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Hey,

I just started to paint miniatures and the guys at game workshop said to assemble your guys then paint but I am finding it hard to do any detail work with everything put together.

Is it normal to fully assemble or do you partially assemble and then paint?

Any advise is appreciated.

- Breaker

Welcome to the hobby!

To answer your question, it's normal to do either. If you can get away with building the entire figure and paint from there then that's usually easier.

But something covering where the pieces glue together to keep the plastic glue-able is all you need to be able to paint individual bits like arms.

Find out what works for you and go from there. Good luck!

Welcome to Dakka and the hobby.

Both side of the argument have merit. Personally, I assemble as much as I can and still be able to get a brush everywhere. Then I paint. Assemble all the parts, and then go over it one more time to make sure everything is done.

^^^

I think that's your best bet. It'll take a little while longer to spray and paint more parts, rather than one model on a base, but it'll give you more access to all the detail bits.

hello there, here is some advice. maybe I could gauge further criticisms for language if I knew your age.

main answer to main question at bottom

there may be nicenice cerebral palsy early onsetters who tell you just do what you like nicenice

---------------------------------------------------------

this was said as, if you are asking the question, you should expect to not finish a full tac squad to any degree of quality.

maybe don't burn through 100+ pounds of models before you hate the difficulty in painting, but work them at a good pace, then youll learn, rather than rushing and ruining the experience for people like me, ie everyone, who cant deal with letting someone's investment in the lore or whatever down because of a shartshow of an army when they've spent 800 pounds on it and futting hate the thing. I think its pretty clear what I mean. and I'm quite pleased with the honesty lately that ive bothered to see here. or maybe ive started filtering.

I only play with painters.

it sounds, though, like you've already answered your own question, and the hobbiers of give me the mernies plees say so on top because they've painted enough models where that piece of advice applies, but is unnecessary to tell and the pieces in question wont bring such a question.

tbf, marines have a bus sized wodge of show me your weiner on the box.

you need to go through 4 or 5 brushes of hate and hate them until you know that brushes are for idiots sometimes.

but also, brushes come out on top.

hardly like I can speak from experience.

DONT glue before. but then there are the dildo weilders by butthole who cant stand faint mouldlines and the potential smudge here being so evident to people who've experienced it and never recovered, but I spray on the sprue and then cut. this, on some pieces, leaves bare plastic showing, but this can be Veasily sorted with 2 extra thin layers of paint because the paint is plastic also. the remaining imperfection can be dealt with far easier than the extra time in going over the some hundred parts in a kit with brush primer or gluing every single piece onto a skewer to prime.

I'm still learning, but becoming a good painter and modeller allows you to have a genuine anticipation for both results and the process.

I'm now 23 and haven't painted for a few months properly.

PS, I probably have £5-600 of models I cant be bothered to repaint.

PPS kharne before and after to come


Automatically Appended Next Post:
suits in pieces

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/812860-wip.html?m=2

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/812854-gluing.html?m=2

suit family, also be sparing with your glue because plastic cement holds very strong,
I snapped a couple of these for a repose because I slightly rushed the finish because
the next day had to be for genestealers

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/812874-.html?m=2

lost patrol
https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/812911-.html?m=2

broodlord without inside arms otherwise chest is impossible
https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/812913-.html?m=2

90% done broodlord, I tend to leave them here until I can be bothered for details I know I haven't finished
https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/812903-.html?m=2


I DID glue these genestealers before
https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/812907-.html?m=2

I don't have an airbrush, and basing with brushes is where brushing is slowed
https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/812834-base.html

also, modelling. put time into modelling otherwise a good paintjob is a waste
(new sculpts allow some leeway with this)
https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/839250-group1.html?m=2

Kharne not fully done
http://www.dakkadakka.com/s/i/at/2016/12/10/3a1761cac5d3786a68bd4bbb0c77249f_102932.jpg__thumb

http://www.dakkadakka.com/s/i/at/2016/12/10/95620ec0ff797c9d46043fba8a512a84_102932.jpg__thumb

and that is my entire contribution to dakka so far

got an hour to burn before a call with my dad, so sling away at my unthoroughness




