Dreadfleet Painting Support Group

Do yourselves a favor and buy the White Dwarf that was all about Dreadfleet. They've got painting info in there. Good stuff.

What I did.

Clean and wash in a giant sink the full-size sprue.

Grab lots of ziplocks, and clip each ship from the sprues, then toss the bits for that ship into a ziplock.

Then I worked on two or 4 ships at a time. (As I was finished up one pair, I would grab the next two with the closest color schemes and spray prime them. ) Really, I would have two ships on the paint table at a time.

The Dreadfleet WD guide has some extra diagrams on assembly with notes on what can be painted of a partially assembled model. In general, the things with visible insides are assembled into two halves then glued together as the final step. The other ships with sails are fully assembled except for gluing sail assemblies to the deck. I went one further and did the bases separate as well, as I could do them quickly in a batch with larger brushes.

The reason for doing two ships at a time is when you get to a wash. Those take forever to dry, and you can hop over to the other ship.

I picked that one up, first WD in YEARS, but it didn't help my pops paint any better. The ships all look like they just rolled out of a 2D nightmare. Constructive criticisms be damned, the baby could have dip painted them to a higher quality. Who paints a gust of wind silver? Or a fire Djinn blue?

It just goes to further the adage that you get what you pay for. I don't even know where to start as far as fixing it all. I'm really not the ungrateful type. I asked him repeatedly if he thought he could do it, I weighed my better judgment vs. how much time I would save, and relented to the sirens call of overall laziness and sent the game home with him. I pointed out the entries for each ship and asked that he stay as close to the magazine as possible and to call me if he needed any of the paint pots replaced. I got back from a funeral not realizing that the box I gave him some time prior was to be mourned as well. It's now buried in the back of my closet where I'll occasionally revisit the good times I imagined I would have playing.

*gripe, gripe,grumble, grumble*

That's the tough part. I'm going to do most of mine the way they are in that magazine, but I did my islands completely different. I may post some pics.

I need to join this support group. I have started with the Bloody Reaver and it's a bloody nightmare.

The ships do have loads of internal detail which will make them hard to paint without risking lots of mistakes once assembled. So I've gone for painting before assembling. I kind of wish I'd just assebled them so that I could play the game instead.

This is really good advice, Frank. I wish I had done this. I just have a box full of tiny plastic pieces.

moofrank wrote: What I did.

Clean and wash in a giant sink the full-size sprue.

Grab lots of ziplocks, and clip each ship from the sprues, then toss the bits for that ship into a ziplock.

Then I worked on two or 4 ships at a time. (As I was finished up one pair, I would grab the next two with the closest color schemes and spray prime them. ) Really, I would have two ships on the paint table at a time.

The Dreadfleet WD guide has some extra diagrams on assembly with notes on what can be painted of a partially assembled model. In general, the things with visible insides are assembled into two halves then glued together as the final step. The other ships with sails are fully assembled except for gluing sail assemblies to the deck. I went one further and did the bases separate as well, as I could do them quickly in a batch with larger brushes.

The reason for doing two ships at a time is when you get to a wash. Those take forever to dry, and you can hop over to the other ship.

Well, my fucking dog ate the back pieces of the Skabrus. The freaking flag and the side planks are in bits on my dining room floor.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Get a hold of GW customer service and just say those parts are "warped" (just don't say how they warped!) My friend's set came with a few warped bases and GW sent replaces pretty quick. They are actually pretty good to deal with.

That sucks by the way. Sorry to hear that.