How to paint 50 models a week

[Beowulfthehunter]

I am a brush for hire, no doubt. The notion of making 200-500 for a paintjob will never happen for me. I am just not that good and lack the patience. But I would love to see the top painters in the world crank out 50 figures in a week (and not just rank and file figs, but 50 differnt figures.

 

How do I do it? Sell my Soul to Satan, Crystal Meth, Genie. None of the above. Instead I have developed a few techniques over the years to refine mas painting. Having ADHD severly also helps.

 

 

1. Visualize the minis. Look at every detail and plan how you want to paint them, colors, techniques, etc...

 

2. Learn to use 30 colors very well. Create your own recipie. This involves heavy use of a triad system. I will not list the specific colors, but here is a general break down. Each color listed uses the same 3-5 colors to achieve the effect.

 

Fair Skin, Tanned Skin, Dark Skin (depends on the model I pick one)

Red Hiar, Brown Hair, Bleached Blone, Dirty Blone, Black,

Olive Green, Hunter Green, Muted Green

Bone Recipie, Fur Recipie

Dark Red, Normal Red

Vvid Green, Muted Green

Warm Brown, Black Brown, Light Brown, Bone Brown

Bright Purple, Muted Purple

Muted Yellow

Dark Grey, Light White Grey

 

3. Assembly line color block. I pour out the color I want to use for a certain effect and do that effect on all the minis on my table. So for example one figure might get a Red cloak, Red pants on another figure, red gloves on another and so on. Then I grab my next color, Fur base, and do all the fur texture on the minis. This is continued until all the figures have a base coat.

 

4.The Wash. I use a variation of the Magic Dip/Wash Techniques. I use 1-4 different washes on all my figures. I have a Black Wash, Chestnut Wash, Dark Brown Wash, and DK. Blue. I base most of these washes on the new liner colors. I mix one part paint/ink to 10 parts water Future Floor Wax. I then block out the areas with these colors following these rules.

 

Fleshed Areas other then African American, Bone, Yellow, and Dirty Blonde get Chestnut. Muted Blue and Some Black, get blue. Silver, Grey, and Darker Brown get Black. Everything else gets Dark Brown.

 

5.The eyes...I dot all eyes in black, let it dry then draw in the eye balls with Micron pens...black for men, blue for women.

 

6. The Blocking. I then go back with the Triad colors and work up certain portions. I frame up the face and clean any mess from step 5.

 

7. The final details are picked out (rivets, bucklles, tatoos, wear).

 

 

Extras:

Basing. I do all bases first. Simply due to the fact I get messy with my basing. First before I prime the mini (I work in Grey) I spread glue on the base and dip in fine sand. Some times I mount the model on course Cork to look like Rocks. At times I leave parts of the base with the bottom showing through. I then paint the bases with earthish brown then drybrush bone. I paint the parts left blank to look like pools of water.

 

Once the figure is completes I finish off with snow, flock, or water.

[Bilesuck]

Beo's armies look awesome, as I have seen them in person. The army gets a cohesive look that I don't seem to be able to achive. I am jealous that you can do 50+ in a week, I'm gonna have to break a few fingers on you.

[PaintByNumbers]

Regarding painting one color one every fig, but in different places:

 

I will create a matrix of color vs location.

Then I mark each color diagonally downwards:

 

Hat........R..W..B

Tunic......B..R..W

Pants.....W..B..R

 

Then I throw in a few random colors that are not part of the color scheme.

 

I lay out my popsicle sticks of figures and I can easily visualize where to paint each color.

[Beowulfthehunter]

Completed.

[rgtriplec]

Completed.

 

 

I can't do fifty, but I have done thirty or so a couple times. A lot with me depends on the figs. If they have a lot of detail they take longer. I probably painted 20 orcs in the time it took me to do three river trolls.

 

Next on my table are a handful of DHL figs Magda, Captain Hook, 54mm demon prince, Rosebud? the Wizard, Ghoul Queen, Ettin and the Dark Maiden from Warlord.

 

I know I could paint three each of the first four by the time I painted one each of the ettin, queen and Dark Maiden... and I'm just talking about queen and not all the extra pieces.

 

Overly detailed pieces take me three or four times as long as an equal sized fig with less detail.