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Why is it seeming that most people would rather have unpainted grey models on the table top then modestly painted models? I by no means am a professional painter just look at my gallery, but I have a huge sense of pride in the fact I refuse to field an unpainted model, even if my models are not the best. Also how can someone grief my models for not being exquisite but field and entire unpainted army? I honestly don't think mine look that bad. Overall I dont care, me and my spouse love painting the models and fielding them makes me happy So honestly I dont care what people say, I am just wondering what dakka thinks

I don't think that it's a preference for unpainted models, it's just that some people don't have the time, or feel that if they can't paint well then they'd be better to not paint at all.

*resets clock* Looks like it's that time again!

I will not lie, I field unpainted minis all the time. My two armies, by their very nature, are an absolute chore to paint (horde infantry guard, and orks. I have over 180 or so guardsmen alone, not to mention 11 or so tanks of various types, and that's not even touching the orks) For a guy like me, it just takes a long time to get all that painted, while assembling it is relatively quick, even with all the conversions and kit bashes I do. I don't want to wait half a year to play with these guys that I bought, and darn it, I intend to play with them. So I field them, grey plastic and all.

I don't like doing it, and I set a goal to always paint at least SOMETHING every week, even if it's only a couple of guardsmen or ork boyz. I will not be done anytime soon, but I won't let it stop me from playing either. Plus, my store has a lot of tourney players, so it's not like I'm the only one who doesn't have painted armies. We all understand why our armies aren't painted yet, and make an effort to encourage each other to paint regardless, and try to really congratulate someone who finally *finishes* an army.

The other problem is that I REALLY suck at painting, and fielding some of the models I've painted are even worse eye sores than the unpainted ones. There's a reason why my gallery doesn't have any painted models in it yet

Ah. that I guess I can understand, still begs the question is someone who has no painted models allowed to judge mine?

 Rysgame wrote:
Ah. that I guess I can understand, still begs the question is someone who has no painted models allowed to judge mine?

I've never heard of people doing that. I'm sure there are some idiots out there who will, but you can always use the line of "cool story man. Show me some of your painted models so I can learn some tricks, i'm always open to improvement."

That way, they'll either put up or shut up.

It depends on who you are...I have a few friends that can paint moderately well and do so very fast....and refuse to field an unpainted model/unit. I wish I could have that conviction. I can paint very well, maybe not Golden Daemon well, but much better than table-top quality. But I paint painfully slowly.

Now, I have a strange perfectionist nature that wont allow me to paint a model that would be--in my opinion (perhaps based on unrealistic standards I have set for myself)--'half-@$$ed.'

But, if I restricted myself to only playing with fully painted units/models, I think I might have been able to play about a handful of games in the past 20+ years. All these years looking at 'Eavy Metal paint-jobs, studio models photographed for marketing and packaging minis (think Rackham)...and I have intimidated myself into thinking I will never satisfy my own expectations. Its really rather crippling. Also, there is the self esteem issue. (I'm getting all personal here, revealing stuff I wouldn't talk about if the anonymity of the interwebz wasn't lulling me into a false sense of safety) I feel like if I never finish a model and go "There, its done" I won't have anyone picking it up and judging it (me), as I can simply state: "You think so? Yeah, thanks. No, its not quite finished yet." Sometimes when I get the urge to paint, I somehow end up cleaning my desk, doing the dishes, or folding laundry...procrastinating! It's a real, palpable fear that is completely irrational and counterproductive...but there you have it.

So, I end up having tons of really well cleaned, converted, and assembled models...all primered black, ready to paint.

I wonder if anyone else on here has similar experiences with painting?

I agree with MrMoustaffa. Some people just need to put up or shut up.

as far as fielding unpainted armies, Some people have the time, and the desire too, others don't. I don't paint for other people I paint for myself, and the sake of having an identity to the minis I paint.

But then, People don't realize, that a proper colored primer, and some wash goes along way...

Ralis wrote:
I agree with MrMoustaffa. Some people just need to put up or shut up.

as far as fielding unpainted armies, Some people have the time, and the desire too, others don't. I don't paint for other people I paint for myself, and the sake of having an identity to the minis I paint.

But then, People don't realize, that a proper colored primer, and some wash goes along way...

I wished that worked for orks or guardsmen without making them looking like garbage.

Should've started a friggin necron army *Grumbles*

Some of us have too many armies to get it all apinted as well. I paint when time allows but also enjoy playing both 40k and fantasy whether my armies are painted or not. It is an equal opportunity hobby after all.

It was expensive but getting an airbrush has motivated me to paint. Doing a base coat takes no time at al, especially in batches of 5-10 models. I really like painting details so this works for me. 1 hour every evening and ill be done soon!

