"Painting infantry production line style" Topic

I've got like 90 us infantry to paint. 28mm scale

Anyone care to share their quick and dirty way to paint these quickly?

paint one color a day.

for 90 figures, you might want to do it two lots.

It goes very fast and within 2 months, without forcing too much like 40 minutes a day and 2 hours on week-end, you should be done within 45 days.

90 is a lot to do in one go. I'd consider breaking them down into lots of 30, but it depends how good a paint job you want.

Block paint, wash and drybrush is always my advice for a quick paint job. US infantry are hard as the OD uniforms end up all sorts of different colours with fading.

My US guys are all in pre M43 uniforms so spray them black, highlight with a heavy white drybrush then:

M41 jackets – various shades of light OD (I use two or three)
trousers – brownish.
boots – brown
webbing and gaiters – tan
rifle stocks etc – brown
hands and faces – flesh

give the whole thing a wash of dark brown ink.

Helmets – OD
Give the whole thing a very, very light drybrush of offwhite (Vallejo Iraqi sand is good for this).

Pick out the metallic bits on rifles etc.

Job done. I cranked out 200 figures in a couple of weeks like that, but I did them in unit sized batches. Nothing worse than painting 400 pairs of boots in one painting session.

I do Napoleonic infantry in lots of 36 so 30 makes sense. It also gives you a sense of accomplishment. I agree with Martin Rapier, on the block paint, wash and dry brush.
Try this for colors if Martins don't work for you.
link

I put all the same pose figures together and do all the tight corners first with a tiny brush – or sometimes I get a wider brush and quickly block in the large surface. One or the other.

I call it the "If it's Tuesday I paint red" method.
I use white prime.
Flesh first. Face and hands base coat of Ceramcote Spice Brown, diluted.
It will probably be still wet by the time you get your lot finished.
When dry, dry brush with Medium Flesh. When drybrushing, an advantage is that the figure will be dry enough to do a second color almost immediately.
I never do eyes. To be honest, NOBODY does eyes on 28mm figures that look right. At most, do a slash of eyebrow in Dark Umber.
I'm talking AWI here. GIs will vary. Paint small clothes, white or buff. Neck cloth.
In order. Coat. Then trousers. Facings. Straps. Weapon is last.
Note that I'm painting outwards, and doing around 30 or more figures at a time.
I may even be doing several different battalions at a time. Hunting shirt guys, sailors, escaped slaves and so on all get the same basic colors. I might do horses from several different units at the same time. "If it's Wednesday, I'm doing brown."
Last step is The Dip. Not really dipping, but painting Dark Tudor stain, keeping brush wet with thinner. After dry, spray with Dullcote or Clear Matte varnish.
I know from painting 15mm WWII, that the Dip really brings out straps over khaki.

OD spray paint. When painting 25s, I tend to work in batches of no larger than 16.

Power paint. Line them up and black prime from level angle.
Then group the whole gang together and hit them at about 60-70 degrees with your primary color. In this case olive drab. This angle will leave the black as a shadow effect.
Now at a very high angle, about 80 degrees, spray a light coat, either light khaki or a very light O.D. This will give you a light shading effect.
90 percent of your painting is done. You can slap on flesh, 2 quick slaps on the face (don't worry about totally covering the face), slap/slap the paws. Then a quick hit on the weapon wood, canteen, and any other equipment. Flesh wash faces, hands, weapon stock and anything else brown or tan.
Use a black artist pencil for metal. And you should be done. Check for any gaps: you can use a thin black wash here and you're done.
I've done 50-60 troops in a day with this method.
cheers.

I've done 50-60 troops in a day with this method.

that's the way I painted my zombies. Pretty effective for dirty look living deads.

I agree with the above about splitting that group of 90 down to a more manageable chunk. Maybe thirty at a time would be better. Work your way down the line with one colour, by the time you reach the end the first figures will probably be dry.

Any larger than thirty then you may do what I do and become complacent, ending up just slopping the paint on to try and save time and sanity.

Jake

I too break down into manageable chunks, but make up those smaller groups by figure type rather than any sort of military organisation. I.e. I don't break them down into sections, platoons etc but paint by figure type.
I like painting with the figures mounted on sticks of wood maybe 6 to 8" long, in groups of 5 to 7. So, I'll have say 6 identical riflemen on one stick, 5 identical SMGs on another etc. All mounted in the same aspect, so that as I'm painting all the details are in the same place relative to my body as I paint. That way as I paint the boots, Ill just paint one side of them on all 6 figures, then turn the stick around and do the other side. Then if I'm painting a backpack, I'll put all of of the base coat on all the figures etc- you get the idea. Same for shading, it means you can simply repeat the same brushstrokes in the same place again and again.
Speeds things up a lot. Depends slightly on how many figures you have to do, and what pose variation you have. I wouldn't paint 400 figures like that, but would break it down further. With your 90 I might go for 3 x 30 depends on the number of poses.
Can drive you a bit mental! – but, its fast!

I agree with Keith easy and practical but mentally a bit monotonous. I still feel as if i'm not getting anywhere.
Instead of painting one figure type try a section\squad and paint the same items on all figures before moving to the next item. At the end you have one section squad complete figures done no monotonous slog and your army has some form already.