I'm in the process of getting my Blood Ravens army painted and I had a question about how to paint normal, bolter carrying marines. Do people assemble the entire model and then paint it, or generally assemble everything but the bolter (and possibly bolter arm) and paint that first?

Either way works, it just depends on you level of detail. I personally, assemble all but bolter+arms. I paint then add those later.

Same here. I assemble all but arms, then paint (allows access to the chest eagle etc.) then the undercoated arms go on, arms get painted, finally the pre-painted bolter is attached.

I assemble the legs, torso, and head together on the base and paint that first. Then, pin each arm(one with bolter attached) as well as the power pack and put them onto a paperclip, to make it easier to paint them seperately.

Hey xbanditsx, you ask a good question; the answer really depends to what level of detail you intend to paint your modles.

Firstly, you could completely assemble the model and paint it. The main advantage of this approach is that it is the most convenient, with only 1 piece to undercoat and paint. It does make things like the chest eagle difficult to paint, as they will be obscured by other parts of the model. This is particularly important for the chest eagle, as reaching it to make it look good will be difficult and its quite a visile centre to the model. Choose this method if you don't mind having a few areas on the model (hidden though some may be) less well painted than the rest.

Second choice is to assemble everything but leave the weapon off. This has some of the disadvantages of the first method, but allows you better access to the chest eagle, allowing you to paint it with less difficulty.

Third choice is to leave both arms off and paint them seperately. A little more fiddley than the other methods (but not a great deal) this method provides you with the most access to the model. This allows you to paint the would be covered areas with little difficulty and have a better result in the end. One thing to note here though - don't get paint on the glue surfaces. You should cover up any areas on which you'll use glue later before you spray it. Paint will make the bond much weaker, leaving your models prone to falling apart:). Either cover the glue surfaces with blu-tac, sellotape or something similar or scrape the paint off once you've sprayed.

So, in the end it depends on what level of detail you go for. I used to just assemble everything before paiting and that gave perfectly acceptable results. The chest eagles where not as good as they could have been but I was happy with it. Now I leave the arms off as I've become a bit of a perfectionist and like the whole model to be as good as I can get it. So, if you want convenient then go for method one, if you want better chest eagles go for methods two or three.

Good luck with the Blood Ravens mate - they have a cool colour scheme with can look really nice when done well. Post some pictures when you have finished.

Cheers,
Rich.

I'd put the whole marine together except for the bolter and the shoulder pads. This lets you spray the marine one colour (white for a good strong red base coat) and the bolter black, as well as not leaving any areas covered up. I leave the shoulder pads off because they get in the way and are easy to glue on last.

Years ago when i started 40k i did a marine army, and i didn't really thing about it at the time. Now i regret not leaving the bolters separate. It is all up to personal preference, but you will find it easier if you leave them off.

~Legionnaire

If you are planning on playing a bit without having everything painted then glue everything together! Every time i leave something off and don't paint it immediately it goes missing and then you have half assemebled marines. But if you main goal is to paint an army first then play (or not) then paint them un assembled. One thing to remember if painting things seperately, please remember where your source of light for highlighting is. Some times people paint everything and assemble and it the highlight looks wrong as the light sources are contradicting.

One thing to remember if painting things seperately, please remember where your source of light for highlighting is. Some times people paint everything and assemble and it the highlight looks wrong as the light sources are contradicting.

In that case, it makes sense to get your basecoat and main colors on before final assembly, then do the highlighting after the arms are attached. You really shouldn't need to highlight hidden/hard to reach areas until then, unless you are doing sourced lighting (like from a plasma gun).

What I do...

I assemble the body, torso, head, hands. I leave the bolter on sprue and the backpack out of the deal!

At the same time I make the base... Then they are primed all together! Marine, backpack (still unglued), bolter (yet on sprue) and base!

Without the backpack you can paint easier the back of the Marines! Without the bolter you can paint better the chest eagle! the bolter, base and backpack are painted individually and then all get bond together with glue!

Though it is easier to do that to say!

I don't spend too much effort on your base marine: he's already 10+ parts!

I assemble the whole shebang, then paint as visable. Carefully hit the tops of chest eagle of it's covered... some of the arms are lower/higher and thus show more or less chest. :shifty:

My theory is: if you can't see it, it doesn't matter if it's shaded/highlighted 30 times, pink, or whatever. Less time painting a model = more models painted = finished army quicker.

That's not to say I slop paint around: quite the opposite. I just worry about thigns I can see (same with shields in WHFB: that 1/4 of the body can stay unppainted for all I care, you don't see it.).