Speed Painting Hacks Versus "Quality" 

Hi Uncle atom, Like all your video's, but this one especially speaks to me. I have been wargaming for about 23-24 years now, and have ammased a ton of models in that time. Talking 8000+ models in all scales, mostly 28mm,but also 10mm and 6mm. A few years ago i got sick of having so much unpainted stuff that i decided to drop the quality andup the speed. I painted 1001 models in 2017 and 767 models in 2018. what works for me: - assembly line all the way, anything in between 10 to 30 models works best -prime in your main colour! always do this you'll never regret it! -washes are your friend -always have 2-3 things going at a time, in case one of them is not 'doing it for you right now' -when morale is getting low, don't be afraid to switch to something that's nearly finished, having an immediate finished result in little time can give you a boost to keep you going. -challenge yourself: at the start of the year i tell myself what i will do that year. 2017 i said i will paint 1000 models (and i painted 1001), last year i wanted to finish 10 forces (i ended up finishing 15) -talk about your challenge: i follow my progress on a forum topic. Having the extra motivation from other gamers can keep you going as well. Just be aware some people will sometimes critisize your work. Input is good, but don't get carried away and forget your endgoal. Clearly state your goal and don't let others talk you in to spending 10 more hours on something you thought was done. -ALWAYS have a clean brush ready in a pot of water. Touching up mistakes takes longer than just immediately wiping the paint off with a clean wet brush!!! Hope this year will go just as well for me painting wise!

I once spent 30 hours on a termagaunt.... ... it was okay.

I prefer quality over speed, but my quality is terrible, so I'm still a speedy painter :^)

It's worth mentioning that batch-painting your models (all green parts, then all the green washes etc), rather than finishing one and moving onto the next, is a much faster method.

*Pro painting Necrons:* Leadbelcher Spray Nuln Oil 99% Done

As a "noob" I've chosen quality on beginning of my paiting journey and I don't regret! It made me use my brushes in proper way, thin paints, do good detail job etc. Thanks to that now I can paint quicker without killing minis.

8am on a Friday morning, watching a table top minions vid. Can't go wrong.

I think you need a "Paint for the paint-god" shirt.

skaven for me are sprayed brown. 70% of model painted lol

Personally I want my minis to look good on the table but at the same time to be quick to paint, and here's what I do to achieve that: I paint 4 minis at a time so I can go back to the first I painted once done with the fourth, prime with black and then I go ahead and paint a solid layer for each part of the mini(stage1), then wash(stage2) and repaint with the same color but leaving the crevices (stage3). So 3 Stages (4, if you count the black primer... but let's ignore that) Example: "Imperial Guards" Shock Trooper (aka. Astra Militarum): Skin: Kislev Flesh, Reikland Fleshshade (wash), Kislev Flesh (leaving crevices). Armor&Weapon: Castellan Green, Nuln Oil (wash), Castellan Green (leaving crevices). Clothing: Karak Stone, Seraphim Sepia (wash), Karak Stone (leaving crevices). Icon: White Scar, Nuln Oil (wash), White Scar (leaving crevices) Metal: Leadbelcher, Nuln Oil OR *Seraphim Sepia (wash), Leadbelcher (paint where the light would hit) *Sepia will give it more of a "brass" look. You will mostly use a "Medium Brush" for this. (A "Detail Brush" is best on Stage 3 for the face details and the icon parts.) Just to make it a bit clear: I go Stage1 on all 4 minis, then jump to Stage2 and so on.

I've always preferred speed myself, I'm one of those hobbyists that prefer converting and scratchbuilding to painting the stuff I've made 🤣😂 Great video fella!

This video made me feel better about my disdain for edge highlighting, it has nothing to do with my inability to do it well. Nope, not a chance.

I use the "Army Painter Technique": Prime, base coat, shade, anti-shine varnish, done.

