Painting before assembly?

I was wondering if many people paint some parts of a model or perhaps all of the parts of a model separately prior to final assembly.

It really depends on a few things.
1. Do you plan to play alot of games before painting the models?
2. how difficult will it be to paint once assembled (ie: i painted the base colours on my ravager on-sprue because I had all sorts of trouble painting an assembled raider)

A nice middle ground would be to paint the base colours on sprue and then assemble. details will be OK to paint once assembled.

Good luck

I assemble most of the model before painting, though some of the trickier pieces I'll leave off to add later.

I'd never paint anything on sprue; I can't stand seeing mold and sprue lines on a painted model. I assemble as much as I can before painting, so that I can apply files and greenstuff to ensure that no gaps are visible and everything lines up properly. Usually that means the whole model, but on something like a Venom I paint the pilot and gunner separately.

Totally like Calytra: I usually paint model after they get assembled and greenstuffed, I'm not interested if the chest beside the gun is not really painted, noone can see it. The only exceptions are vehicles, pilot of the venom and some part of the rider are impossible to paint when assembled but are visible, so i take off all the parts from the sprue, assembly what I can, paint all, and then assembly all toghether.

Calyptra wrote:

I'd never paint anything on sprue; I can't stand seeing mold and sprue lines on a painted model. I assemble as much as I can before painting, so that I can apply files and greenstuff to ensure that no gaps are visible and everything lines up properly. Usually that means the whole model, but on something like a Venom I paint the pilot and gunner separately.

Thanks for all of the replies. This is great advice that I wish i had before gluing my pilots in my venoms. Luckily i didnt glue the canopies on so it shouldnt be too much trouble painting the pilot.

I always paint everything one at a time. For example i will paint the legs then glue it onto the base them move onto the body.

I assemble all except the hard to get at bits.

So all of the wyches

and all of the Kabalites except the arms.

How many people leave the arms/splinter rifles off of Kabalite Warriors? I haven't gotten around to assembling my first batch yet, and I'm a bit curious how prevalent this is and how exactly people go about it.

I mean, I've been teaching myself to paint to a higher standard by finishing unpainted Space Marines that came with 3rd Edition, and have discovered that the people who advocate leaving their bolters off and supergluing them on afterwards are absolutely correct- they're held very tightly to the chest and those chestplates are extraordinarily difficult to paint when fully assembled. On the other hand, DE Warriors seem to hold their rifles quite a bit further away from the torso. For the people who do choose to do this, do you mask the arm/torso join with blu-tac and use plastic glue, or superglue, as seems to be the standard for separate weapons (or shields, for FB players)?

And how have people approached painting the newish plastic Archon? It seems like leaving the arms off would be necessary if you're using the crossed ones in the package; what about painting the cloak? It seems like it would make sense to attach it (and the back half of the torso) temporarily with blu-tac to prime, and sticking it together with plastic glue once it's done, or am I completely off base here?

same as Tengu.
The guns held a bit farther away does also mean the torso is better to see meaning less place for errors.

For my Voidraven I painted most pieces individually then glued them on. The Incubi I'm working on now I leave the arms off and just glue the heads/back things on before painting. Basically I try to construct as much of the model as I can, but leave off bits that would be a pain to paint with the rest of the figure in the way.

Personally, I think areas behind arms or under cloaks don't get a lot of light, and so don't need a lot of color. I find that if I can see it, I poke my base color and some wash in there. That's usually enough for me - I think that areas under/behind things are typically in shadow, and so don't need much/any highlighting.

I always clean my models of casting lines first (which tends to be the longest part), magnetize optional parts, and then I prim and paint most of the parts seperately.
There are just so many that can't be painted properly after they are glued together.

After trying both, I think you generally get a better result from individually painting parts as you can get to all the hard to reach areas, however it does take a lot longer and can get tiresome as you have to remove the parts from the sprue in order to get rid of the mold lines and ensure you dont miss bits when you paint. There is something very satisfying though at the end when you glue your painted parts together.

As the others said though, if you want to be getting your models on the table to play with, it would certainly be quicker to assemble them and then paint them.

It's certainly dependent on the quality of paint job you want. Any time I'm forced to paint components of a model before completing assembly I worry about the effect of the glue on the paint. Filling gaps is also an issue - for example, on Kabalite torsos I go over the shoulder plates and gorget with green stuff, and then file it smooth. After I've glued the arms on, I often have to add more green stuff, because the 2 torso sections don't necessarily provide a flat, even surface for the arms to attach to. There's no point in painting anything before I've done all that. Also, without having assembled the model first, I wont necessarily know what direction the light is coming from when I'm painting the highlights.

I actually assembled most of my archon except the cloak and I'm really really dreading trying to get behind those arms. I think it wouldve been in my best interest to paint his torso before attaching those arms, lol.

I find it depends on the complexity of the model and what kind of technique you use to paint. For regurlar infantry I usually assemble everything but the gun arm. If I need to use them in a game before they are finished I stick it on with some blu tack. I paint bikes without riders but otherwise fully assembled. Raiders without crew, guns sail etc. I only do drybrushing on the base and use edge highlight on models so I rarely find that my brush can't reach a place on the model that is clearly visible.

For Kabalites I tend to clean up all the parts and then assemble the head, torso, legs and one of the arms, leaving the other arm (the one with the rifle) separate. I mask the joints with blu-tac before priming and then paint each assembly separately before gluing together at the end.

For bigger stuff, like Pain Engines, vehicles etc, I build as much of the model as possible but if I need to leave certain parts as separate assemblies then I will. Basically, anything that's going to be a bugger to get to with a paint brush will be done separately whenever possible and assemble it all at the end.

I'm the kind of guy that paints it all together. It's probably less work to do thinks like painting arms seperate though.

Count Adhemar wrote:

For Kabalites I tend to clean up all the parts and then assemble the head, torso, legs and one of the arms, leaving the other arm (the one with the rifle) separate. I mask the joints with blu-tac before priming and then paint each assembly separately before gluing together at the end.

For bigger stuff, like Pain Engines, vehicles etc, I build as much of the model as possible but if I need to leave certain parts as separate assemblies then I will. Basically, anything that's going to be a bugger to get to with a paint brush will be done separately whenever possible and assemble it all at the end.

Quoted for truth.

For me, I like it quick and dirty. When I buy plastic I want to play with the plastic. So I'm not the guy to come to if you want a showcase painted army. For most models I'll glue it all prior to paint. (Although I am regretting not doing the above quote.) However, the Talos, I leave off all the bits. I don't glue on any side vials or tools or the top attachments. Non of that. Getting into the details on the skin of that thing is such a pain with those things glued on. But I will glue them on before painting the attachments themselves. Also, its nice cause you can totally play the Talos without all the creepy bits on them.