Bulkheads Revisited

Following on from my first attempt to speed paint through a period drama, the first part of the BBC's adaptation of "Women in Love" gave me the opportunity to put into practice some of my own advice. To give me a fighting chance of completing in the 90 minutes I readied (ie assembled and primed) 2 citadel terminators. I have a few of these waiting to be painted, as I picked up the 1991 Terminator squad box (along with a few other Space Hulk boxes) a couple of years ago in a charity shop. For a bit of variety in the squad I'd plumped for the captain and a flamer. The added complications caused by a special weapon and the non-standard Captain would hopefully be offset by only having a 2 figures to paint.

After 90 minutes

To make a 90 minute story short I still didn't quite make it to completion. I could point to the added time required to change colours for the Captains exposed head or the flamers side casing, but really the biggest problem is still drying time. With so much of the figure painted the same colour (nice and quick) it quite often wasn't quite dry by the time I'd finished the same on the second figure. So of the paint was definitely applied on top of slightly tacky previous paint cover - not best practice. I still managed to nearly get the 2 completed though (further than the previous attempt). It does raise the problem of how to tackle the drying problem. I'm not near a radiator, I can't use a hairdryer and if I add an extra figure to allow more drying time I'll be further from completion.

In the end I suppose it will come down to compromise. I have mostly finished a couple of figures during the film. In future, if the film is longer, completing 2 figures may be a realistic target, but in the meantime I'll just console myself with the "nearly finished" progress. Still, 2 tabletop figures in 2 hours, not too shabby.

Finished off