Yeah, the green slime river wasn't terribly quick
I forgot how many coats of paint it takes to get a solid finish of Scorpion Green. That river is about 10-15 coats of paint worth.
Most of the time it took to do the texture was just waiting for things to dry since I only did 1 base, but the actual applications were only a few seconds each so doing a whole regiment or army should be quick (using the 1cm wide square flat brush for all of it).
One big advantage for me is going to be how much it simplifies painting. Many of my models I don't glue them to the base while painting so that I can paint the base separately, meaning I either have to awkwardly hold the model while painting or hold them with a pin which requires drilling a hole, but with the texture paint many of those models (not all of course) I reckon I can get away with gluing them down before painting without making the actual basing process complicated, which will save time not only for the basing but the actual painting as well.
The one question in my mind is just how many pots of the stuff you'll need to do an army. I haven't actually tested it, but just mathematically a pot is 12ml...
12 ml = 12,000 cubic millimeters
If applying 0.5mm thick it will cover an area of...
12000/0.5 = 24,000 squared millimeters
That sounds like a lot, but a 25mm square base would be 25x25 = 625 mm^2 per base, 24000/625 = 38 bases off a single tin of paint.
So
20mm square base = 60 bases per pot
25mm square = 38 bases
25x50mm cavalry = 19
50x100mm chariot base = 4.8
25mm round = 49
40mm round = 19
60mm round = 8.5
big 40k oval base = 3-ish (just estimated the area)
That's an underestimate on the number of bases you can do of course, as you have the angled bits on the side which slightly reduce the area you're applying the texture over and also you have the models feet which take up a portion of the base as well (Raveners use a 40mm round base but their tail takes up most of it, while the hormagaunt uses a 25mm base but barely touches it so you have to cover the entire thing).
That's also assuming a 0.5mm thick layer of the texture, if you use slightly more or slightly less it'll have an effect on the number of bases you can do.
When I think of it compared to the actual cost of GW miniatures these days it's not a huge addition. Sure I can only do 9 or so Thunderwolves with 60mm round bases per pot... but those 9 Thunderwolves also happen to cost a couple of hundred dollars anyway
so the few bucks extra of paint isn't gonna kill me.
Ever since GW repackaged regiments as 10 models per box instead of 20 models per box the cost of assembling an army has skyrocketed.
(have around 1600pts of painted Orcs and Goblins which aren't based). I reckon it'd take 2 or 3 or maybe even 4 or more pots to do the 100 or so bases, making it significantly more expensive than PVA and sand. BUT, it'd probably save me a day or two, so it might be worth forking over the money to get them done faster, also I end up wasting a lot of paint basing with sand anyway. These days I value my time more than my money, since I have such little free time to work on my minis these days I don't like wasting it.
