Universal Painting and Modelling Efficiency Guide

[The Jabber Tzeentch]

I’m looking to build a consolidated repository of guides, tips and techniques for painting and modelling efficiency. Focusing on a good ratio of time vs reward to get a tabletop standard army on the table. 

Topics I plan to include:

• General hobby tips

• Army scheme planning methods 

• Efficient model building techniques

• Quick and varied basing

• Undercoating efficiently 

• Speed painting 

• Finishing touches

To speed up the process I am asking for your help, everyone has their own ways and unique methods for getting things done, so post them here! 

Anything that you think helps you build and paint faster, whether it’s a special tool you found for weathering or some sort of multi model holding vice for undercoating, and actually layering and highlighting techniques I want it all. 

Thanks in advance for your help, please share far and wide. 

[Uveron]

My advice can be summered as

"Get a System, doesn't matter how it works, just matters that you have a Process. The Process should be a plan, that you can apply again and again, one that allows you to be efficient, yet gives you the flexibility to innovate; it doesn't matter if its not a system used by others as long as it works for you!"  That basically works for all things. 

As for the sub ideas.

 Efficient model building techniques: Dryfit, have an organised bits box, look thought the bits before assembly so you can spot good places for individualization.

  Quick and varied basing: GW Paints, (Cheeper versions classic sand and rock mixed with 'poster' paints).  

[Ollie Grimwood]

Something I’ve found very useful is to drybrush before I start to layer on larger areas in a model.  

I basecoat then shade as normal then dry brush with the same colour as the first layer then layer over the top it, it helps me pick out where the layer should go and get a smoother finish. 

[Swooper]

Common speedpainting tip that should probably be in there: Prime white, then apply shade. Highlighting optional. Works well for things like skin.

[Lysandestolpe]

18 hours ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

Something I’ve found very useful is to drybrush before I start to layer on larger areas in a model.  

I basecoat then shade as normal then dry brush with the same colour as the first layer then layer over the top it, it helps me pick out where the layer should go and get a smoother finish. 

 I cannot stress my seconding of this statement enough. It makes HUGE difference when armypainting to take this step on major colors blocks. I wouldn't do this if I painted higher standard, but for armies, absolutely!

I've painted army commissions for little shy of 10 years now. It put me through 5 years of art school and I can now support myself doing it full time. Here are my tips and tricks for how to get it done quickly and to a good standard of Tabletop:

• General hobby tips

Know your sub assemblies, but keep them few and far in between. For a maw krusher, as en example, I had 4 different parts. The dragon, His wings, and the rider. Everything else was assembled. You don't want to paint too many parts separate as it may show when you do your final assembly. 

Glue the entire army, if you bought one as a whole, right away. Clean of moldlines using a slightly dulled xacto knife. It will help not to take off too much plastic. Just get this step over with if you don't like scraping them. It'll give good results in the end.

• Army scheme planning methods 

-Primary Color
-Secondary Color
-Tertiary Colors (detail colors)

You always want to make sure these colors create a good harmony. You always want to have a contrast using hot and cold colors. If you don't know which colors are hot and which are cold, look at a color wheel. It helps a lot.

Make a test model. Try the color scheme out, be open to critique and opinions, but don't just listen and do, try to understand what makes the colors work, not work. Some people love pastel colors, others hate it. In the end, the color combination will make it work or not work harmoniously despite peoples opinions about the colors.

Plan your work. If you have a few months to paint your army before a tournament, get all basecolors on, with a wash on each, DRYBRUSH BACK WITH BASE COLOR USED IN THE FIRST PLACE, get one highlight on it, and base your army. It'll look fantastic on the board even though it won't have those secondary highlights yet.

Use at least half colors bright and half colors dark. This means that if your primary is black, use your secondary colors white (Black Templars), or another example: Blue and yellow (Ultramarines), or another example, Dark red and Bronze/Gold (Khorne). It helps to separate those details on your models that will make your army stand out on the board. Look at color schemes that you like and identify what you like and do not like in terms of colors and contrasts.

Example: I painted my Khorne white and Bronze instead of Dark red and Gold. I chose to keep the bronze darker than I would have had I done a dark red. Why? Because it helps to seperate the detailing on the models.

• Efficient model building techniques

Just do it! Don't skip the moldlines.

• Quick and varied basing

Sand, base paint and a high contrast drybrush. Put one or two materials on them (Snow, grass, leafing, rocks, mushrooms, rubble, skulls, whatever else you want that might look good. Unsure? Make a test base.

• Undercoating efficiently 

On games workshop plastic, don't overdo the primer. Mist the models gently and it'll be fine. Undercoat the largest areas first and don't mind getting paint on parts you'll paint later. Just make sure you "Duncan" the paint - (Dunc the paint in a little bit of water for a thinner coat). Better doing two thin coats than one too thick. You paid a heavy price for your models, do it right the first time.

• Speed painting 

Do at least 10-20 models at a time. Just punch through it. A good show, or podcast or music will help. Just get through the boring parts for the sake of what you find joy with. If you like it, have fun with it.

• Finishing touches

Winsor Newton series 7 #1 is your precious friend. Get him, get a jar of brush soap and take care of him like he is your son/daughter. Make sure you use a wet palette here. It'll help to get smooth transitions or lines on to your models. If you're not a painter or do not enjoy painting as much, but want to paint your army well, get that one highlight on every or most important areas/colors. It'll make a huge difference.

• ADDITIONAL TIPS:

Don't use to much contrast. Don't overdo using black as a way to shade your cracks on colors. Use a darker, cooler version of the color or its complementary friend. Too much black as a foundation for your colors will make it look off and flat. If you want that dark of a shading, mix a bit of blue, green, red or purple with the black, depending on what color will go on top. Contrast is great, but don't count on it working in your favor all the time.