I don't play that often and when I do I want to play with a fully painted army. My main army is fully painted to 2000 points and the rest of it is part painted up to about 3000 points.

The army I am working on is still being assembled and painted to 2000 points and has been on the go for over a year. Over that time I've played maybe a couple of games?

I've started doing that now that I have a base army I can just add units to, but people don't seem to judge where I'm around. There's a kid who plays orks and paints awfully but enjoys himself so much you can't fault him, the guy with no time so three exquisitely painted models and a whole lot of "ninjas" (black primer).

The only guy who gets judged is the guy who shows up every week with.... Unpainted mech guard manticore spam! Unpainted draigowing! Unpainted long fang spam! Unpainted French bakery! And swaps out his army for the new flavor of the week as soon as he loses to someone, which the rest of the club now calls "the honor of banishing another army to the cheese dimension".

So the point of my story is: the only reason people should get ragged on for an unpainted army is if they're being TFG with it. If anyone has an army they've put time and love into, if it happens to be OP then it's not their fault, like all the people who have lovingly maintained Necron armies, or all metal grey knights.

I'm just happy because after five weeks of two turn tablings rampaging through the club I finally managed to banish the French bakery with my ork dakka army. First time I've ever beaten that guy.

I have not painted many of my models.

I have, however, sprayed them black.

If I could go back I wouldn't have done my armies like the way I have. I would have bought, say, 20 models and painted them then bought another bunch.

Let me tell you a long and boring story.

I started with the Mines of Moria paint set, loved painting the models and then decided to start Easterlings. When I went to an Aussie GW, I bought a stack of Easterlings because I knew I couldn't buy them in my LGS. This, unfortunately, resulted in 60+ unpainted models. Seing the ocean of grey put me off big time.

When I started my CSM I screwed up again. I started off small, but then my friend gave me all his models because he had quit. Again, a horde of plastic and metal lay in front of me (but at least they were spray painted black this time!).

When I start my Fantasy and Hordes armies I'll start small. But that will be hard for me.

Back on topic, I must admit that I much prefer painted armies. But that's never going to happen for me.

 Fango wrote:
It depends on who you are...I have a few friends that can paint moderately well and do so very fast....and refuse to field an unpainted model/unit. I wish I could have that conviction. I can paint very well, maybe not Golden Daemon well, but much better than table-top quality. But I paint painfully slowly.

Now, I have a strange perfectionist nature that wont allow me to paint a model that would be--in my opinion (perhaps based on unrealistic standards I have set for myself)--'half-@$$ed.'

But, if I restricted myself to only playing with fully painted units/models, I think I might have been able to play about a handful of games in the past 20+ years. All these years looking at 'Eavy Metal paint-jobs, studio models photographed for marketing and packaging minis (think Rackham)...and I have intimidated myself into thinking I will never satisfy my own expectations. Its really rather crippling. Also, there is the self esteem issue. (I'm getting all personal here, revealing stuff I wouldn't talk about if the anonymity of the interwebz wasn't lulling me into a false sense of safety) I feel like if I never finish a model and go "There, its done" I won't have anyone picking it up and judging it (me), as I can simply state: "You think so? Yeah, thanks. No, its not quite finished yet." Sometimes when I get the urge to paint, I somehow end up cleaning my desk, doing the dishes, or folding laundry...procrastinating! It's a real, palpable fear that is completely irrational and counterproductive...but there you have it.

So, I end up having tons of really well cleaned, converted, and assembled models...all primered black, ready to paint.

I wonder if anyone else on here has similar experiences with painting?

I'm totally with you!
I'm a perfectionist and I always have a 'finished image' in my mind of how I want my model to look. The stuff I do get done is easily capable of competing for a 'Best Appearance' award at any tournament, but it's not upto the level of Golden Demon.
Of corse, I'm also a procrastinator too, and I'm forever looking at my primed models and thinking, 'how can I improve you before I paint you?'

When I do sit down to paint, I'm excruciatingly slow at it! I think the continents actually drift faster than me finishing a model!
Add to this my need to always have unique looking models and thus I convert/kitbash every single army, AND my 'Army ADD' problems...

So sure, I play with unpainted stuff, but I've recently been setting goals for my Daemons & CSM's and my planned allies for them;
- I won't use any models until they're at least fully built, including the basing.
- Then, before I use say a bare grey unit again, I'll insist on at least getting it primed and ready for some colour, weather permitting of corse! (Canadian weather can REALLY suck most days!)
- Once they're primed, I won't allow myself to go more than two gaming nights without at least putting the first main basecoat on them.
- Once the basecoat is on them, I'll try to do at least a little something every day on them, even if it's just say the first, (of many, many), layers!

Sure it's super slow, but then, I can't bring myself to rush a model 'just to get it painted'. It's my army, and I want it to look as close as I can to the finished image in my mind. If it means I'll take 3+ years to finish my Daemons, then so be it. I do promise that it'll look damn fine once it is done though!

