How long to paint a model?

Some of my friends outside the hobby have asked me just how long it takes to paint a single model.  The usual answer is "I don't really know", as I rarely paint just a single model, and when I do, it usually is not a very intense project and I usually spread the work out over weeks or even months. When I'm painting Battletech, which is much of what I've been working on lately, I tend to paint several units at once, so it's hard to break it down.

So when I decided on a last minute addition to my Smoke Jaguar force (I swore I was done with them...), I thought it would be an interesting experience to time each part of the process.

I'm not sure how accurate it is as an indicator of my usual time per model, as this particular piece is a bit bigger than most of my Battletech stuff, and it had some additional challenges (those propellers) that took more work than usual. Further, this wasn't "rush a model to a table-ready state" either, but an attempt to make it about as good as I'm currently capable of, in as long a time as needed.  Further, many of the steps involved stuff that would take the same amount of time whether I was doing one model or ten, and so my "average" time must be significantly lower than this. Further, I spent a lot of time on this one with unnecessary experimentation, so most of my models must have been a good bit faster. At least, that's what I tell myself in the cold watches of the night.

 
Here's the breakdown:

Day 1:

Filing and trimming, washing:  10 mins

Drilling: 10 mins

Assembly: 10 mins

Priming: 3 mins

Total for Day: 33 minutes

Day 2:

Airbrushing preshade, base coats: 26 minutes (incl cleaning between colors)  preshade black, dunkelgrau, barley grey highlight, us grey camo stripes, dunkelgrau corrections).

Airbrush cleaning: 3 mins (light cleaning)

Total for day: 29 minutes

Day 3:

Detailing: (base coat for all details – US light grey and gory red) 60 mins

Wash: “pin wash”, black into cracks only. 35 mins.

Total for day: 95 minutes

Day 4:

Glazing (part 1): red details and blue cockpit glazing – 30 mins

Day 5:

Glazing (part 2): grey/white, propellers – 25 mins.

Day 6:

Repair after unfortunate feline encounter – 5 mins

Shading correction on propellers – 10 mins (blending highlights more neatly)

Adding missed details: 10 mins (armaments) due to mistake and fix.

Reapply wash to propeller and a few details to deepen the shadows for contrast: 10 mins

Paint base: brown craft paint – 2 mins

Total for day: 37 minutes

Day 7:

Final blending on propellers and obsessive unnecessary corrections and highlights: 30 mins

Drybrush (white): 23 mins

Drybrush (steel): 2 mins

Stupid obsessing over the propellers: 15 mins

Basing: 5 mins (if that). Just flocking, a little bush and some pebbles.

Total for day: 45 minutes

Day 8:

Satin varnish applied via airbrush: 7 minutes

Gloss Varnish brushed on cockpit: 1 minute

Total for day: 8 mins

Grand Total: 302 minutes or just over 5 hours.

Based on this, I'd venture to guess that a Battletech model takes me about 4 hours if I go all out.

New Additions - Battletech

Battletech - just when I think I have enough figures...

Oh well, I really enjoy painting them.  Let's have a look at the newest additions to the 1st Argyle Rangers.

We have some new Ferret VTOLs, which are actually some NATO choppers from another company. Annoyingly, unlike Battletech figures, they didn't come with stands and I had to buy them separately.. But the details is very nice.

I'm intending to use them as incredibly fast spotters for long range missiles and eventually artillery. 

I absolutely love using  the Karnov Transport VTOL in game. Fast and delicate, for the BV cost it is incredible to move your infantry around.  And since we allow rappel lines to be used, this bad boy can drop an anti-mech squad onto an enemy mech and do some serious damage.

So naturally, I needed a second one painted up to double the damage.

Next up, two Manticore Tanks.  I'm very excited to try these out on the table.  They seem the perfect compromise between the expensive heavy tanks and the near useless light tanks.

Now, I promised myself I didn't need any more mechs, but the Wolverine just caught my attention. It's weapon load out and jump jet variant seemed a nice middle of the road mech. It's a big expensive in terms of BV, but I think it may well be worth it.

Painting Battletech (2 of 2)

We last left our heroes basecoated and highlighted. Now we move on..

