do you paint the pieces before you slap it all together, or afterwards? Can't decide which way to do, so I do a bit of both and weather afterwards.
What do you do?

I think you're on the right track. Most of us try to analyse the construction steps before we start to see where the challenges might lie. From there, the decisions are made about sub-assemblies, painting, and weathering. I usually build in sub-assemblies, painting as I go where necessary. When the whole thing is together, some areas are already painted and some are not. Hope this helps.

In the case of aircraft, you have to build and paint the cockpit first and then put together all the parts of the bird (without fragile details such as the landing gear, etc) ... use putty, sand and prime .. then paint. I dont recommend painting the large parts before assembly.

Before I learned how to shoot MM Arcyl through the airbrush (Thanks Armorama!!) I used to spray paint just about everything on the sprues, clean the attachment points, assemble and then weather. Now, I do subassemblies. Works out much better for me.

Shaun

I build as much as possible before painting ..If I really can't figure out how I'm going to get to a piece after putting it together I will shoot a base coat ...but mostly all together at the end .Of course turret and body separate..

Richard

I like to build most of my tanks before painting. I now paint roadwheels before assembly , and tools are last. Sometimes if I want the tank Really dirty I'll paint the wheels and track after assembly, in that case they get a blanket of dirt/mud brown.

I do a bit of both to. I have some kits that are already painted, and some that need to be built than painted!

~Chip

For aircraft,i build a load of cockpits(around 5-6)at a time,paint them and then put all the planes together.I have about 4 or 5 unpainted models sitting on my desk at any one time.i then just go through a phase of painting them all,and then I finally get around to decalling them.I stagger them somewhat so that I always have something different to do,but mainly I make and paint all the sub assemblies and put them away till i want to make that particular plane.