Omg! I needed this video! I'm a detail freak and had long days with small brushes getting in paint in weird angles. Thank you your a life saver or should I say time saver.🤗😁👍😎
This tip is also really relevant to Later Bolt Action plastics, (especially shooting/firing minis...) where if you fully assemble the mini before painting, it becomes nearly impossible to paint (properly) the details then obscured by the arms/hands/weapon. Important too, (as you mention...) to 'dry-fit' the components first, (so you know they'll fit...) and to paint any components (arms, legs, weapons etc.) at THE SAME TIME and using the same colours and techniques as when you paint the Main Body of the mini, so they match perfectly. ANOTHER Great Video, Troy! xx SF
I think a little difference comes in the amount of time they've got, and the sheer number of requests they've got to get through! It's a bit harder to dive any deeper than colour choices and what brushes you're using, I guess. I've got ol' Duncan beat on that count, at least! ;D
Thank you so much for showing the assembling back step. Too many subassembly videos miss that critical point which leads to painful learning experience when using plastic glue on top of painted part.
I'm just getting started building and painting miniatures. I built my first Tau Fire Warrior and getting into tight places to paint after it's built is a real pain in the arse. I will be using your technique as I build my second Tau figure. I'm not a gamer, so I'm really fussy about the finished product, so this technique should be perfect for me. THANKS!!
Thank you for another excellent video. I've been back into the hobby for just over a year after almost 10 years away from painting, your videos have been very useful!
On some models you'll find there's very little detail that'll be obscured by a weapon across the chest - the flat panels of Guard flak armour is a good example, funnily enough! :) If you're going for an unusual colour scheme or want to paint icons on the chest, though, it's an easy way to keep those areas accessible to your brush. Almost any standard infantry figure across most ranges I've ever encountered will allow you to assemble the arms separately and then just glue them on 'around' the body, so good luck!
Subassemblies are essential for OCD freaks like me that have nightmares knowing a blob of corvus black is sitting on the retributor armour gold Aquila behind the bolter. Seriously, I put my first squad of 10 together before priming and painting, and let me tell you how painful it was to paint parts of the model you can see, but can't reach. I don't know how people can sleep at night saying "if you can't see it, don't paint it" when that unpainted speck is what I see when I close my eyes. I thought my OCD crippled me as a professional fine artist, but miniatures are something else.
Great post! I'm currently trying to sub assemble my 2nd ever 40k model and it's proving too much effort right now. I was trying to place the blue tac on the to be glued areas whilst the model parts were still on the sprue. Not a lot of room to work with and very awkward to apply properly. Your method looks 10x easier. Just leave more of the sprue on when cutting off then easily apply the blue tac to the areas it's needed.
Thanks for teaching me how to paint. Back for another lesson because I was encountering sections the primer (in my case, black) couldn't even reach with figures featuring space marines porting/shouldering their bolter rifles let alone my clumsy hand.
I wish I had known this initially, I learned this lesson on my own awhile back and going forwards it has helped myself improve. I do empathise with your philosophy, however being a perfectionist; I cnt allow the eagle not to be Complete! Lol.
I actually do this with my storm reapers mainly cause I'm a shaky painter and I'm always worried about streaking black onto the white armor when I paint their chest which is a bad time and so I can base the backpack black to save a step and again not having to worry about smearing black Also if I may drop some advice it's really easy to kinda lose track of where the light is coming from when you highlight so I would suggest test fitting everything with poster tack or silly putty first so you know where its sitting. On smaller models like marines it's not really a big deal but on stuff like dreadnauts you can have light coming from 2 directions and it will look odd
I hear from a lot of folks that're coming back to the hobby after an extended break. I'm really glad so many are finding their way to my weird little corner of UA-cam! :D Most of us old hands haven't got the time for a Golden Demon paint job on every trooper, right?
I'm considering painting my Orks minus arms & heads as I've not painted in 30 years & I can strip all the paint off if they're not attached. If they're glued I know I can't strip them back to new cos of the nooks & crannies on shoota boys.
It's a little high-level, I guess, but I think it helps illustrate a point and answer a couple questions that some folks have about painting parts separately to one another. You needn't always be painting individual bits, but I'll admit... maybe I want to be painting my Marines this way from now on!
