Speedpainting WIP 2

Rather than a new How-to Tuesday, I’d like to continue on from last week and discuss some of my experiences as I try out the Speedpainting methods I mentioned.

Last Thursday, the normal game night at the LGS, I set up shop for painting and painted for a good 3-4 hours.  I was being social and chatting with several folks, so it wasn’t focused time, but I still managed to prove that 2-brush is a quick painting method.

When I arrived at the store, I had my white sections basecoated Menoth White Base, and I had a first “bridge” layer of Hammerfall Khaki as a shadow.  By the end of the night, I had added a second layer of shading in the form of Gun Corp Brown, and I had highlighted with Menoth White Highlight.  I may need to take these one more step lighter or darker, but I’ll reserve judgement until I get more of the model painted.

Once I got home, the careful step began.  I needed to go back over any areas that had white that shouldn’t, in order to have an even basecoat for the sanguine.  This took about an hour and a half (2x 45min TV episodes) but was time very well spent.  I cleaned up the borders to all the white panels, as well as picked out the black Menofix symbols on the models.

I only had a few minor mistakes, often after rinsing off the brush and re-loading it.  The brush was a bit too watery, and paint overflowed onto the white areas.  This brings up the idea of the emergency brush.  Even when not 2-brush blending, having the second, wet brush handy to quickly wet and fix errors is incredibly helpful.  While it may not fully erase errors, it will certainly make them easier to fix.  Rather than having big black splotches, all I have are thin “bathtub” rings.  Those will be fairly easy to hide under a layer or two of 2-brush blended paint.

Fixing errors brings up another good point.  Don’t stop to fix errors when they happen.  Just power on through.  For example, when painting the Sanguine Base around the borders of the white panels, I made the same errors I did with the black – the paint overflowed a bit and I had to clean it up as best as I could.  By waiting to fix errors all at once, I only have to spend the time once.  Had I fixed the errors made with black paint, I would have to repeat the entire process to fix the errors made with the Sanguine Base, and then again with the Sanguine Highlight, and then maybe with the Molten Brass, or Brown Ink, etc, etc.

These little things may not seem like they take long, but they sure do add up.  The same goes true for painting multiple models at once.  You already have the brush wet, you already put in the time to get your area set up…  If it takes you 30 minutes to do a model, but 50 to do two simultaneously, then over a 6-man squad, you’ve saved 30 minutes, which is another model!