For me I kinda alternate. I'll probably spend a lot of time over a character or a hero as I do like the creative aspect of the hobby. Or if it's just a small 5-6 man unit I'll spend a little bit of more time on that. But if I'm painting 20-30 man units, yeah. Gotta go speed vs quality.

id rather take my time than look at my potato painted miniatures forever. If you dont care, thats okay. Everyone has a preference, people say I am weird for taking a long time to paint a space marine. I enjoy the painting most. For someone who would rather play than paint, slap it on, its all about what makes you happy.

In no particular order, let me share some tips on that topic - which is particularly important I think! Thanks for doing a video about it! 1/ Buy dedicated paints Never have to mix colors to get what you need 2/ Batch paint choose how to do models as efficiently as possible: sometimes doing the same color/layer 5 times in a row lets you learn about the model and be more efficient. If you have too big of a batch it can get discouraging. 3/ Get yourself an airbrush an airbrush can apply lots of paint fast, much faster than anything with a brush. 4/ Focus points on a model It makes sense to spend 50% of your time doing for example the face (or whichever focus point of the model), and 50% doing the rest of the model, as what people will see and focus on, is often the face. One variant would be to use one fancier technique to a part of a model while cutting corners everywhere else. People might see that awesome wetblending on the powersword, and not care too much that no accessory on the belt has been detailed. 5/ Focus points on an army If you play mass battle games, spending as much time and effort on one leader and on a ten men squad makes sense. Again, it is about focus on the table. People will look closer at the fancy leader and not so much at the grunts, so that's where you should invest time to get a good looking army. 6/ Test models : getting your recipie right. Before getting commited to a paintscheme that you will have to apply to 50 or more soldiers, you should experiment, and refine your recipie. That means first paint one, then 10. Make sure you like the result. If not: redo the test model. Take some time to think about your recipie, how you can optimise the steps, and cut more corners. Clearly define and list steps to reach a finished model (write down paints names, etc). It will help you see where corners can be cut, and it will help you 6 months later when you try to add another squad to that army. 7/ Set goals It is hard work to get through an army or even a few squads: if you set a reasonable goal, it can help you keep focus on the project at hand. For example, decide that by the end of the week, you'll be done with unit X, and that in 6 weeks you'll have a limited force ready to play for your first test games. If you feel like you're not gonna make it, revise your goals, and try to get to a finished state. That's when a well designed recipie will help. 8/ Organize your workspace Give yourself the tools needed to achieve said goals: clean your workspace, put other ongoing projects away, and organize your work area with just the tools and materials you need for the current project, also to avoid distractions 9/ Call it done as soon as possible It is easy to get carried away with yet another highlighting step, or painting another detail, or... whatever other step that can take you more time than what you should allow for the current project. It is important to think about it when doing test models: do I really need to do the next step, or could I stop after doing that step? If you have done your testmodels and paint process experiments well, it could also work the other way around: you get bored or out of time with a given project, but since you've focused on important steps first, your models are already in a OK state. 10/ Choosing colors wisely Usually, you want a base color for the body/skin/armor/clothing, eg what covers the most surface of the model. On that base color, you probably want some shading: maybe a wash and then a drybrush or two once the wash is dry. Then you'll need a few accessories colors, ideally contrasting colors, and that's about it! 11/ Base your models properly The base is an important part of the model, also worth thinking about for the overal impression your model will make once finished. Same advice apply: target your effort, keep your recipie efficient for what you need.

Painted my first miniature yesterday (tau pathfinder) and somehow speed and quality both flew out the window. 7 hours and one ugly grunt later, I finished. 7 hours of paint alone, it was already built and primed. My first thought was "well I guess I know who is dying first."

As just getting back into hobby, I’m using a blend of techniques, I got the a Hit the Beach and Fury sets, I base coated everything in Army painter primer matte black, then US forces got another coat of Vallejo rattle can olive drab, Germans got Panzer yellow. Now I’m going to each individual tank and get the details but at the point I am now I can play with them on the table.

"All is fair in love and war ... and art." That is what we were told when I was studying arts. Art is all about cutting corners. Every successful artist in history developed their own tricks and methods to cut corners and get results faster.

