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Which 40k army do you think is the most difficult to paint well?

Orks.

Annoying little fethers to paint well.

Unlike almost everthing else they tend to have straps, glyphs, teeth big enough for actual painting, rust, weathering, cloth, etc.

Marines you can just spraypaint, paint the guns and a few details and call it good. Not so, Orks

I find SoB without helmets to be impossible to get the face right.

IG catachan are also a pain to make look decent as they have skin everywhere. That is why I collect DKoK.

Necrons would be the easiest - Spray black, paint dark metallic, drybrush light metallic, apply wash.

I have only painted the one army so far. Eldar. I've found them to be hard for a few reasons. My chosen colour scheme is black, with white offsetting it. Both of these colours are hard to highlight, and painting white on black is a nightmare to make look crisp. Aspect warriors all have their own colours, which means that while I have a scheme, I also have a bunch of units that I had to learn and buy paints for that are completely different. And all the models are skinny and intricate, unlike marines.

I imagine Dark Eldar is just as difficult for similar reasons. And they they must be a pain to look after, because of all the spiky bits/hooks/plastic.

 Ascalam wrote:
Orks.

Annoying little fethers to paint well.

Unlike almost everthing else they tend to have straps, glyphs, teeth big enough for actual painting, rust, weathering, cloth, etc.

Marines you can just spraypaint, paint the guns and a few details and call it good. Not so, Orks

I find SoB without helmets to be impossible to get the face right.

IG catachan are also a pain to make look decent as they have skin everywhere. That is why I collect DKoK.

I have only painted the one army so far. Eldar. I've found them to be hard for a few reasons. My chosen colour scheme is black, with white offsetting it. Both of these colours are hard to highlight, and painting white on black is a nightmare to make look crisp. Aspect warriors all have their own colours, which means that while I have a scheme, I also have a bunch of units that I had to learn and buy paints for that are completely different. And all the models are skinny and intricate, unlike marines.

I imagine Dark Eldar is just as difficult for similar reasons. And they they must be a pain to look after, because of all the spiky bits/hooks/plastic.

Paint the howling griffons space marine chapter properly then get back to me on why orks, eldar, and ig are harder.

To paint well, and look good after I would say nids.

I love to paint but nids are not one I look forward to doing ever, there's so much small detail and blending going on, add to that its a horde army meaning there's tons to paint when you get them........
Honestly I don't see where eldar even compare (no offense to anyone) , I've had them and while they are tedious and small I just don't see them as the most difficult. Daemons are also worth a mention if you want them to look good

 Gitsmasher wrote:


Paint the howling griffons space marine chapter properly then get back to me on why orks, eldar, and ig are harder.

That's not an army, that's a paint scheme. Painting the same scheme on eldar/ork/ig would be even more difficult than on blocky marines with their large, round surfaces. Consider yourself 'gotten back to'.

I think the hardest from a technical standpoint is probably any SM chapter using halved or quartered armour, as getting stright edges on them takes massive skill.

From the standpoint of making them look good, I'd go for Eldar as some of the models are amazingly well detailed but some are pretty poor (Guardians) or Catachans for the same reason.

I don´t really know but DKOK seems to be the easiest because I have yet to see one whos paint job is not at least amazing...

I chose eldar mainly because of all the colourful aspect warriors and gems which cover their armour/vehicles.

Orks are also very tricky to paint well. If you screw up an ork paint job it will end up looking like some cheap toy. Alternatively if you can master the shading/highlighting of their skin in addition to using proper weathering techniques, you'll end up with something amazing.

Thousand Sons. Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Black, Green and Red (Gems). These are all basic colours on a single model.
Try painting the squad and see how much you hate spiky gold trim by the end of it.

Sisters, because the sculpts have a lot going on in small spaces and you can't do it in parts to make it easier.

Hardest to paint to tabletop standard? Probably Orks. As noted, there is a huge amount of detail that needs to be picked out, and even a very basic color scheme is going to require a six to seven colors (green for skin, white for eyes and teeth, brown for leather, clan color for armor, clan off color for trousers/topknots/trim, metal for gun, red for tongue.) Compare that to, say, Ultramarines, where you can get away with five, and larger panels of each color (blue for armor, boltgun for the weapons, red for eyes/seals, white for scroll work/shoulder pads, black for squad markings) Simply put, Orks take the most work to look fully painted.

The hardest armies to make look amazing are, ironically, space marines. Highlighting those big, nearly flat panels takes skill, squad and chapter badges take precision, and the expected level of detail is much higher (highlighed purity seals, drilled barrels, etc.) Nealry every other army can "cheat" with big chunks of models, with washes, drybrushes, or other simple techniques. A really good looking SM army is a work of craftsmanship.

Voted Nids, not out of technical difficulty per se, just in finding an original and striking color scheme, which for Nids is key imo.
Some of the best schemes I've seen have been taken from nature - insects or sea life and the like.

My money is Catachans. All that flesh must be nearly impossible to do well.

Space Marines are also hard to do good, but they're maybe the second easiest to do "good enough".

 Ouze wrote:
My money is Catachans. All that flesh must be nearly impossible to do well.

Space Marines are also hard to do good, but they're maybe the second easiest to do "good enough".

Flesh is relatively easy to thanks to washes.

There's no contenders for me : Orks.

I need 27 different paints for a basic Ork Boy (32 for a Loota) vs 12 for a Space Marine. Their models are loaded with details and are not homogenous : skin, pants, shirt, shoes, teeth, nails, tongue, earrings, rings, helmet, armor plates, loincloth, symbols, targeters, armbands, etc...

Because of all these different areas, you need to be extra careful else your models will look like clowns.

Eldars in comparison can look cool with a minimalistic color palette. To make them look awesome of course is a different matter.

Black Legion.

Painting black is hard.

I think that Necrons might well be the hardest to paint well. They are very easy to get to a tabletop standard, but it's rare to see ones which actually look good; most of those seem to rely on OSL and NMM, both of which are really difficult.