Great video man. That dry brush followed up by the wash turned out pretty amazing. If I might suggest trying out toothpicks for picking off the blue tac. A bit easier than using fingers without too much of a chance to accidentally scraping a painted surface. Not my idea though I think I saw that on one of Buypainted's vids when using Masking Fluid.
Great vid as usual. You can take this technique too far. I had a friend that I saw at the game store and converted (was playing board games and wanted to try AoS.) The next time I saw him I was working on some Morghast Archai that I had broken in to multiple sub-assemblies. He asked me why and I explained the concept (rather briefly as I was working on them when he asked.) I saw his first space marine and he looked like a jigsaw puzzle. Found that he was literally stopping to paint each piece as he assembled it. Without keeping track of exactly what and how you are doing it (I use a google doc as a sort of painting diary/journal) each piece will vary in tone and shade and when you put it together it looks like Frankenstein's monster. Luckily I was able to strip them and he is now doing really good. His first one using real sub-assemblies looks leagues better than my first models ever did.
Oh, geez! It's easy to go overboard, for sure, but I'd hope most people wouldn't go quite that far! It's good to hear he had someone on hand to help him out and point him in the right direction. Even better when the student surpasses the master, right? ;D
Not just surpasses, but, easily. I make due with skill and practice; this kid has natural talent. My only fear is that he will have to put in the time for the aspirations and ideas vs. the actual outcome to meet in the middle. So many want their first to be like the box or video they watched and even if you have overflowing talent its going to take a few to get there. I find it the biggest (if unstated) hurdle for newcomers.
Yeah, that's one that still catches me on occasion. "It's not going to be perfect straight away." What do you mean I have to keep doing the same thing until it works the way I'd like?!
Stupid question, but what did you do to get the arms off the sprues? I want to do sub-assemblies but am concerned about using super glue or plastic glue to hold small pieces down, and haven't found a good vid yet showing what to do about that to completely remove it.
With the arms, I just hold them in place with a little blu tack. You can use super glue to dab them to something to hold while you're painting as long as you make sure that the contact points are areas you're not going to need paint on, anyway. Then you can either 'shave' the dried glue off when you peel it off the holdy-thingy you used, or just superglue it carefully to the miniature to complete it. :D
I had to do this when I painted some aggressors because the helmet is so inset in the armor there would be no way to get to the back of the helmet without painting the armor surrounding it
This might be a silly question but can you dry brush and use sub-assemblies? I have a feeling it'll be obvious where the two parts were connected since the brush marks from the dry brush will be slightly different on the different parts when not done as one whole piece. I could be entirely wrong though, idk
ive been into this hobby for many many years, but after a break of nearly 15 i have come back to it, & have been enjoying your vids, do you plan on doing a Paint Deathwing Terminators as i am a Dark Angels Player & would like to See your Take on Them, Keep Up The Great Work
After black armour and Dark Angels I'd be remiss in not doing a Deathwing Terminator! Luckily, I've still got a couple lurking from the last edition's starter box, so I'll be hitting that some point in April. That bone armour can seem daunting at first glance, but it's no more difficult than anything else. :D Thanks for dropping in, and welcome back to all this madness!
How did you get the shoulder pads off the excess sprue after they were painted? Secondly, how did you secure them, so they wouldn't fly everywhere, for the priming?
Just a wee dab of superglue on the inside of the shoulder pad is enough to fix them in place - it doesn't take much force to tilt the pad and snap them free. Alternatively, blutac works just fine as well! Probably safer, too.
How do you accurately glue both arms with bolter together with the knowledge that the width will match the width of the torso? I attempted my first sub assembly today; I could get a good idea when I dry-fitted the parts with blu-tack, but when I take it off, I couldn't accurately do it with the plastic glue.
You can use super glue on one arm, then cool the model to remove it after you glue. Alternately, just purely dry fit and hold it until the plastic glue bonds the hands together
Interesting video, I just wonder why you peel off the blue-tack only at the end and not after priming? You said it it there to protect the plastic from the spray and I think it is safer to peel it off before painting all the details and risking to damage the paint job.
