Repaint vs. Touchup

I couple of months before we moved to Albuquerque, Ken surprised me with a new Ravenwing Darkshroud model that I prompted painted and added to the display case.  I began thinking of how I could best incorporate it into my games and quickly realized that I didn't have a lot of Ravenwing models in my collection to benefit from its support abilities.  Therefore, I have decided to completely overreact and build an entire Ravenwing Force.  While I wait for the mass amounts of landspeeders and bikes to arrive, I pulled some of the old models out of their transport boxes (because they are not worthy of going in the display case) and set to enhancing them.
One of my favorite Ravenwing models is the second-edition, tornado-version landspeeder.  I happen to have two of them.  Unfortunately, these were painted during my first year in the hobby (20 years ago) and have my most unskilled level of detail.  Instead of stripping and repainting, I decided to try a much quicker touchup.  I feel that the most boring part of miniature painting is the application of the base coat.  My old, rudimentary paint jobs were essentially just a base coat because they lacked the extra shading and details that I now include.  Question: can I get a modern paintjob and save a lot of time by just picked up where my 20 year-younger self left off.  Below is an image of the two old models. Before starting the project this morning, both models were nearly identical.  The one on the right received 3 hours of attention,looks great, and probably saved me the 12-15 hours it would have taken to strip, reassemble, prime, and completely repaint. 

 

Skylanders Repaint 13 (Ninjini)

Before and after.

Skylanders Repaint 12 (Sprocket)

The factory paint job is on top, followed by my repaint (in two views) below.  Once again, I felt compelled to fix the metal paint on the original model with a non-metallic metal paint scheme.  The armor was given strong highlights to indicate a metallic sheen as well.  The pants were given better definition and shadowing and the goggles were painted to look like the character card.

Skylanders Repaint 11 (Fright Rider)

Similar to Chop Chop, this model has a lot of white bone with zero contrast (and that annoys me).  The factory paint job on the face is also without good definition and further inspired a repaint.  The artwork on the character card depicts glowing blue eyes on the bird and I tried to recreate that in my version.

Skylanders Repaint 10 (Drobot Series 2)

The factory paint job is not necessarily bad, but it is very sloppy (paint over the lines, etc).  I decided to repaint and wanted to model it after the art on the character card.  This meant that I had to use Non-Metallic-Metal (NMM) on the brass, which took forever (with the multiple layers of shading and highlights). 

Skylanders Repaint 9 (Terrafin Series 2)

The factory paint job of Terrafin is simple and the eyes are a little misaligned IMO.  I completely repainted him with added muscle definition, better eyes, more defined teeth, and improved contrast on his skin and metal knuckles. 

Skylanders Repaint 8 (Prism Break Series 2)

The factory paint job for Prism Break is a very simple, single-coat, green dry brush which didn't look that bad.  Nevertheless, the artwork on Prism Breaks character card shows his glowing eyes with the associated illumination on his face and shoulders.  I wanted to recreate that on my model.  While I was at it, I also redid the body with a series of washes and multiple, dry brush layers.

Skylanders Repaint 7 (Jet Vac Series 2)

I was disappointed in the lack of definition in the feathers and eyes on the factory paint job so I exaggerated those aspects in this repaint.  I think the new version has much more character.

Skylanders Repaint 6 (Gill Grunt)

At first, I was tempted to simply repaint the eyes and add definition in the creases but I eventually covered the whole model in fresh paint.  I think the new color better matches the shade used in the game. 

Skylanders Repaint 5 (Hot Head and Hot Dog)

The fire models were not painted that bad but lacked good color transitions and the glowing magma in the cracks.  I also added shading on the face and repainted the eyes.

Skylander Repaint 4 (Sonic Boom S2)

Sonic Boom was not the worst of the factory paint jobs but I really liked the play of this character and felt inspired. The factory paint job on my model was actually not as good as the one shown and had no shading on the wings.

Skylanders Repaint 3 (Voodood)

Voodood's savage orc character reminded me of my Warhammer Fantasy army and this inspired me to improve his paint job. 

Skylander Repaint 2 (Sunburn)

Sunburn had the worst of the factory paint jobs, IMO.  Total repaint based on the artwork. 

Skylanders Repaint 1

Chop Chop's paint job was far from his artwork and had to be redone.  This is the only Skylander I used NMM painting on instead of simply shading the metal.  Both sword and armor got the NMM.