1. THE SPRUE GREY
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
PAINTING METHOD
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• Time constraints are a major hurdle to getting time for your hobby
• Family
• Work
• Real Life
• As much as your hobby is for enjoyment, you want to have a sense of achievement when we see projects come to
fruition
• Coping with the attention span of goldfish and being easily distracted by new projects and models and need to be kept
on track so that when something new comes along it can be controlled and prioritised
In the Sprue Grey Project Management Painting Method you take an assessment of the things that need to be done and
then the available time in which to do them. At the end of the process, you should have a list of miniatures that need
painting and a (hopefully) detailed breakdown of the order in which they are done.
WHY PAINT USING PROJECT
MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES?

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WHERE TO START?
• You may have a list of shame. Choosing a project from this list is a great starting point
• A new version of your favourite game could be the driver to get an army finished
• In the examples for this presentation, the new version of Infinity and an incomplete 300 point Morat force is being
used.
• Smaller number of models to complete means that is easy to see progress as it is made. Psychological wins count when
painting an army.
• Inventory what’s in the your unpainted pile and use that as the basis for the deliverables.
• Build your army list/war band/force list. The list will become the foundation of your project. This method should work as
well with larger games as much as smaller, skirmish style games.
• Whole units can be project deliverables (in the case of larger games) or individual models. You can mix and match
too. Make a character model one project deliverable and then another deliverable is a unit of twenty troops.
• There is an obvious difference between the time taken to paint one model compared to twenty model
• There are a HEAP of resources out there for building an Infinity list. Infinity Pool is a great asset and so is the Army
Builder on the Infinity site.

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BUILD YOUR TIMELINE
• How long does it take you to clean a model?
• How long to undercoat?
• What is the total time spent painting?
Some of these values you will know and others will need to be guess
or sit down and record. Based on the time taken to clean, undercoat
and prep a model you will now know how long the project will take.

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PREPARE YOUR REFERENCE MODEL
This part is particular to painting mass units.
• Batch painting is the easiest way to get a unit finished. With batch painting, you paint all the colours on one
model and then move onto the next. For example, if you’re painting a squad of Space Marines you might
paint all the power armour on the models first before going back to paint the guns on the models and then
go back and wash all the models before highlighting.
• Before you get all excited with batch painting, it’s important to have a test model with the colour scheme for
your unit.
• Working without the test model to reference may lead you to getting caught up painting too much detail on
each model that will be lost in the mass of bodies that make up the unit.
• You are trying to set the standard and effort you expect to put into each model in the unit.
• When painting the test model, make sure you measure the amount of time it takes to complete the paint job
because this will allow you to come up with more specific time lines for painting the unit.

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PAINTING THE MODELS
The important point of the painting is keep to the standard of
the test model, particularly the time taken to paint each
model.
As part of on-going measurements, you can also compare the
time taken to paint each model against the expected value of
the test model and adjust the time taken to paint each model
accordingly.

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TOOLS USED
• The complexity of the tools is limited to your knowledge and
patience. This can be as simple as an Excel spreadsheet, or an old
fashioned pen and paper
• Solutions range all the way to some awesome tools like Trello.
• Full credit and thanks goes to Broken Paint Brush for
introducing Trello as a tool
• More complex tools like Trello have a steeper learning curve but the
investment of time taken to learn is always worthwhile

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CONCLUSION
At the end of the process, the project should have concrete deliverables and
measurable outcomes.
With only limited time for hobby, making the best use of available time
becomes very important. Taking a large project and breaking it up into smaller
pieces that have established outcomes means that you can sit down at anytime
and know exactly at which part of the overall project you are supposed to be
working on.
The initial setup of the Trello work flow is a bit of a labour. In the long term it
means you can be more efficient in the way that you are working on projects.

9. For this and other awesome Wargaming
tutorials, reviews and guides
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