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The Fiddly Bits


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Every good painter knows that it's much easier to paint your Space Marine well if you leave the bolter and backpack off, paint the Marine and then attach the painted accessories afterwards. I have often spent almost as much time painting bolters and backpacks as the Marine itself despite how much less detail there is on them to paint. These pieces are so small that they need to be painted in 2 parts for each coat considering a sizeable chunk is under your fingers. So here is my question:

 

How do you paint your bolters and backpacks quickly, getting around this problem?

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I go a bit further and take emptied sprue segments (with lots of odds n' ends poking out every which way) and put a little blob of greenstuff between the tips and my heads, shoulder pads (for ease of free-handing insignias), and bolters. I leave the backpacks on assuming that test fitting went well: some shoulders/arms will make it hard to sneak in the shoulder plate between the backpack and the arm, and on those the packs are left off until finished.

 

It makes for a nice assembly line, having 5 heads/shoulders/guns on one little segment of plastic. Greenstuff normally dries hard enough to withstand pressure from basic painting and loose enough to pop right off when I'm done.

I have a bag of old flying stands I use for teh same job - I use greenstuff or superglue to attach the component - normally where it will be glued to the rest of teh model. Where the join is not going to be invisible - I have to glue on the part, sand the two parts close, smooth dwn and then take apart (usually using a pin).

 

The sprue method is the same, but works better as indicated for assembly lines - however as I am ony ever painting "good" standard models i.e. every model I paint as if I was entering GD - including plastic RnF which is why my army is tiny (too OCD? Hell yeah!), access to teh different components is requried. I do glue the gun to an arm though as then there is a more to work with in terms of model mass, and gluing guns to hands often overspills poly cement or superglue..

The sprue method is the same, but works better as indicated for assembly lines - however as I am ony ever painting "good" standard models i.e. every model I paint as if I was entering GD

 

I'll have you know I paint my boys to a pretty high standard, too, thank you very much :cuss . It's not quality versus quantity, it's quality in quantity :P .

 

I'm a bit curious about the toothpick trick too, I don't think any of my drill bits could punch a big enough hole for that. Plus, some bits simply aren't big/thick/wide enough for it, like bolters I would imagine.

I use a lighter to heat the tip of a needle, which I then gently insert in to an easily hidden part of the component I'm painting. So for a backpack it'll be just above the hole where the marine's back extrusion goes in to. I can also prime these parts a different colour if I want to.
  • 1 month later...
I drill holes in "hidden" parts, like gun barrel (do not glue in here), backpack joint, wrists, neck, etc. and glue some paper clips in it. I do that before priming. You can then handle them by the paper clip part (which can be folded to make a kind of handle). When you're done with painting, just cut the paper clip as close as possible to the model.
  • 2 months later...

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