"Wargamers: How much effort do you put into your painting?" Topic

So I've been "out of it" in serious miniature painting for some time, and I don't think I was ever that good (major lack of critical feed back due to no camera / no locals). I'm working through some plastic mini's that will be used as game pieces in a table top game and I realize I'm pretty meh at painting.

Especially faces, which have kicked my ass all night.

So help restore my ego by showing or telling me how much effort you put into your game pieces :p

M.

I put loads of effort in to my painting. This is great for when other people look at the minis I've painted and congratulate me on a job well done! There is a drawback though as it takes me ages and ages to paint… And I mean ages and ages …

Variable, depends on the quality of the sculpt, time available and my interest in the subject.

Whilst I enjoy painting it is just a means to an end and playing with my mates is more important.

I have finally managed to find a balance I'm happy with between painted well enough to not be ashamed of my figures and quick enough to churn out unit after unit.

They won't win any painting competitions but they look nice enough on the table.

I've also realised that a half decent base and a nice flag make a huge difference aesthetically.

A few of my more recent figures, ACW, can be found here;

fat-wally.com/TCHAE.html

Enough to do a job I'm happy with but I'm a confirmed magic wash guy so I put less effort in than some. I put more effort into painting AFVs and terrain to be honest.

I solo, so I put enough effort into making the figures please ME! (I know, it's a bit selfish). I am no master painter, but with 28/30mm at least try to have decent shading (I use the 3-step Foundry method).

But I NEVER play with unpainted models – anathema!

I used to put a lot of time and effort into my figures, both for my own pleasure and as a showcase for my commission work.
This was always time consuming but in recent years my failing eyesight has made it even more so.

Now apart from a very rare event or "special figure" I am putting little effort into a basic paintjob. Still shaded and highlighted by hand (I refuse to "dip" my work) but to a "good enough" rather than "show off" standard. The smaller the scale the more basic the work becomes.

Every possible effort. I enjoy it. The results aren't always what I hoped for, but never through want of trying, and when it does work out well it's very satisfying.

Downside is it takes me ages to get enough done to play with. Each of these groups consist of probably a week's worth of evenings at the painting table (maybe even longer, not sure):

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I can't do "quick."

I am with Kev here, a decent base and a good flag hides many sins. That said a tidy neat but simple paint job beats a badly done fancy style anyday. Currently I daub on paint and then magic wash it and let the figure designer do most of my work for me.

I think that most of the effort is put in on the front end learning how to do it. Once you have figured out the tricks that work for you it is all downhill after that. Certainly it still takes time but it is a lot easier overall.

I'm with Fat Wally. I'll make them presentable and ready to PLAY! I block paint my figures and use the dip method and wipe off any excess of it and leave the white areas white. Quick and easy. I haven't had any complaints and I'm sure there are people out there that will take months to paint 100 15mm figures, I'm not that worried about it and the ends do justify the means and my "system" works for me and I'm not looking to win any competions, just game!!

My 2¢ worth!

I want them done fairly quikely, ready for the table, I will put more effort into command figures that sit on one of the dressers at home. Just getting my head round painting 6mm after a long year of 28s!

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Tally Ho!

Too much effort.

Paint them as well as I can, given the caveat of a cost v benefit analysis that means that smaller figures get less love. :-)

I tend to paint in 6, 10 & 15mm too.

For the first time in my life, I'm painting at a standard that I'm proud of. It's not much, just a Basecoat-Spray/colors/dip/matte-spray, but I'm carefull with application of colors and I really like the results. It will never win a painting comp, but it's better than half the stuff I've seen on the tables around here and it's gotten great feedback from folks I've showed it to.

Best of all it's quick enough for someone like me who doesn't like to paint.

I definitely agree with those who said a well done simple job is better than a poor attempt at complicated techniques.

My effort varies too on the quality of sculpting, interest in the subject and how I'm feeling.

Plynkes: your figures are really nice. I'd be quite chuffed with that shading and blending.

Production line standard (10mm anyway), for me painting is a chore.