Honestly? It's just habit at this point. I could peel it off earlier, but I've not had any trouble yet with taking it off as one of the last steps. It's really just how I'm familiar with it! You could take it off after spraying if you wanted to. :)
I take it off after spraying, but I was just wondering if I was doing a stupid thing. But seems it is only personal preference :) Bay the way, it would be interesting if you do a video about sealing (varnishing) miniatures for protection after painting ;)
Is there any trick to paint hard to reach areas when the model is fully assembled? Im just starting with the painting hobby and ive been given a squad of marines that has been unpainted, so its already completely assembled D:
Thanks a lot! The static grass on this guy's from Army Painter's Mountain Tufts. They're circular, but I find that if you just glue a couple side by side you can shift up the shape a little and make them look a bit more natural. I also highly recommend Gamer Grass' products. They do some really cool tufts of random shapes and flowers that look pretty good at 28mm, too!
Thanks for letting me know - I did look at the Army Painters tufts but wasn't sure how big they were from looking at the pack. I like how vertical the grass looks - most of the time the grass seems to 'fountain' out. The whole base looks awesome BTW.
You'll find it much harder to pull them off another piece of plastic if you've used plastic glue to attach them, since yes, it does basically melt the two surfaces together. Something like super glue or even blu-tack is much safer.
The problem with painting the pieces while they're still on the frame comes when you need to clip them off. Most of the time, the surfaces that will end up being clipped are areas that you'll still want to have painted anyway, so it ends up more time consuming to go back over and file, smooth, basecoat and paint them again. It can work on some things - trees and tank treads come to mind - but for infantry, I'd most often clip them free and tidy them up rather than paint while still on the frame.
I use Army Painter's super glue for the most part. It's just thick enough that it doesn't flow everywhere when I'm trying to stick stuff together, but it has a nice, strong hold.
I could drill the bolter, I just choose not to. My hands aren't steady enough with a hand drill to get a straight hole on every bolter barrel, so it's a detail I skip. Not sure that it really takes away much from the finished effect unless you're staring straight down the bolter!
I just think it's a really important detail to do when you do tutorials. Mainly because if new players see your videoes they do the same, and that is a shame. Because your tutorial is otherwise really nice and awesome.
Omg! I needed this video! I'm a detail freak and had long days with small brushes getting in paint in weird angles. Thank you your a life saver or should I say time saver.🤗😁👍😎
What I am missing from all these videos is how you all set up the arms position without gluing them to the body
Just heard the "Harmless" joke, instant liked.
This tip is also really relevant to Later Bolt Action plastics, (especially shooting/firing minis...) where if you fully assemble the mini before painting, it becomes nearly impossible to paint (properly) the details then obscured by the arms/hands/weapon. Important too, (as you mention...) to 'dry-fit' the components first, (so you know they'll fit...) and to paint any components (arms, legs, weapons etc.) at THE SAME TIME and using the same colours and techniques as when you paint the Main Body of the mini, so they match perfectly.
ANOTHER Great Video, Troy! xx SF
You’re a legend! I’ve learned more from you in 2 days than I ever did from Warhammer TV! Keep em coming!
I think a little difference comes in the amount of time they've got, and the sheer number of requests they've got to get through! It's a bit harder to dive any deeper than colour choices and what brushes you're using, I guess. I've got ol' Duncan beat on that count, at least! ;D
I agree. I paint for the fun of it, so I'm not bothered by speed painting.
i realize it's quite randomly asking but does anyone know a good website to stream newly released movies online?
@Emmanuel Alexzander Flixportal
@Preston Immanuel Thank you, I went there and it seems to work :D I really appreciate it!!
Nice vid. Quick tip - when peeling off blu tac/poster tack, use a small ball of warm tac and use that to sponge it off. Faster and much less fiddly!
Thank you so much for showing the assembling back step. Too many subassembly videos miss that critical point which leads to painful learning experience when using plastic glue on top of painted part.
From one newer hobbyist to another, thank you from the future!
