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Right now, a Tyranid Termagant is taking me around 50 minutes each to paint in the pattern and colors of Hive Fleet Behemoth. I have 25 of them painted so far, but I still have 75 gants/gaunts left to paint... not to mention rippers, warriors, gargoyles, tervigon, flying hive tryrant. At this rate, it's going to end up taking me near 85 man hours just to get through all 100 Termagants/Hormagaunts. I follow as closely as I can the instructions shown on Warhammer TV by Duncan Rhodes.

Mephiston Red (Base)
Scavenblight Dingle (hooves, claws, gun)
Zandri Dust (teeth)
Abaddon Black (carapace and armor)
Nuln Oil (shade)
Mephiston Red (lighten up the skin)
Evil Sunz Scarlet (highlight - joints, shoulders, tail, face)
Stormvermin Fur (edge highlight - gun)
Sotek Green (carapace pattern base)
Temple Guard Blue (carapace pattern highlight)
Screaming Skull (highlight - teeth)
Averland Sunset (eyes)
Bugman's Glow (tongue)

I can do other things while the Shade is drying, but between last night and tonight it took me close to four hours to finish five Termagants with Devourers. I honestly want to play, but when it comes to 40K, I'm kind of a big believer in making sure everything is painted before it hits the table. I'm going to end up being so frustrated with these Tyranids before I finish painting them that I won't want to ever see them again. And, that's just not the way I want to be. Any recommendations? I'm gettin kinda desperate at this point.

SG

Paint 5-10 dudes at a time. Paint one color at a time on each of them then move onto the next model. Basically, you need to paint in batches.

Painting one mini by one mini is a very inefficient way to paint large numbers of models. Batch painting is also better for consistency.

Yeah, I should have mentioned that... my apologies. I already do assembly line painting my miniatures. I paint 5 at a time with each color before moving onto the next. I'm still seemingly dead slow. I really can't figure out why...

SG

My suggestions:
1. Batch paint. (ie one color at a time. one body part at a time).
2. Base in the lightest base color with a rattle can primer or start in white (since you are using red) and base coat (with an airbrush) with the mephiston red.
3. Partially assemble to make sure you can get those underparts that make you want to pull your hair out.
4. Paint on sprue

Here's what I did for a green tide...
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/443827.page

 doktor_g wrote:
My suggestions:
1. Batch paint. (ie one color at a time. one body part at a time).
2. Base in the lightest base color with a rattle can primer or start in white (since you are using red) and base coat (with an airbrush) with the mephiston red.
3. Partially assemble to make sure you can get those underparts that make you want to pull your hair out.
4. Paint on sprue

Here's what I did for a green tide...
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/443827.page

What airbrush do you use?

Thanks

SG

Quick question: Do you paint each mini individually, going step by step on each model and putting it aside when you finish it completely, then pick up another model and begin the process over again?

This is how I paint my Blood Angels (only I paint it component by component and then assemble the mini after all or most of the component parts are painted) and it works very well for producing a higher quality miniature visually.

If you do paint this way, may I suggest doing 'batches' of the models at a time. My suggested size would be five of them in a pass.

Edit: Disregard the batch painting suggestion, when I started typing this there were no replies and when I submitted it there were a bunch, including the statement you already batch paint. The only thing I can recommend is that army painter spray for getting the base coat down smoothly and quickly over a large number of models and then just work on your technique. Time and experience will get you to where you're faster at doing detail work. Also, good brushes are a must. If you're painting with lower quality brushes it makes the painting take exponentially longer since you'll have to go back and fix more baubles or slip-ups that could have otherwise been avoided by using a good quality brush.


So you start off with a base of Mephiston Red, and do that over five models (I can attest, as I'm painting Mephiston Red as the primary color of my Blood Angels).

As an additional aside, to save you some time, I'm going to strongly recommend that you look into investing in some Army Painter brand Army Primer Dragon Red color spraypaint. I swear by this stuff. It gives a wonderful coat of red that you can then apply one coat of mephiston red to and get a very clean, crisp red shade.

Here's my current Space Marine model I'm about to begin work on with the legs and torso spray painted red already using the Dragon Red shade I mentioned above.



I'll cover that with one coat of Mephiston Red and it'll look like three to four coats of red paint on the mini.

That saves a ton of time in getting the base color down. Then, as I said, pick up the Skavenblight Dinge and do the hooves, claws, and guns of all five minis, then go back through and do Abaddon Black over the carapace of all five minis. etc. etc. etc.

That will let you get good quality on the minis, but knock them out at 5 minis per ~50 minutes or so, give or take.

I hope this helps you, and best of luck moving forward. Would also love to see some of your minis as well if you have any pictures. Sounds like a nice paint scheme.

Take it easy for now.

