Paint for Points: The Art of the Quickie

Like many of the attending Adepticon goers, here I sit, a week before with barely any models started, let alone finished, for the tournament.  Fear not, I have done this countless time, and more often than not with great results!

How do you achieve such a feat in such a short time?

Enter the art of the quickie, or how to get your army from unassembled bare plastic to tabletop warfare with blazing colors.

Paint for Points: The Art of the Quickie

The Paint for Points articles series originally appeared on the blog Torrent of Fire.  Since it is no longer around, here they are, re-posted in their former glory.  These articles tackle the checklist painting approach, or painting with results in mind with the simple motto: Paint smarter, not harder!

This one goes out to my boy Elphilo who, upon reading the previous Paint for Points, commented on what he wanted to see covered in these articles. Always one to cater to the fans, here we go!

Here’s my method, broken down in steps with little notes on the why/what/when/how drunk of each tip.  This article was also the basis for the Paint Your Army in 30 Days e-book.

Given time, I intend to break down every step in excruciating detail for you.

1. Colors, much like buttholes, are meant to be tight. 

This is the true time-saver.

Pick a really limited palette.

Pick one way of doing brown, and paint everything that’s brown in the army in that fashion. Not Rhinox Hide boots, Skraag Brown Belt, Doombul Brown gun strap. Doing 7 tones of brown takes more time for lesser visual impact overall.

2. Spray and pray. 

Use whatever spraying method you feel comfortable with. Whether it’s airbrushing, Army Painter’s Color Primer, Tamiya spray paint, whatever you left unassembled and can spray the right color saves you an insane amount of time. This is a good example of an army done with more time spent airbrushing than using an actual brush. The details are minimal though.

3. Step by step. 

Paint everything that’s the same at the same time. Let’s say you paint five Drop Pods, because Chip’s list speaks to you. Paint the inside of all five Pods before moving on to painting all 25 doors. Then paint all 100 of the shoulder pads. And so on.

4. Base for dayz. 

Do all the bases you need at once. If you can swing it, before the models are on them. This is not the greatest hobby time of your life, but it saves an insane amount of time, and is easy enough to do mildly drunk.

5. Master of mistakes. 

Brace for impact, bro: You will mess up at some point. No matter how tidy a painter you are, the occasional slip of the wrist happens. Don’t stop to correct every time you make a mistake, instead set the models aside and once you are done with that color, touchup all the dudes with mistakes.  Repeat after every step, not during.

6. Daylight saving time. 

Ages ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and Warhammer was played with sticks, before I was a commission painter, I used to paint an hour every day. Always after going to the gym.  Granted, you can paint two hours everyday if you skip the gym, but the point is, find some sort of schedule that fits your lifestyle. One hour a day of hobby time beats 12 hours scattered through a bunch of daily tasks and distractions.

7. Eyes on the Prize

The 7th step applies only if you remotely enjoy painting. Some folks paint for the sole purpose of being able to play tournaments and hate painting every step of the way. I can’t really change that, so this tip doesn’t apply to you.

For those with an artist's soul:  Keep the cool HQs and monsters for that time when you really don’t want to paint. Yeah, much like the cherry on top, painting that Vulkan in the middle of the 50 left-side-pointing-Bolter-Marines-uggh-I-literally-can’t-even will get your motivation back up. Or that Catachan officer that’s totally gonna have an I love mom tattoo on his arm.

It’s the little things… (That’s what she said!)

Next in the Paint for Point series: And it must POP POP POP!