To Sprue, or not to Sprue. That is the conundrum.

So I will be fleshing out my Necron army very soon. (haha, see what I did there?)

I just was wondering. Do you all think it's better to start painting while the pieces are still on the Sprue or not? What problems will i come across painting them before I glue them?

Just for clarification, I have purchased one of those canned-air airbrush kits so that I can see if I like doing it that way before I invest in a full airbrush. I'm going to be painting up my new soldiers with it, when all my prior Necrons were done by hand. I know it's going to look different, which is fine with me. It will give me a good reference to start out with. Also, the paints are acrylic, which I've always preferred to enamel anyway.

Obviously I will be detailing with a good ol' brush. hehe

Flash lines, rework of glue points, and scraping glue off joins are the big ones.

RetroPengo wrote:

So I will be fleshing out my Necron army very soon. (haha, see what I did there?)

I do see what you did there..... Careful - on some imperial planets such a demonstration of free thinking and wit could get you burned at the stake.

I tend to do a mix of both. For dudes I put them together and paint them that way. For my tanks I assemble portions of the tank and leave parts on the sprue. I always leave tank treads on the sprue and prime them black and then just drybrush them on the spure before cutting them out and gluing them on the tanks.

For Necrons I would strongly suggest putting them together first - especially if you are going to dry brush them once put together. You can really crank out some Necrons by just dry brushing them with a metallic paint and then hitting a few details. It seems to me that it would take longer to paint them on the sprue and then cut them out and put together - seems like there would be more touch up work required.

For me either way is kind of a double edged sword. I would prefer to paint them on the sprue from a painting aspect, easier to reach, more space to work with, etc. However, from an assembling point of view, having to scrape all the paint from the places that need glue (glue and paint are not friends, just ask my second rhino) is a real hassle.

Good points all. I tend to actually paint my models one at a time anyway, so off the sprue seems to work better for me. It takes longer, but I really enjoy painting. *shrug*