Good vid - I completely agree that it's a good idea to have the nature of your objective in mind when you embark on a project. Are you painting to play, for display, for competition or to take a stunning photo etc.? It's easy to forget, especially for newbies, that not every tutorial or whatnot is necessarily THE way to paint appropriate for your needs for all purposes.

Game companies need to go back to artwork for their box covers. I do a little of both.

I have more minis that I can paint in the next 70 years, so I have decided to go for tabletop+ quality rather than good quality just to try and get through a few of them :)

I totally prefer speed painting, otherwise I would have left this hobby long time ago lol.

I have watched a great many such videos as this. Every one of them tries to espouse a "basic" painting method, usually for "beginners," with the hope of giving them decent results to encourage them. Nearly every videographer fails: their personal painting style is to use multiple complex techniques which are are impossible for beginners to achieve good results with. They claim they are "simplifying" the process, but they really fail the beginner. If you want to give beginners a basic methodology which will result in fast, easy, and results which look acceptable at arm's length, or further, on the tabletop, advise simple block painting, followed by the classic Dip Technique. This is the simplest method, bar none. The next step would be to use Army Painter Speed Paints, using a white primer. This method combines the wash technique with the 'simple block painting' technique. In all honesty, this cuts the block painting + Dip Technique in half: from 10 minutes down to 5 minutes, when assembly line painting. When the polyurethane stain fully dries, hit the figures with a matte clear coat. Simple block painting + The Dip Technique (brushed on, not dunked in the can), is as simple as it gets. It is also a way to churn out tabletop ready miniature in the fastest way possible. Here are some Gnomes, around 22mm tall, with simple block painting, The Dip Technique (brushed on) and matte clear coated: photos.app.goo.gl/mDaRXWMrhKfLCCeX7. Bear in mind that the photo shows them far closer, far more clearly, than they will appear to the Human eye on the tabletop, during a game. Cyclops figures, block painted, and with a fresh coat of polyurethane stain: photos.app.goo.gl/pUBGB85RdtqtBR9S6. Here is a line up of the Cyclops figures, 48 mm tall, with a matte clear coat, ready for the tabletop: photos.app.goo.gl/SGndTtMeTM9Y2AVD9. If you really want speed painting, this is it. I have painted 1,200+, 25mm-28mm figures this way, averaging 10 minutes per figure. I've also painted 400+, 54mm Army Men figures, using the plastic's color, only painting the non-Tan/non-Green parts such as flesh, weapons, boots, etc. Following that with polyurethane stain and matte clear coat, I can churn out 40 figures in 60 minutes, or

I wish I knew this when I started my tyranids swarm list for over 150 models that are ment to die and be removed quick

I don't bother painting eyes, unless it's a special model. I've also found zenithal highlighting and washes are a huge time saver.

One bit of advice I notice seems to always be left out of these "speed vs quality" videos; just because you have painted your models quickly to a decent to good table top quality, does not mean you have to be done. I will speed paint/hack/cut corners on my board game minis to get them on the table. But after a few game plays and some free time, I will pull them out and "upgrade" some blends or add tighter highlights or edge blend. After some months or even a year of this slow addition of detail, I will have a higher-than-tabletop quality paint job.

When I was younger and wanted to get into wargaming without putting in the time at the painting desk, I really would have been better off just sticking to boardgames and such rather than wasting money on plastic and metal that never got painted. Now that I actually AM into putting the time in, I don't mind that I don't get to play while my army is in progress. Wanting to play play play without putting in work on the hobby side is like saying you want to play baseball, but only the batting part since you hate trying to catch stuff. Just do something else.

Always an idiot that dislikes. Great vid

Really appreciate your videos and opinions. This one in particular has addressed several of my concerns. You have a life long fan all the way in South Africa.

-Base coat -Wash -Drybrush -Play

Bottom line...you get faster by painting more OFTEN. If you're trying to find a way to paint fast because you don't like painting...good luck with that. In my opinion though the sculpt/mini quality and quantity determines the level of paintjob regardless of tabletop use or not. I'm going to put WAY more effort into painting USAriadnas Van Zant, than I am a space marine.

