Should you paint blue or gold first?? Thousand Sons Painting

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

Total timing for blue first should be updated to 38m52s due to a couple of issues people have pointed out: 1) At 2:39 my timer is stopped - I reviewed the raw footage and I think my phone timer lagged for a few seconds and didn't display the correct time - hence the stoppage. You can see it's on again at 2:41 for the same step! It lagged for about 15s, so just add that on to the blue first timing 😂 2) I did the wash faster in blue first. Don't ask me why, I have no clue 😂 and yes I went back to the raw footage and the timer was working correctly. One of those odd painting things? Anyway it was a 30s diff so you can add that on to blue first timing 3) I painted black and white in blue first faster than in gold first. Ok there is a legit reason for this - in gold first the black and white bits have some gold trim you need to avoid. In blue first the gold is done after the black and white so you can paint black and white faster for blue first! :) No change to final timing.

[@nofuxgivens2797]

One method I've adopted for marines that have trim is airbrush main color. Spray ACRYLIC gloss varnish. Let set overnight. Then spray alcohol or enamel based paint over the armor. Get some thinner or alcohol and easily wipe away trim paint from the panels. The alcohol and enamel thinner won't reactivate the acrylic varnish. But it is key to put a good layer and let set. Most people call this technique a reverse wash. A good painter that I learned this from is Marcofrisoni on youtube.

[@Reliken]

I started out spraying gold Because the Internet told me it would be faster. And then I just found myself taking forever and ever and ever and ever with the blue panels, and it makes so many mistakes. I've long felt I was led astray, and this video makes me feel validated! Thank you for making it

[@jamiewalker6296]

I’d actually be more interested in seeing this comparison on rubric marines. Scarabs look like they have less trim overall compared to rubrics(or maybe that’s my imagination since I haven’t painted my scarabs 😢).

[@Reliken]

Yes please!

[@druedriwood3892]

i play blood angels and i found a red spray paint that I love for them and it cut all my time in half, just any time you can get the base color out of the way first will help in the long run in my opinion.

[@gallusdomesticuskfptechpriest]

As someone who loves the csm models but hates painting trim, this interests me greatly

[@S.W.A.G40k]

glad I found his before painting gold first.

[@j1g2w3]

I think a big part of this is simply that the gold takes up less area than the blue. Since base coating the whole model takes the same amount of time for both colours, the deciding factor for me is just how much area your brush has to cover.

[@aavalen1133]

I've only tried the "gold method" on 1 unit of Rubrics and 1 unit of Scarabs and it takes me about 45 mins just to paint the blue sections in two thin coats. I am very excited to try the "blue method" and make painting this army (especially the scarabs) quicker and more enjoyable! Thank you for this comparison! This is huge!

[@DatSass]

You can also cut out some time on the blue first by airbrushing TS blue, and if you do it over a zenithal you can get some instant shading

[@sirbaconbuster]

I used to paint gold first (Turbo Dork basically has to go on first) but then my bottle of Turbo Dork gold that I was using dried shortly after I got an airbrush, so I started airbrushing the blue on first to make shading easier.

[@gromenawuer1]

I print in blue with the Vallejo Deep Blue spray. Its basically Stegadon Blue, so your rubrics will be a lil bit darker but still cool. And its even faster.

[@JCPRuckus]

You can prime with Tropical/Caribbean/Whatever Blue spray paint and skip the basecoating step on that too.

[@mr_clean91]

What I've found to be easiest is a gold over black zenithol, then fill in blue, then finish any trim the spray missed while cleaning up any blue mistakes at the same time. This makes all the hard to reach blue panels less demanding since they'll be black in shadow. You can also accomplish this by drybrushing the gold over black prime instead of doing a full basecoat.

[@malefic5254]

I find that doing the gold first makes highlighting much easier, as I only need to flick across the model with a drybrush of sigmarite then a lighter drybrush of silver. But, there's no wrong way to paint your models. They're yours after all, and you're supposed to enjoy doing it :)

[@TrueXyrael]

I would not recommend Retributor Armor spray if you prime your models outside. That stuff gums up so easily in even a little humidity, or dries before hitting the model, leaving a dusty surface, if it's too hot or dry. It's an awful spray, I'd definitely look at other brands for basing in gold.

