"Richard Ansell's Sculpting - The Shape of Things to Come" Topic

The on-joing releases from Alban Miniatures have really impressed me with the realistic proportions of their figures. The poses have real movement about them, the bodies are the right size and in correct proportion. In short they have an elegant beauty about them.

This is in complete contrast with so many figure ranges, and yet we seem to consider odd shaped heads, shovel hands and stumpy torsos as the norm.

Why do we short change ourselves with second rate models? Surely Ansell's work must. literally, be the shape of things to come?

Well, I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but I don't like that style. I bought some from TAG, and they really don't do it for me. I find them way too slim, and I find they are stiff and not animated. I don't enjoy painting them, neither.

I like my figures to be a little caricatural, and I live very well with that fact. I find they look better from a distance.
What you call "second rate models" is what I like. It's a different style, it does not necessarily make them poor scultps imho. I much prefer the Perry, Foundry or even Front Rank stuff to these.

I'm not saying Alban are ugly figures btw,they are quite nice, but rather that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As such, I hope for my sake this is not the shape of things to come.

My

They look similar in proportion (if not level of detail) to some of the 28mm HaT figures. Not a bad thing. However, it's hard enough trying to "match" figures amongst other manufacturers as it is. Dean

I'm with Archduke Charles. I actually prefer the distorted proportions of most wargame figures. Not to slam these, they are very nice, and to each his own.

what, who, where?

From the earlier Hobby News TMP link already off the front page.

So you like figures that are meant to miniature men, but don't look like men. You prefer them to be distorted? Really?

I am amazed. These are infinitely superior anatomically to the GW clones that have been mentioned.

I like them thin, but the heads look too small for the height of the figure.

I don't like them either.

Wargames figures are meant to be impressionistic and seen from a distance on the table.

Figures like these end up looking too thin.

Give me Artizan, Perry, Wargames Factory, Crusader, Foundry any day.

It was the so-called 'distorted' proportions that drew me back into the hobby after a 20-year hiatus. I loved them, and still do.

Having said that, I now also love Richard Ansell's Minden Miniatures sculpts. Though I must admit I resisted the slim look for years. And I think thin figures look their best when used in big battalions.

So in my way of thinking, neither style is better than the other … they're just alternatives, that's all.

By the way, to prove that the thin look is probably no more realistic than the chunkier figures, especially with the ill-fitting uniforms they would've had back then, take a look at the picture of me in French uniform on this page:

arteis.wordpress.com/about

I'm 6 foot, so taller than the average real Napoleonic guys were. And although I've put a bit of weight on now, I was a more average size when the photo was taken!

"Why do we short change ourselves with second rate models?"

Well, there are your answers!

Allen

The only people who feel short-changed are ones who buy them and don't like them. If you buy then and do like them, you're hardly short-changed, are you?!

Sculptors have long distorted anatomy to produce a more dynamic figure. Look at Leonardo's David or Rodin's Burghers of Calais. The hands and feet are enormous to give the piece perspective, emotion and thus meaning.

NARW,

Let me once again present my piece which in a round-about way presents my theory that the folks who like bad caricatures of soldiers prefer that way because they are used to it:

link

Wargames figures are meant to be impressionistic and seen from a distance on the table.

For you, certainly. But others of us are into military modeling and wargaming with the figures. While some folks like the style, for others of us they look awful at any distance on the table. Especially for WWII figures, I look at real pictures of soldiers and then at this style of figure and I just shake my head. My wife (an artist) calls what she sees in WI "bobbleheads".

Roly, I have no idea what the picture of you in your very cool garb is supposed to prove with respect to sculpting style.
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Tim

The hands and feet are enormous to give the piece perspective, emotion and thus meaning.

Wow! There are emo figures now?

Tim, you've got to agree I look more like a Front Rank than TAG figure in that picture!!!

