WHFB painting and modeling questions

[tcliff86]

Hey all,

I have a couple armies in the works and have been doing a ton of painting recently. For my tomb kings force that hasn't really been started I am tempted to paint them on the sprue, and touch them up later.  I was wondering what the general opinion of painting on the sprue was.  Do people do it a lot, or is it smarter to assemble all your models first.  I always prime them while they are still on the sprue, just because its so easy with the spray paint to blast them while they are suspended and in neat, boxed sprues. 

And about modeling,  I have the tomb king battalion and thats 32 skellies.  I want to be able to use my skellies for Vampire Counts as well, so i painted and modeled them very plain (non Egyptian).  My questions is this.  I want my skellies to be Archers for TK and just a bone shield for VC, so I made 10 archers and the rest just have hand weapons. I figured I would put the archers in the front row for TK and hand weapons in the front row for VC.   is that legal, frowned upon, or is that alright. 

also,  i wanted to do some fun skellie bases, using tomb stones and other little bits.  Is it alright to replace a skellie base with a base or group of bases that have something else on them, to add character to the unit.  i would just include a wound counter or something.  I was thinking of  skellies surrounding some graves and such.  It would add character to the army and save skellies for more units.  is that ok?



thanks for any help
-Tim

[Chase]

All of that should be fine, Tim.  A lot of Fantasy stuff makes it really tough to stick to the "What You See Is What You Get" rule.  I'd just explain to whoever you're playing what is going on.

In a tournament setting you might catch a little flack, but it shouldn't be that big a deal around here.

About the re-basing of the models, so long as your block/unit can clearly represent the number of models currently present AND the size and shape of the bases/trays are appropriate (this matters a lot) then everything should be cool.

[tcliff86]

thanks Chase

-Tim

[Battleground]

I'm not a huge fan of painting on the sprue, but each person has their own style. There really isn't a right or wrong and sprue painting is fairly common.

Give it a shot and see if you like the results. In my opinion, you lose as much as you gain. You'll probably pick up some speed in things like color matching, regiment painting and so forth, but you'll probably lose that time gained when you have to retouch and repaint areas that were snipped off the sprue after the fact.

If you do try it, let me know your results.

[Rob S]

I agree with Derek.  In my personal experience, at least, gluing things that have already been painted is incredibly harder than gluing anything else.  I sprue painted some Dark Eldar, and when I wanted to glue them together I had to do it twice - the first time took the paint off, the second time made the model stick together.  Maybe I was just doing it wrong, but I don't think I'll ever do it that way again.

[tcliff86]

thanks for replies,


i painted 20 tomb king skellies on the sprue,  sprayed them white, wash with devlen mud, then go over for straps armor and details,    to be honest, i dont like the results,   i think I missed out on individual details and small touches that you do when your holding a single model.    i think i will continue to prime on the sprue but i will assemble after that and paint by model.



-Tim

[jesterofthedark]

Just for what its worth.  I have seen alot of GW stuff that makes use of the large bases.  It would just count for the number of wounds that would fit in place of the base.  Example, a cavalry base would count as two.

A few players do it because of the hassle that movement trays pose.  It just helps to have some regular based models to place in case you get to a situation where your opponent does not kill enough wounds to remove the base that you modeled.  Of course it doesn't matter in a friendly game you can just use a dice to show it but in an offical game you'd want to be able to be legal if your opponent was concerned with it.

[Poo the Great]

I used to prime on the sprue but then clip it off and assembly the models. I found that the primer doesnt allow the minis to hold as well as if it were plastic to plastic (as opposed to plastic to primer) Also doing that way I found that there would be blank spots were id have to clip off from the sprue.

I primed on the sprue for a while and eventually I found that taking and assembling them first worked a lot better. I was able to clean off a lot more flash from the models and just make them more presentable.

[tcliff86]

I think I agree with you Poo.  After assembling a host of primed skellies and then trying a few unprimed once there was definitely a huge difference.  After this experience I am done with painting or priming on the sprue.  Its easier to assemble cleanly and get the poses you want and then worry about colors.

So my 25 man strong regiment of skellies has 6 gravestone bases in it as wound counters for a fun and colorful addition to the unit.  However,  I didnt want to make to many archers because I dont like the look of them,    So behind 2 ranks of archers is a row of gravestones, and behind the grave stones is two ranks of hand weapon wielding skellies.  Is it alright have the units up front represent for the whole regiment?   I could argue the point that skellies are all counted as having hand weapons so I just modeled that option even though they also have bows.    Is that an issue outside of friendly games?

-Tim

[Achillius]

Hey Tim,
           I'd not have a problem with that. In fact I agree with it being a good idea. If you ever get bored of boney archers, you can changed the formation to straight up hand weapons.

I think as long as the first rank or two is representative the rest is not an issue.


Cheers,
Alan

[tcliff86]

thanks,


i thinks ok and would have no problem with it, and i figure as long as i have some ground to stand on at a tournament i think i am going to go for it,   Im out for the day but tonight I will try and post a picture to show how it came out.

thanks

-Tim

[tcliff86]

the two swords in the front row are the standard bearer and champion.

the flash is messing with some colors,   but thats the idea,  archers in front, showing what the unit is, gravestone for fun, then filler hand weapon models in back row


-Tim


(thanks Chase for telling me about picture push)

[Chase]

Looking good.