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 anyname121 wrote:
^^^

I think that's your best bet. It'll take a little while longer to spray and paint more parts, rather than one model on a base, but it'll give you more access to all the detail bits.

definitely not true for the little while longer, especially once you know how to hold a brush, brush holding being a matter of actually being able to hold your minis close up and tell yourself how sh*t your own models are

no, its easier to paint them up as much as you can on sprue some of the time, get all the parts made up then build after you done the base coats and the details you want to ddo at that stage,

SOme parts i even take out, but keep on sprue tab for hi=olding, do the little details then glue if awkward angles.

once you built you can touch up, and add the more fancy effects,little touches such as highlights and general finishing.

Do it however much break down or asembley you are happy with and you get a good result.

 anyname121 wrote:


Find out what works for you and go from there. Good luck!

Is exactly the kind of attitude this hobby needs less of.
people work well in pairs and it reduces poor quality.

as such, meeting to play is full of aggressive curiosity masked by constant dice rolling
and there is an epidemic of suppressed true love that can only manifest in suppressed shame

ie, dude, its literally a paintbrush.
do you not spank?

'what works for you' being that you'll of course stick to churning out poopy models for 5 years or 5 months and then QUIT out of courtesy.

and good luck?
youre in for the ride, and he cant give you a course in painting, and so people who hate unthoroughness like me get penalised with emoticons for trying to get you to listen...
ah, even 40k is infested with the nail pulling fizzy skinnedness brought on by too much smeg of the corn

I didn't post here for a while because I knew my guys were garbage
then it became degree time again
so the links are a 2 week rush in summer after a 2 year hiatus and its nearly summer again.

people getting back to the hobby must have a hard time with the acuteness of their consideration for how the hobby has changed
and that its more now for people like me
students with enough expendable income to spend on toy soldiers so that sex, drugs, alcohol, music, pleasure in general, don't take my life.





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 jhe90 wrote:
no, its easier to paint them up as much as you can on sprue some of the time

you can even paint sprue
brush control
which you can see I have in heaps

BreakerOfChains, you can safely ignore most of what Snail22 said. Snail22, you have some info that's worthwhile in there, but this is not philosophy class, and you saying all new people suck is discouraging at best. Not going to give those posts any more of a response.

As for together or not...Firstly, do not EVER paint things on the sprue, unless the sprue only attaches somewhere on the part that is hidden. The only place I can think of where this is true is the SM heads(which still need mold lines scraped prior regardless). Otherwise you're going to get to re-paint parts after you remove the piece from sprue.

If you want extreme ease of access, and to get allll the details, you will want to mostly paint before assembly. If I am painting my SM and I want to get everything, I assemble the torso, and then leave everything else separate. That means legs, torso, head, each arm, each shoulder pack, backpack, and any weapons are all left separated. From there, I use sticky tac (usually blue) to secure pieces to something I can hold them with, and I secure them on a spot that doesn't require painting. From there paint, assemble, and there ya go.

If you want to assemble more, I'd put the legs, torso, arms, and shoulder pads together, and leave the backpack and head off, as well as the weapons.

At the end of the day, it's up to you, and different people paint both before and after assembly depending on preferences, I just find it easier before assembly for most things.

Another tip I once got was to undercoat models in parts, using different colours if wanted. For example, I could build a model Chaos Space Marine, but leave the Boltgun, shoulder pads and backpack off. I then could use white spray for the main body, green spray for the shoulder pads and backpacks, and metal colour spray for the weapon. Instant three-colour paintjob (pre-heresy Death Guard in this example) with no splotches of wrong paint in places where that colour shouldn't be. The start to shade and highlight the parts, again still separated. This way any black shade on the weapon wouldn't simply spill onto the white armour, for which I would use an entirely different colour to shade. Again, no spilling of colours on parts where you don't want them. Then assemble the parts into the complete model andfinish small details (eyes, skin, hair, straps, power weapon glows, etc), or do those details before assembly.

