Batch Painting

[dan97526]

Buy an airbrush. OMFG it speeds things up like a sloth that has been pumped full of meth and given a good dance beat.

I have just started learning airbrushery and I am gobsmacked at my stupidity at not getting one of these 20 years ago.

Do all your block colours with it, highlights and shadows are easy with one and blends are a sinch.

Fast and beautiful, what more do you want in life eh. 

Do you know of any particularly helpful tutorials?  I use an airbrush on 15mm armor, but have a hard time conceptualizing using one for 28mm figures.

[HerbyF]

The size of a batch I paint depends on the scale & what I am painting. For 28mm I paint a lot of Sword & the Flame so for antives I usually paint in batches of 20. Some times I paint 60 in a batch. For "European" troops I paint 10 to 20. When painting 15mm a batch might be 12 to 20. I am painting an undead army right now and just did a batch of 41 skeletons, and have another batch of 50 on the table. After that I have about 30 lion centaurs. Then wood elves that I will do in batches of 12 to 20.

[Bugsda]

I've got 41 Huron, 5 Dayaks, various half painted ebay lots and Jim Bowie on the work bench, every morning I have to decide whether to carry on painting or cut my own throat 

[Malamute]

I've got 41 Huron, 5 Dayaks, various half painted ebay lots and Jim Bowie on the work bench, every morning I have to decide whether to carry on painting or cut my own throat 

Can you at least wait until after the Huron are completed

[JollyBob]

I admit I am making slow progress and finding any excuse NOT to paint some Celtos Orcs for Paleskin at the moment. 

Its not that they're bad figures its just that they are the third batch of identical minis and I am losing the will to live with them. Work and family eat up a lot of time, but in the hour or so I get of an evening to actually relax and paint something I actually found myself organising my lead mountain instead!

Luckily Paleskin is a very understanding person and doesn't mind me cocking about quite a lot. There's only about a dozen of them left but I just can't get the mojo working.

My wife says it's just my age, nothing to be embarrassed about and I should try again in half an hour...   

[Daeothar]

Once I got my hands on acrylics for the first time, I used to abhor batch painting, and I finished each mini individually. Needless to say Necromunda (which I bought about 1/2 a year after it was released) had disappeared from the shops, well before I finally had my first Esher gang completely painted.

So eventually, I had to accept the fact that I would have to both lower my standards and accept batch painting as the only viable way of painting an entire army (or even gang/warband for that matter). The first army I did like this was my old style metal Necrons, and I was elated to find that I could finish an entire squad of 10 in one week.

Of course, the miniatures being painted need to lend themselves for batch painting; the aforementioned Necrons were a great examle, comparable to Men-at-Arms in full plate; an easy single base colour (metal), with some details.

For gangs and heroes, painting one at a time is still my preferred option. in fact, for larger units, I often also break them down in smaller groups.  especially when they're wearing some kind of uniform; when I have to mix colours, I like the fact that there are minute differences in colour tone, which makes them look that little bit more real when grouped all together (IMHO. Uniforms being from different dye baths/batches, old and heavily washed versus straight from the quartermaster etc).

Right now, I'm finishing up a block of 25 skeletons, and I paint them as a single batch of 25. I must admit; this is the largest group I've ever painted in one go, but I do like the anticipation as I slowly but surely approach the point when they're finished. I can already say that I'll be really chuffed once I finally finish them.

But at the end of the day, I do think that I like painting single miniatures start to finish best, and my usual way of painting for units is 3 to 5 at a time...

Work and family eat up a lot of time, but in the hour or so I get of an evening to actually relax and paint something I actually found myself organising my lead mountain instead!

That sounds so familiar it's not even funny... 

[AzSteven]

I am doing up a bunch (40+) of Copplestone Warlord Chinese, and I am definitely doing them assembly line.  About half of them were from an EBay purchase and had to be stripped of their bad paintjobs; the other half were new and had been sitting in a box waiting for the project to roll up onto my calendar.

Sunday night I did prep and a nice white initial base.  Monday  I did basecoat for trousers in a dark shade, and blouses in one of three less dark shades.  Tuesday night I drybrushed over these with a light blue-grey.

Starting tonight, I will work on them in batches of 5 or so to do belts, wraps, shoes, faces and weapons.  Troops get brown leather belts and whatnot - officers get nice black patent leather belts to show how important they are!  I am hoping to be done with them before the Labor Day weekend here in the US (first weekend of September)

Didn't even see the Army Painter thing so now I suspect I am too late since I am about 1/3 into the army and I didn't take pics of the 'before'...

[Onebigriver]

My wife says it's just my age, nothing to be embarrassed about and I should try again in half an hour...   

  Brilliant!