-Red__Thirst-

As to your question about painting components... yes, most of the time I do that. On the Termagants/Hormagants, the videos I watched on how to paint Hive Fleet Behemoth made it look really easy even when the model was fully assembled to start with. Since the glue sticks better plastic to plastic rather than paint to paint, I decided to give it a try. Has not worked very well. I even have one of the few remaining Citadel spray cans of Mephiston Red. It goes on way too thick leaving me with a very ratty looking model, though. I doubt I'll be using it anymore. I'm able to correct most of what the spray does during the regular painting process. So, it comes out looking right in the end.

And, I do follow the assembly line style of painting that many have suggested. It does speed things up considerably, but I'm still super slow. I've seen painting tutorials that can get a Termagant done in 10 minutes (around 2 hours for 10 making it approximately 10 minutes per model), but that paint tutorial just really had a lot of things wrong with it that really doesn't match up to what Hive Fleet Behemoth should look like.

I've also seen videos where people use their own color schemes and painting styles that have had excellent results painting MC Nid flyers in just over an hour.

Honestly, I need an airbrush, but I don't know what to get. I know absolutely nothing about airbrushing. And, I cannot bring myself to spend $175 on an air compressor and $125 and up on the brush itself. I want something inexpensive but reliable for beginners... something that would allow me to easily put on the primer and the base for any model in a matter of just a few minutes. I've seen people on YT that can even use airbrushes to paint most of a model even the highlight with excellent results (though I think those are well over $300 airbrushes and a lot of experience).

Thanks for your suggestions!

SG

I found an airbrush doesn't actually speed you up all that much and can potentially slow you down. I think people watch youtube videos of people airbrushing a squad in 10 minutes and forget that it's sped up 3 times and all the boring time consuming bits are cut out

I'm not saying an airbrush isn't a good investment.... I just don't think it's a good SPEED PAINTING investment unless you are primarily painting tanks. For infantry if you compare speed painting with a regular brush to spraying with an airbrush, the most time consuming bits either way is picking out the details.

When I want to paint a model fast, I put the airbrush on the shelf and I build my painting method around something that will be fast to do.

Time yourself painting to not only figure out the TOTAL time it takes you to paint something, but figure out how long it takes to do EACH STEP of the painting process and then start to think about how you can make those steps go faster or if they can be substituted with faster methods.

Some things I've found...

1. It's faster to base coat with light colours and shade than it is to start with dark colours and work up to a highlight.

2. Use a large brush when washes and just where ever you can use the largest brush that is practical. It's not only faster but will produce smoother results.

3. Using heavily thinned paints is faster than trying to apply opaque layers. You can use a larger brush and apply it more aggressively without accidentally obscuring details and making it look messy.

4. If you can get your basecoat colour in a spray can, spray cans are faster than airbrushing. Even if you can't, if you can undercoat the model white and then apply a heavily thinned (half way between a layer and a wash) base colour you'll be able to apply them much faster.

5. Layering heavily thinned paints and washes over a white undercoat is what I've to be the fastest method of painting because each layer can be applied in 1-2 minutes.

It's hard to paint a model in 10 minutes, and certainly I'd be impressed if someone can get a model from sprue to finished and based in 10 minutes unless it looks ugly. For most models assembly, cleaning mould lines and basing takes about 10 minutes by itself. I think the fastest models I do still take me about 25 minutes from sprue to finished model. Much faster than that and I'm eliminating steps that I deem necessary (like cleaning mould lines).

Honestly, it comes with repetition. Neatness, control and speed will come over time. Part of it is familiarity, a big part is confidence to go faster from repeated use. Don't worry about your speed unless you need your work for a deadline. Worry about keeping your interest high.

It took me a day to do an infantry model when I started army painting this year. I managed to do the skin tone on ten Orks in a week.
It's an extreme example but when it came to serious crunch, I did 35 Skitarii in a day, last month. They weren't going to win any awards, but they were neat and covered properly.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Honestly, it comes with repetition. Neatness, control and speed will come over time. Part of it is familiarity, a big part is confidence to go faster from repeated use. Don't worry about your speed unless you need your work for a deadline. Worry about keeping your interest high.

It took me a day to do an infantry model when I started army painting this year. I managed to do the skin tone on ten Orks in a week.
It's an extreme example but when it came to serious crunch, I did 35 Skitarii in a day, last month. They weren't going to win any awards, but they were neat and covered properly.

I'm gonna disagree and say it's only partly repetition, I think a large part of it is natural hand/eye coordination and a very large part comes down to learning methods for painting faster.

Over the hundreds of models I've painted over the past 20 years, it was probably the first 30-40 models where I was first learning how to use a brush that I made any significant gain in how fast I can paint a model. From there, I actually slowed down in how long it took me to paint models because I became more finicky about the quality and then the only times I've really improved is when I've come up with different methods for doing things faster.