[@Fredster9984]

I agree. Plus the blue probably looks better than it does on the gold one because it's smoother?

[@vandals4873]

I don't recommend "priming" with Retributor. You'd want to spray that after you prime with black (or whatever opaque color you prime with)

[@pkonopnicki]

Why?

[@vandals4873]

@@pkonopnicki Metallic fleck paints are a medium with the glitter suspended in them, so they're aren't really opaque. If you're going to spray over models you'll want an opaque primer underneath, then basecoat with Retributor over that. By all means try it both ways but I think it will come out much better over a primer than it would directly over the plastic minis

[@ArcaanRitual]

Oneethod I've used recently on some crimson Paladins was reverse washing the red between all that gold filigree. It's neater than trying to get regular thickness paint into all those gaps with the hairy stick in one hit.

[@aleopardstail]

method I went with (though using red, not gold) was to prime black, spray all over a mix of brown and gold, a drybrush of just gold - yes painting the gold after is easier, but _highlighting it_ is a PitA, this way the whole model is now a highlighted gold - add a silver brush highlight if desired (I did, its good). then I filled the panels with Tamiya Clear Red (they do a blue) - this goes in one one coat, and is already highlighted. took way less than an hour per model. an airbrush cuts it down further for the base gold colours

[@Smilomaniac]

Very interesting video. For my marine army I went with dark grey/orange and unlike the two paints you have, which cover very nicely, orange is an absolute nightmare to cover on anything that isn’t white or yellow. That means airbrushing them with primer, then white, yellow and orange, then filling most of the areas with dark grey is significantly faster and better looking/smoother than trying to paint orange over grey by hand. I’ve stuck with it for years and have around 8k worth of points painted (3k to go). It would’ve been half the effort to paint in some other scheme, but at least it looks unique.

[@Taphosthewarlock]

You can also basecoat blue with an airbrush first.. But its typically going to be faster or easier to paint inside out (so blue first) due to less mistakes needing cleaned up.

[@LordVulcanus747]

I use the gold first method, but that's mostly because I use Sycorax Bronze rather than Retibutor Armour, and as a layer paint it is easier to get solid even coverage by doing that step through an airbrush. I then wash with Reikland Fleshshade and drybrush with Silver. This makes a beautiful hue of bronzey gold, but this method is too finicky and messy to do while trying not to spill over onto the blue panels. I then go back in with blue and fill in the solid areas that stay pretty much solid blue without any extra detail layers necessary.

[@jojayjo9712]

I feel like doing gold first is good if your using a different wash for gold. Since you did everything in nuln oil then blue makes sense.

[@BrendanPace]

The main colour first approach is what I am doing with my Legionnaires for Kill Team, painting them as the pure from the book Spear of the Emperor. Painted them an off white and then I'll be going in for the trim. Because I'm painting for Kill team I'll be fussing a bit more and adding highlights and putting more effort in the trim to eek out that extra little pizazz.

[@paul80085]

Almost always faster to paint trim than panels. Trim is raised and you can use the edge of the brush to catch it. Panels require carefully working the tip into odd places.

[@emiliogonzalez9555]

Retributor Armour Gold (Areosol) First But don't worry how long it takes to paint. It's your model

[@thedogshop3220]

i would agree on blue 1st being a better choice but theres issues with this test u did the blue 1st method after the gold 1st so u had recent practice or how both tests end with the same wash step but its counted as 3:08 for gold 1st and 2:31 for blue 1st even tho that step is exactly the same on both it has nothing to do with how long each method takes

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

True but adding on the additional 30s for the wash for blue (new time 38:37s) still makes the blue first faster even after accounting for priming with retributor armour and reduced cleanup time (match blue first cleanup time - total time 39.46s) As for having recent practice it's abit tough for me to get around that :')

[@jordanm7815]

i learned from painting knights that trim really aint that bad

[@yonstenger]

Even after all the caveats of “no clean up” etc gold first only won by 3+ min. However the “apart base with gold” is irrelevant as you can spray prime blue just the same. Apply that, chop 5.75 min off blue first and blue first is still fastest even given the 3-4 caveats.

