So, how much time do you spend painting a single miniature?
Maybe I should break it down like this:
1. How much time do you spend on a miniature for a player character or a major NPC in one of your campaigns.
2. How much time do you spend on a miniature when you have a need to build a faction of some kind?
2. How much time do you spend when you are just trying to make a mini "playable"?
I'm only talking about painting, not sculpting.
So, how much time do you spend painting a single miniature?
Maybe I should break it down like this:
1. How much time do you spend on a miniature for a player character or a major NPC in one of your campaigns.
2. How much time do you spend on a miniature when you have a need to build a faction of some kind?
2. How much time do you spend when you are just trying to make a mini "playable"?
I'm only talking about painting, not sculpting.
I'm somewhat obsessive so I spend the same amount of time on a miniature regardless of its function. That's usually "until I think adding more paint hurts more than it helps."
Right now I have "unfinished" miniatures on my mantle and I do something to one of them occasionally when I walk by. I have no idea how much time I spend per miniature but I know it's far too long for the grunts. I think I've spent multiple hours painting one zombie dog, but maybe it just feels like multiple hours. I'm not sure.
Well, first off... I'm a player, NOT a DM. So I don't do the 'army building' or npcs or anything. The minis I paint are for my own characters, AND I've become Go-To guy for All the rest of the players too.
LOVE starting a new campaign, because I get to make 4-6 new minis :)
I'm usually painting a couple at a time, bits and pieces here...depending on what color I have up at the time.
First of all, i usually Prime them before going to sleep... so that's about 8-10 hours right off the top that I barely count.
Actually PAINTING... I'd say probably a day. I come and go back to things, I DON'T have a major setup with 15 different colors of blue already made... so when I mix a color, I usually finish what I need to with that color.
I'd say probably about 14 hours or so... broken up for 'drying time'. Again not counting the sealing time or anything when i'm done.
Of course there are always touch ups, and details I want to adjust... but i can be pretty nitpicky sometimes... I'll keep painting until i mess something up then have to start over >.<
I HATE when that happens!!
I HAVE painted a couple of massive dragons... THOSE took considerably longer... and were a LOT of fun!!
I ask because I find that the amount of time I spend on a miniature doesn't seem to have a direct correlation to how much I like the final result. For example, here's a post on my blog showing the "difference" between a paint job I spent over an hour on, and a couple I just knocked off while painting a bunch of minis as a group.
I apologize for the slightly out of focus troll head... but I think the photo shows what I mean....
I'm wondering if people spend hours and hours on their painting, or if an hour is a pretty reasonable time to spend...
I'm usually painting a couple at a time, bits and pieces here...depending on what color I have up at the time.Actually PAINTING... I'd say probably a day. I come and go back to things, I DON'T have a major setup with 15 different colors of blue already made... so when I mix a color, I usually finish what I need to with that color.
+1
I generally have two going, so when I mix the color it can dry on one while I work on the other. Doing just one takes the same amount of time for me.So 5-6 hours per mini (but again I get two done :)
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This is about a 6-7 hour mini for me without basing, etc. It's about typical of my Tabletop standard.
Seoni
On "named characters" for my 40K armies I'll go upwards of 9-12 hours.
*standard apologies apply on crappy photo/camera.
Very nice Vagrant.
I've not yet attempted any freestyle designs on any minis... I suppose that could take a lot of time.
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Thanks.
I think freehand depends largely on where you want it to look good from - I'm decent at the 2+ feet mark, and I'm reasonably content with that.
There are some great examples on From the Warp by Ron for how he goes about freestyle on a grander, awesome from 6 inches, scale (in particular his work on banners and shoulder pads).
The hard part for me and freestyle is still keeping consistent line and shape sizes, in particular with metallics since they flow differently than a more opaque color. It can be irritating and slow going.
I usually spend between 2 hours and 4 hours on each mini (including cleanup, assembly, painting, and basing). I don't make much distinction between them based on use, though I'll spend longer painting a highly detailed mini (like a Reaper mini or 40K commissar) than "production line" minis (like 40K orks or something).
Needless to say, I don't get a lot of minis painted. :) The ones I do paint look decent, however.
M
I've usually got 10-15 miniatures going at any one time, so it's hard to track time spent on any single miniature. Like you Brassbaboon, I re-purpose a lot of Mageknight, Heroclix, Horrorclix, Heroscape, Christmas and Halloween ornaments, and other 28-32mm figures from various sources. With some, just a simple drybrush and adding a few dedtails is all I need to do. Sotimes, full re-sculpts are necessary. Basically, I paint til I'm happy with a figure.
And I also find little to no corrolation between the time I spend on a figure and how much I like it. Some of my favorite figures take less than 15min. Others have 20+ hours total.
Depends on the mini and the paint scheme... it's also hard to gauge sometimes because I will sometimes paint/convert for an hour, then do something else, then not paint again for 2 days, then sit and paint for 4 hours.
I can "speed paint" a mini in an hour with a simple mini/simple scheme.
A very complex mini may take me I guess up to 6-8 hours depending (including basing and all that).
If I'm doing a conversion, that may take awhile because I usually add on a bit, let it cure, add on a bit, let it cure, etc.
When I played 40K it took me roughly a week to do 10 Sisters of Battle, from assembly (minimal) to final touches on bases, averaging 2-3 hours a night--doing sort of an assembly line fashion of painting.
