Speed painting

[wuffingas saxon]

So I am finally looking at the last few spruces at the bottom of 2 bat boxes which seems like good news until it dawns on me that I have a minimum of 50 skeles, 50 zombies and 20 ghouls to paint. Yoiks. AND number one son wants to go to some tourneys soon which means that I either have to get the VCs up and running PDQ or take my daughters OK army which;

1. Contains some non-GW models

2. Is very heavily converted so some tourney types can get the hump about it

3. Is pink, fluffy and girlified

4. Looses (-It's ogres!)

Soooo.... any tips on painting especially skeles and zombies in a double quick production line stylie?

Thanks

 

[Loempiaketzer]

ghehe

OK is fun! you just need to learn how to play em... i have a 2K army of them... and i lose too all the times. But i am getting much better every time! its only a question of time before i turn in to a winner!

on the speedpainting part

depending on if you ever want to win a golden deamon award or not..

if you are trying then you should only take the base colour and the second colour ovver all the units so you can paint em up better in a later stage.

if youre not planning on winning a GD heres how i did it.

UNMOULD!
really,... painting doesnt really matter,... as long as there are no 'enforcement ribs' on top of skeletons heads. a.k.a. mouldlines.
this is a part i always hate the most, but love the most when its done. models (even painted to low standard) look ten times better if decent unmoulden.

Base colour, just use a spray can a LOT so you dont have to get in between arms and legs with chaos black brush to finish the basecoat up. this takes up valuable time which you could skip by proper basecoating

First colour
since its speedpainting, i would highly recommend drybrushing. zombie or skeleton, ghoul or graveguard... drybrushing is the fastest way.
drybrush
skeletons = bleached bone
zombie = dark colour (depending on skintone)

second colour
highlight with another drybrush
skeleton = skull white
zombie = rotten flesh or something

and youre done!

this is how i did my zombies and skeletons. maybe add in a wash with the zombies if you like em dirty.
this 2 colour drybrushing can be done on other parts like clothes and metallic parts.

examples:

looks great for the little effort you put in.

also... a nice base with sand and grass really gets a model half way there.

 

[The Dark Sheep]

With skellies washes are your best friend. I haven't tried this out myself, but if you prime them skull white and then wash them with devlan mud or some similar wash before drybrushing them with bleached bone or skull white I think it'll turn out descent (at least). Then just paint the sword boltgun metal before you apply a wash of devlan mud to it and a flat colour for any cloth and you should be ready to go playing in no time.

 

[wuffingas saxon]

Thanks guys. So thats either prime black and drybrush white or prime white and wash dark !

Perhaps I'll try both and see which suits me best. I'm much more comfortable with dry brushing highlighting etc but then I take again I have tended to take ages to paint minis hence looking for a faster solution.

And yes Loempiaketzer I agree OKs are great. A real hoot to play and roll on their re-write so that they get drubbed slightly less!

Any more tips on fast painting gratefully received!

 

[Loempiaketzer]

well,... i dont have any real fast painting tips left. just some stuff to think about when painting.

youre going to be painting like... 60 skeletons (in my case)
putting them in maxxed units of 25 each.
i mean,... thats a lot. since the skeletons already look dirty (or say, empire looks clean) you can just paint it with less details on em. just 'skip that little iron buckle' and stuff like that.
IF youre really in to much detail but want a tabletop looking army in no time, just paint the first 3 colours of the model. which would be
- skin
- armycolour
- armycolour 2 (if youre army has more than 1 main colour)
- leather/bandages

then they will be done for 80% and at first glance, they look complete.


also, if youre not really in to the 'whole lot of detail' on the big blocks of RnF units you can paint up your single models like the varghulf, black coach, cairn wraiths and stuff extra cool so everyone will be looking at them instead of your medium-well painted blocks of RnF (this one works great for me actually )

just some (awww how do they say it) food for thoughts? (or something)

 

[wuffingas saxon]

Food for thought is exactly right L

I have taken the "good enough for RnF" approach with my son's Helfs but lost my way a bit with my daughters OKs (The models are just too much fun to leave alone!) so I guess I need to get back to it again.

