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How do you guys come to grips with pumping out painted figures?

I really want my army to look good, but at the rate I'm going it'll be three years before its done...and thats not great....but I feel like its not worth doing at all if I can't make them up to a high quality.


Is this just a matter of slow initial workflow or is there a sort of upgrade process you guys go through with older models? Like do you slap gak on, and then come back at a reasonable pace and redo the entire army?


How do you guys handle your inner perfectionist in this hobby?

Honestly? I just gave up.

I would spend hours and hours painting one model, blending and lining and layering and really making some really nice stuff, but it would take 4 hours to get through one dood.

Finally, I came to a point where I was going to move across the country, so I said 'screw it' and got rid of all my 40k stuff except for my Space Marines. I went with an easy-to-paint chapter (Space Sharks).

I primed them gray.
Then washed them black.
Then drybrushed them gray.
Then used GW texture paint for the base.
Then picked out red for the eyes.
Then lined the shoulder pads black.
Then painted the guns silver and black.

Done. I could get through 10 models in a day if I wanted to, and as a result I have three Tac squads, a Land Raider, a Stormtalon, a Dreadnought, a Drop Pod, three Rhinos, a squad of Assault Terminators, Tyberos the Red Wake, and a few other odds and ends fully painted, and I'm almost done with a Vanguard Vet squad, another Tac Squad, and two Librarians.

Just seeing the VOLUME of the progress was encouraging, and y'know what? They're tabletop quality, count for more than 3 colors, and I can be proud that I have a fully painted army on the table more often than not.

If you're still stuck on the quality, then here's some tips.

1. Prime them the primary color. Orks? Prime them green. Army Painter and GW have green primers.

2. BATCH PAINT. Take 5 or 10 at a time and work with one color across all of them. Once you're done with that color, go back to the next color. Don't fix mistakes, go back to those later and fix ALL the mistakes in one go. You'll save SO much time.

It all depends on what sort of look you want. If you want every model to stand out like a work of art, then you are going to have to suck up the time it takes to paint all of those models.

I am currently painting my DV models, I have only got the Librarian and Sgt Barachiel of the DW done, but I am also well on my way to finishing my Termie with the assault cannon. With these models, I am taking my time, doing each one with plenty of highlights and attention to detail before moving on to my next one.

When I come to paint my DA tac squad, I will use washes and simple highlights to make them pop, without having to spend too much time per model. All the filler for your army can be painted to a good standard with just a highlight or two after you give them a light wash, and can be done in batches of 4-5 easily. I always fully paint my biggest areas first, such as armour, skin and clothes while fully highlighting them as I go along, but I am confident in how steady my hand is to paint up the details alongside my finished area so that may not be something you want to do. You don't even need to fully highlight everything like the detail such as belts etc, a base coat and wash is probably enough to get you by until you have finished your army and you can go back with time to blackline and pick out details. Things like drybrushing silver straight over black work well, and you can keep weapons simple to start with (all silver) to make sure you get your models completed at a quicker pace. Little shortcuts like that can shave hours off a full squad when you are trying to get a fully painted army on the table.

That way you can get a 10 man (or Ork) squad put together in an evening or two, with a few hours reserved to go to town on your head Ork and give him a better paint job as befits a more senior Greenie.

I hate to say it, but you likely picked the wrong army if you're looking to do a showcase army & it be done within the next 10 years. IG & orks are more akin to nids tbh. They're hordes bit with vehicles. Try to paint them as anything but & you'll go blind. It's like a discussion I was having with a buddy yesterday about zombicide when he suggested logo Ts on some of them. I have about 200 zombies I have to get painted, IF I stop to give every one a graphic, even a transfer, I'll be at it for a couple years. Now if that's my acceptable time frame then so be it, but if I want them usable ASAP but still look pretty good from 3' it isn't realistic.

The short of it is... some compromise... some don't...

I really appreciate people who paint the whole army to a high standard, but on the other hand... I do prefer painted rather than bare plastic though

Myself I have had a really hard time.. first I just sucked... Now a have acquired a modest skill level but I am slow as fudge at painting... but I decided to just paint as best I can and enjoy the process.

I just shoot for table top ready. I pretty much never highlight. I add colors and I do a wash, or maybe two if certain parts of the model need a different color wash. Maybe drybrush. And that's it.

Washes are like magic, they really help models like decent.

I don't have an ork force but I have an inquisition one which like Imperial Guard and Orks has too many cheap little dudes. To me it makes no sense to try to make an acolyte with a las pistol or a bolter an amazing work of art when there are so many of them in my army...