Yeah, I suspected that I was spending far less time than most painters. I think it's an attention span thing. I tend to look for shortcuts in all things, and I tend to target "good enough" as my goals most of the time, meaning I want my paint jobs to look at least as good as the ones I see on store-bought figures. I suspect one hour per store-bought mini would make them difficult to sell at a profitable price.
I also haven't noticed that there's a major difference in quality of result when comparing a 30 minute effort to a two hour effort. The law of diminishing returns seems to come into play pretty quickly.
I guess the only exception is miniatures I use for my actual player characters. I do spend a lot of time on them (for me, meaning probably a couple hours total). But that's mostly the result of working on details that are unique to the character I'm playing. I also sculpt my own PC minis or modify existing ones.
I suppose if I was a better painter (and sculptor) that I'd see better results and therefore spend more time on them. Perhaps over time I'll develop the skills necessary to make it worthwhile to spend that much time.
Yeah, I suspected that I was spending far less time than most painters. I think it's an attention span thing. I tend to look for shortcuts in all things, and I tend to target "good enough" as my goals most of the time, meaning I want my paint jobs to look at least as good as the ones I see on store-bought figures. I suspect one hour per store-bought mini would make them difficult to sell at a profitable price.
I also haven't noticed that there's a major difference in quality of result when comparing a 30 minute effort to a two hour effort. The law of diminishing returns seems to come into play pretty quickly.
I guess the only exception is miniatures I use for my actual player characters. I do spend a lot of time on them (for me, meaning probably a couple hours total). But that's mostly the result of working on details that are unique to the character I'm playing. I also sculpt my own PC minis or modify existing ones.
I suppose if I was a better painter (and sculptor) that I'd see better results and therefore spend more time on them. Perhaps over time I'll develop the skills necessary to make it worthwhile to spend that much time.
I think it's important in a hobby like this to determine what YOUR goals are and what you enjoy doing--not compare yourself to a painter with an entirely different goal. If your goal is a table-ready mini that does not suck away most of your life painting it, then a quickly painted, decent looking mini is ideal. There's also lots of fun shortcuts to do for speed painting minis, like washes and the "dip" method, etc.
When I do paint a mini that takes me a long time, it's normally because a) the mini is ornately sculpted and requires attention to detail, and b) Because I have fun picking out all the tiny little details and I have time and am in the mood to do it. Sometimes I might take, say, an armored mini, paint the flesh and wash it, then paint the armor and wash that, highlight with a quick drybrush, and call it done--and that might not take more than 30-45 minutes. Sometimes I might painstakingly pick out the highlights on each rivet on the armor and free hand/draw with micron pen little details on the edges because that's what I want to do at the moment.
I'll also note that I tried to learn how to paint details well because at one point when miniature wargames were more popular in the area, I wanted to be able to win "best painted army" and place various painting contests (sometimes I did well, sometimes I didn't). Unfortunately those days in my region are past but I still like to take time to paint something with a lot of detail when I feel like it.
I get the sense from your posts that you do a LOT of mass assembly and painting, and do it often. I paint only every so often these days--so that when I do it, sure I spend a lot more time per model, but I imagine overall you spend FAR more time in a month on the miniature hobby than I do.
As an aside, one thing I think that made it easier for me to learn decent skills quickly is I took a lot of art classes in high school (and one in college), and therefore have a decent (for an amateur) background in color theory and certain tricks and techniques. If you DO hit a point where you feel like you want to do better and are hitting a plateau, I'd suggest taking a generic intro to painting class (plain old canvas painting, not miniatures) or other introductory art course, if you do not already have such background. I think you will find a lot that is very applicable to painting minis and will make some seemingly obscure things more obvious (e.g., one of the best ways to tone down a strong red is with a tiny drop of green paint).
DQ, as always your feedback and insights are well-thought and greatly appreciated.
I have been considering taking a painting class. But I've got other priorities too, including writing, which is my real passion.
I suppose I should admit that I am not any sort of artist. I've never taken an art class, and other than doodles from time to time, the most common form of creative outlet I have is the work I do to prepare for RPG games. Well, unless writing is considered "art", I do a whole lot of that...
I'm a thoroughly left-brained person. I have a hard science background (physics) and spent the bulk of my career as a programmer. I probably am pretty close the the stereotypical science geek.
But I'm pretty good at picking up skills and learning things. And I'm downright fearless in attempting new things. In general if I find myself interested in something, I dive into it head first and immerse myself in it until my obsessive compulsive drives are sated. Which is why I've been so active on this forum lately. My compulsion is winding down now though, and my future miniature endeavors may be more like yours DQ. In fact my interest is shifting daily away from miniatures and towards terrain, buildings, furniture and other things needed to populate my campaign worlds. No doubt I'll do exactly the same thing with those elements, that's sort of how my mind works.
I do like to play around with stuff though. So, for example, I've developed a technique that I think provides a reasonably realistic looking wear on clothing and materials. It's probably old hat to real miniature painters, but I was surprised by it. What I do is to do a base color, let that dry and then do both a dilute white wash, and after that dries, a dilute black wash (sometimes I use light colors instead of white and dark colors instead of black, but it's the same concept). The result is a sort of random blending of lighter and darker areas on the clothing which looks more realistic to me than the standard way of highlighting the high points and darkening the low points. After that dual wash I generally do a dry brush of white or a light color to bring out the details. But that takes only a few seconds per mini and the result provides several different shades for virtually no effort.
That's the sort of thing my short attention span allows. :)
