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So, I recently acquired some Tempestus Scions to help support my Astrta Millitarum (IG). Because the models are a little more complicated than the IG I thought it would be best to paint them before assembly. I settled on Elysian Green for the armour rather early on, it's a colour that I used a lot in my knight and I like the idea that the scions go with the freeblade. I am not so sure what colour I should use for the gilding, to help me decide I've taken all of my "goldish" metallics and did a test batch with the Elysian Green. The colours are Balthasar Gold, Relictor Gold, Screamkng Bell, and Hashut Copper. Being a test run the detail is a little sloopy and I only did one coat, so nothing is very clean; still, wanted to get some other opinions before I committed to one combination. Sorry for the potato quality, these are the results:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/833337-Paints%20used.html
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/833340-.html
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/833341-.html
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/833342-.html

That is a very bad idea, once painted and you cut them off the sprues, you'll have mold lines, not to mention snubs where you cut from, you will have to paint again or they will look like gak.

Edit: what you want to do is 'smart/sub assembly' where you clean them off the sprues and assemble as much as you can without undercuts where your brush would have difficulty reaching. For the scions, you probably could assemble almost everything except the arm holding the gun. The commander's jacket comes off the arms.

I'm going to have to agree with Big Mac above, whilst painting models before assembly is a brilliant idea as it allows you to gain access to all the hard to reach areas of the model, leaving them on the sprue gives you more problems than help. Like stated you'll still have mould lines and parts unpainted where even if extremely carefully removed from the sprue will not look good.

Saying that I sub assemble almost every miniature that I paint. Here's a little guide on how I go about the process.

Step 1: Remove all parts of miniature from sprue and clean them up, by this I mean remove mould lines (GW and other companies do a specific tool for this) clean off any extra sprue left on the model after removing and also file down areas gently to give a 'clean' miniature.

Step 2: Grab some brass rod (I personally use 1.0mm) and some corks. For this all you have to do is use a small amount of super glue and attach a part of the individual pieces that will not be visible when painted to one end of the brass rod, and simply push the other end into the cork. For example where the arms join the torso would be a good place to glue them to the rod, or the underside of the feet, you get the idea.

Step 3: Prime, the individual pieces are now easily manoeuvrable and can be primed and the painted in the chosen scheme for your army.

I find this is the best way for painting miniatures, although a little more time consuming it allows easier painting of hard to reach places on the miniature and also saves you actually holding each individual part whilst trying to paint it! Hope this is a little helpful


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Here's an example of how I do it:

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Those are good ideas, and I will use them when I get down to paint these guys. I'm still not sure what color combination I should use though.

Personally i like that dark copper color (2nd one).

I'd do one of the middle ones, probably the more yellow one so as to avoid the christmas effect. Have you considered silver? It tends to go well with green.

I like the copper as well, it gives a bit of contrast. The golds are in their own way a little too close to the green, but that's only on a scale of contrast.