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So this isn't really a tip or a question, just mini rant. My summer painting project was to bang out about 60-70 troops for my 30k Blood Angels legion, and while I'm nowhere near finishing them, I have at least gotten their armor totally done, and that by itself was one of the most tedious painting projects I've ever undertaken.
30k marines look awesome, but MAN are they time consuming to paint

The real reason the imperium won the heresy was that the loyalists chose to remove the studs from their armour, whilst the traitors instead added banding and spikes underneath their studs.

Thus, the loyalist armour was around 15% faster to produce and paint up, so they ultimately had the greater numbers when it counted.

Crystal-Maze wrote:
The real reason the imperium won the heresy was that the loyalists chose to remove the studs from their armour, whilst the traitors instead added banding and spikes underneath their studs.

Thus, the loyalist armour was around 15% faster to produce and paint up, so they ultimately had the greater numbers when it counted.

I BELIEVE IT!

That's the reason the the old marks got phased out.

Dry brush my friend.

I'm trying to make these guys look good :/
also you still need to paint between the studs
also drybrushing doesn't help when there's just one or two odd studs the way they have on their backpacks and vambraces, not to mention all the extra overlapping plates.

There's just no way around it, older marks of armor are just way wayyyy more slow to paint than VI or VII

This may be heretical thinking, but surely some or all of the studs can just be painted the same colour as the armour...

 Flinty wrote:
This may be heretical thinking, but surely some or all of the studs can just be painted the same colour as the armour...

Yup, that’s heretical.

<Blam!>

While it might be irritating to paint all of them, it is a nice little bit of nostalgia to be painting studs again. At least the ones on the new kits (like the BaC box) are pretty well defined. The studs on the old RTB01 beakies were soft on detail.

But on the plastics, the stud centre axis is the same on all the studs so the ones at the edges look really crap (& more difficult to paint). Its the same with the contemptor exhaust stacks. Really disappointing.

Braille marines are one period I'm glad that I missed out on.

I painted about 80 calth marines over June and July, edge of the brush and gloss varnish and pin washing around them speeds up painting the studs immensely.

I kept mine the same color as the armor or pad. It's just a lot of extra painting to slow you down and/or trip you up. I add chipping on the armor with a sponge, and the studs, being raised, take the chipping really well.

 Flinty wrote:
This may be heretical thinking, but surely some or all of the studs can just be painted the same colour as the armour...

I do that for some of the studs, but whether I'm doing gold on red or red on red, the process is still the same and it's quite a bit more time consuming than painting a smooth armored plate.

(I slather the entire area dark red, then by hand dot all the studs copper or lighter red, then I slather the entire area in brown ink, then I go back with a lighter red to paint between all the studs, this is the real time consuming part, then I very carefully dot the studs again either a very light red or gold)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gorgon wrote:
I kept mine the same color as the armor or pad. It's just a lot of extra painting to slow you down and/or trip you up. I add chipping on the armor with a sponge, and the studs, being raised, take the chipping really well.

This sounds like a cool technique. I've never tried painting with a sponge before, but maybe I'll give it a shot on my next batch of 30k marines. I've got some unassembled MKV guys that are going to look amazing but be a total nightmare

i tend to ignore the leg studs but i do a nice job on shoulder pads.

like, they had no time for decoration and armour just got sprayed up.

Pads, well, nice pads are required!

 jhe90 wrote:
i tend to ignore the leg studs but i do a nice job on shoulder pads.

like, they had no time for decoration and armour just got sprayed up.

Pads, well, nice pads are required!

Oh yeah, you're kicked out of the Legion if your pauldrons aren't on fleek That's the one thing all Warhammer factions can agree on.

 Walnuts wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:
i tend to ignore the leg studs but i do a nice job on shoulder pads.

like, they had no time for decoration and armour just got sprayed up.

Pads, well, nice pads are required!

Oh yeah, you're kicked out of the Legion if your pauldrons aren't on fleek That's the one thing all Warhammer factions can agree on.

I normaly do a darker base colour with gold on the studs and rim.
simple but flashy

I just paint the studs black then do em up in Leadbelcher. They're easy.

Paint your miniatures and enjoy it.

 Zach wrote:
Paint your miniatures and enjoy it.

That is the hobby, yes. Also sometimes you roll dice and play game, too.

 Walnuts wrote:

 Zach wrote:
Paint your miniatures and enjoy it.

That is the hobby, yes. Also sometimes you roll dice and play game, too.

That’s just an urban legend.

Just started another BaC squad on it’s way across my paintbench. Ultramarines with gold trim. Studs to match.

Thin base coat of blue, just paint over the studs at this point.
Paint studs/trim gold
Wash golds with brown ink.
Cleanup pass of blue, careful this time to avoid studs.
Nightshade wash to tint blue, but also over the studs (it mostly rolls off)
Touch up the tops of the studs with the gold.

Ends up like this, and is not that hard to do.

Sharpie makes metallic silver and gold markers that have a fairly fine tip. I sadly didn't discover it until AFTER i painted 90 percent of my Iron Hands, but it allowed me to finish up the last 10 percent the night before a tournament.

It is so handy for quickly knocking out the studs. Give it a shot if you are doing metal studs.

Below is an example of a model that I used the sharpie on for the metal trim:

 FoxPhoenix135 wrote:
Sharpie makes metallic silver and gold markers that have a fairly fine tip. I sadly didn't discover it until AFTER i painted 90 percent of my Iron Hands, but it allowed me to finish up the last 10 percent the night before a tournament.

It is so handy for quickly knocking out the studs. Give it a shot if you are doing metal studs.

Below is an example of a model that I used the sharpie on for the metal trim:

Dang that's nice work there.

I'm not overly fond of the "bonding studs" on the armor, and I felt that the BaC stuff was overstudded, so for the first half of my Alpha Legion (90 guys worth), I went through and put the legs into batches of sprue part number. Then, I went through each type and put some fairly subjective criteria to them. I really don't like studs on the kneepads, so any legs that had those went into the removal pile. Same with any where the studs were situated such that some were distorted, due to plastic undercut issues. All of those legs, the studs were cut off with a knife and then smoothed out with a sanding stick. It actually went surprisingly quick, they cut off very well, and were smoothed out with a few passes per stud area. So my AL will have about 1/3 or less of the studs than a group built straight from the box.

When I get around to my Thousand Sons, I'm just going to do away with all of the armor studs. They don't work with my mental image aesthetic that I want for the army.