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Single Tactical Marine: upwards of 3 hours
Detailed Figure (HQ's etc etc): upwards of 8 hours
Vehicles: Depending on the vehicle sometimes upwards of 8 hours.

Months

If it's an experimental scheme (say for what will be an entire force) then it could take me 8+ hours of work on a simple infantry model trying to get the scheme down. Once the decision is made, then I can organize the process and streamline it down to say 3 or 4 hours per model.

One-off paint jobs for unique models or HQs, and large robots/creatures can be a labor of love where I'll spend 20+ hours spread across weeks or months doing tons of detail, complex base work, etc. The quality is relative though obviously. I think it might be really good and be proud of it, but then other people on the net put me to shame with their 'quick jobs'. :(

kb_lock wrote:
Months

And then I change my mind and strip them.

It's all over the map. Even for troops, there are models like Necron warriors that I finish (and have it look good) in 20 minutes, and the models like tactical marines that I can spend 20 hours on.

Basically, though, there aren't a lot of models I paint in less than 5 hours, and there are plenty of models that I spend more than 20 hours on. Probably the limit of my patience is about 50 hours, unless it's a physically very large and complex model.

I'm struggling with this--I have hundreds of models unpainted, from 19 years of this hobby. It's overwhelming, and also hurts the motivation to sit down and paint when it feels like you're not even making a drop in the ocean. And then, when I do find the motivation, I want to feel accomplished, so I try and get through as much as I can in one sitting...which frequently leaves me very dissatisfied with the final results, as my work looks as rushed as it was.

So I'm trying to stop painting ork boyz in 20 minutes, and I'm trying to force myself to take an hour per 'troop' model...maybe 2. After all - what IS my rush? My gaming group doesn't enforce any sort of "painted models only on the battlefield" rules, and I don't play at my FLGS or GW store, so it's not like there's much pressure to get models painted to use them in game. I SHOULD be taking more time to paint and to hone my skills, so that when I complete a model, I can be more proud of it.

Depends on what. Surprisingly it takes me 20 minutes to paint a dread, but up to an hour to paint a powered armored sergeant.

As quick as I think I can get away with. My interest is largely in playing the game, so my aim with painting is to paint them as fast as a I can up to a standard where they look good on the tabletop and have no major flaws if you pick one up and have a glance at it.

I do want them to have a decent paintjob if I can, though, so it's always a balancing act of patience and quality. Although I have no qualms about using some cheap tricks to speed things up a bit, it's not like I ever intend to publicly display my army so I'm satisfied as long as they look alright on the table.

 General_K wrote:
I'm struggling with this--I have hundreds of models unpainted, from 19 years of this hobby. It's overwhelming, and also hurts the motivation to sit down and paint when it feels like you're not even making a drop in the ocean. And then, when I do find the motivation, I want to feel accomplished, so I try and get through as much as I can in one sitting...which frequently leaves me very dissatisfied with the final results, as my work looks as rushed as it was.

So I'm trying to stop painting ork boyz in 20 minutes, and I'm trying to force myself to take an hour per 'troop' model...maybe 2. After all - what IS my rush? My gaming group doesn't enforce any sort of "painted models only on the battlefield" rules, and I don't play at my FLGS or GW store, so it's not like there's much pressure to get models painted to use them in game. I SHOULD be taking more time to paint and to hone my skills, so that when I complete a model, I can be more proud of it.

This is the definition of hobbysickness. I feel the same way. I have about 1,000 bodies and over 100 tanks that need paint. And i just stripped 40x 2nd ed marines, 85x svets, 20x devs and an imperator titan in a bathtub with 2 bottles of simplegreen.

I am going to hell

When I do sit down, i can crack out for 5+ hours on a single figure like a blight drone.

I sank 4 hours into a Carnifex back when I owned quite a few 'nids. While I was liking where it was going and I took some pics, I got rid of the beastie before I could finish him

Termagants on the other hand. 2 hours tops. Took me that long to do the first one, but I think I could crank one out every 20-30 minutes, but I could only do that for 3-4 hours at a time. It's just so monotonous. Little gribblies were fun but doing the same mini 40+ times was agony.

