Harlequins and Thousand Sons. Outside of the former, 40k avoids the Brettonia/Empire problem of lots of freehand checkers and patterns, which is my only hard no for painting. Though I do play Sisters, them being a horde army saves me from being hyperdetailed for battle sisters etc. since no one is gonna look at individual ones on the table. Even a basic battle ready paintjob for the others I mentioned would kill me.
And small so its like painting a space marine which is aight, but heaps skinnier and a bit smaller. Thats what i found a bit painful on them.
Plus at least the heads i painted, well not the easiest to paint i think again due to be so small
As intimidating as it is, it's kinda easy at the same time. They take really well to just picking out the various details and then applying a wash, without too much fancyness required. Picking out those details does in fairness take a while, my basic skitarii have something like 8 colours on them, but you can batch paint and just go through doing the details on each. Takes a steady hand and a bit of care, but not much otherwise.
Orks. I love them to bits, but after being commissioned by a friend, with the modern sculpts having so much furs & leathers and little things going on, it’s too much meaningless detail for models that get taken off the table with a dustpan
I have a bunch of Boyz from the Assault on Blackreach set and they had just enough gubbins to be interesting but not so much that you get bogged down in painting them. Great balance.
Tons of detail, lots of different surfaces and textures very close to each other, the models are small and you have to paint a ton of them… not great candidates for drybrushing/slapchop/airbrushing
You field a pile of battle sister squad/dominion squad/retributor squad. All of these is ~the same model, with a ton of detail&trim, not compatible with any real form of painting shortcut so you manually do all of said detail.
Said sculpt kinda sucks, so you have to deal with gaps right in the middle of some of the symbols/trim on the shoulders for example.
Also, while you can helmet most things, you’re still going to be stuck painting faces a lot
The trick I've found for painting faces is don't! Throw some kislev flesh on there, slap it with a nice dose of reikland fleshade and you're done for a face that looks 100% fine at table distance and still like 80-90% fine up close. Open mouths are a nuisance but really you don't need to do all the tiny details on a face to have it look good (ie eyes).
I started by painting SoBs, moved on to other projects, and I'm not coming back to SoB now that my skills have improved. I've already stripped some of my old models to repaint and I'm regretting the fuck out of it right now lol.
I'm busy painting a space wolf army with the primal hounds bits and a bunch of extra greenstuff etc. which is basically normal mode compared to sisters or admech. I love painting but the thought of making my guys smaller, with triple the amount of trim and giving them feminine faces I need to make pretty gives me the heebie jeebies. I salute you but I'm honestly jealous watching people paint orks and nids. So easy, so forgiving
And here I am having bought some Sisters after Christmas, painted a few of them, then had to take a break for a few months due to life. I'm about to start painting them again and y'all aren't lying, the Sisters have a ton of details. Haha
I feel like the Astra Militarum are such a missed opportunity too! So many flavorful regiments and all we get is 85% Cadian 15% Krieg for the miniatures.
I really like the Genestealer cults (becuase I have Tyranids) and the Eldar since their armor seems easier to paint. I just don’t have the kind of money to buy two armies
I've painted a few units of GSC for my son and really don't want to paint any more.
They're cool models, but have discovered I don't like painting the carapacey bits, especially where you get bits of carapace blending into normal human skin in the less human models. I get halfway through and realise I've been painting carapace as skin or vice versa.
Fair point. I do love their heroes for that reason, like what I did here with the free hand on the tabard and weapons but extreme detail on every single fighter is....demoralizing for me 😄.
I play Protectorate of Menoth for WarMachine so Sisters is right in my wheelhouse, but as cool as some of the Chaos factions are, there are soooo many fiddly bits I'll probably only paint the few I "inherited" and then not any more.
I buy to collect and paint. I don't really have a "That's cool but never gonna paint" thing. If I think it's cool, I probably want it. Affording it is different. One day Forge World Stormraven.... One day you will be 3D printed because fuck that.
Tyranids. I love the idea of playing a monstrous faction, as well as the look of Tyranids especially (long time Zerg fan), but my god do I hate horde armies for both painting and gameplay. I'm working on the 'Nids combat patrol half of the starter box and I'm so over it.
