Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello all

What is the consensus around painting Kabalites holding Splinter Rifles across the chest? Should I ideally be adding the gun after the main model is painted, or just painting around the gun on a fully assembled model?

Thanks

This is a bit of an eternal question in this hobby. You've essentially got a trade-off between painting your mini as nicely as possible, but adding a fiddly sub-assembly, or painting it to have it completed slightly faster. If you paint while fully assembled, most of the area under the rifle will be covered up, so you won't see those smaller details. However, you have more potential to accidentally get colour from the torso on the rifle, and vice versa, not to mention the unbearable agony of unpainted-bits-I-can-see-but-my-brush-can't-reach.
It's really up to you, and your standards. Do you want to finish your mini faster, or do you want to take more time, and possibly do a better job?
Take care, can't wait to see those kabalites finished! They're a great kit!

There's not any real detail behind the gun, so unless you've got some complex scheme in mind on the torso, painting the gun in position shouldn't be enough of an issue to bother with sub-assemblies.

I would also add to the above 2 posts that if your overall scheme consists of dark colors (as all DE schemes should be) on both the kabalite's chest armour and the gun itself, than sub-assembly is a waste of time IMO.

Just fully assemble, prime your preferred dark color (usually black) and paint from there. The added effort to "not get the gun paint on the chest" or vice-versa is so ridiculous minimal that it isn't worth it to sub-assemble.

I would only recommend sub-assembly if the colors you are using for both the armour and the gun contrast wildly. Like, so much so that you need to prime one of the other a much lighter color.
You see this more with Craftworld Eldar though, like Ulthwe, Aliatoc or Saim-Hann whose heads/guns are often white or shoud be primed white, while the armour is much darker

Personally, though, the only times I have ever done sub-assembly is when something is white and the rest is darker. Even for my Eldar that have body suits close to Kabal of the Blackheart, but bright yellow helmets like Alaitoc, I don't sub-assemble. Base paints are my friend

-

-

I painted mine fully assembled. Painted the chest area first and then the gun. Basically it worked out fine because it was a dark on dark scheme, even with my purple armors, so you can't really tell if there even is any unpainted areas.

I would also so it depends on how clean your glue work is too. If it glues up clean it doesn't really matter, but if you end up with glue sticking out everywhere than it will look worse than unpainted areas.

Thanks very much for all the responses. I'm probably going for an orange colour scheme, with some black details; defectors from Lugganath Craftworld.

I normally can't wait to build the models completely before painting, but I'm planning on using contrast paints and I'm worried that it will be difficult to fix any mistakes.

The Kabalites are lovely models, but seem incredibly tiny after getting used to painting Plague Marines.