The last chunk of Emerald Fists as part of the 'Wave 3' models I'm doing are the tactical marines. Seeing as how these are a two squads and exactly the same as the last twenty I did a year ago I am not excited at all. So I decided to just paint all twenty at once. This will take some time I think. And a lot of hand cramping. I mixed and matched some bits from the sternguard sprue (shoulders etc.) to make the sergeants in this squad. The sternguard sprue is pretty neat with the combi weapons. The bases were all premade a while back so they're in the closet waiting to have marines swapped onto the marines. This significantly speeds up the process.
I also magnetise all of the heavy and special weapons so I can WYSIWYG the models. As my hobbying has progressed (and my memory deteriorated) I've found it ever more important to make sure my models are what they are. These marines are all from the new tactical marine sprue as well which is a nice change from the old sprues. It seems like the tooling is improved (less mould lines) and the detail is better with a bit more variation in parts.
Batch painting ahoy! After a while doing 20 or so at a time becomes second nature. The key (for me at least) is to listen to a heresy audiobook - half my brain goes on autopilot and I'll just merrily paint away while listening to the story. Keeps me from thinking "19 more to go... 18 more to go... 17 more to go..." Heh.
ReplyDeleteReally digging how they've come along so far - keep up the great work, man!
The only problem I have with batch painting is sometimes on a large group like twenty, I forget how long it takes to do a single colour and my neck cramps up.
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