painting squads for display/competition

[Medved]

i am primarily a single mini painter (i have the usual short attention span and fickle mind when it comes to tasks of great time length)

i want to know how you guys go about completing a squad.

when i look at most squads that go in for competitions they are invariably converted but still maintaining coherency. I also notice that the standard of the painting is often similar to single mini quality, so there would be no cutting of corners on it

i wonder do you convert them all first and paint them in one go...

or do each conversion and paint job separately as if you were painting 10 single minis.

or paint them one at a time to completion after they have all been converted.


the idea of doing a squad appeals to me but i am daunted by so many models after knowing how long a single mini can take.

please give me your suggestions and experience!

 

[james sequeira]

i normally do the same parts on all then the same parts next like the guns then pants ect

 

[vincegamer]

I\'d suggest converting them first.
Then when you paint you can say \"faces\" this time, or \"now I\'ll do the red on all of them\" etc.
That\'s how I do it anyway.

 

[krom1415]

I paint them individually, and make a note of what colours I\'m using.

I find then you can concentrate on doing your best on each one.

Also imagine you only have one to do, not 25 as I have in front of me atm

 

[Ogrebane]

I do armies. It took 12 months to do my ogre army. I plan out the army list and then build one unit at a time.

I will usually comvert the whole unit first and then paint but if it is a big unit I will do the standard bearer first as my test piece.

If you put a standard bearer on the shelf he kind of looks lonely without his mates so it makes it easier to do the rest of the unit. I always leave the characters till last as I like to do the extra stuff and its kind of like a reward after dong all the other RAF minis.

 

[ralfmetal]

Hi , first thing i would make sure of is that all your models rank up no point the things being all pretty but look a bit disjointed when they are together(warhammer) 40 000 you can get away with the more flamboyant / dynamic poses painting wise mix up a few pots of your colour choices first.. thats the way i went for the skin tones on my ogre army (1base 1 shade 2 highlights then added extra colours for a few more highlights to give them a little diffrent look)

 

[Thecadian]

do the boring models first so that you can look forward to champians hero\'s etc

james

 

[Ian Newbold]

I don\'t really paint any more but I used to do a squad at a time even if I was doing a regiment.

Did the cleaning and priming first for the whole squad (usually 4 to 6 figures).

Then did the faces for each figure as individuals (one figure at a time).

Then did each common colour on the whole squad (6 x trousers or whatever).

Then did the fancy extra bits on any personalities or officers (one figure at a time)

Then did varnishing and basing for the whole squad.

 

[War Griffon]

I tend to find that if I paint more than three figures of the smae type/army in one go it becomes repetative and you see very little change/progress for time spent.

Personally I would do max three at a time and after that change scale/model for a break then go back and do a few more after that

 

[Dragonsreach]

Since you are asking about Squads for display or competition you really need to think about co-herence.
1: make sure that they are legal in gaming terms.
2: Paint each one as a character. Although this sounds daunting and will take time the best squads are the ones which have that extra attention paid to the work.

I\'m assuming you are going to WOW us at Gamesday again Stuart?

 

[Medved]

i hope so, but then it may just be the last minute single mini entrant again.

40k or fantasy i don\'t know but i want to stay away from mounted minis and not have to spend a huge amount of time on the converting (that was what undid me in previous attempts at projects)

i had thought that the \'paint each as a single mini\' was the way to go. I\'m glad you agree Mike.