I'm just getting started building and painting miniatures. I built my first Tau Fire Warrior and getting into tight places to paint after it's built is a real pain in the arse. I will be using your technique as I build my second Tau figure. I'm not a gamer, so I'm really fussy about the finished product, so this technique should be perfect for me. THANKS!!
Super helpful, I would have missed the step about keeping two pieces of exposed plastic paint-free for the glue. Thanks!
Thank you for another excellent video. I've been back into the hobby for just over a year after almost 10 years away from painting, your videos have been very useful!
I have heard of using sub assemblies before but I never really thought of the advantage until now. I will try that on my Guardsmen next.
On some models you'll find there's very little detail that'll be obscured by a weapon across the chest - the flat panels of Guard flak armour is a good example, funnily enough! :) If you're going for an unusual colour scheme or want to paint icons on the chest, though, it's an easy way to keep those areas accessible to your brush. Almost any standard infantry figure across most ranges I've ever encountered will allow you to assemble the arms separately and then just glue them on 'around' the body, so good luck!
Subassemblies are essential for OCD freaks like me that have nightmares knowing a blob of corvus black is sitting on the retributor armour gold Aquila behind the bolter.
Seriously, I put my first squad of 10 together before priming and painting, and let me tell you how painful it was to paint parts of the model you can see, but can't reach. I don't know how people can sleep at night saying "if you can't see it, don't paint it" when that unpainted speck is what I see when I close my eyes.
I thought my OCD crippled me as a professional fine artist, but miniatures are something else.
same same.
Great post! I'm currently trying to sub assemble my 2nd ever 40k model and it's proving too much effort right now. I was trying to place the blue tac on the to be glued areas whilst the model parts were still on the sprue. Not a lot of room to work with and very awkward to apply properly. Your method looks 10x easier. Just leave more of the sprue on when cutting off then easily apply the blue tac to the areas it's needed.
Thanks for teaching me how to paint.
Back for another lesson because I was encountering sections the primer (in my case, black) couldn't even reach with figures featuring space marines porting/shouldering their bolter rifles let alone my clumsy hand.
I wish I had known this initially, I learned this lesson on my own awhile back and going forwards it has helped myself improve.
I do empathise with your philosophy, however being a perfectionist; I cnt allow the eagle not to be Complete! Lol.
Nothing wrong with wanting to do it 'right!' If you've got the time and patience there's something to be said for perfection. :D
I actually do this with my storm reapers mainly cause I'm a shaky painter and I'm always worried about streaking black onto the white armor when I paint their chest which is a bad time and so I can base the backpack black to save a step and again not having to worry about smearing black
Also if I may drop some advice it's really easy to kinda lose track of where the light is coming from when you highlight so I would suggest test fitting everything with poster tack or silly putty first so you know where its sitting. On smaller models like marines it's not really a big deal but on stuff like dreadnauts you can have light coming from 2 directions and it will look odd
Helpful, humorous, and pleasant - thanks for this video!
Always enjoy your videos, good practical advice.
Just getting back in to paint after 10 years plus off. Your vids are really helping thanks. :-)
I hear from a lot of folks that're coming back to the hobby after an extended break. I'm really glad so many are finding their way to my weird little corner of UA-cam! :D Most of us old hands haven't got the time for a Golden Demon paint job on every trooper, right?
I'm considering painting my Orks minus arms & heads as I've not painted in 30 years & I can strip all the paint off if they're not attached. If they're glued I know I can't strip them back to new cos of the nooks & crannies on shoota boys.
Spot on tips buddy
I figure they might be a little simple for some of us old hands, but it doesn't hurt to demonstrate just *how* simple something can be! :)
Another great video on another useful topic.
Well done and thanks again!
It's a little high-level, I guess, but I think it helps illustrate a point and answer a couple questions that some folks have about painting parts separately to one another. You needn't always be painting individual bits, but I'll admit... maybe I want to be painting my Marines this way from now on!
Another excellent tutorial!
Thank you! Cheers!
Great video man. That dry brush followed up by the wash turned out pretty amazing. If I might suggest trying out toothpicks for picking off the blue tac. A bit easier than using fingers without too much of a chance to accidentally scraping a painted surface. Not my idea though I think I saw that on one of Buypainted's vids when using Masking Fluid.
