I'm trying to get back into painting (finally getting shelving up and getting my equipment unpacked after the move ... a couple years ago
), and I've been watching videos on airbrushing and reading discussions. I've seen the "assemble the whole thing and then paint" posts and the "assemble pieces, paint them, and then put it the rest of the way together" posts. Seems like most people that do videos on airbrushing are in the second camp. But you never see how people actually assemble them -- one second the dreadnought has no arms, then it suddenly does. Most of the videos I've seen have shown people getting paint/primer all over the join points as well. I know that paint on paint is a crappy bond, and if you're talking plastic glue that's worse, but I've also seen posts saying that you shouldn't be cleaning paint off join areas because it's easy to mess up the paint job and you're much more likely to get your natural oils over the paint. I've always been in the camp of assembling the whole model and then painting, since I've never seen how it would work to just paint the pieces, leave the join points unpainted, and either not miss spots (leave too much unpainted) or have the models fall apart (paint too much and the join areas don't hold well enough).
So, how do people do this? What's the collective wisdom say on the subject? Any pointers would be appreciated since I have a ton of plastic on sprues that I'm starting to itch to assemble and get painted up. Maybe that itch will even carry me into finding a place to play up here.
(If not, my oldest daughter is just about ready to start learning.
)
Thanks!