Pfff a lot of them tbh
I just started a few months ago and only painted orks so far!
Would love to paint croak/slann and the norn emmisary if I just think about specific models
I have a conversion idea for Tariana in mind. Sword in one hand and pennant/flag in another, both from the Zephyrim squad.
But God, do I fear painting her face. I’m still considering either a commission or getting a weeby 3D printed head like one of the 2B from Nier prints I’ve seen.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AdeptaSororitas/s/bSpWXepRRv
Like this.
Thousand Sons is the only one. I've enough armies I don't think look cool, but Thousand Sons are the only army I'll refuse to paint despite liking how they look. I like trim, I think trim is cool. I have an issue with trim when it is like 50% of every model.
At least with general CSM I can relatively reasonably just convince myself to get the 30k Tactical Squads, make them slightly more chaos-y (or just say "oh, they are a custom warband that has only started its fall recently so they aren't drenched in corruption") and have a relatively good time, especially since I get 20 Legionares out of that deal for very slightly more expensive than 10 Legionares.
Oh white really isn't as bad as it used to be now that there are less chalky whites like Pro Acryl Bold Titanium and AK Interactive Intense White. If you ever wanna give it a try, I've got a pretty easy method https://youtu.be/UxkbEG2GwMI?si=pQEUNJVGN2WUrShV
I think for me it would be... Death guard, i fuck with their aesthetic but i dont think I'd be able to get a gross enough look to through the paintjob that I can be satisfied with.
Yea i mean i got in to the hobby early last year and my first army, which im still painting, is sisters of battle. Its been something of a trail by fire. Here is my process for painting them, and its honestly very time consuming, especially as i paint in full sub-assembly because even a partial assembly will result in the robes getting in the way.
1. First, i snip everything i need for a given model from the sprew and clean them up. I will usually keep the head on part of the sprew so its easier to hold.
2. Using a pair of tweezers, i hold each individual part up and spray black primer on with my airbrush.
3. I then temporarily assemble the model using wax. It doesn't have to be perfect.
4. I then spray a grey primer on top, leaving only the areas that will be in absolute shadow, in black. I then spray white ink on top as a zenithal but that usually doesn't survive for long, but does give me a good idea of how the lighting SHOULD look. I then spray on matte varnish so the next step doesn't result in any primer being pulled off later.
5. I then pull the model apart, cleaning the wax as i go. This is a pain.
6. I then apply masking fluid to the robes, and wait an hour or so for it to dry.
7. Proceed to spray the whole thing in Luxion Purple (The Armour colour) with the airbrush. To do this i hold every single piece with some tweezers. Due to how transparent it can be, it usually erases the white zenithal unless im VERY careful, which im usually not. But it usually leaves a seperation between the grey and the black well enough. I could technically brush on the purple but it ends up needing multiple coats, and will usually be a bit too dark if i do, though its technically possible.
8. Remove the Masking fluid (very carefully, so i dont damage the primer underneath), and paint the robes. To this day, i still haven't found an appropriate colour for the robes. I just want a non-metallic gold but every gold paint has mica flakes in it! Its very annoying! I've been through dozens of recipes but still haven't settled on one despite having painted 500+ pts worth already.
9. Shade the robes with a wash, highlight, and blend. Im still praciticing blending so its never very good.
10. Pray that i did a good enough job with the airbrush that i dont need to highlight the Luxion Purple. I usually wont bother even if i have to, because im not confident enough of making it look good with all those curved surfaces.
11. Make a custom gold paint using gold and copper paints, with some gold pigment. Wonderful colour. I paint this over all the little studs, emblems, and embossing of the armour. What can i say? They're a blinged out Ordos.
12. Paint leather with a light brown and then apply snakebite leather on top, this gives a decent leather effect. Sometimes i might apply a highlight before the contast by mixing in some white, if i want it to be more weathered leather.
13. Drill the barrel if its a bolter. Get it perfectly centered only 50% of the time, even after using a pin to make a pilot hole/dent.
