First Attempt at 'Dipping'

So in addition to eating lots of turkey I've been plugging away at this BA army.  I wanted to show you my first attempt at doing some dipping and using this Army Painter colored primer.

So there were about 5 guys that were already pretty nice and clean and ready to pretty much get going.

So basically I just took him outside gave him a couple of quick coats of the Red primer.  And then did a very basic 'base coat' level on him.  All told that painting took about 20 minutes.

Now after talking to my brother he really liked having the swords with the yellow stripes he had done on a few guys so I went back and did that.  I also wanted to add some detail to the yellow knee pad.  Lastly I added a transfer to left shoulder just to give some detail there.  All that probably added 20 minutes to the guys as well.

So then you dip.  The first guy I actually held and dipped into the container.  I was surprised how thick it came out so I quickly grabbed my dip brush and wiped a good amount off of him.  The next four guys I just 'painted' the dip on as its quite thick and covers well.

Then I let them sit for two days.  They are really shiny during this phase and I was pretty worried what it would look like.  However after two days and a quick coat of the anti shine varnish and BAM they look great.  A little basing and wow I was impressed.  The only thing I did was add a quick dab of green to the eyes as they looked too dark for my tastes.

Now there are some parts where I can see the dip has gotten a little thick.  So going forward I now know that I can really clean a bunch of the dip off of these guys.  You can see it here on this guys bottom of the shoulder pad. 

So what do I think?  Well as I mentioned I'm impressed.  The results look pretty damn good.  Not as good as spending the 8-10 hours per Thousand Son I put in but for basically an hour a guy it is a huge time saver.  For other non-painters this is just a great product for sure.  Just know that whatever brush you used is basically ruined afterward.  I'm going to try to get a couple cheap brushes and do dozens of guys in a 'dip day' so I can just toss the brush afterward.  I also didn't wear gloves on the first guy and getting the dip off the hands was a pain.  So grab so dish gloves or whatnot to make that bit easier.  I could spend more time on detail and make these guys even better but really I think they are going to look great once the army is complete.

Here's the first 5 guys.  45 more bodies to go!