Speed Painting

I decided to tackle an experimental project I've been considering for some time.  I wanted to try painting figures on the sprue prior to assembly.  This allows for a lot more airbrush work and faster painting.  The big question I had was, "how bad would the final product look?"

I decided to start small and paint a sprue of Warlord U.S. Infantry and a sprue of U.S. weapons.  This results in five figures and a lot of extra arms, heads, weapons, kit, etc.

In the end, the five figures took 2.5 hours to paint, assemble, and base.  I think adding a few more sprues will take advantage of the economy of scale, and my estimate is 20 figures in 5 to 6 hours.  That will be the next experiment.

I started by painting uniforms, heads, arms, and hands.  The paints used are all Vallejo model color except as noted, and I used a Grex airbrush with a 0.3 mm needle for all the airbrush work.

Colors used:
Trousers: 873 US Field Drab
Jackets and Anklets: 988 Khaki
Boots: 984 Flat Brown
Backpacks, webbing, and pouches: 886 Green Grey
Helmets: 887 Brown Violet
Rifles: 875 Beige Brown and P3's Pig Iron

Painting Uniforms

Rifle base color

Back packs, webbing, shovels

I mounted the legs/torsos to their bases, and at that point, I hand painted all the straps and boots.  The rest of the uniforms had already been airbrushed.

The metallic parts of the rifles were painted by hand while still on the sprue.  Sorry for no pictures of those two steps.

I then assembled the figures and found very few places that needed any hand painted touchups.

I decided to use Army Painter Strong Tone Dip to provide the shading to keep with the theme of speed painting.

Painted and assembled

The dip was allowed to dry overnight, and then the I based the figures.

Below are the finished figures.  I think, considering the method used, they came out pretty well.  They pass the 3-foot, tabletop test.