My older eyes now mean ordinary paint jobs look fine :-)

It depends. I put much more effort into WWII and other minis intended to stand alone, such as pirates and gladiators, than I do into my ancients. My ancients are still pretty nice, though. On average I can do 5 x 15mm ancients an hour. WWII and others I average only one or two 15mm per hour.

Mine are distinctly average, I paint figures to get them on the table and play with. Block paint, wash, drybrush, final details. Job done.

Decent bases can make even poor figures look good, whereas bad bases can make the best figures look awful. All at normal wargaming viewing distances of course.

I spend a fair bit of time on some vehicles, but that is old modeller in me.

Not enough….but I've learned to live with it.

Frankly, I send more of my stuff to Sri Lanka now.

My painting is for speed and effect. I paint mostly relatively simple block colours, then army painter. I use all the cheats – shield transfers, paper flags. I manage to paint about 600 28mm figures per year.

Perry WOTR
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Crusader Romans
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Crusader and Artizan Vikings
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Wargames Factory Zulus
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Artizan and Crusader Fallshirmjager
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Wargames Factory Romans
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Black Tree Russians
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Mick

If something's worth doing, then it's worth doing properly. I try to paint all my figures as well as I can, and to improve my painting as time goes on. Might take me a bit longer than some to get figures ready for a battle, but with 12,000 already done, I've got enough to have a game with in the meantime!

It depends on what I am doing.

28mm Gauls -- I spend a lot of time and effort.

1/72 Aircraft. Generally not a lot of time and effort. I use decals when ever possible and seldom do anything 'special'. The hardest thing I do are wood grain patterns -- these are a bear.

15mm WWII -- very little. I am the originator of the 10 minute tank paint job. I knock out 100 infantry in about 4 hours. For some reason artillery takes me an inordinate amount of time. I once painted up some tanks in ambush cammo. Really nice job. No one has ever noticed -- not on a 15mm fig. Why bother if no one cares or can see it without a close inspection. There are too many Gauls to paint anyway.

15mm ACW -- perhaps more effort than the WWII but not a lot more. This is not my favorite period despite the fact that I end up playing about six games a year.

In the end, I find the more time I spend on a figure -- the better the paint job. Simple as that.

At this point in life, what really matters is, how much time do I want to devote to a figure? Once that it decided, I let the paint job fall where it may.

mjc

The smaller the size, the less detail you need. I game 28mm, so the figure shows all. Thus I put time into a good paint job (as best I can).

My motto is: The rules may suck but the table looks good!

it depend on what I'm painting. I used to spend days just painting a single figure but now gaming pieces get a gaming paint job, neat but basic.
This saves me lots of time which gets spent painting one offs etc.
…uuummmm, not sure I'm any better off.

I like a good overall look and tend to put a lot of time into the table and terrain. The mass troops are painted to look good at 3-4 ft away which means black wash over grey primer, Block painting with a few highlights, picked out elements, and drybrushing, all followed by a drip. And I leave them shiney as it reminds me they are sealed, done, and ready for some abuse, If they aren't shiney (lightly satininzed that is), I'm not done with them yet. Overall they get decennt comments uless veiwed with good eyes up close.

But I will say this, 500 figures painted to wargame standard look awsome against a similar army with 7-25 figures painted in detail and the rest in bare metal or primed.

In the old days I'd try to get 3-5 colors on a figure to get them on the table and then finish them at my leisure. So in the attic I have a lot of 3/4 finished models that may never be finished, but who looked pretty good on the field of battle when they were in service.

I love painting. I'm good at it, so the effort is relative. I'm reasonably fast too.

My current project, Punic Wars, means I have to paint 80 figs a month (28mm) until November 2011 – so I'm smuggly organised aswell.

Results here:

olicanalad.blogspot.com

When I'm dead my armies will fight on. They are virtually all I'll leave behind, so they will always be as good as I can make 'em – I even sign the bottom of the odd stand.

James R.

As for actual time, I have figured that I spend an average of 30 minutes per figure from start to finish. If I really want the figure to look special, in a show quallity manner, then it will take an hour or more.

I probably paint to about a B+ standard: the figures look very nice and have a certain amount of detail and two color shade/highlight, but probably not good enough to win any painting competitions.