Thanks for the timely motivation. Need to paint 1000 point Ork army for me and another 1000 in Space Wolves for my son who builds but doesn't like to paint.....all this by mid to end of February....Campaign is gonna be great!!!!

An important thing to remember is that there is no cheating in this hobby. When it comes to painting, if it looks good, and you're happy with it, it doesn't matter how you achieved it.

In war gaming....Models are small, and being looked at from 5 feet away. Details are just not important and going to get drowned out from the 100 other models. Paint 10-50 in a go, its not the same as making a character mini for a B-day gift.

Several years ago when I still played 40k (3rd edition) I had a self created chapter I call Storm Angel's. Their color was predominantly grey like storm clouds. I got to the point that I could knock them out in under an hour by using a primer, a wash,and a dry dry brush. The devil is in the details.

This is really important to me, since I'm trying to return to the hobby after spinal injuries and detail painting is incredibly difficult. Been thinking more about what army I can paint rather than how I can paint that army decently and in good time.

Hi Atom! For speed painting tips. I HIGHLY recommend the "How I Paint Things" channel's videos that have "Speed Painting" in the titles. Like his Ultramarines video etc. He is great with little tips how how to cheat the appearance of edge highlighting etc. His whole channel is great too with painting guides.

love your videos man I wish I could show you some of my models I started back in August and planning is key 40 poxwalkers was a pain

Someone here on you tube coined the phrase ' 3 foot fabulous' if it looks good at 3 feet its good enough. Thats my CREED now.

I spend hours at a time on one single mini. I love trying to make them as detailed as possible. I mean they still look like shit but at least I try

I got to a level I am happy with and then I trained myself to paint at that level faster and faster, but while doing this I realized that once you get faster at the same level you improve your painting automatically.

Only add white to your midtone if you want your model to look more white. Think of white as another color and it always makes things look washed out which might be what you are looking for or it might not. To maintain the richness of the "material" you are trying to paint you have to understand that you should first look for an analogous color that still has a higher level of saturation but is brighter than the mid tone. Which is the opposite of adding white which has no saturation or chroma. Granted you don't always have to use super saturated colors on everything unless you are painting space/murder clowns ;)

Uncle Atom is the uncle I never had but wish I did. I only had uncles that I wasn't allowed to be alone with!

Shoulder pads an awkward colour? You can always paint them before you stick them on the model. Base colour as undercoat works well. Spray, base coat, wash, dry brush original base coat, detail highlight....all you need for "table ready" miniatures, and then you can take leaders and develop them up further later.

I struggle with this a lot. If Duncan can show me how to paint a model in a 3 min video why can't I paint the model in 3 min? It's obvious but it's a real leap for me mentally to not expect the table to be full of painted models quickly.

A pot of Tamiya Olive Drab got me through an entire reinforced company of Imperial Guard in an afternoon. 120+ miniatures done and I still got compliments on my army!

I generally suck at painting, I do a lot of hacks to get passed some of my flaws

I made the mistake of priming a deathwatch kill team with white primer, and then primed a single model with black for a quick contest entry. I am never making that mistake again. Definitely going to prime similar to the base coat.

badger stynylrez green primer is great as your base colour for super mutants for fallout wasteland warfare. its my speed hack those guys.

Great tips man love your work you helped me greatly with this hobby learning from the best

As someone coming back to the hobby from D&D days. I am amazed at the options today. From the painting apps to RU-vid vids. I agree about the packaging images Atom. All the old models just had painted scenes. Think airfix infantry or models. From painting metal napoleonic armies basic colours for large groups, think uniformity and simplicity for the masses. I think maybe splitting it will be best. So your central figure such as a primarch or Demon, yes, spend time. As for the armies simplicity. With younger modellers I would emphasise the game rather than the painting. It needs to be fun. Not a chore. Something I believe GW realised with the conquest magazine. Larger Primaris marines, click fitting, blue plastic, ready to go playing. Nurgle green plastic, etc etc. Easier to handle and paint. Good entry point for younger players who might not have the patience of seasoned veterans. Love the vids.