Also, I disagree about people only liking the caricature figures because that is what we are used to (for me anyway .. I can't speak for anyone else). As mentioned, when I first saw them, it was the very fact that they WEREN'T what I was used to that drew me to them (I had been used to the thinner 20mm plastics in my previous bout of the hobby).

In the end, it is all in the eye of the beholder. Some of us like one style, some of us like the other, some of us like both styles. But none of us are wrong (there is no 'wrong' in what we personally like/dislike in figure sculpting styles). So there should be no need for people disliking a style to patronise the reasons for other people liking it.

Sculptors have long distorted anatomy to produce a more dynamic figure

And I always thought they did it, because then they could at least sculpt twice as fast and that would double their income on a per hour rate.

I completely agree with Arteis.

28mm figures have a certain style to them and these don't have that style or evoke the *art* in the sculpture.

Someone like Mark Copplestone is invoking so much character into their work to create a piece of art for the game table.

These are trying to duplicate normal proportions and shrinking them down. But that approach doesn't work at this size. It just ends up looking bizarrre.

I also like a little caricature in my figures as it truly does help bring an additional emotional dimesion to the figures.

The overly realistic style does look odd on the table. I guess it would be the same concept (or not) as used with Greek columns. They bow out in the middle so they look straight from a distance.

It just ends up looking bizarrre.

For sure…
link

picture

Even more bizarro in 1:72

link

Artistically distorted for me, thank you very much.

Yes and no. Sculptors sometimes use proportions outside the normal range, particularly in modern times. Sometimes this is for an impressionistic effect and sometimes for other reasons, a colossal statue or one to be viewed from a particular angle.

The ‘no' part is Michelangelo's ‘David'. The hands are very large to be sure, at the extreme of the normal range, the hips are narrow but well within normalcy, the rest isn't odd at all except for near zero body fat and I suppose you might consider him unfortunate in certian respects, that or it's a rather cold day where he is.

He's about 7.5 heads tall , a bit less than half his height to his hip socket, his arms are a bit long but nothing unusual.

So the ‘distortions' here amount to making the hands about 15% bigger than average, no comparison to a typical gaming figure.

To sum up ‘David's' anatomy is possible (if quite unusual) a typical 90's-style gaming figure is not.

Now Michelangelo's ‘Pieta' is a more interesting study, not in proportions but scale creep. If Mary stood up she'd be at least a head taller than Jesus.

On the other hand some impressive fat napoleonic swiss dwarfs.

picture

Me personally,I could care less about emotional hands,so long as they are present and above the waist at all times. I'll take my 15mm Minifigs anyold day.

This is a really interesting discussion. It confirms my view that there are plenty of people who prefer each style, and that therefore there can be no 'right' or 'wrong' answer so far as style is concerned.

Whether one style is more anatomically correct than the other has no bearing on whether one style *should* be preferred to the other. Otherwise poor old van Gogh's wheatfields would always lose out to the more photo-realistic representations of such fields!

Fortunately, I like both styles!

Don't like em!

I side with the archiduke here (no doubt because I fear my my ancestors did the same…). Also some of the links passed by borrible are uhm uhm…. just horrible! especially the 1/72 one… and to be quite honest comparing a 54 millimeter figure to a normal wargaming figure is a bit silly. I love ot poaint adrea 54mm for display, but sadly I have seen their 30mm romand and I was not impressed. Foundry or Warlrod are much better for wargaming purpose.

Despite ditto bird take I think that military modelling and miniature wargaming are two different form of arts. A bobble heads looks much better than a "crrectly proportioned2 ones on the table. Simply pu you will never look at an 1/48 scale model in display the same way you look at a 28mm table. More often than not you will be in a different height, distance and probably position. so the entire look is different. Michelangelo painting in the sistine chapel seem pretty ugly and out of proportion up close… if you look from the floor of the chapel it is different. Tried to play in 20mm with revell and esci figures and stopped. Britannia or Liberation all the way!

so sadly I have to deeply disagree with the OP, actually I will never buy his alban work, beacuse frankly is doh! for me.

so for once why the new graal discoverer cannot be a less extatic about his last discovery?

