First, chipping away at my hoarde of unpainted chaos to include some aspiring champions to lead the men to (their-I have horrible victory record) slaughter:
Second. I am an average painter; I put out a good looking table-top quality figure. I would never deign to compare myself to the many talented painters out there. In my unworthy opinion, you can be good by being skilled, which I am, you can be good by being talented, which I am not, but you get to be great by being both skilled and talented. I have been painting for 20+ years and although I am always inproving I'll never be a master. I am fine with this.
What I do have going for me is speed; in the 2-3 hours every couple of nights I can get a lot done. Case in point, even though I posted them a few days apart, the Ymgarls and these boys were done in the same batch. When you consider that I am not sitting in a well arranged painting studio with several hours dedicated to putting out my models that is a pretty decent pace.
The secret is two-fold. First, do them assembly line style meaning do one thing at a time starting inside out, light to dark. There are plenty of better posts by better painters on how to do this. My contribution is this, if you do too many of the same kind-and that depends on your personal limits, it quickly becomes a painful slog. I like to break it into differing groups with different paint schemes. First, this gives you some variety so you are not inwardly wincing at the fifteen bolt guns you have to drybrush the metallics on. Second, because you are varying your palette, you are not waiting for all of the chaos black base coats to dry on the entire group before you can continue.
Anyway, find what works for you and best of luck.