Your videos are inspiring and put a perspective to this hobby especially for someone like myself who’s getting back into it after 16 years and needs to dial back a bit when it comes to wanting painting perfection.

Thank you, Uncle Atom. Good stuff here.

One technique that's fun and kinda fast (if you do a huge bunch of models at the same time) is to undercoat in a lighter tone/near white, and just paint on wash for all the colors you want. It creates a very cool "Water color" feel to the models. Did this with my Witch Elves back in the day, and really liked it. I use a similar scheme for many of the details on my Chaos Marine models, I base them all in an off white color, things like skin, guts, those tubing thingies, horns, wounds... and then I wash each of the things with different shades, like a flesh shade, a sepia shade, black, brown, red/purple for the wounds. It end up looking like 4 distinctly different things, but they were all the same base color. Then depending on the detail I give some of it a light dry brush to pick out the edges.

Paint to a clean base standard that you can get to quickly but that if you want to revisit then you can.

I tend to work on the squad SGT with more detail. Then go with a more standard approach for rank and file guys.

I like to put more effort into bigger fancier models or important models like HQs. But for like standard troops I try to cheat a bit. Like with my Tau fire warriors: I'll try to do some basic highlight stuff on the actual armour, the gun, the helm but I'll be a bit lazy with the back and then the clothy stuff will just be black with some drybrush. I don't mind the highlight bits honestly, thats usually when the model is near completion and it fills me with Determination. I kinda hate the basing and layering though. I've considered airbrushing but it looks kinda expensive to just start and I don't know if I have a place to really do it so I've been putting it off.

I’m in this exact position

Spot on advice here. Painting tends to always take longer than we think it will and its helpful to set expectations. I've gone with a compromise of speed and quality. I'm more than satisfied with my paint job as it's not just slapped on, but I'm also happy that the model is done and I can move on to something else. And it's helped me to actually get faster and I've improved over the year as well. Win win

I think it needs to be shouted louder how much having your units in units actually incredibly helps them look good. My Dark Eldar are objectively badly painted, as I just kinda suck at painting, and don't really want to invest too much time (That I could be gaming) into becoming better. That said, when they are moving in blocks of 20, they look far far better, and most people at my store are just impressed I have such a number of infantry painted up. Same can be said for Flames of War (Which I also play) because each infantry is on a base of several infantry rather than by themselves. So long as you have good basing, it will always look pretty good :)

Also some super thin, like basically no, white oil paint dried brushed from top down works for highlighting

Dry brushing is the best piece of advice you could give. Another hack to get an Old rusty metal on large and small models is to prime black then a light spray of brown then dry brush with dark metal. Very useful for orks.

I've been getting back into painting again after getting pretty burnt out feeling last year. I often feel extremely overwhelmed by all the models I have that are unpainted. Over 600 old 80s citadel Dwarfs alone, forget about all of my other fantasy armies, 40k, other miniatures games. I've probably painted 100 models in the past 7 years and each one has taken me around 8 hours or more to finish. That's really not good enough. I'm trying to learn ways to speed things up. I really want to look at my miniatures and feel proud rather than ashamed. With so many to do, I think I need to give myself a time limit or maybe limit myself to only a basecoat, wash and drybrush, with the only details being for eyes. It can be hard to stay motivated, especially when most of the wargames I'm interested in, no one around me plays. But I've been very productive in my painting so far this year and I want to continue stepping it up.

I always paint my mini's to the absolute best of my ability. It takes like 30+ hours a model. I have a lot of unpainted models. But, I am ok with that. My friends I play with don't mind half of my squads are unpainted. I can speed paint a regiment in half a day, the quality is ok and I use alot of the methods you suggest plus a few more. But it's just personal preference at the end of the day.