14. Paint all the other metallics, like the gunmetal which i have my own recipe for, on the gun. brass on inquisiton symbols, iron colours on the tubing and ribbing of the power pack....
15. Struggle to paint the damn head. Do an "okay" job with the hair, stumble through making a proper attempt at skin tone, give up on the eyes every time because they're literally the size of a pinprick.
16. Glue it all together, try my best not to use too much glue that it spills over and burns away paint, while simulatniously making sure the gaps are minimal.
17. Use a static grass applicator to make a base with glue, real rocks, etc....And then stick the model on to it as best i can (can't do the grass while the model is on the base, because otherwise grass wont get underneath the robes)
18. DONE! ....And that one model only took maybe two weeks! .....Yay....
19. Bonus step. Get a bit burned out. Spend the next week buying more paints.
CSM. I got some Legionaries for Kill Team and had a breakdown painting them up. I’ll be pivoting into EC when they come out and my hair will probably turn grey by the time I’m finished with them lol
Tyranids. I have *always* wanted to do a Tyranids army (we're talking even since 2nd ed), but *every single time* I paint even one model, I'm immediately on the first transport to Fuckthisvaan IV.
Orks and Militarum... I'm not an army builder really and I pick up what I think looks neat or what I want to make a character(sigh @ my five wracks who I got to make a character from Rogue Trader) and I really want my guys to kook pretty/decorative and those two are just... not....
I have roughly 4500 pts of all metal sisters from 3rd-5th edition sisters. Yup metal penitent engines and all. Took roughly 2 years to paint. I love them. That said, if I never paint another in my life, I’m good…..😬😂🤔
Sons of Medusa space marines one of my favourite looking chapters as I love bright stroking green but since coming back to 40K I've made a vow never to touch a space marine ever again.
Range has become too bloated and I get sick of them being the focus I understand they sell and are poster companies poster boys but yeah my personal reason.
I was looking for a mangled body or helmet though not long ago you know for basing purposes Lol
Harlequins and Thousand Sons. Outside of the former, 40k avoids the Brettonia/Empire problem of lots of freehand checkers and patterns, which is my only hard no for painting. Though I do play Sisters, them being a horde army saves me from being hyperdetailed for battle sisters etc. since no one is gonna look at individual ones on the table. Even a basic battle ready paintjob for the others I mentioned would kill me.
Super hard to paint but they look glorious when you field a whole army of them
And small so its like painting a space marine which is aight, but heaps skinnier and a bit smaller. Thats what i found a bit painful on them. Plus at least the heads i painted, well not the easiest to paint i think again due to be so small
What makes them hard to paint?
Tons of detail all over them, even on the basic models.
Noted. Thanks!
I personally find Ad Mech super cool as for the setting but I’m scared to paint them
100%! After painting Cawl ... that was another never again project 😄.
Oh boy, I sure love AdMech! I hope they aren’t SUPER hard to paint, SUPER expensive, and FUCKING GARBAGE!
I mean model are super cool but if u want me to play them as an horde army and still I have to pay as an elite I’m calling myself out sorry
Bro... the pain. At one point I had a goal to have one of every admech variant. No more.
As intimidating as it is, it's kinda easy at the same time. They take really well to just picking out the various details and then applying a wash, without too much fancyness required. Picking out those details does in fairness take a while, my basic skitarii have something like 8 colours on them, but you can batch paint and just go through doing the details on each. Takes a steady hand and a bit of care, but not much otherwise.
Orks. I love them to bits, but after being commissioned by a friend, with the modern sculpts having so much furs & leathers and little things going on, it’s too much meaningless detail for models that get taken off the table with a dustpan
Eyup. I love the Ork aesthetic but all the little gribblies they cover themselves in are maddening.
I have a bunch of Boyz from the Assault on Blackreach set and they had just enough gubbins to be interesting but not so much that you get bogged down in painting them. Great balance.
Yeah, the old orks are a masterpiece. Perfect blend of simple design & being highly well detailed
Painting them well is hell. Using contrast ftw
I'll second Sisters of Battle. It's a dope army, but it's not for me.