I painted my first tarmagaunt last night and I’m pretty sure I need to do the subassembly method
Great video!
Great vid as usual. You can take this technique too far. I had a friend that I saw at the game store and converted (was playing board games and wanted to try AoS.) The next time I saw him I was working on some Morghast Archai that I had broken in to multiple sub-assemblies. He asked me why and I explained the concept (rather briefly as I was working on them when he asked.) I saw his first space marine and he looked like a jigsaw puzzle. Found that he was literally stopping to paint each piece as he assembled it. Without keeping track of exactly what and how you are doing it (I use a google doc as a sort of painting diary/journal) each piece will vary in tone and shade and when you put it together it looks like Frankenstein's monster. Luckily I was able to strip them and he is now doing really good. His first one using real sub-assemblies looks leagues better than my first models ever did.
Oh, geez! It's easy to go overboard, for sure, but I'd hope most people wouldn't go quite that far! It's good to hear he had someone on hand to help him out and point him in the right direction. Even better when the student surpasses the master, right? ;D
Not just surpasses, but, easily. I make due with skill and practice; this kid has natural talent. My only fear is that he will have to put in the time for the aspirations and ideas vs. the actual outcome to meet in the middle. So many want their first to be like the box or video they watched and even if you have overflowing talent its going to take a few to get there. I find it the biggest (if unstated) hurdle for newcomers.
Rob Harget I
Yeah, that's one that still catches me on occasion. "It's not going to be perfect straight away." What do you mean I have to keep doing the same thing until it works the way I'd like?!
Thank you for your video :)
Thanks for stopping by! :) You're more than welcome.
how do you remove the glued spruce to the small parts?
Stupid question, but what did you do to get the arms off the sprues? I want to do sub-assemblies but am concerned about using super glue or plastic glue to hold small pieces down, and haven't found a good vid yet showing what to do about that to completely remove it.
With the arms, I just hold them in place with a little blu tack. You can use super glue to dab them to something to hold while you're painting as long as you make sure that the contact points are areas you're not going to need paint on, anyway. Then you can either 'shave' the dried glue off when you peel it off the holdy-thingy you used, or just superglue it carefully to the miniature to complete it. :D
I had to do this when I painted some aggressors because the helmet is so inset in the armor there would be no way to get to the back of the helmet without painting the armor surrounding it
Douglas Adams would be proud
This might be a silly question but can you dry brush and use sub-assemblies? I have a feeling it'll be obvious where the two parts were connected since the brush marks from the dry brush will be slightly different on the different parts when not done as one whole piece. I could be entirely wrong though, idk
Once you've shaded and varnished a miniature you're highly unlikely to see which direction brush strokes are coming from, if that helps.
ive been into this hobby for many many years, but after a break of nearly 15 i have come back to it, & have been enjoying your vids, do you plan on doing a Paint Deathwing Terminators as i am a Dark Angels Player & would like to See your Take on Them, Keep Up The Great Work
After black armour and Dark Angels I'd be remiss in not doing a Deathwing Terminator! Luckily, I've still got a couple lurking from the last edition's starter box, so I'll be hitting that some point in April. That bone armour can seem daunting at first glance, but it's no more difficult than anything else. :D Thanks for dropping in, and welcome back to all this madness!
How did you get the shoulder pads off the excess sprue after they were painted? Secondly, how did you secure them, so they wouldn't fly everywhere, for the priming?
I'm not sure how he snapped it off after, my preference is cocktail stick & blutac. Stick that into a bit of cardboard, your then ready to prime
Just a wee dab of superglue on the inside of the shoulder pad is enough to fix them in place - it doesn't take much force to tilt the pad and snap them free. Alternatively, blutac works just fine as well! Probably safer, too.
How do you accurately glue both arms with bolter together with the knowledge that the width will match the width of the torso? I attempted my first sub assembly today; I could get a good idea when I dry-fitted the parts with blu-tack, but when I take it off, I couldn't accurately do it with the plastic glue.
You can use super glue on one arm, then cool the model to remove it after you glue. Alternately, just purely dry fit and hold it until the plastic glue bonds the hands together
Do you know how to add battledamage on black Armor? I've been looking everywhere and can't find a single tutorial.