[@FenrirFrostborn]

if you do a bad job on the tiny gold trim, noone will know, but if you do a bad job block in the blue panels, EVERYONE will see it.

[@j453]

Trevor, you are your own person too❤

[@KallenMalefic]

Me, taking two weeks to paint one miniature: oh. ok.

[@JohnathanJWells]

Thank you! Been hearing this argument for a while and it always sounded like bs to me

[@rujv200]

What if you hadn't built the models first to get to all those hard to reach spots? Would have been faster to paint the arms, torso and legs separated and finally assembled.

[@joshuacouture479]

What I’d give for thousand sons blue spray paint

[@theomen49]

I think for rubric marines using gold is better because of the amount of gold on those guys, but on terminators blue is probably faster

[@Trazynn]

The real advantage of doing gold first is that you get to give gold any type of wash you like without having to worry about the blue.

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

Ah so you only need to worry about the blue later when you attempt to fill in the panels without touching any of the nicely washed gold? 😂

[@erieschl]

⁠@@TrevorGoesMeep yes, you leave the brown in the recesses between the blue and the gold. But let’s just be honest 1:17 you are so sloppy with a brush entirely too dull holding it entirely too far back that you’re painting over most of your trim. Like who are you laughing at? Your fundamentals are so poor you can’t really say you tried the approach. You should take some time reset, get a few decent brushes and come back stronger. When you do remember to be nicer to people because this community has treated you very gently.

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

​@@erieschl sure thanks for the advice! 😂 As I've said in many of my other videos, I don't think I'm a very good painter and I've always said I'm extremely mediocre! I'm sorry my fundamentals aren't as good as yours obviously are but I think I'll continue holding my brush in a way that's comfortable for me :) And in the meantime I'll be sure to have a good laugh at anyone who takes me too seriously 😂

[@joelcassin7486]

I must confess that I do gold first and I spray retributor armour, then I would do a wash of reikland flesh and then do the blue, But that's just what I'm used to.

[@peternubaum4514]

firstly, nice video i think the way you compare those 2 methods doesnt add up, for example wash on gold first took you 3:08, while on blue it took you 2:31, same with white, black and so on, if you cut the video down, base, trim and cleanup you have a much more realistic comparison of the methods also there is blue spray primer with the same color as the thousand sons blue, so prime in retributor armor cant really be counted in the end it comes down to cleanup, and i agree that you do less mistakes on blue primer first since gold is raised areas and easyer to paint

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

For the white and black there is a difference because for gold first, you need to avoid areas on the loincloth and the gun that have gold on them when you paint the white and black! So it takes longer for gold first as opposed to blue first where I can just slap it on and not worry about touching any gold with the white and black cos it's not on yet! As for the wash I have no clue why I did it faster the second time around 😂 but the extra 30s doesn't make a difference to the overall result :)

[@peternubaum4514]

@@TrevorGoesMeep Didnt think about keeping the trim gold on gold first when you do the loincloth, i missed that one... Still your method is way better i think :D

[@GooberDragon]

I noticed that every step, not just the blues and golds and mistakes, mostly took longer too. If you factored in those time differences and assuming your mistake count was the same the methods would come out the same. Like you took almost twice as long to do the black on the gold method, so maybe it’s faster to base gold with the spray? Even if we don’t factor this in, the difference in the methods is around a minute, meaning that in a 5-man box you’re only loosing 5 minutes overall.

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

As stated in my pinned comment, for the gold first method, when you paint the black, white and yellow steps, you need to spend extra time avoiding the gold trim that's already there. In blue first, you can slap on the white black and yellow whithout worrying about the trim so it gets done way faster. Hence the time difference

[@dyland3r]

I don't think one model each is a big enough sample size to come to a definitive conclusion, but personal preference is as good a reason to pick one method over the other.

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

From a statistical standpoint that's fair but from a practical standpoint I refuse to paint more of these cos they are torturous

[@dyland3r]

@@TrevorGoesMeep totally understandable lol. I'm assuming that with all the various other tasks involved in testing even these two, that the total time went close to 3 hours, so I can imagine that trying to test something like 1 or 2 whole squads this way would be a true nightmare.

[@OmegaLittleBob]

I think it all comes down to which method you have more practice on.

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

Very possibly!