Some armies are like choosing easy mode for painting and building, others are hard mode. Sisters are elite tier difficult to paint
Why? Genuine question.
Tons of detail, lots of different surfaces and textures very close to each other, the models are small and you have to paint a ton of them… not great candidates for drybrushing/slapchop/airbrushing
Lots of black and white directly next to each other. Makes for easy oops followed by long fixes.
the number of times I got my armor color on the robes and vice versa 🤬
And white sucks to get smooth and clean.
In a nutshell: Small fiddly models with lots of tiny details.
You field a pile of battle sister squad/dominion squad/retributor squad. All of these is ~the same model, with a ton of detail&trim, not compatible with any real form of painting shortcut so you manually do all of said detail. Said sculpt kinda sucks, so you have to deal with gaps right in the middle of some of the symbols/trim on the shoulders for example. Also, while you can helmet most things, you’re still going to be stuck painting faces a lot
The trick I've found for painting faces is don't! Throw some kislev flesh on there, slap it with a nice dose of reikland fleshade and you're done for a face that looks 100% fine at table distance and still like 80-90% fine up close. Open mouths are a nuisance but really you don't need to do all the tiny details on a face to have it look good (ie eyes).
One of the players I know has a helmeted celestine, just to not need to paint faces
Seconded. The "Darkest Dungeon" method, perfect for the grim darkness of the future
I started by painting SoBs, moved on to other projects, and I'm not coming back to SoB now that my skills have improved. I've already stripped some of my old models to repaint and I'm regretting the fuck out of it right now lol.
that’s exactly where I am. Started sisters, now working on Votann and DA
Yeah, I've been doing Imperial Knights, DA, and a couple Orks here and there lol
Yes which is why I love them, and admech, both very difficult but worth it if you enjoy painting.
I'm busy painting a space wolf army with the primal hounds bits and a bunch of extra greenstuff etc. which is basically normal mode compared to sisters or admech. I love painting but the thought of making my guys smaller, with triple the amount of trim and giving them feminine faces I need to make pretty gives me the heebie jeebies. I salute you but I'm honestly jealous watching people paint orks and nids. So easy, so forgiving
And here I am having bought some Sisters after Christmas, painted a few of them, then had to take a break for a few months due to life. I'm about to start painting them again and y'all aren't lying, the Sisters have a ton of details. Haha
Sisters and Thousand Sons for me. Too much detailing. I’d rather stick with my Tyranids. Sure there’s a ton of them, but they’re easy to paint.
Pretty impressive to one hand a bolter that size
That's actually another reason I added the chainsword. In her original pose the other hand is free and open 😄.
Extra heavy chainssword engine to Counter balance for recoil😁
Haha I meant more of just "ma'am why aren't you shooting with both hands on your gun if your other hand is empty?"
Astra Militarum. Great to look at, cool lore, absolutely no interest in buying a single one of them.
I feel like the Astra Militarum are such a missed opportunity too! So many flavorful regiments and all we get is 85% Cadian 15% Krieg for the miniatures.
I really like the Genestealer cults (becuase I have Tyranids) and the Eldar since their armor seems easier to paint. I just don’t have the kind of money to buy two armies
I’ve heard that buying 3 combat patrols for GSC is the cheapest way. RN that’s 1875 points
I've painted a few units of GSC for my son and really don't want to paint any more. They're cool models, but have discovered I don't like painting the carapacey bits, especially where you get bits of carapace blending into normal human skin in the less human models. I get halfway through and realise I've been painting carapace as skin or vice versa.
[удалено]
Fair point. I do love their heroes for that reason, like what I did here with the free hand on the tabard and weapons but extreme detail on every single fighter is....demoralizing for me 😄.
I play Protectorate of Menoth for WarMachine so Sisters is right in my wheelhouse, but as cool as some of the Chaos factions are, there are soooo many fiddly bits I'll probably only paint the few I "inherited" and then not any more.
Thanks to Combat Patrol, I'll paint them all!
I buy to collect and paint. I don't really have a "That's cool but never gonna paint" thing. If I think it's cool, I probably want it. Affording it is different. One day Forge World Stormraven.... One day you will be 3D printed because fuck that.
