Hi folks! I'm pretty new to the game, and have received some great help from some awesome people over in my thread on the Introductions board, so thanks again for the great welcome! However, I felt this topic might be relevant to enough other newbies that it probably should get its own thread. I picked up a Start Collecting! box when I started, and last week I picked up some Skinks. The Saurus from the Start Collecting! box, I assembled in full, then primed and painted them. I have yet to base them, but to do so I'm going to have to tape over the parts of the base where the feet will go before I prime it, and scrape off the paint that got on the bottom of the feet, so that the plastic glue can do its magic. The first twelve Skinks, however, I glued to their base before priming and painting. I found there were pros and cons to both approaches, and I'm not sure which to continue with. By gluing to the base first, I avoid the struggles of having to cover up parts of the base and scraping paint off the bottom of the models. It also gives me a good place to hold when painting the model. However, it also casts some shadows when painting the model upside-down to reach the downward facing spots, and makes some places more difficult to reach. So, how do you do it?
Add a fine strap of styrene between your models´ feet and the base, then add basing material and then paint. That way you get the feet glued properly and they don´t seem to be sinking in sand
All my models get glued by one foot onto an old base that is glued to a cork for painting, I do the base separately then super glue the model to the base, I will pin larger models but must are just glued.
Depends on the model. Weapon arms are usually glued on permanently if I can easily reach around them. Shields are tacked on with superglue and removed for painting after they are primed. Larger kits, I will assemble into sub assemblies and then glue after painting if possible. I use a Plastic Weld, so all my models are permanently bonded. I will also attach my models to their bases permanently as well before I adding the ballast I use for basing. I add the basing material and then prime the models so the primer adds another layer of seal to the material. I'm also using superglue now instead of PVA glue. Have to be a little more careful, but it dries almost instantly unlike PVA. Oh, and for painting, the base is attached to the lid of a Prescription Bottle using double sided carpet tape. The bottles are weighted with extra basing material so they dont constantly tip over.
With the goal of getting my army playable as quickly as possible, I ended up assembling them and gluing to them to their base before priming, so I can play with them before they are finished painted. For the Temple Guard I left off their shield arm - and for a few of them, their halberd arm as well - because they cover up parts of the body that are then very hard to paint. I put tape over the areas where the arms will attach to the body, which I think should work pretty well. Basing material will have to wait as I don't have any on hand yet, so I just painted the bases green for now.