Step 9: Wash.  Wash, not dunk, and certainly not drown. The color and shading are set, we just want to get some dark into those cracks.  With a tiny brush, I carefully inserted Citadel Sepia Shade into the cracks and only into the cracks. This is slow work, but most of the time if you make a mistake (and a watery wash is tough to control) you can brush off the excess with a finger.  This step really transforms the mech, and works very, very well with the metal models in particular.

From left:  Hussar, King Crab, Crusader, after the sepia wash.

Step 10:  Secondary Colors.  In this case, a very dark gray (Dunkelgrau), so dark it looks black from a distance.  It provides a nice contrast with the bright yellow, and breaks up the mech a bit visually.  This is all brushed on - carefully, as the yellow will not cover that gray. If I had any major accidents I'd have to go back to the airbrush, using both white (to cover) and yellow. Thankfully, that didn't happen here.

Thumper Artillery

The whole family: (from left) King Crab, Stinger, Hussar, Crusader, Bombadier, Wasp, Thumper.

With the secondary color brushed on, it's time for highlighting.  Now, what follows is completely optional, and most Battletech players probably wouldn't have bothered to go this far. However, at this point I was having a blast and really wanted to bring these to the next level.  So I decided that rather than simply drybrush on the highlights for the gray, I'd go back to the airbrush.  That means lots and lots of masking, covering all the yellow parts of the mech.

Step 11a: Masking.  A combination of tiny 2mm Tamiya masking tape, regular size masking tape, and bluetac putty to take care of curves.

Almost the entire mech is covered. The masking process took far, far longer than the actual highlighting that follows.

Step 11b: airbrush highlight the second color. For this I used a Barley Gray, and then hit it with a lighter highlight of the same gray mixed with a good bit of white.  

Again, drybrushing would have been way faster.

But drybrushing wouldn't have come out like this:

Funny thing about that King Crab: considering how little gray there was to highlight, I intended to just drybrush. I admit, part of that was that I didn't want to go through the hassle of masking.  But after I highlighted everything else, I just said "screw it" and freehanded the highlights for the King Crab, Stinger and Wasp without any masking at all. Incredibly, I did so without any mistakes.  Ok, there's a slight bit of overspray on one of the mechs, but no one but me will be able to see it unless I tell you which mech and where.   It's utterly invisible in the pictures.

The airbrush allows for a much smoother highlighting on those missile pods and feet.

Step 12:  Cockpits.  There's been a lot written on the internet about "jeweling" cockpit glass. I've never been happy with the result, whether I use an airbrush or a regular brush.  Sadly, this time is no exception.  I may have to try again on these later.  I tried the brush method this time around, brushing on a base of Gory Red, then watered down layers of Gory Red, Blood red, and orange, blending them together.  The blending was moderately successful, but I know it could be better. Practice!

I added a few white dots as "lens flares", again with mixed results.

Step 13: Details.  Painting missiles white, touches of Steel color, including some drybrushing of places likely to see wear (hands, feet, engines).

I even painted the missiles on the Crusader's collars, which was a bit nutty.

Step 14: Final Drybrush.  This is just to bring out the edges for some final highlights.  I used Buff, a sort of very light yellow, on the hard yellow edges, and straight White on the gray edges. This is the lightest of light drybrushing. You don't want to see the paint at all, just the illusion of light catching the edges. With the airbrush, the shading and highlighting is as good as I can get it, but this manual step hardens the edges and makes the thing seem like it's 50+ tons of metal.

Step 15: Basing.  I simply painted the edges Flat Brown and flocked the base with white glue and Woodland Scenics Summer Grass.

Step 16: Decals.  Obviously optional, but the 1st Argyle Rangers are a patriotic bunch.  I did this while the flocking was still drying.

Step 17: Final basing touches.  Army Painter makes excellent little bushes for basing which are super easy to use. I also have a small container of desert colored stones that go with my color scheme.

Step 18:  Sealing.  I sealed these with Vallejo Satin Varnish via the airbrush. 

And with that, we're done!  Take a look at the final product below.

The Hussar leads the pack.

The Longbow, bought entirely because it looks so cool.

Wasp.

Davion Pride from this King Crab.

The Crusader, the mech I'm most looking forward to playing.

Back of the Bombadier.

Stinger.

Back of the Stinger.

Thumper Artillery with tracked tow and ammo carrier.

