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So I'm sitting here staring down yet another platoon sized blob of Vostroyans that need to be painted. I've painted several large groups of them before using an assembly line style (i.e. painting all their guns together, uniforms together, armor together, etc.) Who else paints like this as opposed to fully painting a couple at a time?

I tend to do the same. When I large units of models to do. Prime, base, layer one, layer two, wash, etc....

it's tedious but I always love the end result

Most people assembly line troops I think, especially if they have an airbrush. Airbrush makes simple troops like SMs and 'crons a doddle when you part assemble. Quickly basecoating, shading and highlighting a large number of models with an airbrush is great, then you just do some quick detailing on them, also in assembly line.

That said, I'm still in the test model stage for my Blood Raven army so doing 1 by 1 while I test shades of red with different techniques. Definitely much slower than assembly line.

I'm a terrifically slow painter, but I tend to do 'small batch' painting. I find that painting 20+ of a single type of model bores the hell out of me, but painting around 5-10 is good enough, and prevents me from losing interest. Painting 10 sets of boots before going on to the pants is okay, painting 50 sets of boots is not even something I would consider.

This also helps me in that I can batch paint a squad and then have something to show for it sooner, rather than laborious batch painting a platoon or something, and having nothing usable until I get through 50 models.

It really depends on what style of army I am doing. Some armies you want them all to be nearly the same, while other armies you want each to look distinguished with separate features.

I tend to paint assembly line style, but only a squad at a time.

Depends on what I'm doing. I find painting assembly line doesn't speed me up, but it makes things like drying times or airbrush cleaning less significant. I've timed myself and found I can paint 10 guardsmen at once in the same time it takes me to paint 10 guardsmen one at a time, the difference is painting them one at a time I have to wait for things to dry and I have to clean out the airbrush after base coating each one.

This is kind of a common topic, but yes, it seems like a lot of people do "assembly" line painting, or at least painting groups of models using similar colors or methods together.

For me, personally I find the max unit size for me is 12 models.
Any more than that, and I feel it just gets tedious and not enough progress to keep me motivated.

I also try to break up my painting list to make it more interesting.
For example;
12 infantry
1 vehicle
1 walker
12 more infantry
a different vehicle
two or three medium sized models
12 more infantry
another vehicle,
etc.

This also helps with keeping things going.
Recently, my friends and I have been sharing progress together, and a few of us had even adopted simple kanban project mgt methods to track large builds. While it may seem over kill, it really does help with making progress when you have to paint hundreds (or thousands) of points.

Best of luck!

I've been struggling with this myself. I keep looking at my desk, where I have 320+ nids (including 14 MCs) staring back at me... It's daunting. My typical routine is to paint 1 squad at once (30 terms, 6 warriors, etc), then do an MC. It helps to break up the monotony of painting the same thing over and over.

 FantomAntichrist wrote:
So I'm sitting here staring down yet another platoon sized blob of Vostroyans that need to be painted. I've painted several large groups of them before using an assembly line style (i.e. painting all their guns together, uniforms together, armor together, etc.) Who else paints like this as opposed to fully painting a couple at a time?

I paint in squads sort of. Right now I am painting 2 Squads of Khorne Berserkers, 3 Converted DV Khorne Chaos Bikes, Defiler and I am touching up my Chaos Landraider. I do it because It saves me on wasting paint. If I am priming I spray a lot let it sit over night. Then run over it with base paints when I am up to it. Them I wash the ones I am working on and start with the secondary color. I usually take breaks in between sessions. (few days or so) If I get tired of one I move onto another etc.

 Freytag93 wrote:
I've been struggling with this myself. I keep looking at my desk, where I have 320+ nids (including 14 MCs) staring back at me... It's daunting. My typical routine is to paint 1 squad at once (30 terms, 6 warriors, etc), then do an MC. It helps to break up the monotony of painting the same thing over and over.

Here are the things I do to help with this.

1 - Get them out of sight. Its less intimidating and you feel like you are making more of a "dent" in your progress.
2 - Break them into manageable chunks. squads of 12 so gants, single MC"s, 2-4 medium guys etc.
3 - Put our only a few "chunks" of work at a time.
4 - Make a list of your chunks, as you get one off your desk, put another one into the "queue" so to speak.

For example;

12 gants - is in the assembly stage.
2 hive guard - are being detailed
1 Exocrine - is getting scenic based.

Here are the basic steps I work on models
Assembly (includes clean up, building, magnitizing).
Primer, Base coat, then detail.
Wash, varnish, decal (bugs don't get decals).
Mounting, scenic basing, any final finish.

I try to not have too many things going at once, but always more than one ...that way if something is having the primer dry stage, I can work on another step on a different unit.

Smaller chunks of work also gives the feeling or progress, which in of itself, can help keep you motivated and prevent burn out.

i do a squad at a time, and i do one color at a time so everyone's jacket then there armor and so on.

I have a primary group and a secondary group (because I brush paint). Right now my primary is 3 eldar tank hulls, and my secondary is the harnesses and center console of a drop pod. Since I use brush and Palette, I tend to bounce colors more and it lets me switch between techniques quickly to avoid boredom. I.e. layer the tanks, put some green on the drop pod nav ball, layer tanks again, paint some metal dry brushing, layer tanks again...

I break my gaunts down into 5s so I can see them getting finished but also a few at a time too best of both worlds

I just do one at a time, that way i dont have a bunch of models half done.

I'm too slow/infrequent of a painter to do large batches. I've done ten model batches before and found it impractical, at least for how I generally paint. Five simultaneous models is about my upper limit and three is the lower - anything more renders me unable to complete a step across all models if time/energy is limited and any less can't be called a batch.

I plan to shift to larger batches for my eventual fantasy armies, where I can rely on the effect of ranked troops to give a decent appearance with faster/more simplistic techniques.

With horde armies it's almost a must to do that. When I was painting my Valhallans I'd have as many as 20 on my painting table at a time. It's a tried and true method.

Since moving to my Ultramarines, I'm generally doing 5 or 10 man groups, and the 10s are kind of exhausting at this point. It might be the relative complexity of the scheme compared to my Valhallans, but I couldn't do huge batches with these guys.