).

If you're scraping you don't really need to pay attention to what you're doing 100%, so you can relax with some music or TV or Youtube

 More Dakka wrote:
LOL you guys have no idea, I started this hobby back when the only good looking models were METAL!

That being said, flash cleaning is pretty soul crushing, I usually do it infront of the TV with all my parts in a box top on my lap.

Be sure to use a very sharp craft based exacto knife. This is the kind that takes new blades each time, not the kind with a retractable blade that you snap off as it gets dull (this is a box cutter and shouldn't be anywhere near your minis).

If you're scraping you don't really need to pay attention to what you're doing 100%, so you can relax with some music or TV or Youtube

...So use an exacto knife and dont pay 100% attention? Thats only going to end one way....

The operative words being "if you are scraping" you don't have to, no. The blade never points towards you.

If you manage to cut yourself doing this then you are a class 1 bonehead.

Cleaning moldlines doesn't take long. Maybe ten second per part. An ork boy has 5 parts. I can clean twenty boyz in about twenty minutes. Undercoating is worse IMO

Woah this topic got a fair amount of responses!

I'm happy for all of the suggestions so far, like the seam scraper and needle files suggestion. The way I clean my models right now is with my modeling razor and a sharp blade, at one point I cleaned the flash while I was watching shows with my room mate... until one fateful night I was cleaning some marines foot and BAM razor in the thumb, so I like to pay more attention now.

When people say "scraping" the model. Do you actually scrape the model with the blade held vertically because when I am doing this I find that I'm holding my razor diagonally and cutting the flash off I wouldn't call it scraping... Am I doing this wrong?

@Gargantuan: Please tell me your secret because the last set of 6 DA bikes I did took more like 5-6 hours. If I could cut down the time to something like an hour I'd have a lot less regrets about the hobby.

While we're discussing these "slow" parts of creating a Warhammer army. Does anyone have suggestions for how to do quick, decent looking on the table, paint jobs! Here is what I do. Assemble, magnetize, prime in black, base coat until I get the color I like, simple highlights and details like visor, Aquila, gun, barrel colors, then wash in "liquid skill"(Devlan mud. I quake in my boots thinking of the day when I run out.). Is there a quicker way?

Thanks for all of the comments so far. Look forward to hearing more!

I hate mould line cleaning with a passion. In all the years I've been playing I've never found anything to make it less of an absolute pain in the arse beyond do it in front of TV so at at least you have something else to focus on... but I normally don't watch TV in isolation anyway so it's still a painful process.

nold wrote:I've always used a hobby knife for this task, however, I would like to try a seam scraper. Do hobby stores carry these?

Possibly, but I haven't seen one in the few I've visited. Micromark carries one, though - here's a link.

From wrote:When people say "scraping" the model. Do you actually scrape the model with the blade held vertically because when I am doing this I find that I'm holding my razor diagonally and cutting the flash off I wouldn't call it scraping... Am I doing this wrong?

Sometimes cutting is best, like you're doing, but many people do actually scrape, instead (myself included). A 90 degree angle (blade perpendicular to surface) isn't actually ideal for this - something more like 60 degrees, with the blade angled away from the direction of travel, helps keep the blade from binding and springing back, which tends to leave little nicks and jagged bits of mold line behind. Scraping is a more gentle process than cutting and leaves a very smooth finish, if done right, making it ideal for removing thin mold lines in soft plastic. Shift lines (when the mold halves were actually out of alignment, instead of just letting a little plastic ooze between as flash), however, like those I encountered on nearly every model in my AoBR set, are an absolute bear to deal with. Those require more aggressive stock removal (repeated scraping, cutting, filing, and/or sanding), if not outright re-sculpting. Those are the ones that truly crush my soul.

Regarding the OP's question, for me it's mostly a matter of reminding myself that it's a necessary evil. I'm a slow, methodical painter, and I'll be damned if I'm going to spend five minutes prepping a model, only to sully a four hour paintjob with a poor canvas. Better to grit your teeth and do it right if the final result matters to you. I've also noticed that relatively few people, outside of avid converters, really view models holistically. The more you consider box/blister->game table/display cabinet a process and don't just think in terms of buy->paint->done, the less odious the task seems - in terms of total time/effort, it's merely a drop in the bucket.