Painting - Takes so long!

[Rinion]

So, i'm trying to get everything painted while i have the motivation, the problem is, everything seems to take me forever!

 

I spent an hour or more and all I managed to get done was the black on one marine! (Shoulder trims, assault marine straps, weapons, chest symbol, joins). I want to make a good job of them, so maybe the time is justified, but since it's taking so long, maybe there's something wrong with the technique?

 

Any help is appreciated!

[Grey Mage]

The more you do it the easier itll be and the faster itll go.

[Chapter Master Ignis Domus]

Practice makes speed. I've gone from taking up almost the entire time I paint to paint one badly painted Utramarine from Macragge, to being able to paint between 5 and 10 Grey Hunters in that same amount of time.

[Whitefireinferno]

I have found something that has worked for me But bear with me it sounds crazy.

 

Start another army something completly different to the one you are painting this It keeps my speed up when painting so I can paint something in a completly different scheme between lots of Marines or else everything turns into a big red and black smear in my brain, now I have ran into a folly in my plan due to the other army being almost the same red and Codex grey instead of Black so that has failed. But to keep it up I plan on picking up a box or 2 of GK to paint as Purifiers yay silver and white.

 

The upside to this has been I can paint my shade of red much more quickly but now I need something not red so my wallet looses this battle but my painting gets a bonus.

[Foolio_Displasius]

I think part of it is finding a color scheme that appeals to both your aesthetic sensibilities & your current level of painting skill. Some colors are just much bigger pains than others.

 

I agree with the thought of putting some more diversity onto your painting bench. Marines got you down? Try some scouts. Conversely, go find your 3 favorite Reaper Miniatures and paint each in a different style. Try stuff to figure out what you like, what you're good at now, and identify a couple areas where you can try to improve.

 

For myself... like ;) clockwork, I keep being drawn to Space Marines in white power armor. My skill level is nowhere near up to this, so it's slow going with dubious results. That's why I'm about to put the boyz aside for a few weeks and tackle an all-drybrush-metallics army. Say what you will about drybrushed metallics, but it's a technique that fits my skill level much better.

[Reyner]

I find painting a different scheme helps. My current army is white, which frankly is getting on my nerves lol. Painting different minis also helps, painting hordes of generic marines (tacs, etc) gets boring but mixing it up with Scouts (they were a blast if I'm honest) and termies lets you paint on different templates. In short take a break, paint something else either different mini or different scheme and it will get better. Practice makes perfect too, the more you paint the quicker you become!

[Lord_Halrian]

I switch between two diff army's when i cant stand the one anymore i move onto the other one...and back and forth also one i paint to table top quality the other i put in extra time.

[THE GHOMA]

I have a tendency to pre-paint various bitz. Whenever i'm bored and i finished painting all my units, i paint any spare arms/pads/heads/chest pieces/ect. I then use those parts for the next unit I buy.

[space marine schnauzer]

I usually paint in batches...armour first, then bits, faces etc..and turn out dozens quickly...as long as I'm not disturbed..

[Durus]

Quantity has a Quality all its own - or, How to paint 2000 points in 30 days. Stickied in WIP.

[Crimson Fisting]

It's part of the hobby. Enjoy it.

[Brother Rathul]

It's part of the hobby. Enjoy it.

:P

[Lord Ragnarok]

It's part of the hobby. Enjoy it.

 

Yeah, like mold lines! :D

[Tanhausen]

I'm a medium painter (ATM, just you wait 6 months :) ), so here are my "rules" for whatever they're worth:

 

- Prime white. Unless you want a really dark model for some reason, white makes colours stand out A LOT.

 

- Use a test model. It seems common sense and many time you might think "I know how this works"...but you can later strip the model and NOTHING beats seeing a model with the general scheme (even if you don't do the umptieth highlight).

 

- Write down your method. It seems stupid, but man does it help when you need to do a few squads the same.... For example, with my RW bikes painted with DW scheme, its something like:

 

* Prime black (because they have black armour).

* Prime white or astronomican foundation for the clear parts (wheels protectors, gas tank, the light big thing and if robed, the rider)

* Do yellow over the clear parts

* Touch up the black armour

* Do Bleach bone the clear parts

* Highlight the bone

* Highlight the armour

* Do the details (weapons, pistols, feathers)

 

This list is all there is to the model: I have spent enough time with my test model that I know THIS is what I want, so I'm not going to rethink everythime what I want... just get some soft music in the background and airbrush away

 

Hope it helps!

[Hemal]

And when mixing colours use old paint pots and write down or otherwise produce a recipe (I stripe rough proportions of the paint) directly on the pot...

 

It saves a lot of ixing time. Anotehr factor is to "pastel" layer - adding a paint with a really strong pigment to one with a weaker one - e.g. using some good mid-tone greys with paler blues, works a bit like the foundation paints.

[heretic??ME??]

Line up a squad. From 1-10 main coats. Flip Colour back to the start. flip colour back to start. So on and so on.... Doing one guy at a time is way to slow.