There are certain bits that tend to get in the way while painting, an example being shieldarms that annoyingly block half the body. Now unfortunatly these parts also have a tendency to be too small to comfortably paint without attaching them to (a part of) the main body simply because there's nothing to really hold on to when they're not yet attached to anything. Does anyone have any advice on how to paint these easily? Or at least make it less awefull.
I hear people use Blue-Tack or similar products to keep small parts steady while painting them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu_Tack
A good tip that I often use is to super glue the arms to little bits of sprue that give you enough to actually hold onto whilst you paint! Once you're done just glue the arms onto the body.
Pinning with paper clips ? ~~~~~~~ This will work better with plastic or resin than with a metal arm. Snap* some paper clips into short straight sections of wire. Drill into the arm where it attaches to the torso. Dip the tip of a short length of wire into a puddle of superglue. Insert the glue covered end of the wire into the hole in the arm. Use the wire to hold the part while it is getting painted. To attach the arm to the torso later... Drill a hole in the torso's shoulder which will receive the paper clip pin. Test fit. Drill deeper. Test fit. Drill deeper. After the part fits in place snugly, add a tiny amount of glue during final assembly. *If it would be useful, I can add an explanation of how to snap paperclips apart. Don't cut them. That ruins cutters. Bits of wire go flying... Snapping them is much better.
All depends on how far you want to take the model, for gaming purposes I make sure to prime models black and don't really try to paint behind shield arms etc as they will never get inspected closely. I never paint models sub assembled for a reason, when you stick the arm on you end up with a joint line which is more visible. Blue tac works well and is cheap and easily available.
I like to have the arm holding the shield to be at least vaguely the right colour. But what's usually more annoying is that on occasion it'l block acces to an area without actually blocking it from view. For example I'm currently painting a skaven doomwheel and I'm fairly certain that if I'd assemble it fully before painting it I wouldn't be able to reach half of it properly. Similarly when I painted my carnosaur, one of the first models I painted, I had the briljant idea to assemble it fully first, which made it hell to paint as I couldn't reach certain parts properly. For example its stomach was blocked by the base, the chair and oldblood riding it blocked eachother. It rather shows..
It is annoying but the line created by glueing after painting is more annoying for me, I even paint Saurus cav mount and rider together I just find it easier. As I am now almost completely painting to improve I may try a model or two in parts, I have thought about this before and one solution could be to paint the hard to reach parts and then glue together and then paint the rest of the model.
Well I usually don't add the shields and stuff before the invisible area is painted... same with the star priest models... the arm with the staff stays off until the unreachable areas are done... I usually glue models together completely before the last steps of painting... to avoid the lines @Crowsfoot was speaking about... for knights and tg this works quite well, cause the areas hard to reach a also hard to see when the model is complete... so I don't look too much on highlights there... basecoat and wash and maybe a little bit of drybrushing is enough for the inside of the shields I think...