I've been planning to dip my lizardmen army for a long time now as it's painted to a very low standard and I can't be bothered to spend hours highlighting and ink washing (or whatever other techniques you guys use) each individual model (and there are a few) so I'm looking for a quick fix.

Anywhoo I was browsing the painting forum and came across a thread where a guy was talking about a dipping disaster he had. While many people replied with helpful ideas there were a lot of comments about how dipping was for people who didn't care what people thought of their army blah blah blah.

Now there are threads on dipping and there are threads on "what do you think of non-painted armies" and the like but I guess this one kinda straddles them both and asks what you think of dipped armies. There is no doubt they can look very good (I've seen the pics) but it also seems they can go a bit wrong and top painters would rather go for the long haul and ultimately achieve more desirable results.

So do you make like a sheep and dip? And even if you don't what do you think of dipping as a whole, when an opponent brings a dipped army to the table say?

Note I'm not actually asking for any tips on dipping as such, hence not in the painting forum =P

Ciao

Stonehambey

Effort to create a presentable army that's attractive from table height = win for you. I mean, how many people paint three primary colors and then don't even bother to dip? It at the very worst says "I'm not really into the hobby part much, but I took the time to search online and learn some techniques to have a decent looking army that isn't just two spots of tourney legalizing color dabbed over spray enamel." I try to paint all my models to the highest standard my skill level permits, but I would definitely consider dipping to try out a new army without going through the massive time investment again. I don't get the 'I don't want to play a game with someone who doesn't spend as much time as I do on painting' thing.

As long as stuff looks good, and is not the "night camo primer" type I don't care if it was self-painted, dipped of shipped over to a studio in India to get the job done. If I wanted to divide people according to their painting skills I would not be doing 40K, I would be doing display miniatures for fun :)

I don't even know what dipping is :w00t: I go for the old fashioned approach of applying paint to the model with a brush. I don't tend to find it takes that long as I tend to paint several different types of models at once to stop me getting bored of any one type.

I think if an army looks good having been dipped then all well and good. We all know the better looking army gets the favour of the dice gods anyway.

It's a great way to quickly produce a tabletop quality painted miniature. It's especially handy for folks with horde armies. How much motivation would it take to put your all in a three point goblin? Or worse, a three point skaven slave that loses D6 models a turn.

Dipping is great, especially for an army such as lizardmen. I found myself in the very same boat as you but with orcs instead. In total i have spent about 24 hours painting and dipping and basing my O+G army, which is around 1300 points including 80 or so models. They look fantastic for the time investment.

I have even had comments from people saying how good they look, i will post pics within the next couple of days.
hope this helps,
Zezza

Well, i would never use the dipping technique, as i do like the whole painting/highlighting etc, but i think that dipping can produce some wonderful results. I have seen guys do it for skeleton based undead armies, and they look very good. I would say that dipping can produce wonderful results, but it does have certain setbacks, like pooling, which makes me wonder why a skink would be changing oil on a truck:O...so, to wrap it up i guess, experiment first, if it looks good, go for it. If it doesnt...dont go for it...

Dippings fine as long as you at least put a decent clean basecoat on, using a variety of colors and not just painting the model brown and dipping it and saing your done.


"We all know the better looking army gets the favour of the dice gods anyway."

not true, i played with a fully painted army the other day and rolled horribly.

Pooling is easy to avoid. Just shake the mini lots.

My method is to glue a small metal hexagonal nut to the base of my mini, then attach a screw to my cordless drill and feed the screw into the nut- I can dip without getting the stuff on my fingers, then splatter the excess dip by spinning it at just under a thousand RPM.

@catbarf: nice sig. i worship maddox as well.

Anyway, what is dipping? i just paint traditionally.

My opinion on this is so;

Everyone has to start somewhere, so not everyones gonna be fantastic painters, so its reasonable to assume most people won'thave high quality stuff. But when your fighting against a metal and plastic army, or one thats a single colour just doesn't compare to a painted army. Now theres even less excuse withthe foundation paints, as a coat ofa base colour, dry brushing and inking and it looks so much better than a matt colour, and takes barely any time at all. I can't really complain as not everyone is skilled, but its so much easier to get into the right frame of mind, when your opponentsdeadly terminators are not painted completely in gloss red nail varnish (this is a true story, my friend carl is strange ¬¬)

All that i really expect is just a little bit of effort, not much, it doesn't have to be pro standard obviously, but a few extra minutes makes a hellova difference ^^

AS long as they take the effort to paint there army at some in the near future I don't see the problem. I've always seen WYSIWYG is more important. I had guy complain at me because I had a few unpainted units in my army, and then tell me (after i'd charged) that those Clanrats were A) storm vermin and B) carrying halberds not hand weapons and shields.
But in general if you have a plan to paint it then theres no problem.

I agree as long as a little effort has been made then fine, even if some are painted and others are not.

The WYSIWUG rule is common sense really and helps you remember what wargear your characters or units actually have. For example its no good giving an Inquisitor the Emperor's Tarot if you forget, so actual modeling of it helps a lot. And it also means that theres no arguments with army lists for example i took a master crafted pistol so i can re-roll to save my guy (it helps remember and point out if he has a suitably ornate or orantely painted pistol eh)