[The Jabber Tzeentch]

Some fantastic tips here guys thank you, very useful lysandestolpe   

My plan is to extract and consolidate the information in to one easy to use guide, aimed at fairly new painters but useful for all. 

[RuneBrush]

Here's my initial brain dump on general tips.  Will have a think about the other points over the course of the day   Collection into a comprehensive guide sounds like a great idea!

General Tips

I think one of the best bits of advice I've ever been given is there should only be two types of models out on display - finished ones and the ones you're working on.  The most demoralising thing a painter can have is to proudly put their painted unit next to a mountain of bare grey plastic, part of our brains will simply go "you fail as a painter".  Instead hide the pile of shame, put it in a cupboard, under the bed, in the garage etc.  That way when you put your painted unit on display you see an expanse of empty shelf and it'll enthuse you to try and fill it up with more painted models.

Don't skimp on cheap brushes.  You've likely invested quite a bit of cash into your models and paints so why try and cut corners on a cheap couple of quid brush?  Kolinsky Sable is very much regarded as the best for our hobby.  Windsor & Newton Series 7 are probably the best money can buy, however Rosemary & Co, Broken Toad and Raphael all sit very respectably up at the top too.

Use the right brush for the job.  Use a big brush to apply your base layers, despite my comment on Kolinsky Sable, the Citadel synthetic wedge shaped base brushes are really quite good at applying a lot of paint quickly.  Equally don't use a premium brush to apply an all over wash!  Metallic paints all contain metal - this does wear a brush out a lot more quickly than a regular acrylic.

Love your brushes - all of them, Citadel and W&N alike.  Use brush soap after every outing, work it into the bristles and re-point them.  Brushes will still wear out, accept that at some point your favourite brush will need to be retired to more harsh duties.

One (potentially controversial) thing I do, is to regularly change my water.  Although dirty water can subtly harmonise the paints, it's not very good for cleaning out your brushes.  When cleaning your brush "swoosh" it through the water and let the friction of the water remove the paint, jabbing it into the base of the water pot will end up weakening the bristles and ultimately kill the brush.

On Water

Very random but important subject here.  I have a somewhat unhealthy knowledge of water (I keep tropical fish).  The water that comes out the tap varies for every person in the world, everything from the pipes it travels through, through to the way the water is collected leaves behind a chemical trail.  The chemicals in your water will make a difference to how your paint behaves when you thin your paints.

As a quick example, I live in Wiltshire in the UK and am surrounded by  chalk hills (infact most of the south of the UK is chalk).  Because of this much of the rain water passed through those hills before it arrives in our reservoir.  This makes the water very high in calcium carbonate - in other words the water out of my tap is really hard.  If I use this to thin a chalky colour (e.g. white), it's really difficult to control.  Conversely, the further North in the UK you go (or into Wales), the softer the water becomes.

If the water is very hard where you live you've got a few options, the easiest is to purchase Distilled Water (this is used as battery top up fluid).  If you've a tropical/marine fish shop near you, then you might be able to pick up some Reverse Osmosis (RO) water (I've actually a unit under my sink that does this).  As a word of warning, bottled drinking water and filtered water still contains minerals and other chemicals.  Some people use an acrylic medium to thin their paints instead of water, this is perfectly valid but mediums inherently change the properties of the paint, extending drying times or making it flow differently.  Water dilutes the paint and nothing else.

[Sheriff]

Having painted my first army recently over 6 months, things I wish I knew when I started:

• The first models you do will be terrible, just buy a small box of something NOT your army to practice on. 
• Use 2 hands to hold the brush when doing super small details
• Get a good long lamp over your models
• Shade twice if the first one isn't dark enough
• Don't glue models to the base when painting, just use some blu-tak or a little pva or something.
• Grey primer is a safe bet a lot of the time
• Agrax shade is a safe bet a lot of the time
• If in doubt, your washes are not yet dry, and you should wait another hour
• Choosing the right glue is a big deal(!)
• NEVER have a finecast model in your army unless it is mandatory
• A simple consistent colour scheme across models in your army looks good, and you just need 5 steps on each model: prime spray, base colours, shade, dry-brush, then some select bright colours for the bits you want to really stand out. 
• Bases are not an afterthought, they are actually a big part of the army's look, and can compliment or compensate for the model's look nicely
• A simple base plan for noobs is: pva smear the base, cover in sand, paint with the brown gloopy texture paint, agrax shade heavily (leave a day to dry), drybrush grey, smear lightly with pva and sprinkle on some grass. 

[BunkhouseBuster]

Here are my tips for new painters:

- Practice!  Take your time with your first models,  and speed will come with experience.  Stressing out over quality is not worth it, but taking your time to learn how to hand the model, the brush, and your palette makes the biggest impact over your painting.

- Learn the tricks of the trade:  Drybrushing, Shading/Washing/Inking/Dipping, Highlighting, Glazing, Wet Blending.  These will improve the look of your models and can really help your models pop out.

- Basing ties the army together, so it is just as important as the rest of the model while being much easier.  The Citadel Texture paints are very handy, though I've had mixed results with the GW Agrellan crackle paint, the other GW Texture paints all work well.  Sand and glue is also an effective choice should you go that route.  Small rocks and pieces of cork are also good basing materials.

- Figure out where you can be "lazy" with the models.  In some cases, it might be a case of not bothering with their eyes, or simplifying your highlighting, or not worrying about getting paint on the model where no one will see it (my favorite).  This is very handy to know when doing more than 30 of the same model.

- Take care of your brushes!  Get brush cleaner and use it.  You want to get as many models out of your brushes as you can.