While I think that I could ramp up the quality to the "A-" level, I don't really want to spend the extra time to get there, especially when I use 60 figure battalions and the individual figures get lost in the overall mass.

I agree with others that the basing and the use of GMB flags can hide a lot of painting sins.

Now Olicanalad, who posted ahead of me, is what I would call a Master Painter. His Crusaders and Punic War figures are outstanding.

DAF, your paintjobs are great. But yes, have to agree with you about Olicanalad – I was stunned by his Crusades painting and now the Punic Wars too.

Me – I try and do a detailed job of it but not into washes or anything. My figs look good enough to please me. Im also not a fast painter.

I take forever to paint a figure considering it's far from "A" level. I don't get enough time lately to be consistant about it and my hands are not as steady as they were.

The only time I painted "quick" was with the WF Zombies. Basic colors, minimal highlights and a quick wash were all those sculpts needed.

I used to shade with my warhammer figs, but I never could see the detail much once they were all in a block. Now I don't really bother that much.

Thanks for the feed back, I see we're all over but tend towards "a lot" per fig. When I had my guys yp close I hated how the paint job looked but now that they're all ranked up it doesn't even seem to matter. I love how inexpensive these WF guys are.

M.

For regular rank and file 28mm figs, I paint blocks of 10 to 12 models and average about 10 hours per block. If I have unit command in those 10 to 12 man blocks I'll typically spend a couple extra hours adding extra details to them. For more specialized troops like warmachines and crew or smaller expensive units, I'll spend about 10 to 12 hours per warmachine and crew or smaller unit. Individual characters I spend anywhere from 8 to 20 hours per fig. I'm currently at about 21 hours on the Battle Standard Bearer I just finished.

My goal is to keep the same level of quality and reduce my current times by about 25% across the board. As I've been painting a lot more than I ever had in the last year, I've noticed these times improving. At one time the current BSB would have taken me about 40 hours to finish, and it wouldn't have looked as good.

Ultimately I put a lot of effort into making everything look good, but some things get much more effort than others.

Here's a work in progress pic I took when I was at about 20 hours into the BSB.

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Here's a canon with about 12 or 13 hours work.

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Here's a 35 man unit of spearmen. I averaged about 1.25 hours per fig on these. The Wizard in the unit I did in just over 13 hours. I've got a unit of halberdiers that I averaged about 1 hour and 5 minutes each, but no photos at this time.

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I used to spend quite a bit of time and got decent results. Now I'm just tring to get the figures painted. I've gotten sloppy on some of my Perry AWI but I can't see them anyway without my reading glasses so I've grown apathetic. My 15mm WII figures are as basic as it gets. I didn't even shade or highlight them.

I put a lot of effort into painting on the rare occasions that I sit down and do it, but often the result is underwhelming considering the time put in. It's still more relaxing and rewarding than many other things I could be doing.

To much. If I'm not very happy with the look, I'm not happy gaming with the little guys. I have sometimes tried to put less work into them….it never works. I'll say "let's just get these on the table" and find myself adding buckles, studs, eye brows, shadows, etc.

It feels like a lot of effort at the time, but really I am not a great painter and I accept my limitations and get troops on the table.

I put in a lot of effort but the results vary from quite good to poor. I can only paint to "my standard" and at "my speed" which generally means about a month for 24 x 28mm figures. Here are a few examples of Napoleonic (15mm & 28mm), ECW (15mm) and some 28mm Mongol:

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Pete

Today I discovered the value of a wash.

I converted some WF Germans into skirmishers and painted them up. They were all shirtless, so I used quite a lot of flesh color. After they were dried, I realized that while my other multicolor figs looked fine on their own, these guys were quite "bland" and a bit "orangeish" looking; my second coat of paint had color-killed the details.

So I took the flesh color (Vallego Dwarf Flesh), Vallego black, and some Model Master Acryl Thinner and tried my hand at a wash. Some came out a tad muddy looking, which I think I can solve by highlighting in the base flesh color, bubt the details are a lot better looking now.

M.