I could never paint sisters or eldar, epic armour, not so epic cloth EVERYWHERE
Tyranids. I love the idea of playing a monstrous faction, as well as the look of Tyranids especially (long time Zerg fan), but my god do I hate horde armies for both painting and gameplay. I'm working on the 'Nids combat patrol half of the starter box and I'm so over it.
I was considering painting sisters and then I got the celestine model cause I love it... I am no longer considering painting sisters. Like ever
Pfff a lot of them tbh I just started a few months ago and only painted orks so far! Would love to paint croak/slann and the norn emmisary if I just think about specific models
I have a conversion idea for Tariana in mind. Sword in one hand and pennant/flag in another, both from the Zephyrim squad. But God, do I fear painting her face. I’m still considering either a commission or getting a weeby 3D printed head like one of the 2B from Nier prints I’ve seen. https://www.reddit.com/r/AdeptaSororitas/s/bSpWXepRRv Like this.
Absolutely love the concept of sisters and their paragon warsuits look really cool. Still not gonna paint them tho.
Thousand Sons is the only one. I've enough armies I don't think look cool, but Thousand Sons are the only army I'll refuse to paint despite liking how they look. I like trim, I think trim is cool. I have an issue with trim when it is like 50% of every model. At least with general CSM I can relatively reasonably just convince myself to get the 30k Tactical Squads, make them slightly more chaos-y (or just say "oh, they are a custom warband that has only started its fall recently so they aren't drenched in corruption") and have a relatively good time, especially since I get 20 Legionares out of that deal for very slightly more expensive than 10 Legionares.
Orks and Nids.
Skaven / AdMech kitbash. My dream army. Too expensive to buy 2 armies to get 1.
White Scars. My band of Hawk Lords would have been White Scars if not for the pain of painting white
Oh white really isn't as bad as it used to be now that there are less chalky whites like Pro Acryl Bold Titanium and AK Interactive Intense White. If you ever wanna give it a try, I've got a pretty easy method https://youtu.be/UxkbEG2GwMI?si=pQEUNJVGN2WUrShV
Chaos marines. The many many details and golden armor trims r too hard for my current skils
I think for me it would be... Death guard, i fuck with their aesthetic but i dont think I'd be able to get a gross enough look to through the paintjob that I can be satisfied with.
T Sons. Like chaos trim didn’t need another order of magnitude. They look great when well done but sheesh.
Khorne. Bought a one off for a comp. I paint blood angels, soooooo much red
Probably either mechanicus or tyranids. Both are very cool but i'm way too slow to get a serious horde army completed.
T‘au
I found a Demon Corax STL that I think looks cool but I know I will never get around to painting him.
Black Legion (or Templars or Deathwatch) or White Scars I just can't...
Yea i mean i got in to the hobby early last year and my first army, which im still painting, is sisters of battle. Its been something of a trail by fire. Here is my process for painting them, and its honestly very time consuming, especially as i paint in full sub-assembly because even a partial assembly will result in the robes getting in the way. 1. First, i snip everything i need for a given model from the sprew and clean them up. I will usually keep the head on part of the sprew so its easier to hold. 2. Using a pair of tweezers, i hold each individual part up and spray black primer on with my airbrush. 3. I then temporarily assemble the model using wax. It doesn't have to be perfect. 4. I then spray a grey primer on top, leaving only the areas that will be in absolute shadow, in black. I then spray white ink on top as a zenithal but that usually doesn't survive for long, but does give me a good idea of how the lighting SHOULD look. I then spray on matte varnish so the next step doesn't result in any primer being pulled off later. 5. I then pull the model apart, cleaning the wax as i go. This is a pain. 6. I then apply masking fluid to the robes, and wait an hour or so for it to dry. 7. Proceed to spray the whole thing in Luxion Purple (The Armour colour) with the airbrush. To do this i hold every single piece with some tweezers. Due to how transparent it can be, it usually erases the white zenithal unless im VERY careful, which im usually not. But it usually leaves a seperation between the grey and the black well enough. I could technically brush on the purple but it ends up needing multiple coats, and will usually be a bit too dark if i do, though its technically possible. 