Batch Painting Armies: How to Paint 10+ Models at Once

Hey again, friends. I'm going to tell you about the two dumbest things I've ever voluntarily done in this hobby. The first was painting a full 2,000-point army in a single weekend. The second was painting 120 zombie models in a day. Both times, I sat down at my desk, looked at the sea of gray plastic in front of me, and had the same thought: "What have I done?"

But here's the thing. Both times, I finished. And both times, the feeling of looking at a fully painted army on the table was one of the best moments I've had in this hobby. There's something deeply satisfying about going from a pile of shame to a completed force that's ready for battle. It's like finishing a marathon, except you're sitting down the whole time and there's way more paint on your hands.

Batch painting is how you get there. It's the assembly-line approach to miniature painting. Instead of painting one model start to finish before moving to the next, you paint one color across every model, then the next color across every model, then the next. It's methodical. It's efficient. And honestly? Once you get into the rhythm of it, it's surprisingly zen.

Let me walk you through how I approach batch painting, the tricks I've picked up from painting way too many models in way too little time, and how to stay motivated when model number 47 looks exactly like model number 3 and the finish line feels impossibly far away.

The Assembly-Line Method: One Color at a Time

The core idea of batch painting is dead simple. Instead of completing one model before starting the next, you do one step across all your models before moving on to the next step. Paint all the armor on all the models. Then all the cloth on all the models. Then all the metallics. Then shading. Then highlighting. Assembly line.

This works because of two things. First, you're not constantly switching colors. Every time you switch from one paint to another, you lose time. You clean the brush, you open a new pot, you mix consistency, you test on the back of your hand. Multiply that by 30 models and those little transitions add up to hours of wasted time. By painting one color across the entire batch, you do that setup once and then just paint.

Second, your brush hand gets into a groove. By the fifth or sixth model, you've figured out the most efficient way to apply that particular color to that particular surface. Your strokes get faster. Your accuracy improves. You stop thinking about it and just do it. By model fifteen, you're in the zone. By model thirty, you're a machine.

Before You Start: The Three Steps to Not Failing

I don't go into batch painting unprepared. If you sit down to paint 50 models without a plan, you're going to get lost, frustrated, and end up with half-painted minis scattered across your desk for the next six months. Here's what I do before I touch a single model with a brush.

Step 1: Get Approval from Your Spouse

I'm not joking. If you're going to be in the basement painting non-stop for an entire weekend (or even just monopolizing the hobby desk for a week of evening sessions), the number one thing that will crush your chance at success is an unhappy partner. Ensure they're okay with this. Or may God have mercy on your soul.

Step 2: Build, Prime, and Base Everything First

All your models should be built, primed, and based before you start the batch painting session. You can do that stuff in the evenings, an hour here and there, over the week before. The batch painting session itself should be 100% focused on putting paint on models. No assembly. No priming. No basing. Just painting. Every second spent gluing or spraying primer is a second stolen from actual progress.

Step 3: Paint a Test Model First

This is the most important step and the one most people skip. Before you batch paint 50 models, paint one single model start to finish. Use it to work out your color scheme, your painting order, and your techniques. Write down every step as you do it. "Step 1: airbrush bone color on all skeletal areas. Step 2: base coat armor with P3 dark green-grey. Step 3: base coat cloth with Bugman's Glow." And so on.

That test model is your recipe card. During the actual batch session, you're not making creative decisions. You're not experimenting. You're not thinking. You're just following the list. This is not about thinking. This is about doing. You already did the thinking on the test model.

How Many Models at Once?

This depends on your patience and your paint setup. For most people, I'd recommend starting with batches of 5 to 10. That's enough to feel the efficiency gains of assembly-line painting without being so many that you lose track of where you are or lose your mind from the monotony.

When I painted 120 zombies, I worked in sub-batches of about 30 models. Thirty felt manageable. I could see progress within each sub-batch without getting overwhelmed. For the army-in-a-weekend project, I was working on all 71 models at once for the big airbrush steps, then breaking into smaller groups for the brush work.

Here's the honest truth. Batch painting more than 10 to 15 models at a time means that by the time you get back to the first model with the next color, the paint from the previous step is fully dry. That's actually ideal. But it also means each "step" takes a really long time to complete. And that can be mentally tough. You feel like you're painting forever and nothing is changing because every model looks half-done.

If you're new to batch painting, start with 5. Once you've done it a few times and you know how your brain handles the grind, scale up. There's no prize for batch painting 100 models at once if you burn out at model 40 and never finish.

