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Hard to describe what I mean, but if you take a look at the maulerfiend model, particularly the tentacles, you can see that they are like metal wires on the "inside" of them, with a wrapping of flesh or whatever around it, and you see the metal innards through occasional gaps in the sheath...

So I'm doing the painting right now, and I can't decide if it's better to do the low level "innards" first, or the base of the outside areas. Is there a common knowledge right way to do these kinds of things?

tyranids have a similar problem .. i tend to do the skin layerr, then after the skin is done i take my finest brush and do the inner parts. its tedioous but has given me the best results.

Lord_Ghazghkull wrote:
tyranids have a similar problem .. i tend to do the skin layerr, then after the skin is done i take my finest brush and do the inner parts. its tedioous but has given me the best results.

Yeh I remember very similar issues back in my Tyranid days, the decor on venom cannons and other weapons have the same kind of design. On one of my pieces I just did, I did the silver first then painted the 'skin' around it after, but it was slower than just doing a basecoat over the whole area (while trying to generally avoid the recessed parts), which is what I did on the second piece. I havent yet done the recessed areas on that one though, so I can't say if it ended up better or not!

I think this will be personal preference really. I paint the larger area first and then the detail, unless the recessed area has a gap between the two, like some dark eldar coven models have. On this case I find it impossible to not touch the outer layer when painting the inside. In general though, I feel more comfortable painting the small stuff after, even if I do hit the larger area it's easy to fix where as going the other was ends in completely repainting the small area.

glad i could help

I find it's best to do the basecoat, then the recessed places, then the higher places. If you start high and then go to the recessed places, you're going to have to redo some of your work unless you are literally jabbing straight down into the recess, which will destroy brushes extremely quickly. Painting the higher areas there's VERY little risk of accidentally hitting a recessed area. Basecoat first regardless because you're going to usually have to clean up anyway.

Pretend you are dressing the mini.

I've had better results painting "inside-out". Get all the fiddly bits and hard to reach places done first, then come back for the easier stuff.

I've been painting models from the inside out ever since I started. I picked up the habit from a painting guide that came with a Ral Partha boxed set, and never having trouble with it, I've never changed techniques.

The only issue I had with the "inside out" process, is that it makes the easy areas hard to paint, as you have to be careful to avoid all the fiddly detail bits you've already painted