I've finally started *painting* my Maelstrom's Edge Battle for Zycanthus box set. I've put probably an hour into my first test mini. An extra Contractor. I'm trying a new scheme, New paints and new techniques. I predict many more hours on this one dude before I'm satisfied. After that, I'm sure the rest of the Epirians, with the exception of the Hunter Warmechs, will be done in an hour or so. Mostly because I'll be painting them to a "tabletop standard". I want them to look good for playing the game but I don't have any illusions of winning awards or competitions for a display worthy army. I just want them to be consistent, and maybe weathered for a rough and tumble look.

The other half of the box set, the Karists, will probably follow the same methodology. Once I figure out what colors to paint them, of course

I don't judge by hours, but a ten man squad generally takes a week or two.

I paint extremely slowly, and on a random schedule. So I've had my Marine army for 4 years, and it's taken me that long to get 20 Tactical Marines done, plus a (admittedly really well done) Captain, 5 Rhinos, 10 Assault Marines, 5 Devastators, and a Dreadnought. Sad thing is the quality of the paintjobs is rather bad for most of those models. I just struggle to get myself to paint on any sort of set schedule, and when I do paint, I prefer just to do maybe a basecoat plus a wash on everything

Depends what I'm painting. There's not much I can paint in less than 25 minutes.

Termagants 20-25 minutes
Hormagaunts 45-60 minutes
Orcs 25 minutes
Space Marine 1.5-2 hours
Space Wolf 2-2.5 hours

Character and Monster models it's completely open ended. My Orc Warboss took me about 7 hours not including conversions, Carnifex took me about 6, my Trygon I put more effort in to and it took around 30 hours. The slowest things I paint are aircraft models, which including assembly are often in the 100+ range.

A marine probably gets two hours, a character five, a hq fifteen plus. Big models take what they take, I heavily drybrushed my ghorgon and it took a couple of hours. I blended the skin on my giant and it took about twenty.

Well this year I have only bought a single box of Fyreslayers so far... And I am still only about halfway through painting them.

The quickest models I have ever painted were my Spirit Hosts and Banshee in my sig as 90% of the model was just Nihilakh Oxide over a white undercoat.

Usually it takes weeks to finish a unit.

My usual aversion to painting meant wasting time mulling over my unpainted collection, procrastinating. Now to fight my Hobby ADHD when sitting down I need to have a paintbrush in my hands, painting SOME color on SOMETHING on my desk. A models eyes here, another's base there, but Always. Be. Painting.
Each session mighr only have the final touches on a model or two, but I can see progress all over the place, and my mind is more active thinking where I can put paint next as I'm working.
Maybe my point is to avoid answering your question...

Me, glacial. Looks nice, takes hours

I keep an excel sheet of time spent, money spent/earned, etc from painting models.

So an Imperial Knight is about 8-9 hours, a Riptide sized MC is usually 3, a Bloodthirster 3, the one Hierophant I did recently was 10, a Ta' unar is about 8. Big models with airbrush arent so bad.

That said, my Shield Maiden bust I've done JUST the face on twice with the Painting Buddha tutorial? Probably 12 hours easily, and Ive gotta strip it and try yet again. Moral of the story, stuff I'm comfortable and good at I'm very quick, but newer more intricate concepts, not so much.

I'm very new to this and am extremely OCD with anything like this, so I take a REALLY long time.

It took about 6-7 hours to paint a Termagant to where I was happy with the result. SM are going more quickly, but truly, I am in no rush whatsoever to paint. I don't play the game (yet) so am painting for enjoyment and to learn as much as I can in each sitting. I have very little free time, so I make the most of the time I get.

Depends. I've got half painted stuff in the box of shame/paint queue and they've been there for years.

Usually around 4 hours for a basic infantry and it gets longer the more impressive a model is. A tank or MC might take me a week.

