How long to paint a model?

Some of my friends outside the hobby have asked me just how long it takes to paint a single model.  The usual answer is "I don't really know", as I rarely paint just a single model, and when I do, it usually is not a very intense project and I usually spread the work out over weeks or even months. When I'm painting Battletech, which is much of what I've been working on lately, I tend to paint several units at once, so it's hard to break it down.

So when I decided on a last minute addition to my Smoke Jaguar force (I swore I was done with them...), I thought it would be an interesting experience to time each part of the process.

I'm not sure how accurate it is as an indicator of my usual time per model, as this particular piece is a bit bigger than most of my Battletech stuff, and it had some additional challenges (those propellers) that took more work than usual. Further, this wasn't "rush a model to a table-ready state" either, but an attempt to make it about as good as I'm currently capable of, in as long a time as needed.  Further, many of the steps involved stuff that would take the same amount of time whether I was doing one model or ten, and so my "average" time must be significantly lower than this. Further, I spent a lot of time on this one with unnecessary experimentation, so most of my models must have been a good bit faster. At least, that's what I tell myself in the cold watches of the night.

 
Here's the breakdown:

Day 1:

Filing and trimming, washing:  10 mins

Drilling: 10 mins

Assembly: 10 mins

Priming: 3 mins

Total for Day: 33 minutes

Day 2:

Airbrushing preshade, base coats: 26 minutes (incl cleaning between colors)  preshade black, dunkelgrau, barley grey highlight, us grey camo stripes, dunkelgrau corrections).

Airbrush cleaning: 3 mins (light cleaning)

Total for day: 29 minutes

Day 3:

Detailing: (base coat for all details – US light grey and gory red) 60 mins

Wash: “pin wash”, black into cracks only. 35 mins.

Total for day: 95 minutes

Day 4:

Glazing (part 1): red details and blue cockpit glazing – 30 mins

Day 5:

Glazing (part 2): grey/white, propellers – 25 mins.

Day 6:

Repair after unfortunate feline encounter – 5 mins

Shading correction on propellers – 10 mins (blending highlights more neatly)

Adding missed details: 10 mins (armaments) due to mistake and fix.

Reapply wash to propeller and a few details to deepen the shadows for contrast: 10 mins

Paint base: brown craft paint – 2 mins

Total for day: 37 minutes

Day 7:

Final blending on propellers and obsessive unnecessary corrections and highlights: 30 mins

Drybrush (white): 23 mins

Drybrush (steel): 2 mins

Stupid obsessing over the propellers: 15 mins

Basing: 5 mins (if that). Just flocking, a little bush and some pebbles.

Total for day: 45 minutes

Day 8:

Satin varnish applied via airbrush: 7 minutes

Gloss Varnish brushed on cockpit: 1 minute

Total for day: 8 mins

Grand Total: 302 minutes or just over 5 hours.

Based on this, I'd venture to guess that a Battletech model takes me about 4 hours if I go all out.

Trial of Possession

Clan Smoke Jaguar vs. Clan Jade Falcon - at stake, the rights to invade a particularly valuable Inner Sphere world.  For Fritz and I, a chance to try out some new clan hardware, including this Carnivore Tank and assorted battle armor.

The enemy is sighted! Jade Falcon mechwarriors supported by Elementals.

Long range shots mostly fail to connect as the Madcat tries to flank the concentrated enemy.

Relying on its heavy armor, the Carnivore leads the way, dropping battle armor into cover. 

The Dragonfly, carrying Salamander battle armor, bides its time. 

Meanwhile the Carnivore proves unlucky.  Damage concentrates almost exclusively on the left side, eventually wearing through the armor and knocking the tank out. Unfortunate!  I was counting on that tank to sit there for another round or two...

Meanwhile the Madcat gets into it.  Things get hot as the Falcons disregard Zellbrigen rules and go for back shots.

The Jade Falcon Warhawk takes a pounding but somehow hangs on...

As the Jaguar's Daishi advances supported by Battle armor, it's forced to back off in the face of enemy Elementals it can't cope with on its own.

Meanwhile the Dragonfly makes its move, dropping its Salamander riders into the forest the enemy is using for cover. They immediately turn the whole forest into an inferno.

The Dragonfly tries in vain to keep the enemy off the Madcat.

With the forest ablaze, the Salamanders turn their flamers on the two units of elementals, wiping them out.