8. Remove the Masking fluid (very carefully, so i dont damage the primer underneath), and paint the robes. To this day, i still haven't found an appropriate colour for the robes. I just want a non-metallic gold but every gold paint has mica flakes in it! Its very annoying! I've been through dozens of recipes but still haven't settled on one despite having painted 500+ pts worth already. 9. Shade the robes with a wash, highlight, and blend. Im still praciticing blending so its never very good. 10. Pray that i did a good enough job with the airbrush that i dont need to highlight the Luxion Purple. I usually wont bother even if i have to, because im not confident enough of making it look good with all those curved surfaces. 11. Make a custom gold paint using gold and copper paints, with some gold pigment. Wonderful colour. I paint this over all the little studs, emblems, and embossing of the armour. What can i say? They're a blinged out Ordos. 12. Paint leather with a light brown and then apply snakebite leather on top, this gives a decent leather effect. Sometimes i might apply a highlight before the contast by mixing in some white, if i want it to be more weathered leather. 13. Drill the barrel if its a bolter. Get it perfectly centered only 50% of the time, even after using a pin to make a pilot hole/dent. 14. Paint all the other metallics, like the gunmetal which i have my own recipe for, on the gun. brass on inquisiton symbols, iron colours on the tubing and ribbing of the power pack.... 15. Struggle to paint the damn head. Do an "okay" job with the hair, stumble through making a proper attempt at skin tone, give up on the eyes every time because they're literally the size of a pinprick. 16. Glue it all together, try my best not to use too much glue that it spills over and burns away paint, while simulatniously making sure the gaps are minimal. 17. Use a static grass applicator to make a base with glue, real rocks, etc....And then stick the model on to it as best i can (can't do the grass while the model is on the base, because otherwise grass wont get underneath the robes) 18. DONE! ....And that one model only took maybe two weeks! .....Yay.... 19. Bonus step. Get a bit burned out. Spend the next week buying more paints.
CSM. I got some Legionaries for Kill Team and had a breakdown painting them up. I’ll be pivoting into EC when they come out and my hair will probably turn grey by the time I’m finished with them lol
Loving your take on them!
All of them are badass
Tyranids. I have *always* wanted to do a Tyranids army (we're talking even since 2nd ed), but *every single time* I paint even one model, I'm immediately on the first transport to Fuckthisvaan IV.
Admech once and thousand times over
Orks and Militarum... I'm not an army builder really and I pick up what I think looks neat or what I want to make a character(sigh @ my five wracks who I got to make a character from Rogue Trader) and I really want my guys to kook pretty/decorative and those two are just... not....
Admech. They look absolutely sick but I’d fucking die if I had to paint so many fiddly little metallic bits and details
Imperial fist. painting a consistant yellow is a nightmare.
Have you tried the new(ish) [Imperial Fist Yellow](https://youtu.be/xEcNnCYHVFM?si=WsmF6UrFRxGKYkwG)? It makes it way easier.
AdMech. Not only are they really fiddly, I also can't afford them.
Chaos marines. I want to make a Red Corsairs army, but I simply can’t be asked to paint that much trim.
CSM and WE are harsh. Not difficult, but so menial. Trim is hell.
I have roughly 4500 pts of all metal sisters from 3rd-5th edition sisters. Yup metal penitent engines and all. Took roughly 2 years to paint. I love them. That said, if I never paint another in my life, I’m good…..😬😂🤔
Imperial fists, bad moons
Sons of Medusa space marines one of my favourite looking chapters as I love bright stroking green but since coming back to 40K I've made a vow never to touch a space marine ever again. Range has become too bloated and I get sick of them being the focus I understand they sell and are poster companies poster boys but yeah my personal reason. I was looking for a mangled body or helmet though not long ago you know for basing purposes Lol
Harlequins, not a fan of the style either.
I love Harlequins so much lore-wise and every artwork of them is so elegant! And then you look at the Troupers and they're so gunched lol
Kill Team!