You could always go for a over- time solution:
-Basecoats on everybody
-Highlights on everybody
and so on.

Would of course mean, foregoing some of the more fancy things like layering.

Orks are definitely fiddly to paint well, even if you choose one of the simpler schemes like the mostly-black Goffs. Even slower if you go for Deffskulls and want every boy wearing unique clothes :(

My only hints:
- paint a unit at a time, for consistency
- paint all the skin first (preferably using washes over a base coat, coz anything else is too slow)
- then all the belts and equipment, not being too tidy, and follow up with a black wash
- then finally a neat and tidy base coat for clothing (probably from a variety of pre-mixed slightly different shades, depending on the look you're going for), being careful not to go over skin or belts etc, then finished with a dark brown or grey wash
- ditto for weapons, probably with various metallic base coats followed by dirty/rusty washes.

I feel your pain. We're 60 Boyz in and are building green tide.

For the first 60 we used more dakka's speed painting guide. Well worth considering.

the first batch were harder as they were shoota boys, with arms over their chests and therefore trickier to paint .

Next 20 we will use Army Painter bone primer for the chests etc, and spray legs black. (where practical).

Finaly 20 we will undercoat black, paint helmets and shoulder armour yellow. (skin done the normal GW way). I think this will save time.

The other option is to actually spray on the sprue; you could paint all the trousers black, heads and arms green, bodies whatever... army painter primers can help save loads of time.

Also: look at these fantastic Boyz - haven't had a chance to check the thread properly, but they look like they were done with green primer. Even at this early stage they look great...

 nerdfest09 wrote:

and do you remember those rather boring and bland Ork boyz from a pot or two ago? well I finished the skin on them and it makes a hell of a difference to the overall look and feel of them, keep in mind all i've done since base colour is just the green skin! even I was happily suprised at how much more advanced they look! so I've picked a few to show you the skin tones and the start of the weapons.

Stalin said: "quantity has it's own quality '.

A whole army painted decent looks ten times better than primer with a few showcase pieces.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
...the first batch were harder as they were shoota boys, with arms over their chests and therefore trickier to paint...

Definitely paint shoota boys before gluing their arms on. If fact, I find it faster to only glue torsos to legs before painting, i.e. leave heads and arms separate until after painting - it's several less painting 'borders' to worry about.

i paint my boyz in groups of five and i paint them all to a high standard i uses 4 layers for skin, 4 for metals three for leather and two for blacks and details. the all also have customized bases and extra details such as brass, checkers and scars picked out.

i have painted 60 boyz so far and have another 30 to go

i dont think the number of models has any bearing on how well you paint them just take your time and persevere. a good thing to do is paint 10 boyz then paint a character or other unit in between to break it up.

Thanks for all the advice, I'm going to have to do some thinking.

Basecoat with Waagh! Flesh. Leave it to dry then dry brush heavily with Warboss Green then Skarsnik Green. An edge highlight of Kislev Flesh followed by a Biel-Tan Green wash takes is to the next Level.

 SQRT(-2) wrote:
Stalin said: "quantity has it's own quality '.

A whole army painted decent looks ten times better than primer with a few showcase pieces.

This^^

I play orks and I have about 50% painted to a good standard, higher than what i'd consider tabletop, but not OTT quality. However, I still have to field them with unpainted models. I'd much prefer a slightly lower quality for a nice full looking army tabletop.
My rules now are;

Speed paint boyz
Added care and attention to special units like busta's, gitz.
Good standard for HQ's that I feel is getting closer to my showcase level
Vehicles - due to being single items tend to also get a good level of detail.

I find with orks you don't want to get drowned in boyz, as its very demoralizing. I work a squad at a time and don't stop till their done. That way you get the gratification of completion and then feel excited to move onto another bunch.

This is one of the reasons for not painting I hear all the time (for the last 25+ years).
.
The best advice I can give;
.
1) Paint the rank and file troops a three color minimum with flocked bases (just as a basic tournament would ask for), BUT paint your character models with more detail (many WHFB players paint the front row of units well and the rest a three color minimum) this also lets you paint more on the models that performed well in a battle; example; a Runt-herd kills a Terminator, so slap some more "honor" paint on him! etc. Once your entire army is three color minimum, you can always go back and add more detail to your favorite units or models.
.
2) It is not just your hobby, but your opponents hobby as well, so painting your army may be a way of respecting your opponent.
(why to this day I will not play an unpainted army, unless there are very special circumstances)
.
3) Pick a point total as a goal (1850-2000) and do not stray, or you may get overwhelmed.(I suggest 2000, that way you can swap out units in a 1850 list)
.
4) Batch paint; unit by unit, but prime and base coat all at once so everything will match.
.
There are a ton of tutorials online, good luck and have fun!

