[Rambunctious]

So my Battalion box arrived about a week ago and I've been working on some Warriors with their 8th Edition mandatory great weapons, but I find myself relatively "eh" when it comes to painting hordes of troops, especially since it is the same four bodies/faces over and over.

Should I simply suck it up and get painting or are there techniques one must master to overcome the urge to add the big pile of unpainted sprues to their list of grudges?

Also, since it's the Forge, here are the Warriors I am working on!



Primarily it's been an exercise in application of washes and proper metal highlighting (the latter being much more difficult than online guides imply). On the bright side I have gold highlighting fairly well down, I believe.

[A.Wagg]

Nice, nice the models look great! I just think about how much worse painting a horde army would be, like skaven, and suck it up. Haha. Also, how do you paint that red beard I can't get mine to look right.

[Artemis360]

I usually just paint one model really really well and when I see the fruits of my efforts it gives me the urge to do more. If I start to flag I just look at that one model again. Also, of course, batch painting is absolutely essential.

[Thrundorin]

Either one at a time, doing maybe two a night and mixing melee/ranged so that you don't see the same two faces again for at least 3 sessions, or batch painting and just knocking out a unit in a day.

The other thing you could look at is the army painter system, essentially a coloured basecoat spray, then finishing basecoating the model with the main colours, add a few highlights, then dip in the shader which gives you a lot of the detail and varnish seals it at the same time (you can of course then do proper washing and highlighting at your leisure, but it gets you up to a decent table standard very quickly.

I have to confess I haven't used it myself, but a lot of the guides and videos I have seen on youtube have looked really impressive. I am considering using it for my skaven when I builk them up. 1000 points of skaven core is going to be a lot of rats.

[mitchell93]

music so i have different things in my mind every few minutes so I dont have the "awww fork i have tonnes to go"

[Goldo]

Whoa! That's some awesome warriors you use washes on their faces?
And believe me the only way to paint a horde is to keep painting. Remember that you do it for your dwarves!

This post has been edited by Goldo: 17 July 2010 - 09:26 AM

[Rojo]

I'd say focus on 2 things:

1) Results - With results like you are putting out now the means definitely justifies the ends. When you picture the army that you wish to table (Not finish, as I don't think any army is ever really finished) then you will complete the sequence of small steps required to get there.

2) Improvement - always aim to improve your performance and try new techniques. In some ways this has to be limited to between units rather than between batches of models (in order to maintain unity), but never think that you have 'arrived' and there will always be a new horizon to aim for. It will never get stale if you are hungry for better results.

Also, I tend to think of the other things I could be doing and most of them are never anywhere near as fun...especially on your own.

[Bucket Kjell]

I think moderate batch-painting is the answer.

Do 5 red beards, then 5 blonde,then 5 black etc.

You will get variation in the way that you get different combinations of bodies, faces and axes. And you can add a bit more by removing the wings on some helmets and add those extra horns on some. You can paint some leather neck-guards, and some metal ones etc. So even if you keep a strict painting scheme there is several places for variation. Do 5 same axes at a time, and they will be on different looking dwarfs.

So keep a pipeline going where you do some more chainmail and faces one day, and then do more on some where that part is finished. Slowly the whole bunch get closer to finish, and suddenly some are finished too.