| It very much depends on what you are painting so you have to think very carefully abut how it is to be assembled from that point on. For instance sub assembly's can best be painted prior to adding to the model such as an engine, winch, crane, gun, aircraft armament etc. but things that require joints to be cleaned up and hidden can only be painted after assembly of the main parts such as a ships hull or the main parts of a tanks hull.
I always create sub assemblies and then make a plastic handle to hold it and paint it as an individual item.
Think about what access you need to be able to paint the parts easily and how you are going to achieve the result you are after. Every model is differrent but experience does show you the best way to complete certain types of model.
Things like camoflage would usually be applied later in the model construction as the paint lines should be seen to flow from one part to the next. If you did these seperately there would always be the danger of the camoflage lines not lining up when you assemble the parts.
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“Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days" |