I'm just popping in to say I'd love to see a chapter of Blood Angles.

"GEOMETRY FOR THE EMPEROR!"

 Snail22 wrote:

 anyname121 wrote:


Find out what works for you and go from there. Good luck!

Is exactly the kind of attitude this hobby needs less of.
people work well in pairs and it reduces poor quality.

as such, meeting to play is full of aggressive curiosity masked by constant dice rolling
and there is an epidemic of suppressed true love that can only manifest in suppressed shame

ie, dude, its literally a paintbrush.
do you not spank?

'what works for you' being that you'll of course stick to churning out poopy models for 5 years or 5 months and then QUIT out of courtesy.

and good luck?
youre in for the ride, and he cant give you a course in painting, and so people who hate unthoroughness like me get penalised with emoticons for trying to get you to listen...
ah, even 40k is infested with the nail pulling fizzy skinnedness brought on by too much smeg of the corn

I didn't post here for a while because I knew my guys were garbage
then it became degree time again
so the links are a 2 week rush in summer after a 2 year hiatus and its nearly summer again.

people getting back to the hobby must have a hard time with the acuteness of their consideration for how the hobby has changed
and that its more now for people like me
students with enough expendable income to spend on toy soldiers so that sex, drugs, alcohol, music, pleasure in general, don't take my life.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jhe90 wrote:
no, its easier to paint them up as much as you can on sprue some of the time

you can even paint sprue
brush control
which you can see I have in heaps

My hands shake more than normal. Its easier for me to do much as I can in the sprue stage, its larger, its easier to hold, its just easier for me to dp that then as a first stage, and then part assemble and then paint up from there.

For Blood Angels and other Tactical Marines you can still access most of the model once it's assembled, however, the Boltgun gets in way of detailing the chest eagle and armor pipes on the stomach. I'd paint the Boltgun separately, but hold off on gluing it into place until I finished the Marine otherwise.

(It also helps avoid making mistakes and getting the black paint from the Boltgun onto your bright red armour, which requires a bunch of coats to cover over.)

It may be easiest to leave the right arm and weapon as one piece (that is, arm, shoulder pad and boltgun) you install after painting. If you're doing anything complex with the backpack, painting that separately can help as well, though I always found holding it to be incredibly fiddly.

John Prins wrote:
It may be easiest to leave the right arm and weapon as one piece (that is, arm, shoulder pad and boltgun) you install after painting. If you're doing anything complex with the backpack, painting that separately can help as well, though I always found holding it to be incredibly fiddly.

I do backpacks on sprue and touch up before asembely.

the Mk3 packs might require a diffrenet soloution, it worked for mk4 though.

I'm a bit of a different style painter here. I paint piece meal, each part separate from the other, then assemble as I complete parts.

My usual methodology is use blu-tack to stick the mini together and get the pose how I want it. Then, I use blue tack to 'mask' over all the individual parts where they connect together. Then I base coat everything, remove the blu-tack masks and start painting.

First is the base, then the legs, followed by the torso and helmet, once the body is done I start working on the arms and weapons, get them all assembled, then shoulder pads, and lastly the back pack to finish the model.

It's a lot more time consuming to do a model this way, however you can generally complete one to two parts of a model in a fairly short painting session in most cases. It helps keep me motivated to paint seeing the parts individually completed quickly and then coming together one at a time.

It also allows for you to really get every part of the mini painted nicely. Here's one of my tactical marines as an example:







It really boils down to finding what method works best for you and produces results you can be happy with.

I suggest doing what others have said here, and sub assemble the torso and the legs, get the base finished up with basing and paint, then paint the body and legs sub-assembly and attach it to the base. Paint the helmet, attach it, then get the arms and weapons/shoulder pads done and finish up with the back pack.

If you'd like any help and suggestions on painting and or technique, feel free to shoot me a PM if you'd like and I'll go over my process in more detail, what paints I use, etc. if you'd like that info.

Best of luck, and I look forward to seeing your stuff once you get some paint on minis and can share some pictures.

Till then, take it easy for now.

-Red__Thirst-