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Guide to Speed Painting an Army

Michael T. Wei Na

Every gamer knows that painting is an integral part of the Games Workshop hobby. All armies should be painted lovingly and gradually over several months. However, in most cases this never happens, people leave it to the last minute, resulting in a mad panic a couple of nights before the start of a tournament. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have been up through the night desperately painting an army. The worst thing is that it is usually someone else’s. After several grueling sessions of painting I have learned several key points which I will outline in this article.

The first thing to consider is the colour scheme. It is important to decide on a few colours which will a) look good together and b) will be quick to paint. I try to limit the palate to three or four base colours. Next paint up a test miniature to see how the colours look together.

In my experience there two types of colour. The colours which are easy to paint such as black and there are definite colours to stay away from such as yellow (unless is small quantities). The table below outline the colours I would recommend.

I will give the example of Anthony Theodossi’s Salamanders army. This army was painted in two days on and off. A full 1500 point army took three of us to do.

For the colour scheme we decided to use snot green, sunburst yellow (I know its hypocritical but it was for very small eyes), black and boltgun metal. A Games Workshop member suggested we use a spray of scorpion green and give it a dark green ink to give the base coat. After hours of fiddling around which resulted in a green that looked like it had come straight from a can of nuclear waste, we gave up. One tip if you want a snot green colour use snot green.

Anyway we started from a black undercoat. We sprayed the entire army at once to save precious time. The models were then divided up into squads ready to be painted. It is best to paint in batches of five to ten models as this saves time.

There is one technique that all speed painters adore. The drybrush. Load up the palate with your colour. Dip a large brush in a proceed to wipe the paint off on to a tissue. The brush should seem dry. Gently draw the bristles across the surface of the miniature. This should result in instant highlighting. For the Salamander armour we dry brushed the black with snot green and then added sunburst yellow to the green and repeated. It is best to use a three stage colour highlight. Extra highlights can be used to create a paler colour. The colours I recommend to base and to highlight with are outlined below.

Once the entire army has been fully painted, that just leaves one thing. The base. Bases can make all the difference to a miniature. The quickest way of basing a miniature is in fact flock. Many people believe painting the base green is the most efficient way. However two coats of goblin green often need to be applied to get a good coverage over black. I recommend covering the top of the base in PVA and dipping it in a box of flock for speed. The rim itself can be left black. In the case of the Salamander army opted for the gravel and static grass approach we which took us a long time.

Painting

Painting White

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Michael T. W. Na
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