The Painting Order That Actually Works

Not all painting steps are created equal. Some are fast. Some are slow. Some need precision. Some don't. The order you tackle them in makes a huge difference in how efficient and how painful the process is.

Here's the general order I follow:

1. Main Color First (Largest Area)

Whatever covers the most surface area on your model, do that first. For my skeleton army, it was the bone. For Space Marines, it's the armor. For zombies, it's the skin. Get it down fast with the biggest brush you dare manage. An airbrush is ideal for this step if you have one. If not, grab a big brush and don't be precious about it.

At this stage, I don't thin my paints. I know, I know. "Two thin coats" is basically a commandment in this hobby. But when I've got 70 models to base coat, I do not have the time for two thin coats on every single one. I go straight out of the pot and make sure the paint has good opaque coverage without being gloopy or obscuring details. One thick-ish coat. Move on.

2. Secondary Colors (Smaller Areas)

Cloth, leather, secondary armor panels. Each color you add is a commitment, so don't over-commit yourself to too many base coat colors. Every additional color multiplies the time this phase takes. Three or four distinct base coat colors is usually plenty for a tabletop army. Five is pushing it. More than five and you're going to be base coating for days.

3. Metallics

Weapons, buckles, chainmail, trim. I save these for after the other base coats because metallic paint gets everywhere and it's annoying to paint over. Better to do the clean colors first and then slap on the metallics without worrying about being tidy.

4. Shading (The Big Transformation)

This is where the magic happens. Whether you're using washes, contrast paints, enamel washes, or oil paints, this step transforms your models from flat base-coated lumps into something that actually looks painted. It's usually the longest single step, but it's also the most dramatic visual change, which helps with motivation.

5. Highlights (Quick and Targeted)

Focus on the head and shoulders. That's where people look. A quick edge highlight on the armor, a lighter pass on the raised areas of the face and upper body, maybe a drybrush on textured surfaces. Don't try to highlight every surface on every model. Hit the priority areas and move on.

6. Details and Finishing

Eyes, gems, special effects, base rims. The small stuff that takes your models from "done" to "done and looking sharp."

Staying Smart About Precision

Here's something that saved me hours during my batch painting sessions. Be smart about where you're choosing to be tidy. When I'm painting armor and I accidentally hit some cloth, I don't care. I'm painting the cloth later anyway. I'll cover it up. But when I'm painting cloth next to the bone areas that are already finished? Now I'm being careful, because I don't want to repaint bone.

Think of it as a hierarchy. Early colors get less precision because later colors will cover mistakes. Later colors get more precision because there's nothing coming after them to fix things.

And here's another rule I live by: if I can't reach it, I skip it. Why spend time contorting your brush into some impossible angle to reach the gap under an armpit that nobody will ever see? When your models are on the table, six feet away from your opponent's eyes, those hidden spots are completely invisible. Save your time for the areas that actually matter.

Combining Batch Painting with Contrast and Slapchop

Batch painting and contrast paints are a match made in hobby heaven. The slapchop method (zenithal prime, drybrush white, slap on contrast paint) is already fast for single models. Applied to a batch? It's ridiculous.

For my 120 zombies, I primed each batch a different pastel color using paint-and-primer spray cans. Then I hit them all with a zenithal coat of white ink from above. All the base tones and highlights were established before I even picked up a brush. When it came time to add contrast paints, I grabbed zombies at random and painted different colors on each one. No two zombies ended up with the same scheme. The horde felt like a mass of individuals, not a uniformed regiment, which is exactly what a shambling undead army should look like.

The key insight here is that contrast paints do in one coat what would normally take three or four steps. Base coat, shade, and basic highlighting all happen at once. Multiply that time savings across 30 or 50 or 120 models and you're looking at hours saved. Literal hours.

One tip: when you're batch painting with contrast paints, work in sub-batches of 5 to 10 models per color. Contrast paint has a working time, and if you try to paint 30 models with the same pot open, the paint starts to dry in the pot and on your palette before you finish. Smaller groups mean you keep the paint fresh and workable.

The Motivation Problem (And How to Beat It)

Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Batch painting is boring. There's no getting around it. Painting the same color on the same surface across 30 identical models is repetitive. The middle of the process is the worst. You've been painting for hours. The models all look half-done. The finish line feels impossibly far away. This is where most people give up.

Here's how I deal with it.

Put on something to listen to. A podcast, an audiobook, a playlist, a YouTube series you've been meaning to catch up on. Batch painting requires very little creative thinking once you've got your step list. Your hands are on autopilot. Free up your brain to enjoy something else. I've powered through entire painting sessions on the back of a really good podcast.

