Hi, I've painted my share of minis, but mostly individuals or small sized groups... I am going to start painting my Waiqar army soon and it will be my first big army.

Apart from the obvious (base colours, only 1 wash, only 1 highlight), do you have any advice for painting a big army for the first time without investing a massive amount of time?

- Use a suitable spray primer to serve as the first base color. Using ArmyPainter's Bone for Waiqar and Metal for Daqan has helped me a lot.

- Also, see how many figures of a unit you can do in one go (assembly line painting) without making it boring. I'm now up to 8 infantry figures in one go, and that also makes it go much faster. But don't overdo it, otherwise you can get bogged down.

- Accept that it will still take a good chunk of time, no matter what you do. The process can only be sped up by so much.

One more question.

Is it worthy to remove the mould lines from infantry units (i.e. Reanimates)?

It usually takes me 5~10 minutes per miniature and it seems it won't be necessary for big units.

I skip it or remove only the most obvious ones. It won't be visible on the gaming table.

The color primer stuff is a great idea. Quick shade stuff is pretty good too. If you look at Sorastro's zombie painting guide , he covers a good approach there. Allows you to just do the base coat and get them table ready.

If you're going for something more precise, just take your time, mount 3 or 4 on pots or little bottles, and enjoy painting. If you're going for speed pick out ~4 base colors and don't worry about unique colors for the details... just punch them up a little more when you get to the point where you're doing finish touches. If you're going to go light on highlights, try to add some lamium medium to the shades so they don't darken everything too much especially on lighter colors. Save the straight nuln oil or agrax earthshade for metallics or leathers.

I followed the painting guide here: https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/d5/fa/d5fad14a-b185-452d-bc44-d4d5256427ce/waiqar_the_undying_painting_guide.pdf

I'm shaky and generally do not have the patience to paint, almost passed the game for the need to paint.

Turns out, I'm not great at it, well compared to a lot of folks that post here, I am not even very good at it, but actually enjoying it.

I wasn't going for professional award winning quality, I wanted painted minis on the table.

I just bought the elves the day they came out and on my last 2 trays of archers, Heros, and Leonx are complete (haven't posted pics yet).

But I have managed, on several occasions to paint, not just an army, but my entire collection: https://www.amazon.com/photos/share/P4POUgEbcDjwcBdgX2kKEtkBXmOtE0JD1nKNIotqLqM

I say all that to suggest it is not only possible to paint rapidly, but against all logic, reason and expectation, I've found it fun!

I paint in blocks - yes using army painter spray primers, limiting colors where possible, only shading once.

My process is I have a block that I am painting, and a block "on deck". So as I begin detailing and cleaning the current block, I'm taking breaks by "base painting" the "on deck" block.

I don't know if that's the correct term, but "base painting" to me is the large swaths of areas I can paint and not worry too much if I make a mistake.

I am doing smaller blocks than I did to start. I did 16 spear men at one time, and that was a mess. I tried to do 4 cavalry at a time and that still gives me nightmares. 2 cavalry at a time.

38 minutes ago, Adun42 said:

I am doing smaller blocks than I did to start. I did 16 spear men at one time, and that was a mess. I tried to do 4 cavalry at a time and that still gives me nightmares. 2 cavalry at a time.

Yeah cavalry have definitely been the worst for me too, and I'm not even sure why. Also, your stuff looks good, don't sell yourself short!