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Tips on Painting Armies FastBy Ted Willcock I get asked a lot about how to paint armies fast. O ver the last two months, I painted and sent back four 25mm armies and two in 15mm (926 figures total). Of the six I painted, only two were armies that were primarily the same uniform color. The others were all a mixture of uniforms or in fact had no uniform at all. These armies were all painted and delivered either on time or just shortly after the estimated turnaround time I had provided. One client asked me specifically how I did in two weeks what took him six months to do. Here is how. The biggest thing that can happen when trying to do a lot of figures is getting bogged down by going from one figure to another and painting all the colors that figure requires. Don't do this. You want to paint as many figures as you can, all in the colors you need, in assembly line fashion. I prime my figures all black first. I find that if you miss a spot here and there it will not show as bad if the figure is primed in a white or grey primer. This is evident in figures with a lot of creases where you may not get all the paint into. With a white primer it will show off like a flag. Black it will just look like a fold or shade in the material. Organise your figures in groups or units. If they all have the same uniform and colors great. If not, don't worry, this process will still help you. Start off with one primary color, for example, red. Set out your figures that need red all in a line. Don't change colors until you have all the figures you need to have done painted red. Then move to your next color. Do this until your figures have all the primary colors painted. The only problem with this procedure is that it's kind of dull. You get tired of painting red for an hour or so. What I do when I start to get bored is grab a command figure and do it from head to toe. I find this then keeps me interested in what I am doing, and I can then finish a few more colors that day. If you do your armies the way Ford built his cars (i.e., assembly line) you will find you can crank out a painted army fairly fast. This principle is pretty simple in practice but I know other professional painters that don't do it and stick to doing one figure at a time from the base up so to speak. Try this on one unit to see if you find it goes faster. It may not be the most enjoyable way to paint an army but it is probably the fastest. Again I hope this makes some sense and If anyone has another technique that works better let me know as I'm always looking for a better faster way to do things.
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| Top of Page | Painting | Tips & Guides | DBA Resources | Last Updated: December 9, 2003 Questions, comments, suggestions welcome. |
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