[@comadrone_xix]

Always prime with something dark bc then you have the Dark recesses already covered. But then I go either way, their both just as tedious

[@joefawcett2191]

do you hand coat the base? the white scar spray can seems to be terrible for undercoats, pooling, flaky, and obscuring details

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

I use a spray grey primer for the base!

[@redglare4892]

I like DA Gold first.

[@wraith7268]

So big issue here as your timer was not going when you were doing blue base and doing the yellow striping. (2:39) But even saying that it was interesting to see! I don't know why I had done gold then blue on my kill team but tho base then trim on my normal chaos space marines. Seeing as i just got the 1k Sons x mas box i will run a test and just see what feels better.

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

Oh goodness I missed that, thanks for pointing out! I did notice that the timer is working again later when I was doing the yellow stripes at 2:41 so it's possible that my phone was lagging a bit in the earlier part and not showing the time right😅 in any case it should be just a couple of seconds difference! Guess I'll have to do another test sometime 😂

[@kernbanks]

Getting more experienced would reduce cleanup hut also reduce the time to do the blue itself.

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

Possibly!

[@thearoflcopter]

After doing gold trim on so many, I can't bring myself to do it any way that's not basing in gold and then doing blue. So much gold trim ;_;

[@shadedreaver]

Blue/base color first, using the models own layers as a guide will always be easier painting edges before pannels is a phokink chore

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

IKR

[@shadedreaver]

@@TrevorGoesMeep thats how i paint everything, base then edges

[@smoke7363]

Gold spray, red contrast, done. 10 mins tops :D Sure it only give you the 30k rubric paint scheme but much faster and more unique compared to the classic blue-gold, also why not paint like the rhino, it's even less gold then a termies so more difference on time to brag about, ofc termies blue first bc much less gold part, but try it on a rubric then we can talk. :)

[@Draigo_Roget]

The gold blue base coat debate depends entirely on whether its thousand sons 30k or 40k the red gold of 30k scheme is definitely quicker with a base gold as I imagine the blue green of 40k is quicker with base blue

[@MascisMan1]

Why did the wash step on the gold take 39 seconds longer than the blue?

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

See pinned comment

[@jotwins8610]

These are the questions GW is too afraid to ask

[@tropicalfungus5171]

if you paint gold first, contrast is a must, normal paints in such a small space is a pain.

[@stevenkirton6373]

Surface area, the blue is bigger, so do that first Its science

[@dean40king]

So should be the same with guilliman

[@orangesquidge]

I honestly don't care how long it takes. Whatever looks better is my choice.

[@laurencepenfold]

The Nuln Oil took 30s longer over 'gold first', at that stage the models should have been identical! I'm not saying this was rigged, but it's hardly conclusive.

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

See pinned comment

[@cyberlox2ndgigdixon211]

Definitely Blue first!!!!

[@Flamethrower1942]

Spray the miniature blue first

[@changer_of_ways_999]

The answer is neither. Black, white sketch, blue ink, gold dry brush, black and violet wash.

[@SS_BAJA]

Now we need to see someone who’s never painted thousand sons do it since obviously the method you prefer is going to be faster than the new method. Pretty biased data here.

[@Donnyjohnsonbooks]

Paint inside out. It is more efficient

[@huwtindall7096]

get a gold Posca paint pen and all that gold edging is done in seconds

[@DasFork]

Hello. I am here to claim one argument, please!

[@arenthus]

I prefer the red pill

[@SilverstreamMusic]

Interesting, but the timing analysis is a bit ridiculous to be honest. You're counting seconds here, while it took you different times to do the exact same things, for example washing the model or painting the white cloth.

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

White cloth timing is different because for the gold first you need to avoid the trim while for blue first you don't need to avoid trim. Same for yellow timing and black timings. Wash timing however is indeed different and I don't have a good explanation for that one but if you equalize the wash timings for blue vs gold, you'll find that the blue method is still faster (see my pinned comment)

[@tomekk.1889]

This is an unfair comparison because you only did it to tabletop ready standards. Gold first parade ready is much simpler because you can instantly highlight and shade the gold when you start.

[@TrevorGoesMeep]

Cool! Would love to see your video comparison of these two methods for parade state! :)