Assemble First or Paint First?

[Auxryn]

Hi everyone,

The impression I've gotten from most people I've talked to (and the instruction book) is that they put together their models first and then paint them.
This has worked okay on the infantry models I've painted so far, except for a few nooks and crannies. Painting my Deffkoptas was a much more difficult experience. I'm definitely going to paint them before putting any more together.

Since painting generally takes a much longer time than assembly, and I have about twenty-five orks to do, I was thinking of laying out all the limbs and heads and such and painting everything at once, then sticking things together every-which-way.

Will this be faster, or am I missing something?

[Admiral-Badruck]

It will be faster if you do it fast. If you just want them painted. Get painted really fast either way. Things you may consider are how much work do you want to do is the three colour minimum or is your goal to do a bunch more fun lighting and shading. If you just want them done and out of the way then I say put them together first if you want them to look great paint the parts the make sense to paint before assembling ork heads especially deffkopta head paint better before assembling them.

[Tenorikuma]

I've noticed it's a lot easier (don't know about faster) if I paint the head and some other bits separately. Much easier to paint the crannies without getting paint in the wrong places.

[Primarch]

I find that it is easy enough to do them as a whole model, but parts that block access to other sections of the model (e.g. guns held across the body, shields etc) can be done individually.

[me_in_japan]

Very much depends on the minis. Ork infantry tends to be fairly forgiving of assembling-first, as their arms tend to be waving around n stuff. Marines, guard, eldar all tend to be holding rifle type guns across their chests. With basic line infantry id say just assemble them and paint the bits you can reach. Nobody is going to lean across the table, pluck one of your myriad ork boyz up and say "hey! You missed a spot in his armpit!"

For character models, I'd paint first, assemble later. I also start with faces and bases, as these are important so you want to come at them fresh. These 2 bits also dictate the tone of the mini, so it's good to do them first.

For vehicles, because I airbrush I have to paint first assemble later. This cuts down on time spent masking areas off, which is a huge PITA. Eldar vehicles are particular bad for this (pilot in enclosed cockpit, can only be inserted before you attach the top half of the vehicle hull to the bottom half )

With regards to speed painting...

For units, I hate assembly line painting with a burning passion, but I know it works for some folks. I tend to undercoat a squad (between 6 and 10, for the armies I play), then use my airbrush to do them in an appropriate majority base colour. (eg yucky green for nurgle marines, blue-grey for my eldar, black for my dark eldar) I may then do some zenithal highlighting (I did this a lot with my nurglies and dark eldar, particularly.) Basically, if my airbrush is involved, I do whole squads. After that stage, however, I'll do a maximum of 2 minis at a time, painting all the yellow bits on one then the other, then shade all the yellow bits on both, highlight all the yellow bits on both, and so on. This allows for a steady sense of progress (ie you can say "2 down, 4 to go" instead of "Yagh, none of them are finished yet."

I also paint up all the bases for a squad at the same time, before I paint them (or when I'm organised, I paint all te bases for the whole army at once, which I did for my nurglies and dark eldar, but that was all resin bases, and was painting only, no construction work involved.)

[ashmie]

Nobody is going to lean across the table, pluck one of your myriad ork boyz up and say "hey! You missed a spot in his armpit!"

Don't be so sure. I've been pulled up on little things like this many a time mid game.

[me_in_japan]

Ok, revise that to:

Nobody who isn't a complete prat is going to lean across the table, pluck one of your myriad ork boyz up and say "hey! You missed a spot in his armpit!"

Obviously its different if you've just asked someone for painting critique, but for basic infantry grunts, mid game, even I don't care, and I'm fussy as all hell about painting.

[kojibear]

Ok, revise that to:

Nobody who isn't a complete prat is going to lean across the table, pluck one of your myriad ork boyz up and say "hey! You missed a spot in his armpit!"

I know you love each other

[me_in_japan]

Wasn't saying Ashmie was a prat. Perish the thought. Nah, I was saying that whoever it was who was eyeballing his infantry's armpits was a prat.

[Admiral-Badruck]

pratトテモ言うは何ですショウカ