Painting Battletech (part 1 of 2)

Ok, the new arrivals are here. Eight new mechs and an artillery piece are ready to go. I didn't snap pictures of the new mechs prior to starting, just the Battlemaster and MadCat below which are left over from the big Battletech Boxed set. The MadCat is just getting primed for now, as we don't play Clan Era games, but it's too cool not to paint, so I'll get to it later. The Battlemaster I will save for another time.

I thought I'd take some pictures as I work and post this tutorial-style as painting yellow is a real trial and someone might find my method useful. All these mechs are destined to join the 1st Argyle Rangers, my Davion force.

Step 1:  Priming.  There's a lot of debate about which color primer to use. However, since we're painting yellow, white is literally the ONLY option. Anything else will turn green immediately.

A MadCat Clan mech, just to show what a primed mech looks like. I don't actually play Clan Era though.

Step 2: Pre-shading.  Some people call this technique "zenithal shading", but I'm not going all the way with it.  Rather than black, I'm using a reddish brown which will look very dark next to bright yellow, but will blend without turning green.  Pretty much anything with any blue pigment will green the whole thing out. Careful which brown you use!  My favorite brown for this is Flat Brown, but the Flat Brown Air color from Vallejo isn't quite as red as the regular, and the regular gunks up my airbrush. Instead I mixed Beasty Brown and Burnt Umber which ended up nearly identical.

Longbow

With the airbrush, I spray from beneath first, getting the undersides of everything, areas where the shadows are likely to be strongest.

Bombadier

I also get the joints, especially the knees, and anywhere where I might want a little extra definition.

Step 3: Dial it back. In order to get the brown into the nooks and crannies, there's going to be some overspray onto areas that are raised and should be highlighted.  The yellow I'm going to use isn't going to turn green if it hits the brown, but it won't fully cover it either.  So, in step 3, I go in with regular white paint, and reclaim the highlight areas, taking a moment to also spray from above, inverting the preshade method. Now the brown is far more subtle, and we're ready to base coat.

Note: If I weren't using yellow, this step probably wouldn't be necessary.

Step 4:  Primary color.  In this case I'm using Vallejo "Gold Yellow" which is darker than I'm going to end up with. It blends very well with brown however, and is my mid-tone.  Here I get full coverage, painting anywhere that remains white and overspraying a bit onto the brown.

Crusader

Step 5:  Back to White.  Turning the air pressure down a bit, I went back to white, spraying only the areas I want to highlight with a lighter yellow color. This is mostly the top of the model, but also in a few targeted areas.

Again, if I weren't going to a super light yellow for highlights, I might have been able to just spray right onto the previous color. Not with yellow. Here's my rule: Don't paint light yellow on anything except white.

King Crab, 100 Ton Assault Mech. It's coming for you Fritz.

Back of the Bombadier.

Step 6: Highlight color:  In this case, Lunar Yellow, also Vallejo Air.  Lunar Yellow struggles to cover even another yellow, but unlike Gold Yellow it turns green when it touches just about anything else.  So, carefully, I go over the white highlight areas.  The highlight is hard to see in the pictures, but it is there.

Hussar Light Mech

Step 8:  Back to White, Again.  This time, the white is for it's own sake, as the final highlight.  I dial the air pressure way back, put in some extra thinner and flow improver (white tends to clog up the airbrush, especially with low pressure), and very slowly apply the highlights.

These look a bit brighter than they do to the eye, as they're under a strong light, but once we apply the wash and detailing it won't be so obvious.  The wash we're going to use (just in the cracks) will break up the surfaces and give the overall mech a darker look.

And that's all for today!  Painting all these with the airbrush took about 2 hours and change.  If I'd chosen another color it probably would have taken half as long, but in my opinion yellow is worth it.

A brief aside... some people out there talk trash about bright "candy colored" mechs. Obviously, I like bright colors for Battletech.  Part of that is the practical fact that the smaller the model the brighter the colors need to be for it to stand out on the table. Battletech is 6mm, and I think it's great to have them in a light color.  I have friends who do 6mm Cold War and paint camo, and the final result is them kind of fading into the table.  Things get forgotten.

But beyond that...  Say you're in the field facing a lance of Battlemechs.  Do you really think you're not going to see that 6 story tall monstrosity because it's painted in a drab camo scheme?  Well, the 1st Argyle Rangers want you to know

NEXT UP:  Wash, detailing and decals!