Surprised no one has suggested dipping yet.

I know some people see it as cheating, but when painting hordes to a decent level in the quickest time possible it seems like it's the way to go. It's quick, it's easy and it gets consistent results.*


Zomnivore, how many Orks do you have to paint? Are we talking a dozen or two? 50, 60? 80+?




*Never tried dipping myself, so I'm only going off what i've seen others do.

well he's running tide, so that's 100+ish. So assuming he's done 50 he's got another 50+ left

I found dipping to just hide all the detail. Ended up ruining a load of terminators with that stuff.

Just stick at it, with my vostroyans I did the rank n file together on a production line and broke them with weapon teams and armour.

I got sick to death of them after a while but they look epic on the table

I play Tyranids and know the struggle well!! My technique is to lay it all out in an assembly line. I'll use a termagant as an example. I have to use tons of those guys, so I started out with a group of 30. I prime them with a desert yellow which doesn't take too long. Then move on to painting all the carapaces red. Then give them a good wash over the flesh. Then add highlights and do final details like eyes teeth etc. Overall It takes me about 3 hours to paint those 30 dudes. So spend a weekend doing that, or a few hours here and there through the week and it doesn't take too long before you find you've painted all your guys. You can always go back later and add even more detail if you want such as basing and whatnot but that's up to you.

Serverus, You have a gift to pait 30 models in 3 hours is really fast. It would take me that long to prime them and let them dry. Good on you Sir.

Get on youtube and check out some tutorials. I think alot of the "pros" prime white, and wash it green over and over again; and use brown washes for the leather. Which in my opinion is a easy way to get a good looking ork (I wish I would have done it that way).

To answer your question directly, compromise. You are putting 100+ models on the board, no one (even you) is going to inspect every single on of them during a game. What is important is how they look on the table not how they look under a microscope.

I can paint a boy in 1/2 an hour; and everyone at my store is super impressed by my painting skills (big fish, small pond, tbh)

1) prime black
2) dry brush metal
3) paint skin (ogyn camo)
4) paint clothes
5) do details
6) touch up
7) wash with nuln oil
7) done

If you like badMoonz then this tutorial by More Dakka is really good
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/374651.page

involves priming yellow, washing a couple times and adding silver and final browns. I've used it myself for units I just want painted up and it works a treat

There is an easy solution to this!

1. Paint an army quickly just so you can play with them.
2. Now that you've gotten it out of your system... take your time and paint an army at the pace you want until you're happy with every single model.

And I guess, step 3 -- give away or sell the army in step 1 3 years may seem like a long time, but some people have been playing 40k for decades. I've been chipping away at a DE army since their first plastic models, and I don't have a playable army yet (though I own like, 6,000 points of on-the-sprue models now lol).

Serverus wrote:
Overall It takes me about 3 hours to paint those 30 dudes.

Is it April Fools Day already? That's literally 6 minutes per model. To complete all the steps you mentioned which included priming! If you can do that, film it and you will be an Internet super star!

Mass paint do everyone at once I base them then like a machine paint rthere armor and shirts all at once then when I get to detail I do one by one takes awhile but much more rewarding.

Also they are orks erratic brush strokes usually makes them better!

There's nothing preventing you from painting the orks to a basic standard and then going back and adding all the details that you didn't want to compromise on. Unless you gunk paint (or dip) all over them (which I'm sure you won't), the basic paint job will still need to be there before the details.

Another thing I would suggest is don't batch paint TOO MUCH. While it will speed up your painting, it will get totally boring painting the belts on 60 Orks. Batch paint 10 at a time, or so, so you can see your progress on a unit in a reasonable amount of time. If you look at 60 orks and see teeth and skin only done, you might give up. I made the mistake with a horde of night goblins once. It was faster by far, but I was SICK of painting gobbos after that.

quickshade is your friend.

I have a tier system.

from most time and effort spent to least:

Large models (a stompa, other BIG things)

Warboss/mek/other Characters

Vehicles

Specialist units (Tank bustas, lootas...)

Boyz

Grotz

This method is super fast and has worked well for me. I batch paint ten orks at a time.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J5mcpGhUJzM&spfreload=10

My first batch included this:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/626496.page