I think I will trial both approaches - Undercoat white and wash on one model and undercoat black and drybrsh 2 colours on one (see there I go TWO colours!)

 

[Skorne]

White and wash is definitely the faster option. If you like the look of it, I say go for it. Zombies could be done easily enough as well with just a few base colors for cloth and skin, followed by a wash of devlan mud. My ghouls are getting the same treatment of mud as well. Mud is your friend.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

White and wash would be much faster, but I would say black and dry brushing looks much better IMO - that's what I would go with.

 

[Darkos]

You can also try the "dipping" or "centrifugate" option. Paint omly base colors on minis (say, bleached bone for skellies, rotten flesh for ghouls, etc) including weapons. Then use wood varnish (yes, WOOD VARNISH) to paint the whole miniature. You have to thin the varnish until it gets creamy, and use a dark colour (walnut works quite well). It makes wonders in "dirty " or organic minis like zombies, skellies, orcs or skaven. The only drawback is that it takes 8-12 hours to dry in a ventiled area, but is worth a try. you can paint 40 models in an afternoon.
the "centrifugate" option is the same, but once you have dipped the minis, you put it in a beach bucket (or equivalent), secure it (with adhesive strip, or the like) And then swirl the bucket around like a sling for a while. It's a little freakish, but spreads the varnish layer giving the mini more contrast, and leaves less varnish patches.
give it a try and tell us how it goes

 

[Onikaigo]

Dude. That, my friend, is an amazing way to paint. I can just see my buddies here walk outside the barracks some evening and see me swinging around a bucket like a madman.

"Wtf are you doing dude?"

"Painting!"

*window breaks amid curses*

 

[Chunky Von Waffles]

I wouldn't be much help here....even when I reaally want to get all my guys done fast for an upcoming battle I can't seem to resist touching up on that little emblem or iron buckle...i'm a true completionist in Wahammer painting...
Though it's not all bad because my army looks amazing all together XD

 

[wuffingas saxon]

I've tried both methods now and I slightly prefer the black/drybrush approach although it is very slightly more time consuming. I have dipped before (I had to get 25 gnoblars done PDQ) but it feels like "cheating" somehow!

 

[wuffingas saxon]

Right, after a couple of false starts I have finished my first Skele unit and have started on the second. I am just finishing various shields for the first unit and then might post a pic so you can see the fruits of your good advice. I have actually gone with a mixture of painting techniques to add variety to the unit. Unfortunately, although I stuck to the idea of speed painting the models, I got sucked into having fun with the shields and have spend FAR to long on the bret M@A shields adding muck, rust and water stains. Oh well.

I have been tinkering with some converted bret/black knights and Chaos/blood knights as I have gone along but I am now facing zombies. Lots of Zombies. Loempiaketzer has offered a few tips on speed painting these but are there any others? I am aiming that they should look like dead bret peasants (I have gone with farm tools from the spues wherever possible) dragged from the swamps around Mousillion. Hmm perhaps I should add banjos.....

All zombie painting tips received with thanks.

 

[wuffingas saxon]

Wuffingas answers himself;

I have been experimenting with a rotten head on a standard;

Rotting flesh + very watered down green ink + Tiny touches of elf flesh looks OK (not exactly speed painting tho is it)

Speaking to one's self - always a guarantee of intelligent conversation

Bananas

Mostly a guarantee...

 

[TMS]

If you ever decide to paint your models up so as to look like ghosts, you'll find a whole new definition of "speed painting". Discounting the time it took for the final wash of thraka green to dry, I average about 4 minutes per zombie (night goblin models, admittingly).

Edit: As for painting zombies in a more conventional way, I'd rely pretty much solely on drybrushing and a wash or two to tidy things up.

 

[Loempiaketzer]

yeah well... i guess you could do zombie skin in the same way as normal human skin... but use different colours offcourse...

what i do for regular skin, which is still pertty quick AND awesome looking.

basecoat of dwarf flesh
wash with very dark brown
highlight with dwarf flesh *drubrushed*
*optional* highlicht with elf flesh *drybrushed*

really makes a decent skintone in only 3 or 4 steps.