"Painting after basing..10, 15, 28mm" Topic

I have heard of some who paint multiple figs on a base after basing, that is gluing to the base but before the final sand, grass, etc, I suppose. If you do this, could you share how you go about it? Does it save time without much sacrifice in tabletop quality, etc? Special tricks for hard to reach spots? Thanks.

I have tried this in 15mm DBA. It works fine when doing loose-order bases (Psiloi, Light Horse), or monochromatic figures (like armored foot knights), but can be difficult otherwise. I am not a good painter, though. I tried doing it with some Polybian Romans in 15mm and it sacrificed being able to paint behind the shields and around their waists. Heads and feet and shield were not a problem.

I do that. A personal choice.
The reason for doing it is that it gets troops done quicker.

1. It reduces the amount of handling of the figures prior to receiving the final varnish coat. I find the paint will rub off if the figures are handled prior to finishing.
2. I don't want to spend time basing once on a stick and then re- basing on the fighting base.
3. If I cannot get to particular part of the figure then it will probably not be seen anyway.
4. I undercoat in a dark brown so that any non prominent parts are still coloured.
5. Any hard to reach parts can often be reached by inks.

I find this to be quick and effective.
Do bear in mind that my thoughts are based on 15mm historical battles (minimum of 100 figures a side, all on grouped bases).
I have no interest in the "12 men a side" 28mm skirmish trend. I am sure these games would require a different paint process.

It's not the scale but the basing. I'm happy to paint individually-based 1/27 and 26mm figures, but double-ranked 5/6mm can be troublesome.

Generally, the 5/6mm get a quick paint job first, then I glue the rear rank to the permanent base. At that point, I give them a double check and paint the area in front of that rear rank a quick coat of a flat dark green. Then I add the front rank, check again and do some drybrushing on visible surfaces--front of front rank, back of rear rank, sides and headgear. Then I grass. The dark green is a precaution since especially in the ubiquitous "advancing with leveled musket" pose, that area can be hard to reach during the terraining process.

A good five points to live by, Martin, especially 3 – 5.

I'm big on the dark brown base; as I said earlier on another thread, I rarely assemble after painting (see your #1), because it would be in shadow anyway. And if the mini is based in ranks and never seen "in the round", it is IMHO really a waste of effort.

I've also taken to basing before painting, recently.

I'm working in 15mm, mostly for DBMM so basing 2-4 figures on 40mm wide bases. It's been successful for infantry, even four-to-a-base close order troops, and for open-order two-to-a-base cavalry. I wrote an article in the last Slingshot on painting my 14th-century Italian pavise-and-crossbow troops; these are double-based elements, two ranks of four (and in my case some extra command figures) on a 40mm by 40mm base. For those I stuck the front rank on the base and then painted them, but painted rear-rank figures separately and then assembled the lot.

As for shields, I painted the pavisiers before attaching their separate pavises, but I think I could have got away with attaching first. As it was I wasted time painting the fronts of the figures which are now totally invisible. Admittedly these are unusually large shields, and held very close to the bodies of the figures, so this might not be true in other cases.

Final result at link – I think that's visible to non-members.

At the moment I am part-way through doing some complex elements, that is an artillery piece and some baggage elements – a cart, a wagon, and a "hunting party" – all of which involve multiple figures. What I have done for these is:

1. Clean up castings and do any conversion work, assemble the vehicles;
2. Glue to base everything except the cart and the wagon, because I am not sure I'd be able to paint underneath these very easily;
3. Undercoat the figures. I still use matt white Humbrol enamel, which has been my undercoat since the 1970s;
4. Texture the bases. Traditionally this has been one of the last steps, but I am trying out doing it earlier. I always find I get at least a bit of basing medium on a figure's or horse's legs, and this way if I end up scraping it off and touching up the paint, then at least it's only the undercoat I have to repair;
5. Paint the textured bases – just the initial earth colour, not any highlights at this stage. Again, this minimises any damage caused by getting dark earth paint on your figures' legs;
6. Then paint the figures.

The other advantage of doing it all this way round is it makes it much easier to get away with using half-painted figures in a game (which I did with the carts just ten days ago). Cheating, really, I know, and totally unacceptable to some people; but at least they're correctly based in elements, on plausibly-coloured bases; and I had at least managed to paint the flesh and a few other bits, so from a distance you might think the guys were just dressed in white!

Only on one per base figures. Never tried for multiple. I'm not that great of a painter.

Except for 6mm figures, which would be excessively fiddly painted individually, this just seems like unnecessarily making things difficult for yourself.

I would think that the extra time taken in trying to find the right angle to get at the hard-to-reach spots and having to sometimes hold the brush unnaturally would more than outweigh any gains from avoiding transferring the figures from temporary painting bases to their gaming bases.

Anything with a lot of equipment, packs, scabbards, turnbacks, straps and differently colored things would be a problem. Maybe Zulus or robed figures with little to no accessories would be passable. So, depends on the sculpt.

Interesting approach – never have tried it beyond 6mm

I do it on FoW Bases.

You finish the base first (except grass). That is the most time you win, because you can drybrush without any fiddling. Than basecoat.

It works best IMO, if you have models where you use a wash technique.

I'm a committed paint first base seconder. I paint 6mm and I'm putting up to 16 figures in two ranks of 8 on a base. I simply wouldn't be able to reach most of the figures if I based first. I can understand the logic of if you can't see it why paint it but I'd know it wasn't painted!

Sounds like a lot of you are talking about painting WW I and forward maybe a little ACW. I don't see how you can paint SYW, WSS, WAS, Napoleonics and the like after basing them. If you put any value on detail, i.e. cuffs, turnbacks, buttons, lace, its nearly impossible to do so afterwards, unless you have single figure stands.