Painting with the arms on

[Purdy81]

I started off painting at Christmas with the AOBR marines, I painted the body's and weapons separately and then attached them, I was very happy with the result. I was originally planning on collecting minis just to paint them so the time it took didn't really mater, but now the gaming bug has bitten me.

 

My first box of tac marines I also painted with the arms and weapons removed but this seemed to take forever all though I'm still happy with the results it just takes so long.

 

Have you guys got any tips for painting fully assembled minis rather than painting the parts separately? especially heavy weapons such as lasconon and plasma canons as they cover loads of the marines actual body

 

Cheers Brothers

[Olis]

If your bothered with how good they look then a steady hand is required. It is difficult to paint the crevices and more hidden parts due to the nature of the mini being assembled. Smaller brushes help. :)

[Brother_Ovis]

My friend paints everything assembled, he even painted his Rhino and Drop Pod interiors this way, so everything is possible. Think this way - if some part of your model is very hard to reach with the brush, it's most probably also not very visible, in which case you can just skip it. Unless you're painting for the hell of it and your models are going straight into the display case, remember this - 99% of the time you (and everyone else) will be looking at them from ca 3' distance, so the chances of someone shouting "Look, his lascannon dev has some unpainted spot under his armpit" are pretty slim ;)

[UltraRich]

I think it depends on the minis position.

I used to glue them together and then paint them after but there was always the issue of how to paint the aquila on the body of marines who were holding their bolters with two hands.

 

What I do now is glue the body (base, legs and torso) so I can paint that. I then glue the arms, pads and weapons and paint them. I then paint the head and back pack separately. What then do is use bluetak to hold the mini together so I can get a feel for the positioning before I commit to glue. I dont find this takes longer as at the end of the day you are going to paint everything anyway.

 

Then again like Ovis said if its not going to be display standard as long as you are coving all the hard to reach spots with paint I wouldnt worry about it.

[Red Fury]

A good compromise is to position the arms with a weapon in hand and glue just the arms down, remove the weapon and paint. It's not bad painting with the arms attached, it's the weapon that gets in the way. Works for just about any two handed weapon, you can use some sticky-tac to help keep the weapon in place while you glue down the arms.