speed painting

[henrywalker]

So i have always been content to sit and paint lowly and never actually complete an army but now i need my grey knights ready fast. They don't need to be brilliant, just table top standard.

 

I timed myself and going as fast as i can i painted 1 grey knight terminator in an hour and 3 at once in 1:30

 

I'm guessing that thats not particularly fast, i was wondering what techniques i could try in order to make this faster

 

Thanks

[Kalamadea]

Grey knights you can cheat a bit. Get yourself some metallic silver spray paint. Krylon Brilliant Silver is fantastic for this, comes out a little brighter than mithril silver even, and you want to let it dry overnight. Paint the inlay text with gold, the red areas with macharite or blood red, any details you want black with charadon granite, then wash everything with a nice heavy coat of Badaab Black wash. The wash will GREATLY tone down the shine, and turns the bright silver spray paint into an almost dead match for Chainmail as well as really darkening the recesses. Paint the force weapon blades Ultramarine Blue, add some highlights with Space Wolves Grey, and give that a heavy coat of Asurman Blue wash. Paint the scrolls and purity seals white, give it a heavy wash of Gryphonne Sepia. Seal the miniature with some dullcoat, I suggest testors or Krylon Clear (flat), and then highlight the silver with chainmail or mithril silver and gold for the inlay. You do this after the dullcoat to bring back the metallic luster and only to the tops of areas like a highlight

Should cut your paint time at least in half and it looks great.

Here is a WIP shot of what it looks like (I used scorpion green and a few coats of Thraka Green wash for the blade on this one)

[henrywalker]

thanks good advice, i'll try the krylon, i already use brilliant gold for my necrons and it works pretty well

 

are there any techniques, ie how you actually paint that apply no matter what your painting? eg is it best to paint one or 3 or 5 or 10 at a time?

[Captain jOE]

Well I'm no expert, (I kind of have the same problem). But you either need to get REALLY fast at basing, shading, and highlighting. Or you have to resign yourself to a lesser standard of painting. (which it looks like you are willing to do)

 

I personally, would spray your knights with a black primer. Then I would drybrush the ENTIRE model in mithril silver. Paint over the mirthril with whatever gold shade you want to use for the gold areas and paint the red areas mechrite red. I'd paint the sof armor Adeptus battlegrey (and highlight the guns), and then paint over that with a watery choas black coat. leave the power weapons silver, unless you have another painting technique that is fast and looks good on them. I'd spend just a little extra time on the eyes to bring them out and enhance the minis overall even if they are basic. Just paint the eyes Enchanted blue, then ice blue (leaving enchanted in the recesses), then a mix between ice blue and white within the previous layer, and then a small spot of white in the center of the eyes.

 

That's how I would speed paint them. However, this should also leave you open to wash and highlight should you choose to enhance the paint job later. And you can then add OSL to the areas around the eyes.

 

I hope that was of any help.

[Kalamadea]

Do about 5 at a time. The more you do at once, the faster you will finish since you're just going along assembly line style with the same paint colors all at once, but too many minis and you will start to miss areas and have to go back later. Otherwise, for the wash I like to use a large brush and put on a very heavy coat of wash to the entire area (or model, in this case), then wipe the excess off the brish and use it to wick away excess wash on the model where it starts to pool too much.

 

I suggest wash over spray paint instead of drybrushing over black, you get a cleaner looking result and it's actually much faster. Drybrushing seems deceptively quick but actually takes a while to really get good coverage, and it's hard to keep it uniform when you're doing a lot of models. Your brush tends to gum up as you go longer and longer, then you rinse it out and the moisture on the brush changes how any further drybrushing looks unless you are REALLY meticulous in drying out the brush before you go back to painting. Wash you can just slather on and remove excess if you use too much.

[Captain jOE]

Do about 5 at a time. The more you do at once, the faster you will finish since you're just going along assembly line style with the same paint colors all at once, but too many minis and you will start to miss areas and have to go back later. Otherwise, for the wash I like to use a large brush and put on a very heavy coat of wash to the entire area (or model, in this case), then wipe the excess off the brish and use it to wick away excess wash on the model where it starts to pool too much.

 

I suggest wash over spray paint instead of drybrushing over black, you get a cleaner looking result and it's actually much faster. Drybrushing seems deceptively quick but actually takes a while to really get good coverage, and it's hard to keep it uniform when you're doing a lot of models. Your brush tends to gum up as you go longer and longer, then you rinse it out and the moisture on the brush changes how any further drybrushing looks unless you are REALLY meticulous in drying out the brush before you go back to painting. Wash you can just slather on and remove excess if you use too much.

 

^

 

Listen to this guys. Apparently he knows more about this stuff than I do... :tu: