[uranium-238]

i'm in the process of slowly building up a 40k army. after becoming more familiar with the 40k rules i'm ditching my tau ideas in favor of an imperial fists space marines army.

only problem is, it takes forever to paint a single miniature with this scheme, since the main color i'm using for the armor is GW's golden yellow paint. over both white and black basecoats it takes several different coats to get a nice, strong, solid yellow color. right now i'm basecoating the entire model black, then re-coating anything that i'm painting golden yellow with white. i started my current WIP with this scheme friday night, and it is already over the 10 hour mark with the helmet. back armor plates, feet and power supply to go with the golden yellow, and i still have highlights to do on some of the front and arm plates. once those are done i still have to finish the flamethrower and detail work (purity seals, holster, etc.) at this rate fielding an army is going to take a very long time to paint, as it's likely going to take me about 5 days per mini. at that rate a ten-man tactical squad is going to take roughly 50 days to paint, to long for someone who wants to get his army up and gaming ASAP.

i have a few ideas on how to counter-act this, one is finding a paint of the same or similar shade that's more pigmented, like the new GW foundation paints, or some model railway paints that i've heard work in a similar way.

another is to airbrush the model with golden yellow, then paint all the details, the joints between armor plates, crevices, etc. i'm reluctant to do this, as i really like working over black basecoats, it's just soo much easier to leave the dark, narrow crevices of a model the color they start as indstead of trying to get in there with a brush while avoiding already painted areas.

my third option is to ditch the imperial fists for the plainer-looking (IMO) ultramarines, who i can churn out pretty rapidly.


i'm very finicky about my paint jobs. i won't do anything that involes flat colors, if i'm applying a paint it means i'm going to be applying a highlight or shade of some sort, with few exceptions, so going that route to speed things up isn't really an option.

 

[The Wraithlord]

Try out the new foundation paints for the basecoat colour. They have much more pigment in them so you will be able to get them done quicker without so many layers.

 

[uranium-238]

Try out the new foundation paints for the basecoat colour. They have much more pigment in them so you will be able to get them done quicker without so many layers.

have you used them? how close to golden yellow is iyanden darksun? it appears to be the closest one on their website.

 

[The Wraithlord]

I tried them out and they cover over the basecoat very well. You wouldn't use the Iyanden for the final colour however, just as a starting point. Highlights would be done in golden yellow still.

 

[purerockfury]

only problem is, it takes forever to paint a single miniature with this scheme, since the main color i'm using for the armor is GW's golden yellow paint. over both white and black basecoats it takes several different coats to get a nice, strong, solid yellow color. right now i'm basecoating the entire model black, then re-coating anything that i'm painting golden yellow with white.

i think i know your problem. your going about this backwards. you are basecoating your model twice. once with black and than again with white. it should be the other way around since your are doing a predominately bright coloured scheme you need to do your steps but switch them. basecoat the models white. paint the parts that are not going to be yellow with black or whatever dark colour you need for a shade colour. than just apply the yellow you need to the white parts.

also if you are lucky enough to have a crafts store around you try the gesso aproach. (search these and forums like bolter and chainsword for more info). i have found that you can add a bit of colour to the gesso to give you pre done highlights. i was actually messing around with some white gesso and yellow paint from a company called delta ceramcoat. i was able to mix there bright yellow with the gesso and apply a nice basecoat over a plastic model. although the model was a light yellow it made for painting yellow easier.

good luck and keep us posted on how things work out for you.

 

[uranium-238]

i'll try that on my next mini, and see how it goes. i've worked with white before, and have never liked it. that was back when i was first getting into miniatures, so maybe it'll be easier to work with now. plus, i'm a thickheaded guy, so old prefferences die hard...

 

[uranium-238]

so i'm abandoning the IF army idea, they were just getting too frustrating to paint, and if i get frustrated painting one or two, i'd better quit now before i have an entire army of them to paint...

so, basically i'm back to square one. what i'm doing is using the space marine models i got with the battle for macragge to experiment with since they're not as nice as the normal space marine minis. so far i've tried ultra marines and IF. the ultras were pretty easy to crank out, but i can see how they've come to be called "smurfs." i'm not thrilled with how they look. IF looked cool, but is just too much of a pain.

so now i'm trying a black templar paints scheme. so far i've got about 4 hours into it and i'm almost done, just some finishing touches with the highlighting left to do. i expecting for it to turn out bad, as previous tries with predominately black paint schemes haven't turned out well, yet i'm quite pleased with how this one looks, especially since it's taken so little time.

 

[The Wraithlord]

Yeah the BT paint scheme is an easy one to do.