Tips for Batch Painting Unique Models

Transcript

Back in the dungeon

Back in the dungeon finally. Working on Infinity. I want to talk about my methodology for commission painting — bulk mass army painting when not every model is the same. Just a little bit, since I still can’t really talk.

Where we are

It might not seem like much progress, but I’ve actually prepped almost every model for non-metallic metal. A couple still need the gray base, but most have it.

I’m using gray right now because I really like that color as the base for both the black armor and the NMM. The little kit here has black on the model already, plus a ton of metal — so the gray base does double duty.

I’ve put a ton of work into this guy specifically. He’s my main focus. Once I do the NMM, I just need to finish up the fur, hands, and toes. He’s one hard session away from being done.

Group by paint, not by panel

Here’s the actual trick. Group your models by paint color and material, not by which armor panel you’re working on.

Everybody’s staged for the next round of NMM. Look at the box art on the troopers — those gray-blue shirts read as non-metallic metal too. Not actually metallic, just rendered the same way. So I’ve staged everybody to do the next round of NMM together.

When most people batch paint, they think “I’m going to paint all this robe, then all that armor.” That works when models are the same. With unique models, think about your materials.

Instead of “I’m painting all the same shirt”, think “what is on my brush right now, and what other surfaces on other models call for that exact material?”

How it shakes out

I’ll be able to touch every model as I work through NMM. All the NMM gets done in one pass.

When I pick up the airbrush, I’ll do all the blues and oranges at the same time on the guys that need them. Big chunk done between NMM and airbrushing.

These have a bunch of leather on them and a little bit of blue I’ll airbrush — so I’ll sweep through all those at once. The guys in back have gray and blue boots, plus Maximus’s shield.

Then I do all the faces at the same time. That’s why Maximus still isn’t done — I want all the flesh and faces in one session.

So even though the models are different, you’re still doing the same thing as classic batch painting. You’re just thinking about what’s on the brush, not what panel you’re on.

That’s all I got for today. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be on the not-being-sick side of things and can get back to making real videos. I want to start streaming more, too — I did one stream and it was a lot of fun. Just very painful to talk while losing my voice.

Reading Prima Materia

If you’re still here — I’m reading through this. It is amazing. Very dense right now, so I want to read through it before I really put it into use in Kal Arath.

These are the Prima Materia dice from Man Alone and Dice Nest. Very high quality. They might not look like it because they look almost like plastic, but they are very thick, solid stone. An oracle system using alchemical symbols.

I’m going to make a whole video on this once I have a better idea of the system. This is an amazing product — I just want more time to make a true review.