I tend to field unpainted models, but that's only because I haven't finished them at the time. My army does get completely painted, just eventually and I won't rush it just to be able to field something painted.

Some people simply hate painting and no amount of teasing/cajoling/bribing is going to get them to paint.

Some people have 3 kids under 10, full time jobes, and just don't have the time/energy to paint more than a model or 2 per month. Given enough time, their army will get there I suppose.

Lots of reasons for people to not have painted armies.

For me it is a matter of hating the painting side of the game. I can't paint to the level I want so I often get angry after just a few models. I can't even paint a squad of 10 BT without getting frustrated, though I do try and spray all my models black at least.

If you spray models gray, then give them a quick wash, they look far better than a flat black primer as the details will show up.

If you want to be lazy go with a paint scheme which is mostly black except for details, i did that with my guard.

Allot of people cant paint very well (I should know im one of them) and in allot of situations its better leaving them unpainted than by "defacing" your models with your atrocious painting skills. I look back at some of my old models and go, "how could I ever think that looked good" and then proceed to get the detol and start paint stripping (re-did an entire Tau army because of this, in the hopes of a codex update).

I hate unpainted models.

As long as they have 3 colors and are based I don't care at the quality.

Painting your models is like 33% of the hobby.

I would rather face an unpainted or undercoated army than a badly painted one.

When I started my Tyranids, my original plan was to only build what I was going to paint right away. This meant my army was composed of what I was either currently working on or what was finished. My space marine army is pretty much all plastic so I didn't want a repeat of that. That plan lasted for about 2 months when I got tired of having such a small and limited army. I then built everything and primed it. Now I have an army which is probably 1/3 painted and 2/3 primed. This way I can field the army I want but I try my hardest to always be working on something.

I have a friend who always fields a painted army but he paints extremely quickly and with little care. He can paint well if he takes the time but he chooses not too. That is not how I would play my army and I don't like the look of some of his models but I don't say anything because that is how he plays. I'll always speak up when I'm paying a compliment but otherwise I keep my mouth shut because that is how the other person chooses to play the hobby. I want to support the hobby and make new friends, not bash people because they don't play it like I do. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

I try to get them at least primed/base coated the color that the army is. That is the minimum i will do to play the model on the field.

So, I see three main reasons why people don't paint.

1.) They don't like painting. Not much more to say. Haven't actually seen very many of these people though. Most people have at least a small interest in fielding a painted army.

2.) They're lazy. This, of course, is very understandable, given the sheer size of some 40k armies. That said, it has never been easier to paint a 40k army thanks to all the new stuff GW has put out.

What especially confuses me is grey knights. Go buy a pot of the new textured paint, a pot of some black or brown wash, and a can of silver-colored spraypaint. Spray the minis, wash them once, and paint on the base. You've now got a 3-color standard on your 20-model 1850 point list in, what, 10 minutes tops. You've got to be PRETTY lazy to not even put in this minimal amount of effort.

3.) They have no connection to their army. This, by far, seems the most common.

If you don't see something as "your army", then you're not going to put any time whatsoever into improving it. I mean, nobody washes a rental car.

How do you create a "rental" feel for a 40k army? By codex-hopping. Who codex-hops? Power gamers. If you are only concerned with the results of the games you play, and the only way to get the most favorable outcomes is to constantly switch over to the newest codex every year or so, at which point you sell off all your current stuff in order to get new stuff, then you don't really "own" an army, you're merely "renting" an army for a year or two.

As such, if you're up against an opponent that fields nothing but grey, you've either found one of the rare people that actually loathes painting, one of the rare people that are so lazy that they can't even be bothered to spend more than a couple of minutes next to each other, or you're up against a powergamer that you probably shouldn't be enabling by playing a game against them in the first place.

Of course, there are a few exceptions to this. One thing, of course, is new units. You can tell because the rest of their army is nicely painted, and perhaps even some of the unit that has grey minis in it. They've got some nice or complex color scheme that they're methodically applying, and so wouldn't want to, say, spray and wash, as they are, in fact, going to get around to painting them "right" eventually.

Another exception is perfectionists. It just takes so long to paint anything that naturally most of their stuff is going to be grey.

Both of these exceptions are pretty easy to spot, though.

I like to have atleast a basecoat with roughly placed secondary colors before I feild a model. Thats not to say that I have never fielded a model with nothing but primer. I will say that I always prefer to see a modestly painted fig then a grey ghost on the table.

 Ailaros wrote:

Of course, there are a few exceptions to this. One thing, of course, is new units. You can tell because the rest of their army is nicely painted, and perhaps even some of the unit that has grey minis in it. They've got some nice or complex color scheme that they're methodically applying, and so wouldn't want to, say, spray and wash, as they are, in fact, going to get around to painting them "right" eventually.

