Assembly

oh yeah, I usually assemble body first, than the painting of the whole thing, than I glue acc. on my suggestion is don't glue helmet before painting

nice.

i have the wal-mart 370airbrush kit and the mighty mini aircompressor from there for 90dollars total

I just picked up an Aztek A470 (the A4709 set) on eBay for around $100.

Wal-Mart huh? I'll have to look into that.

Wal Mart used to have the cheap Testors airbrush kit, which is OK for primers. lately I have been using Duplicolor white primer in the spray cans, it goes on very thin and covers well... I nearly always assemble my figure first and then add the details.

Gasser

i think bear air has some cheap airbrushes and compressors

Only problem is, I don't have an airbrush. Only old fashioned brushes. Speaking of airbrushes, does anyone know of any places to find airbrushes/compressors for cheap? i don't really have the funds to justify the price otherwise. Thanks for your tips though.

Depends.
Painting on the sprue is a waste of time. You have too much clean up to do on plastic figures to do this.
You should prime. Use your airbrush to lay down a coat of light complimentary colored paint. This will help in seeing fine seam lines and other flaws you're going to need to fix. The airbrush will cover without a loss of even the finest detail.
Assembling before or after painting depends on two things, the pose and the engineering of the figure. Some figures, Pegaso for example, are usually so well designed there are no gaps to fill. The pose will also determine paint/assembly sequence. If an arm is posed in such a way a surface is visible but would be hard to paint, I will paint first and do any touch up later. I tend to paint weapons and webgear before attaching to insure better coverage.

I always assemble first, as much as possible, then paint.

Regards, Rick

Thanks.

I tend to assemble my figs as much as possible, one reason for that is to putty over joints. Sine I use putty I also prime the figs and parts.

I usually assemble the basic figure first, then add detail items and heads after. For example, I assemble the legs and torso and paint them, also paint arms separately and all gear separately. I attach gear with superglue, then attach head with helmet etc. Lastly, I attach arms with super glue in the proper position to hold the weapon or whatever is in the hands. Also, I do not use a primer on my figures, I find the paint covers fine and primer tends to fill in some of the details.
Hope that helps.