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I am definatly considering an air brush just for base coats and primers though, I just dont have enough free time to get much accomplished

Never exactly time myself but picked the hour option, though its probably between 30 mins and an hour depending on the mini

On a side note wasnt there a near identical poll to this a couple of months ago, or is it just me

given that this post originated in jan 2012, you've probably seen it once or twice before :p

Firstly depends on the miniature I'm painting, complexity of paint job. But generally they can be "tabletop" ready in about 15-20mins. But for the quality I want it takes hours. I still have chaos marines I started about 2 years ago!
In my defence I now have 90boyz, 40 angels and in the region of another 70chaos to paint..... I know its too
Much!

Well, for a basic trooper, depends on how many their are to paint

ogres.... 2-30 minutres total each (do a few at a time)
skaven.... 5-6 minutes total each (do hordes at a time)

average for the average troop, I'd say around 15 minutes per guy though

I think it really depends on the model. Im trying to do some unique heavy weapon imperial guard, so those are taking me about 5 hours each (2 for painting, 3 for conversion). My old space marines and dark angels take an hour for the torso, but its hard to measure since I try to do a squad at a time.
My biggest problem is my unpainted models vastly outnumber my painted ones, so I get distracted with all my projects. I end up fast-tracking some stuff, and sometimes end up doing a sub-standard job on it so it can be done (like my kroot; I hate kroot). If I am able to paint at a reasonable rate (about 12 hours a week, or a full squad) I think I have enough models to last me for over 6 months of painting.
I actually find basing can be more time consuming than painting, especially if you get into water effects.

Anywhere from one hour to two hours. depending on the race of the model. A Necron can be done to a high standard in an hour, but a space marine can take two or more for me to do to a high standard.

Heroes take me tens of hours, I treat everything like a display piece.

I play guard ... weeks
tho I'm still adding to a platoon I started 2 years ago!

I've spent about 4 or 5 hours painting a Chaos Cultist I think....

It takes longer when I do not know what colour scheme I want to go with.

For example: my first Chaos Cultist of the group of Renegades had a colour scheme that just happened and then I decided to add chemical stains to his coat and a skull print to his gas mask and I just get carried away.

When I started my Orks I would spend about three hours painting one and from what I remember, that was a rough job too.

In all fairness though, I'm using the smallest brush I could get from my closest Games Workshop and I really enjoy painting so I'll take my time.

I have a load of really badly painted Tau that I want to get to work on but the Kroot really put me off... I've re painted one of them and they went from green to white.

takes me 2 mins per necron warrior.

God I love them.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
takes me 2 mins per necron warrior.

God I love them.

It takes me 2 minutes to sit down and get my paints out. Just sayin'.

I've only done about 25 fire warriors, but each of those took about 45 min to an hour to get at what i would call "three color minimum plus a little" (i.e. some extra colors on doodads). Not sure on exact timing, but I remember queuing up a bunch of MST3K on my laptop for background noise and getting about 3 tau done in 2 movies. Of course, I was using the fine detail brush for everything and going slowly in dread of paint getting where I didn't want it.

Now I actually know that drybrushing and washes are a thing I think I could do a lot better in the same time. On these guys I was way too worried about maintaining the black primer coat in low areas. I should have just thrown paint on then went back with a fine detail brush or wash and added the black back in.

http://s985.photobucket.com/user/dementedwombatUSA/library/Painting%20Examples?sort=3&page=1

This was black spray primer. The grey was just the foundation base coat gray (I tried adding other greys but everything was too light for what I wanted). Red was the base coat red with whatever the darkest color GW makes on top of it (and the second darkest for mechanical doodads).

 The Apothecary wrote:
I think the longest I spent on a Basic troop was 3 days. But I tend to spend a few hours on a every model.

However I spent 3 minutes on my Necron Army

This made me lol.
My buddy's necron army is still in the process 2 years later XD.
BUT. his monolith looks absolutely beautiful

About 15-20 mins for boyz, longer for more important units

some of the vehicles can take days


Automatically Appended Next Post:
About 15-20 mins for boyz, longer for more important units

some of the vehicles can take days

ive got orks down to 10 flat including base coating (not dry times tho) then again my orks all wear brown overalls essentially.

I get about 2 or 3 colors and the base done and play. After each game if I think they fit into my list they get the full paint job. Kinda my way of having a MVP type of painting.

Sort of impossible to say since I batch paint. I spent 2 hours painting brass trim on 5 Chaos Marines last night, but that takes forever and is probably the longest part. I'd estimate that it takes about 6-10 hours to paint up a squad of Chaos Marines. Meanwhile, I can paint Imperial Guard tanks very quickly...the economy of scale is different because the work lends itself very well to batch painting.

When you're painting trim you don't save a whole lot of time by batch painting, but if you're doing sponge chipping or something like that...you save a ton of time. I can do ~3-5 Imperial Guard tanks in a 2 or 3 hour session and have them looking very presentable. Infantry take a bit longer but not by much.

Depending on the troop, 30mn to 1 hour : a grey knight marine would take more than 1 hour, but a basic termagaunt would be 30mn max

I paint Spehsh Mahreehns so I only take like 90 minutes to 150 minutes to basecoat, wash, highlight and all that.

I wrote an hour, although I'm not exactly sure because I do them on mass. I assume if I just sat there and painted one, I could complete it in an hour.

I always feth up my miniature if I dont take any breaks, so i'm never rushing.. Always taking my time

As others have said, batch painting makes it a little tricky to estimate--and of course it depend on the troops!

Ork boyz are simple, and if they end up a little messy, that's part of the charm.

I wanted to have a much brighter, more colorful Army with Empire...and I think I made it through a whole unit of Greatswords before simplifying my techniques.

I may not spend a whole lot of time on an individual trooper, but I feel like as a whole they are a defining part of my army, and viewed together they should look good.

One of the things I like about skirmish style games is I feel like I can take the time with my basic troop models; there's no crush of "ZOMG I have 50 more of these guys" or "well, I just need the base colors on here, a few minor mistakes won't be noticed on a table with 100+ models."

 mega_bassist wrote:
Takes me about an hour per Fire Warrior...Crisis Suits are about 2.5-3 hours...Man, I'm a slow painter

Me too

It depends.
If its a special character or model, I can spend a couple of hours easy fixing this and that detail over and over. Sometimes, the brush moves right and it can be quick. My Captain America went smooth and I got him built and painted in about an hour.
If its a basic troop, I usually do the whole squad together. 1st color on all. Second color on all. Third color on all. Small details on all. etc. etc. etc.
I can get a squad of 10men done in about an hour.

Half an hour, basic ones

I generally spend between 8-12 hours painting, another 1-2 hours basing.

Took me a little over 7 hours to finish my 5 wraithguard units, not including finishing their bases, they are my basic troop choice cause of the spiritseer aha

I spend 1 to 2 hours panting Fire Warriors, Pathfinders and Kroot

It'll take me a few days, but that's because I only have a small daily painting window during my lunch break at the office. On top of that, I tend to do assembly line painting so one day will be all chainswords, another day will be all helmets, etc. Well I suppose if I were to divide the time equally, it would be several hours/troop. Ah whatever - I dunno, I'm tired, hadn't had my coffee and I want to go back to bed - -

Really depends on scheme. Darker schemes are finished a lot faster then lighter ones in my experiance. Painting kabalites takes 20-30 minutes, but god forbid guardians in Biel-Tan colours.... hell on earth if you make a mistake.