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I have painted a lot of Space marine armies now and have gotten pretty quick with it. How long in hours would you expect you spend painting an army? I see a lot a grey armies out there and am hoping that by showing people that you can smash it out in just a few sessions that more people will get painting!

I would typically spend about a day per model on an SM. I am incredibly slow though, and a bit of a perfectionist where I find myself painting parts of a model that will never be seen.

If I were working fast & on a basic paint job on basic models? About 15-30 minutes per marine. Longer for characters & more detailed things.

I tend to make the mistake of going with either black armour (loads of edge highlighting) or Chaos units with elaborate trim, so I can spend hours per model. Especially trying to edge-highlight black Aggressors. Too many panels on those models.

About 30 minutes per model seems like a reasonable benchmark if you're trying to make sure you've done three steps (basecoat/wash/highlight) on everything and are taking the time to pick out specific details.

I paint my models in two stages. The first is a fast, usually batch, paint to get them tabletop ready, but crucially I give myself permission to work on the details later. I know that I'd burn out if I focused on every model start to finish before moving on to the next. Getting a pack of models looking good from a distance is rewarding and encouraging. Then I have options on how to spend my hobby time instead of being stuck on a single task; I can choose to batch paint more models, or spend only a few minutes knocking out some belt buckles.

I try to spend about 30-40 minutes per model on the speed paint. I've got a painting plan that takes minimum effort, starting with the messiest layer and cleaning that up with each subsequent step. It's usually a base color, then a contrast/wash, and a highlight. I'll generally pick out prominent details on the face like teeth and lenses (since the eye is drawn to the face first), but ignore those details everywhere else. By the end of it there is no bare primer showing, and even details that will be painted a different color have the highlights of the surrounding area so blend in.

Then I can spend an hour or two per model banging out details. This is all the high concentration stuff, like lens effects, claws, belt buckles, rivet heads, some weathering.

My minis are all painted using more or less same techniques. Speed painting to me is just forcing myself into longer and more frequent sessions. It can be pain but I have pushed myself for certain events. Painting 20 hours in 2 days or 10 hours a day for a week yields fast results.