More than anything else, you can save a lot of time and unnecessary effort by being conscious about how you're building your model. Doing things like keeping the shoulder pads or boltgun off means you can reach the detail underneath more easily. It also means you can paint those a different color without worrying about getting it on the other parts. For example, if you keep the shoulder plates for your Black Templars separate, you can prime them in a light grey or bone color and go from there. All you have to do is take some poster tack and a bamboo skewer and stick it to the underside of the part. If the part is too small for that, you can super glue a paperclip to it instead.

Excellent points . Remember to have fun people. 😉

Thank you thank you

You always give quality advice and keep people going. Good on you!

I've come to a point now where I just want an army that looks good but ultimately playable. I've started plenty in the past but you burn out on all the edge highlights. So this time I just sprayed the armour gold and gave it a mixed wash of druchi violet and reikland gloss. Pick out the details and we're good to go.

Quality is best. But speed painting can help if you don't give a shit. A tip I can give for you in speed painting is to paint all the details with a basecoat, apply needed transfers, and *BOOM* !!! Done.

I paint it fast. I want to get those soldiers battle immediately.

My biggest tips for painting fast if you are struggling with time: 1. Use an airbrush. If you dont have one, buy one. Seriously what are you doing? It might seem expensive, but think about what an hour of your life is worth? (Usually what you make an hour can be a good starting point). How much would it be worth to save hundreds of hours a year with an airbrush. You should always use the biggest brush possible, and airbrush is that. Fast zenithal priming + light glazing with an airbrush of main base coats and you are 90% done to tabletop standard. Super smooth highlights and shadows made for you. 2. Over highlight. Gloss varnish before washing. Almost eliminates coffee staining, if you are fairly careful with wash. No reason to go back to clean up and reapply highlights. 3. Minitair ghost tints. Just glaze on, and be done :) 3. Before you start painting, commit to the quality (what details on the mini will you skip, will you do the eyes or not, etc), and be ABLE to stop when you are roughly there. Be ok with subpar quality for YOUR standards. This is a really hard one for me. I highly recommend Hobby Cheating Series on youtube for hacking your painting.

Sage advice there Atom. One thing I would add to this is before all the talk about speeding up the painting, start with a small army. Stupidly obvious fact is that it is far easier to get painted models battling on the tabletop quickly if you don't need as many models there. If you can maybe team up with people and try a team based battle to get the numbers up.

It might take me half a year to paint up a decent 28mm army, but for the love of everything that's holy I can't bring myself to cut corners when painting. If I ever put less than 3 hours in a single troop model, it feels as if I'd rushed things and I get pissed. 80 hours for a WHFB unit of 40 skeletons (without basing) is the closest-to-perfect balance between quality and speed I've ever done. But maybe, since I came into wargaming from scale modelling, I just perceive things otherwise. Spending 100 hours on a plane is NOTHING to me...

Sir you've helped me immensely "just paint it" & move on.. usually 5 Models(soiaf) 5 colors & a wash DONE!!! Thank you SO MUCH.. Get to playing

Great video, something I struggle with. I dont mind spending more time on high quality mins that I will display at home (KDM, etc), but I have a huge problem spending waaaay too long on painting board game minis. I just get obsessed with getting all the lines perfect, good coverage, picking out details, etc, stuff that my friends NEVER even notice, but there are always amazed at my paint jobs. But as non-painters they would be just as amazed if it was sloppy-ish basecoat/wash/drybrush. I need to learn to be ok with non-perfect crappy board games minis that are just going to live in a box, and get played with twice a year.....

I'm all about how to speed up the painting process. I paint models in a horde army (Orks) and will eventually have 3 different 40K Ork armies. I also built and paint terrain & scenery. Now I've added Kill Team. Next video, how to speed up the assembly and cleaning process? By "stare down the barrel" you meant "stare down the 'drilled' barrel", right?