Break big batches into visible chunks. Don't think about painting 50 models. Think about painting five groups of ten. When you finish a group, stack them together somewhere visible. Now you can see progress. You can count completed groups. That visual evidence that you're getting somewhere is incredibly motivating.

Cross off steps. Every time you complete a painting step across the whole batch, cross it off your list. Watching that list shrink feels good. It gives you a sense of forward motion even when the models themselves all look like they're at the same half-finished stage.

Remember the finish line. When I was rimming the bases black on my skeleton army, it hit me. I'd done it. I'd never had a painted army before, and there was a smile on my face that I couldn't wipe off for days. That feeling of completion, of looking at a sea of finished models that you painted yourself, is worth every tedious hour of batch painting bone on skeleton number 53. Keep that finish line in your mind.

Oil Paints: The Batch Painter's Secret Weapon

I want to mention oil paints here because they're honestly incredible for batch painting, and a lot of people haven't tried them yet.

For my 120 zombies, I mixed up multiple different oil washes and applied different colors to the skin of each zombie. Reds, purples, oranges, sickly yellows, greens. Random splotches of color all over each model. It looked like a clown fiesta at first, and I was definitely questioning my life choices. But then I went back with makeup sponges dipped in mineral spirits and buffed the oil off the raised surfaces. The oils stayed in the recesses and tinted the skin with all those gross, varied colors, and suddenly each zombie looked unique and disgusting. Exactly what you want from an undead horde.

The beauty of oils for batch painting is the extended working time. Acrylic washes dry in minutes. If you're working on 30 models, by the time you finish the last one, the first one is already set and you can't adjust it. Oil washes stay workable for 20 to 30 minutes or more. That gives you a comfortable window to apply the wash across a big batch and then come back to start the cleanup pass.

One thing I learned the hard way: don't wait too long. I worked in batches that were too large and by the time I got back to the first models, the oil was getting tough to remove. About 20 minutes from application to cleanup is the sweet spot. The wash should be dry enough that it's not shiny and wet, but not so cured that your sponge can't lift it off the raised surfaces.

The Artis Opus Speed Drybrush Trick

For highlighting across a big batch, drybrushing is your best friend. It's fast, it's forgiving, and it hits every edge and texture in a single pass. I use an Artis Opus Series D drybrush for this. The firm, bowl-shaped bristles distribute paint evenly and let you cover a lot of models in very little time.

My process: load the drybrush with my highlight color, work the paint into the bristles on a hard surface (not a paper towel, that sucks out all the moisture), and then drybrush across each model focusing on the upper surfaces. Head and shoulders get the most attention. Lower body gets a quick pass. Ten models in five minutes. Done.

For metallics specifically, I take a small ratty old brush, dip it into pure aluminum paint, rub most of it off, and then just dab and stipple across the metal areas. A brush with splayed bristles is ideal because it creates random dots and scratches that look like natural wear and tear on the metal. There's no way a zombie's rusty sword would have nice clean edge highlights. The stippled, scratchy look is more honest and way faster.

When NOT to Batch Paint

Batch painting is a tool, not a religion. There are times when painting a single model start to finish is the right call.

Character models and heroes. These deserve individual attention. They're the centerpiece of your army and the model everyone looks at first. Give them the time they deserve.

Models with wildly different paint schemes. If every model in the batch has a completely different color scheme, the assembly-line method doesn't save you much time because you're switching colors constantly anyway.

When you need the creative energy. Sometimes you just want to sit down and paint one model from start to finish. That's the creative, satisfying part of the hobby. Batch painting is the productive part. You need both. Don't burn yourself out on assembly-line efficiency if what your brain needs is the joy of bringing a single character to life.

Final Thoughts

Batch painting isn't glamorous. Nobody watches a timelapse of someone painting the same green on 40 shoulder pads and thinks "wow, what an artist." But it's the single most effective way to get a painted army on the table. And a painted army on the table is one of the best feelings in this hobby.

You don't have to paint 120 models in a day like some kind of maniac. Start with a batch of 5. Get the feel for it. Then try 10. Then try a whole unit of 20. Every batch you finish is more painted models in your collection. And eventually, you'll look at your army, fully painted and ready for battle, and you'll realize that the pile of shame is gone. That's the moment that makes all those hours of assembly-line painting worth it.

I'm pretty confident you can do this. Now get out there and slay the gray.

Some links below are Amazon affiliate links. If you buy something through them, NINJON earns a small commission at no extra cost to you — it helps keep the tutorials free.