Maybe paint a tiny bit of metallic, like smal metallic "scars" and then a dark grey underneath to highlight them
Smart
Interesting video, I just wonder why you peel off the blue-tack only at the end and not after priming? You said it it there to protect the plastic from the spray and I think it is safer to peel it off before painting all the details and risking to damage the paint job.
Honestly? It's just habit at this point. I could peel it off earlier, but I've not had any trouble yet with taking it off as one of the last steps. It's really just how I'm familiar with it! You could take it off after spraying if you wanted to. :)
I take it off after spraying, but I was just wondering if I was doing a stupid thing. But seems it is only personal preference :)
Bay the way, it would be interesting if you do a video about sealing (varnishing) miniatures for protection after painting ;)
You get a Like for the armless pun.
Is there any trick to paint hard to reach areas when the model is fully assembled? Im just starting with the painting hobby and ive been given a squad of marines that has been unpainted, so its already completely assembled D:
really enjoyed watching this as always. great tips and nicely done model are the static grass clumps DIY or from a pack?
Thanks a lot! The static grass on this guy's from Army Painter's Mountain Tufts. They're circular, but I find that if you just glue a couple side by side you can shift up the shape a little and make them look a bit more natural. I also highly recommend Gamer Grass' products. They do some really cool tufts of random shapes and flowers that look pretty good at 28mm, too!
Thanks for letting me know - I did look at the Army Painters tufts but wasn't sure how big they were from looking at the pack. I like how vertical the grass looks - most of the time the grass seems to 'fountain' out. The whole base looks awesome BTW.
What wash did you use here? Turned out great!
Probably Drakenhof Nightshade? I honestly don't remember with this Marine specifically, but it's usually my default for Ultramarines.
@@SonicSledgehammerStudio that was my guess. Thanks for the reply and great content!
what wash do you use? looks amazing
I'm unarmed!
What would you use to dry brush a blood angel?
Probably something a little like this! :D ua-cam.com/video/ZvOX4Zl1Q98/v-deo.html
Can't beat Ryza Rust as a drybrush highlight for red.
Sonic Sledgehammer Studio thank you! Great videos!
Is it safe to use plastic glue on this stage?
Is it safe to just stick my guns/ heads to some sprew with plastic glue? Doesn't it melt? I mean. I want my first ever space marines to look good...
You'll find it much harder to pull them off another piece of plastic if you've used plastic glue to attach them, since yes, it does basically melt the two surfaces together. Something like super glue or even blu-tack is much safer.
@@SonicSledgehammerStudio didn't expect a response. Thank you.
Btw I'm using your Iron Hands tutorial for my marines :)
would you think that painting them on the spurs
The problem with painting the pieces while they're still on the frame comes when you need to clip them off. Most of the time, the surfaces that will end up being clipped are areas that you'll still want to have painted anyway, so it ends up more time consuming to go back over and file, smooth, basecoat and paint them again. It can work on some things - trees and tank treads come to mind - but for infantry, I'd most often clip them free and tidy them up rather than paint while still on the frame.
that makes sense I'm new to painting figures so your vids are really helpful
I'm really glad to hear it. You're exactly the kind of person these are for! :D
What super glue do you use?
I use Army Painter's super glue for the most part. It's just thick enough that it doesn't flow everywhere when I'm trying to stick stuff together, but it has a nice, strong hold.
Sonic Sledgehammer Studio thank you
Im just starting with miniatures and I was confused, that nobody is doing it that way :,D
Very punny joke you got there, thanks for the informative video.
I found the joke to be mostly armless.
I'm groaning, but I am just as guilty. XD
You need to drill the bolter..
I could drill the bolter, I just choose not to. My hands aren't steady enough with a hand drill to get a straight hole on every bolter barrel, so it's a detail I skip. Not sure that it really takes away much from the finished effect unless you're staring straight down the bolter!
I just think it's a really important detail to do when you do tutorials. Mainly because if new players see your videoes they do the same, and that is a shame. Because your tutorial is otherwise really nice and awesome.