A Common Topic

I do not frequent other blogs and websites to know if this topic is over talked about, or not talked about enough. It deals with probably my second favorite aspect of the hobby. Building the models. Now this isn't a post about how crappy "finecast" is, (obligatory finecast sucks), but instead the art of putting together your models.

bits galore

body

As with anything GW related there are probably a million different ways to put your models together and probably half a million ways to do it correctly. In this post I will cover all the aspects of building which I use, or used to use.

heads

 First things first, Opening the box. For me its a mix of Christmas Day excitement and another workday project I have to tackle, usually i am more excited than anything so i tend to open the boxes on the way home. Not while driving, of course, for any Atlanta cops reading this tread. I love looking at the sprues and seeing all the different bits, even the ones I won't use. When i get home and start working i always dump the whole box out in one go, which has lead to me 'misplacing' a few bits every time. Recently before i whip out the shears and xacto I now spray paint a base coat on, I love this method ever since the first time i did it. 1 it gets rid of the risk of me not base coating later on when i add bits on to models. More importantly it saves me time! a lot of time, it usually only take 5 minutes to spray a whole box. An added side benefit is of course its terrible for the environment, take that you stupid tree huggers.

arms

Second part, clipping bits, now i refer to bits as any of the pieces you want/ can use to build a model off the sprue. While those slightly edged rectangular frames look tempting i wouldnt suggest building a model out of them. Now that i am a more evolved hobbiest I now take the time to clip all the bits off in one go. Used to be I would only clip the bits i wanted to use, and thusly had boxes and boxes stuffed with sprues with all the good bits off them, oddly familiar looking to what you would imagine it would look if an ork/gobbo got their hands on a sprue. Now i just clip all that shit and have mounds of bits laying on my work table as i frankenstein my little plastic unit together. Benefit to this has been, I see every bit, and every once in a while i find something i didn't catch before and add a nice 'shiny' bit to the model. Once i have clipped i divide the pile into smaller ones, legs over here, heads over here, weapons over here. Again this lets me compare all the different choices within a category and lets me choose what looks the best. I find it difficult to compare/contrast on the sprue so this has been a major bonus for me.

Assembly, basically i can see two ways of building models, 1. build one whole model at a time. 2 assembly line assembling (get it?) legs to body on all the models, then heads, then arms then bases etc etc. I prefer to do the second one. First it looks cool, you get to see your unit be assembled as a whole and you get to start working out the ranking up problems for those of us fantasy hobbiest out there. And as i am assembling piece by piece it is easier to remember how i did something, and remember what parts i glued more to myself than the figurine. Allowing for a smoother process when i add the next arm or whatever. It also lets me assemble however differently or similarly I want to, again because i just did the same thing on the last guy i know what to do next. Lastly as patience is a virtue I don't have much of it allows me to assemble fast while giving the glue time to dry before i get back to that model.

finished product

Then while the juices are flowing I can usually get a layer or two of color on the finished models before i call it quits. So just wanted to share my clearly superior way of doing things, and if you want to share your methods in the comments please go right ahead so that i may ridicule you for it. Most of that last sentence was sarcasm by the way.