Meanwhile, the other elementals supporting the Daishi tear up the enemy trying to transverse the open plain.

Damn that Daishi is pretty!  Some of my best work if I do say so myself...

With this, the enemy Elementals are wiped out to a man.

The enemy is finally falling before the Jaguar advance, but at some price. The Warhawk finally goes down in the face of the Madcat, but the Madcat isn't long for this world either. It's taken damage everywhere.

Finally, it's Gyros give out and it falls to the ground.  But dropping the mech isn't enough to save the Jade Falcons, which are forced to surrender in the face of the nearly undamaged Daishi with is now free to approach. The Jaguars have earned the right to take the offensive to the Inner Sphere!  Stay tuned to see how that goes.

Smoke Jaguars on the Prowl

The battle for Dueros continues.... The Red Hand mercenary company has fallen back to a defensive position as they prepare to retreat off planet in the face of the Clan Invasion. A battery of Long Range Missile mechs awaits Clan Smoke Jaguar as they give chase.

As the Clan Mechs advance, the mercenaries begin their long range fire. Two Archers and two Longbow provide a tremendous number of missiles, with an Awesome and an entire company of LRM Jump Infantry in support.

The Vulture dares to crest the hill, taking significant fire and trying to draw some of the mechs away from the center mass.

This is somewhat successful, as the Awesome and Archers move to intercept. Yet the price is signifcant - several LRM 20 packs connect, shredding the mech's torso armor and making it very vulnerable to ammo explosions.

The Bruin moves up to support the Vulture.

Between both clan mechs, the Awesome gets pummeled, but the assault mech's heavy armor can take the damage, despite engine hits.

As the Bruin and Vulture tie up the Archers and Awesome, the MadCat completes its flanking arch, destroying one infantry platoon as it comes around behind the Longbows.  They turn to engage, but mostly fail to hit the fast moving mech, a difficult target even when it lacks forests and hills to hide behind.

The Vulture pulls back, having lost it's entire left side to an ammo explosion, and the Bruin moves to intercept the Awesome.

Its left side destroyed, it's right side mangled and exposed, and with no armor left on the center torso, the clan mechwarrior snipes from a distance. Unwilling to lose his mech, and equally unwilling to retreat in the face of an inferior enemy, the warrior hangs on, trying to continue to carefully contribute to the battle.

Finally, after a desperate effort to take out the Bruin, the awesome hits 30 heat and shuts down, leaving the LRM mechs unescorted. They move to finish off the Vulture, but the Bruin stands in their way.

Meanwhile, the Madcat clears the forest, forcing the Longbows to deal with it alone.

They don't last long against the far superior Clan mech. An ammo explosion does it for the first one.

The Vulture, half its weapons gone, continues to snipe at the Archers. The mercenary jump infantry get close enough to fire at the heavily damaged mech.

The Madcat doesn't slow, killing a Longbow each turn, rushing in under the LRM's minimum range.

The Archers firing at point blank range, score two gyro hits on the Bruin.  Unwilling to eject and face dishonor, the pilot props himself up on one arm and continues to fire.

The Archers move into to try to kick the downed mech to death - the height of dishonor!

Facing such a dishonorable adversary, the Madcat, which until now has carefully kept to his clan's honor rules, opens fire into the rear of the Archers.  How dare they kick a downed mech!

The Vulture moves back in to support the downed Bruin as well.  Perhaps a tactical mistake...

Finally, the Archers manage to score the final engine hit on the Bruin, shutting it down. The mechwarrior survives to fight another day however.

At the same time, the Vulture suffers a gyro hit, downing it as well.  The infantry, smelling blood, move towards it to swarm.

But the Madcat is still practically undamaged and rushes in to save the day. 

"We cannot allow these freeborn scum a chance to salvage an Omnimech! Kill them all!  For Clan Smoke Jaguar!"

The vulture manages to stand to lend support.  The Awesome, restarted, retreats off the board as the Madcat finishes off the Archers easily.

But as their mechs are destroyed, a lucky hit from the lowest of the low - freeborn conventional infantry - finishes off the Vulture's center torso.  While no Trueborn mechwarriors died today, it was an expensive battle for Smoke Jaguar.

Only the heavily damaged Awesome managed to escape, and the mercenaries were denied any salvage. The Madcat, enraged over the dishonorable tactics of the enemy, surely did not let any of the infantry escape its machine guns.