I don't count the hours really so not sure. Also, a lot of times I am not so much "done" as "ok I can't stand this model anymore!" done lol so fully painted... I may not consider them fully painted, just painted 'enough' to either use, or get rid of for a while cuz I'm sick of looking at em

All that being said, last year I painted about 2k points of Skaven, same of VC, plus some miscellaneous reaper minis and a few terrain pieces.

This year I've barely done anything and I've spent all week on this single lone luna wolf.

Months, because I hop between projects.
Started a Warshrine back in October which I just finished. In the interim I worked on a Brass Stampede set (yet to finish) and also repainting 40 chaos warriors (yet to finish).

Sooooo long, I paint bits here and there so it takes weeks or sometimes months. On the models directly I'd say 8 to 12 hours total time, more on larger models.

10 Ork boyz takes anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months, depending on how many evenings a week I can manage to sit down and actually paint. 2 hours three times a week at the most, often only half of that. Some weeks nothing.

I'm a slow painter.

 xSoulgrinderx wrote:

 General_K wrote:
I'm struggling with this--I have hundreds of models unpainted, from 19 years of this hobby. It's overwhelming, and also hurts the motivation to sit down and paint when it feels like you're not even making a drop in the ocean. And then, when I do find the motivation, I want to feel accomplished, so I try and get through as much as I can in one sitting...which frequently leaves me very dissatisfied with the final results, as my work looks as rushed as it was.

So I'm trying to stop painting ork boyz in 20 minutes, and I'm trying to force myself to take an hour per 'troop' model...maybe 2. After all - what IS my rush? My gaming group doesn't enforce any sort of "painted models only on the battlefield" rules, and I don't play at my FLGS or GW store, so it's not like there's much pressure to get models painted to use them in game. I SHOULD be taking more time to paint and to hone my skills, so that when I complete a model, I can be more proud of it.

This is the definition of hobbysickness. I feel the same way. I have about 1,000 bodies and over 100 tanks that need paint. And i just stripped 40x 2nd ed marines, 85x svets, 20x devs and an imperator titan in a bathtub with 2 bottles of simplegreen.

I am going to hell

When I do sit down, i can crack out for 5+ hours on a single figure like a blight drone.

This is a common problem (there are many threads on burnout) - being intimidated by such a large undertaking.

A few hints to help;

Break your stuff up into smaller chunks. Likes a single squad, or just one vehicle.
Put away ANYTHING you are not actively painting. Get it out of sight. Just have out maybe two projects - one in maybe the finish stage (wash, basing) and one maybe in progress (base coat, detail, etc.).
Finish one chunk, and start another - but different one. I don't paint two squads in a row, or two of the same vehicles. That helps with burn out. For simple models (basic troops) I find I can manage 10 at a time. For anything more detailed (termies, bikes, HQ choices,etc.) I do in groups of 3-5.

This will REALLY help with managing the pile.
I painted about 4500 points last year, and maybe about 6000 in 2014 (last year we had our second child...so things slowed down).

Now, back to the OP: How long to fully paint a model.
Hmmm...thats a bit tricky.... actual painting time is hard to measure. Most of my models are painted over the course of several days - primer one day, maybe detail for an hour a day or two later, maybe another 30 min detail sesson, then later a wash and scenic base (another hour?).

Squad of 5-10 guys : 3-6 hours, depending.
MC or small vehicle - 2-4 hours?
Bigger vehicle, or something with a really complex base - 6 hours.

Of coruse, this does not count drying times, etc.

until theyre done.

Space marines take me about 20 hours per half dozen dudes, probably because I paint them silly colours.

I knocked out this alternative Khorne dude in like an hour, and 2 for the ork[img]

Ages. I'm a full time student and have to dedicate a significant amount of time to my studies.

 Frozocrone wrote:
Ages. I'm a full time student and have to dedicate a significant amount of time to my studies.

Wise beyond your years you are!

When I was a student, I had to dedicate a significant amount of time to Magic the Gathering and then borrow homework to copy off of cute girls 5 minutes before class

This was truly a win-win situation -- I got to collect nearly 2 complete original sets of MtG cards, and it also gave me an excuse to go chat with some cute girls!