Hiya guys, this may sound as a dumb question; but what are the basic steps for building....?
I'm used to
-prime everything,
-then assemble everything (first building the interior and paint it and then build the outside)
-and then paint the whole thing, putting on the decals and the assecoires
-and then weather the whole thing...

Alltough I'm happy with that, I'm wondering why I'm seeing so much "In progress" pics with the model first build and THEN primed and painted...

Anyone any thoughts on that?
Thanks...

I pretty much do the same thing but I rarely prime my models. Many people build the whole model and then paint. I did that a couple of times when lots of scrach building was required - it's very difficult to paint every scrach part separatly and then attach to the model with super glue, and also, the model looks cool with all the different colors just before painting. On the other hand, it's hard to paint something like a truck frame with all the suspension components attached to it. Also, I find it very borring building everyting first and then painting everything, esp. on very big projects that take up a lot of time.

I paint everything first, primer

take peices off and sand the parts, build sub assemblies, prime again to hide all marks ;putty ; etc.

then I review the instructions to see how to paint the bass color for subassemles from the ground up puting each peice of subassemly on and painting as I go after primer dries.

then going over it with the fade shading effect in finial dusting on it.
( if it's camo I do it here also with the non-base colors )then shade.

Then weather with everying.

Happy Modeling

It really depends on the kit and the type of model you are doing, but this is what I do:

1.) Build subassemblies. (Turret, upper hull, lower hull, wheels and suspension, etc)

2.) Assemble subassemblies with some exceptions such as clear parts, etc... Doing this allows the model to be assembled with liquid cement, which is much stronger than super glue at holding a bond. Paint prior to this interferes with any type of plastic cement.

3.) Paint the base colors.

4.) Finish. Detail paint, add missing parts, decal, dull coat, weather, etc...

Scott Gentry