My AM kill team was quick and dirty. Prime black, Base colors, nuln oil and a couple of highlights. While my coats were thin, often they numbered only one (forgive me Duncan 🙇🏻‍♂️)

Mix your own colors and washes! I started Tyranids as we 'miss' them in my group. I bought acrylic thickening medium from an arts store and mixed destilled water, red, violett and a smallest tad of brown to make myself a 'leviatan wash'. Similar made myself a 'horn color' from a anthrazit, violett mix. Wooden lathes with doublesided sticky tape on it, 10 gants per lath and spraypaint sand, then white from the top. Wash with my selfmade stuff. Wash some details again. Paint all horn, add some details, clean up the most messy parts, basing, done. Totaly OK for the playing table and 50 homagants took just 5hrs net working time.

Shockingly I find Space Marines super easy to paint well, annoying since I'm mainly a Tau player and suck at painting them

This advice goes double if you paint 15mm or 6mm figures. I will prime near the primary color, for the primary color apply a shade lighter but not worry about full coverage, then base coat the other colors. A brown wash over the whole figure usually works (with some color schemes black might be better, but I'm generally working in more earth-tones), then go through and highlight over the base colors with drybrushing. Add flock to the base (you've painted your textured base along with the figure, right?) and a thin spray with a matt varnish. From 2 feet away it actually looks like I'm good at it.

I would recommend washing after dry brushing the highlights if you apply heavy dry brushing (or high contrast dry brushing), it will blend the color in better. Especially on organic materials like cloth and skin etc. On mechanical things I would always do it Base coat - Wash - dry brush. I love making speed painting hacks, heck I try to hack to get a "table top pluss" look, and will add some details that are over that sometimes too. But I found that I want to get minis painted and on the table fast, rather than having them look AMAZING! The result is still models I am very proud to put on the table, but that I finished within a reasonable amount of time.

You can eventually get faster at quality paints though. Not to mention the old adage, "Taking the time to do it right the first time, saves time over doing it twice" I have been guilty of speed-painting entire armies to get them onto the table in time for an event or demo or tournament. But I have always found myself either regretting it, or stripping the models and repainting them at leisure. I reckon that I could finish - from box to table - as many Guardsmen in 3 days as I could assemble in 1 day; but they're gonna look like butt. Day 1 you clip all the pieces apart and mount them on sticks. Day 2 you spray or airbrush everything the base color. Helmets green, arms and everything else khaki, guns black if you can. Paint in your flesh, contrasting plates, etc. Day 3 assemble, garden-sand bases, dip. No drybrush.

Addendum: Speed painting heavily relies on the colour scheme that is used. Depending on whether someone wants to create a okay looking army or competition ready miniature, the range of paint/colours varies. If one was to create an okay looking army, easy to build, paint, and setup on the board, the range is best limited to a maximum of 4 paints: primer, base coat, shade, highlight, done. Or as Luke from @Lukes Aps has shown: sharpies do the trick for very easy and quick results Link to video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-H1hF0dwOWfM.html

Another great video Adam. Doug over at 2+Tough calls his batch painting technique "3 Foot Fabulous" Check out his video Adam.

cheese and rice THANK YOU!! its about time i found a video on how to paint miniatures quickly, granted now i have to buy a rattle can of every color under the sun, but base coating with a primer, wash, dry brush, then do all the details, that make way more sense than any other channel, looking at you Squidmar, ninjon, and Miniac. great channels but seriously having a 4 step process and each step has like 3 mini steps is just too much for someone who needs to pain a zombie hoard or a goblin army.

Sub assembly,army painter spray,base coat,wash,highlight,base,go play.take your time,be methodical,paint five at a time,if you start getting tired /frustrated....stop and pick it back up tomorrow.set goals

Liquid Masking is also great for stuff like shoulder pads. Prime the Shoulder pad white -> apply liquid masking over the pad -> Prime /paint black.

As anyone here, I also want to paint faster, but I simply cannot loose the quality. I just can't. I have started to paint the Mechanic from Nemesis and I was like this will be a fast one. And I ended up glazing the orange area, gave it a lot of details and heck I even gave it the illuminaty tatto from the art. I even painted detailed eyes for my Green Horde zombie orks. I'm cheating where I can, like the priming what you mentioned in the beggining of the vid. But if I feel that this will cost me the quality I just decide the slower process. I am a slow painter and I only can paint 3-4 months per year because I'm working on a ship, but I simply cannot do speedpainting. It is not me, in that way the minis will loose my style. Btw hanks for the tips, mate.

