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...modelling stage, for a trooper?

Cutting it from the sprue, cleaning mould lines and gluing it up takes me a good half an hour for a Space Marine. Am I slow?

Half an hour does seem a little slow for a single model. I would venture to say its about 15 to 20 depending on the complexity of the bits for me. This includes ensuring that the pose is how I want it, too.

Depends, do you want to be fast? Do you want to have imperfections?

I take _forever_ to do this stage, and probably enjoy it the most. That said, I did just buy some rubber polishing wheels that will make it faster.

I paint before assembly though, which makes it take a lot longer - so 30 minutes for a marine is probably a bit slow, but again, who are you trying to impress with your speedy man dolly assembly skillz?

It depends. Guardsmen or Orcs or other such basic massed troops get thrown together in a few minutes, whereas half an hour isn't unreasonable for HQ units, or heavily converted stuff.

It doesn't matter, how long it takes. Maybe you just enjoing doing it too much

15-20 minutes per trooper.

This is just to the "basic stage" though. No pouches, holsters or other crap.

I generally take my time with cleaning as mould lines etc are a PITA when you paint your model and realise that you've missed a bit. That gak haunts you forever lol

i think it depends... if your making models that are basically just pieces to a game on a table, or if your trying to make the space marine look unique or like he is doing something ... If im making just a blob of guardsmen, most of the time i will stick to the same 3 generic poses, when it comes to more elite choices, or vets, i like to make each and everyone stand out in their own way. therefore take alot longer
FMJ

Plenty of time: All my tacticals are in somewhat unique positions. I take half-an-hour or more to remove the bits, clean them one by one with all the care in the world and glue them how I want.

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Cm

I would say 60-90 minutes... I take my time with mold lines and other castingdefects... pays of in the end and I enjoy doing the work.

I think that might be a bit of an issue for me. I enjoy creating the pose and seeing the neat finished product of my work, but I hate scraping mould lines! Especially on shoulder pads and Space Marine legs.

Still, it's nowhere near as arduous as cleaning up Mantic miniatures - urgh!

I take _forever_ to do this stage and definitely enjoy it the least haha...

If it wasn't for cleaning flash/mold-lines I'd have 4 giant armies done by now (maybe).

Amen on the Mantic front, nuttersuclan... if you're talking about restic models. Their plastics aren't any better or worse than GW's, in my experience. With the exception of the ribbed bits (inside joints), though, I'd consider Space Marines about as easy as it gets. More highly textured models with undulating lines can be a downright to clean up. I want those sprue gates and mold lines gone, though, so I do it anyway. Sometimes I think I'd be better off gouging the whole seam out and resculpting the missing strip... [sigh]

That's not to say that I absolutely loathe the process, generally. When it goes smoothly, I can "go all zen on it" and scrape until I realize that my hands are cramping. When the sculpt and seam positioning are fighting me, though, I tend eventually to get frustrated and settle for "good enough." You can generally tell which areas were tackled first and last on complex jobs, based on the quality of the finish.

OP: For my own sake, I've never timed myself. I may very well be up in your range, but I think I vary so much, based on the particular sculpt, that it'd be hard to give a definitive answer, even if I broke out the stopwatch. Unless you're on a particularly tight schedule, I'd consider the universal ideal time expenditure to be the juncture of 'until I'm happy with it' and 'I'm losing my ing mind.'

I never quite took to calculus, but if I remember my math correctly, you could represent model prep as a function for optimization. With the x-axis representing time and the y-axis quality, plotting 'satisfaction with finish' as sin(x) and 'sanity' as cos(x)+1 will render a result of x=0.5. Thus, the optimal time spent (for any hobbyist, on any task, really) is precisely half of what would drive them mad as a hatter.

TLDR: Keep doing' what you're doin' because math (that is probably wrong).

 angelofvengeance wrote:
I generally take my time with cleaning as mould lines etc are a PITA when you paint your model and realise that you've missed a bit. That gak haunts you forever lol

This so much

On even my cheapest, basic troopers now ($2 models), I spend as much time as it takes to get rid of all the mold lines and flash, fix any imperfections in the sculpt, liquid green stuff/green stuff/milliput gaps.

I rarely paint a model as a whole part -- even a trooper will have the head done separately, at least, and sometimes the body in 2 or 3 parts.

At the very, very minimum, this is 15 minutes, but can easily be an hour if there are gaps or bad sculpting.

But, I am no longer ever in a rush. I would prefer to spend more time and have fewer, better-finished models, as there is no point in just adding to my finished model count now. I have like, a roomful of display cases filled with finished work, and as I add things, I have to either box things away, or buy more display cases >.< Or steal spaces in display cases that I let my friends use to store their models