I went from 1.5 hours to 0.4 hours per Orc simply by changing the process. I never would have gotten that gain through repetition.

Some people are also just naturally faster with their hands. I tend to be a slow but precise person. Even at work I notice when it comes to the repetitive tasks most people are faster than me, but when it comes to the tasks where you have to be careful and precise I tend to do better than most the other guys.

I did say the big part is the confidence in yourself to go faster. Being cautious can keep your speed down as much as the attention to detail. We're drilled that complex tasks can't be rushed, so it's against the grain to speed up.

The more automatic you can be about processing, and less thoughts required can make batching faster, also.
I have two painting modes: Neat, tidy and fast, and then anything that requires me to make decisions or choices...

Give me options to think about, and I jam to a halt.
Seriously, one time my date took me to a restaurant where the pizza menu had three types of ham to pick from, a d I broke. Don't do that to me.

Eliminating choices can speed you up but that should only affect the first few models in an army until you've figured out the scheme.

Learning to paint more sloppily can definitely speed you up The fastest army I ever painted was my first army simply because I was sloppy, lol.

Overall I can't paint any faster now than I could 6 months after I started painting a couple of decades ago

I think the first Hormagaunt in my current nid army took me about an hour and a half to paint, the 5th one about 50 minutes and the 50th one about 45 minutes Maybe I'm odd that it doesn't take me long to "get in the groove" but being in the groove doesn't actually speed me up all that much.

I meant things like freehand tattoos. I've got eighty Tanith to do that should all be individually marked unless I make up a standard marking for each squad.
Then when I was doing Mordians, because there were 50 in one batch, I split them into skin colours, hair colours, and then back into squads.
I don't think anyone even notices on the table top.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Over the hundreds of models I've painted over the past 20 years, it was probably the first 30-40 models where I was first learning how to use a brush that I made any significant gain in how fast I can paint a model. From there, I actually slowed down in how long it took me to paint models because I became more finicky about the quality

This is what's happened to me most recently. I've gotten much pickier about being precise as well as adding highlights, etc. than I was in the beginning. Only a very few models of the DAs that I have are shaded at all. I really got annoyed (and still do) about having to essentially repaint the entire model to bring the color back up after shading. So, I just didn't shade. I eventually found a good method for getting the models to look good even without shading. So, I did not shade a single model (with the exception of wanting to make them look used/weathered) in my DA army after the first set of Space Marines I painted. This sped up the painting process dramatically! That said, adding a shade does make a model look better, IMHO. It does make the details pop. And, as I apply a lot of shade, it can leave some areas very dark which really gives the model a look as if it's been in battle a good bit (this applies mainly to the upper chest areas of the Termagants for me). Also, the areas left purposefully unpainted do have a lot more depth to them. I just really don't like having to repaint a model after shading it (most of a model at least). Also, while I'm not overly neat with the highlights on a model, I have noticed that they do add noticeable pop to the model. So, I will admit that shading and highlighting do make a noticeable difference. But, the extra time required to shade and highlight a model almost seems more than its ROI to me. That said, I'd like to finish at least this set of gants/gaunts in the same way I have with the previous ones.

SG


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
It's hard to paint a model in 10 minutes, and certainly I'd be impressed if someone can get a model from sprue to finished and based in 10 minutes unless it looks ugly. For most models assembly, cleaning mould lines and basing takes about 10 minutes by itself.

This model was already off the sprue, assembled, and primed (which is where most paint tutorials start). It was done by a woman who used to make painting tutorials for a certain channel (can't think of the name now, but she's stopped making videos for them now). Anyway, she was all about teaching people about techniques and tools she used to paint for table quality as fast as is possible. I've been impressed with a few of her models. They honestly look pretty good. The thing is that the Hive Fleets of the Tyranids call for very specific paint colors and patterns. Granted, this video was probably made very shortly after the latest Tyranid Codex came out (back in 2014) when Hive Fleet Behemoth kinda became popular (I guess... I haven't been playing long). Anyway, she got the colors completely wrong. I could see how some people could mistake Hive Fleet Behemoth's color scheme to be red and blue, but it's not. The color scheme is Red and Black with Blue highlights that give an illusion of a Blue carapace and armor. The way she painted the model was sloppy and flat out incorrect. Even that chitin armor look that Hive Fleet Behemoth has didn't come out looking correct at all. But, supposedly, she was able to get 10 of them painted (from primer to finished product) in less than 2 hours. I personally would not like my Hive Fleet Behemoth creatures looking like the ones she painted (as they just are incorrect), but I think she used probably close to the same number of paints that I did and covered a lot of the same surface area. Was it neat? No. And, it's not something I'd want other people to see me putting on the table, but she did get a lot done quickly.

So, yeah, it was ugly... and just an incorrect tutorial as well.

SG