Reply To: I paint every mini like it's my last!

[onlyonepinman 18062xp 1]

At the start of the year I decide that I was going to set a target to paint the entirety of the Star Saga kickstarter pledge which amounts to around 132 miniatures in total – a not insignificant amount.  It was pretty obvious that painting each one of those like it was going into some kind of tournament really wasn’t the answer.  So I split the models into two types, characters and minions.  Minions are being speed painted using contrast paints, drybrushing and finished with brown washes (or in the case of some particularly bright, gribbly aliens purple wash).  The character models, bad and good guys, while not likely to be winning any competitions any time soon, are being painted with more care and attention because they’re the focal points.

If I were to paint a full army of something I would take exactly the same approach.  I would work out a presentable method for speed painting a basic colour scheme for minions and then do an advanced scheme with the same colour palette for characters

You need to look at what you’re painting and why you’re painting it. If you’re painting an army, is it so you can play with it or is it so you can win a painting competition (i.e. Armies on Parade)? Then you have to make a decision of quality vs speed/time, you will always sacrifice one for the other so you have to find the compromise that gets you the results you need. For armies, if you want to get them to the table, you will want to shift towards speed and so you have to probably have to accept a drop quality.