How long to paint rank and file

[Hano]

I was planning to paint a whole heap of rank and file units. I was wondering how long it should take per minature to make them look OK (nothing to write home about but good enough to play with)?

[Amboadine]

That is a very broad question. 3 colours with minimal details I would suggest that you might take a few hours to do 10.
Really depends on how neat you want, if you are watering paints or just slapping it on.

[Booah]

I'd say with dread spear/swords/shards you can get away with about 20min per model to a playable level (at a fairly leisurely pace). Depends how neat and quick you are. I think mine took about 40min but I'm not the quickest and I'm a bit sloppy so need to spend time tidying up. It's definitely possible to spend upto 2hrs per model on some of the more special choices. If you wanted to speed paint it I'm sure you could knock it down to 15min a model especially if you get in the zone or are deadline stress motivated. I've never painted for a tournament so take it fairly easy. Although if I'm up for it and if I'm making progress i can put in a lot of hours over a few days and get a lot done.

[Curse_Bearer]

Using the traditional 3 color standard most tournies enforce you can make up some spearmen with ten minutes or less per model, with practice. Not taking into account the base coat, you can drybrush silver, paint skin, add another color (cloaks, shield snazziness) and ink them if you want to. Easy, simple, and you can churn out a huge unit in a day or two. You can always go back at a later time and add more detail and layering/highlights once you're done.

[Payce]

Check out this video on GW's Youtube - it's skaven, but the method he's using is more than transferrable.

[Rowena]

I would say it really depends on practice. I have seen some people claim insanely short times for painting their (completely amazing) rank and file models, while I always take ages. Also, all models might be different in regards to details and other things, my executioners (mostly armour and almost nothing else) vs. my witch elves (lots of skin that has to be blended) and spearelves (greenstuffint their shoulders and blending their cloaks)? Huge difference in how long they took.