I was interrupted about five times trying to watch this so I might have missed this point but, the first thing I would say in support of Uncy Atom is that use the hacks and stuff for your line stuff and go high detail on your HQ & Monsters/Vehicles (Although as a Space Elf, I have numerous vehicles to get my troops into shooting range). The second point I would make is I agree with his premise that you base/undercoat for the colour you plan. i.e. I use a dark brown when by troops are a red and for my Orks funnily enough. I use black or dark grey for my SE because my tie in colour for the army is tin bitz. The question I have for Uncy Atom is buildings. I have only ever successfully completed one building as a terrain piece and I went full out to do it, pulling out my old tech drawing board to plan the lay out and pre-list the colour scheme. That was for an armies on parade job but generally what gets me is the weathering. Any tips for that? I have the furnace sets to do at the moment.

I find building a horde army improved my painting skill. My Guardsmen are relatively low detail, but the characters got the love. For my vehicles I went with different paint schemes for a lot of them. I figured that canonically guard regiments shouldn't be combined arms unless they're scratch regiments. I play Cadians, so any differences in their paint jobs can be explained by them being survivors of cadia lumped together to make a functional regiment. Half of my tanks are light green and brown, half are castellan green and tan. My chimeras are just castellan green and my basilisks are castellan green and tan, but have more complex camouflage patterns. This keeps the troops lower quality paint job look like it makes sense thematically. Of course Creed is going to have more detail than some dude holding a lasgun. Of course my earlier paint jobs when I had less skill make sense, they're different regiments lumped together.

Your method is great for speed painting, but I kind of had more success switching the steps up a bit. First I prime in the base colour. Next I drybrush the highlight, but make it lighter then i want it to be and put it everywhere the light would hit. Next just wash everything. You get rid of most of the 'grain' and powder of drybrushing and sort of highlight everything at once. Works especially well with the new contrast "washes" gw puts out. Its literally just 3 steps before starting detail work. Depending on the model I may even paint some of the details that need the same wash as well, like metals.

Painting 20 hellions has me stuck. Have the skin painted nicely but there’s literally 18-20 areas on each model where black is next to skin. Taking me 30 minutes just to basecoat the black 😅

well... prime it white, use a thinned layer of whatever your ground colour should be. Voila, you already have your mini coloured and somewhat highlighted. If it is not coated enough, use a second layer. After that wash it with a shade... Thats how I am saving myself from overly highlighting and basecoating... Finally you can add some highlits to the most exposed areas, OR you can drybrush your mini before shading it. It does not look as good as going through all steps "properly", like basecoating and highliting etc. but it does spare a looooooooot of time

Well, when you're the only "gamer" in your group (yeah, just me), that helps with the painting. Most battles are just conducted in my head while painting.

As far as I have read, the best way to learn any physical skill (like playing an instrument) is _first_ to learn how to do it correctly, _then_ speed up, trying to maintain good form while doing so. Painting is similar. Learn how to do various techniques correctly by taking your time, then you'll know how to cut corners. Otherwise, it's very easy to acquire bad habits.

My problems have always been. I spend 50 dollars on a model and my paint job looked like crap. Very daunting. By the time i had a 2000 point army I had spent a lot of money on something that did look like I wanted. Very frustrating.

Best tip I learned yesterday for yellow. (God I hate yellow!) Paint white. Wash with Casadora Yellow. Done!! Its a lifechanging wash 😁

Quick tip for speed, all basecoats first, single black or brown wash, a squad at a time. High contrast highlight colors from your basecoats. Allows a single highlight to give the illusion of multiple layers. Black and brown washes work well over any colors. This gets a lot of minis done to table top standard quickly and allows you to go back later and try different techniques to bring out more details if you want.