Another exception is perfectionists. It just takes so long to paint anything that naturally most of their stuff is going to be grey.

Both of these exceptions are pretty easy to spot, though.

I find that perfectionists like myself and a couple of my friends also tend to either play what are considered 'bottom tier' armies, or else they take the units that are considered 'to be the suck' by the internet community because they like them/make epic conversions for them...

I myself am ever so slowly working on painting up my Daemons. Hardly considered a contending army by most competitive types. As allies, I'm looking at CSM's, some 'duped' Imp Guard led by a rouge inquisitor (Primaris Psyker) & their psycho Commissar & Orks.
My friend who might finish a unit per month is working on a SW army that includes Blood Claws, Swift Claws, a Wolf Priest, Lone Wolves and only 1 unit of Longfangs. (and they're not even 'missilefangs'!)
Another friend of mine who's and even slower painter than me is working Eldar & Tyranids. ('nuff said about those armies right now!)

A grey plastic "power gamer" army is easy to spot because it's an instantly recodnisible netlist, and more often that not, I find the owner to be nothing but a giant who needs his little ego constantly stroked by ruthlessly clubbing baby seals and acting like a big girl the whole time! (while boasting about his near-perfect tournament record too.)

I'm a codex hopper, but I'm far from a power gamer. Let me explain...Its called gamer ADD. I choose my armies off of looks and background, not based on how many chhesy lists can be built using its codex, or by how many tournaments were dominated by it...

That being said, my interests change WAY faster than I can paint. I started collecting Dark Angels in the early 90s after getting ahold of the Deathwing SpaceHulk expansion...reading the back story of Cloud Runner, Two Heads Talking, Lame Bear, and the rest fighting off a Genestealer infestation on their home world and seeing all the cool illustrations in the rulebook was enough to sell me. Then the Eldar captured my fancy, then I decided to go with a Tyranid Swarm (gosh the tyranids have come a long way from the abominations they were in 2nd Edition). Catachans were next, and then Sisters of Battle (I was in England on release day for their first codex, got a poster and a t-shirt, and a box of metal chicks with bolters...so awesome!). Then came a brand new race, the Tau! I leaped in head first and got 2 army boxes (back when they would stick all the new releases in one big box and sell it for like 200 bucks). Then all the Inquisitor stuff, Grey Knights, Witch hunters, the list goes on....and on....

My most recent weakness was when I saw Jes Goodwin's complete re-design of the Dark Eldar army. I resisted for a few months, but then broke down and got a unit, and the codex, and then the battleforce box, and then it was over. I have like 2500 points now. All of it meticulously cleaned, assembled, and primered black.

Then the Necrons got a re-boot. And I am still trying to resist buying them.

I got the Dark Vengeance box because, well, the Dark Angels and me go WAAAAY back as you may have read above, and the new Chaos stuff in there was mind bogglingly sweet.....so I am now trying to resist Chaos....

Progress is in my future though. I ordered an airbrush compressor today from Harbor Freight, so my Raiders, Ravagers and Venoms will all see paint very soon. As it stands though. I have 10 wyches with their skin base coated, and a kabalite warrior with Dark Lance painted up as a test model. Everything else is black, oh, wait, I have 5 metal Incubi and a box of hellions yet to clean and assemble.

All of the above doesn't include the several Warhammer Fantasy armies, Warmachine armies, Malifaux crews, Infinity teams, etc that I somehow THINK I will have time to paint before I die. Anyone want to buy a Catachan army?

Don't sweat someone gving you crap about your paintjobs. There are asshats in every hobby, job, city, cave, etc.

I don't enjoy playing with unpainted models, but I'm at the point of play em or don't play.

Although in my case, it''s not from laziness, or lack of interest, I paint for the locals, in the last 5 months, I've painted 2500pts of sisters, 2k of wolves, and only done around 500 points of my eldar/DE/Tau.

My stuff WILL get painted, I just have to finish the commissions first.

I have three armies for 40K, one for WHFB, one for Epic, two for BFG, one for D-Wars, five for LotR, one for Warmachine, and a load of one-off models laying around the place. I could finish a dozen models a day, and still not have a finished army for years. At the moment, I'm all about D-Wars. They've got a new 28mm skirmish game coming out, new models being released and a new campaign book on the way so I'm madly painting up my steampunk Antarctican fleet to get in on all that goodness. But that means my hordes of unpainted 40K and LotR and being neglected. No doubt when the Hobbit is released later this year I'll start painting anything Tolkien related with much gusto, but I can almost guarantee my D-Wars stuff won't be finished by then, and the 40K and WHFB and all the rest will still be sitting on the shelf...