As Teddy Rosevelt\Tom Berenger said in rough riders "he is dead move on"

Realistic for me every time but it wasn't always so – painting a bunch of plastic 1/72 WW2 completely changed my taste in that afterwards 28mm figures just looked weird. It always tickles me to read 28mm players agonising over the scale accuracy of 1/56 vehicles when the little human who's going to be sticking out of the hatch or running alongside will be anything but scale accurate. 1/56 is, of course, an entirely aribtrary choice to accompany 28mm figures based on what "looks OK" rather than any objective measurement. A 28mm tall person magnified by a factor of 56 would only be 5'2" tall.

I hasten to add that I suppport everyones individual choice of miniatures of whatever scale. I have my preferences and so do you and that's just peachy

Do you suppose Bathsheba was disappointed when the discovered that the "big hands" rule wasn't always true?

Here are some emotional ACW hands; you have to watch all the way to the end:

YouTube link

Not sure if Murphy's in that one or not.

Allen

I really like these miniatures, and the thing I like the most about them is how elegant they look! But I also really
like the modern chunkier style of sculpting. However, I also feel that these more realistically proportioned minis will look better in massed ranks, but wouldn't really match any of the other minis I have.

Bathsheba? Allen, you've managed to connect this thread with the "Biblical Hittites" thread – especially with the OFM's mentioning of Uriah. I'm getting dizzy.

As the prophet Samuel said: "What goes around, comes around."

Allen

In the end, it is all in the eye of the beholder.

Absolutely! And Beholders are eil fat balls with many eye stalks, so that proves you're wrong!!!!

No seriously, you are right. I can't understand it though – and like to pile on.
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Tim

For me my choice is more practical. I use the best figures available when I start a period/army. The figures I choose after that are chosen to match those I already have. The biggest point to me is that all the figures on the tabletop match in style and size and nothing looks out of place. I haven't yet faced the proportional/Abstract dilemma since I have stepped into any of those periods recently.

The thing that would bother me is mixing the chunky 28mm figures with the correctly proportioned ones in the same fight. Nothing bothers me more than seeing true 25mm figs going up against large 28mm, or say 15mm Old Glory paired with a smaller true 15mm figure for SYW.

Also, I'm never going to go back and redo a period I already own. Their are far too many other figures to paint for other eras or armies. One example is that several guys in my area have switched over to 10mm for WWII. I have a couple thousand 15mm WWII all done up, no way do I spend time on 10's. I'll play with their stuff when they run a game and they can play with mine when I do.

This is like the exact opposite discussion that is going on about the big booby female fantasy figure there. She was argued about for over 100 posts.

I have come to simply accept that I like all kinds of figures. I like the stumpy, big hands, bobble heads…I went "ooh!" when I saw the new Alban stuff. I go "Ooh" at all kinds of styles both realistic and stylized.

For me the deciding factor is does the sculpt capture the look of the soldier of the period and come in a pose I like with enough of the weapons I need to game the unit in the period?

I look for sculpting styles that have crisp clean lines and defined edges to facilitate painting.

Hell, I just like toy soldiers.

I like painting them and playing with them even more.

So my answer to "do you like realistic or stylized" is "Yes!".

More minis please.

As an aside, what has impressed me over the years I have been into historicals is simply the amazing amount of choices we have now, in all scales, and styles. And the choices grow every day.

I never would have thought I would see some of the minis for some of the conflicts we now have available. Who'da think there would be a Rif War range? Or Italians in Abyssinia?

Now all we need is someone to do the Polish 10th Motorized Cavalry in 28mm…

The bobble head look reminds me of video game characters such as Zelda!

I can think of many GW gamers that would give WW2 a try if the tanks looked like the ones in Dito Bird's post!

link

These are really nice figures.

Is it me, though? Now, I don't own any (yet), perhaps the heads are a bit smaller, but otherwise they don't seem that different from Perry figures. Certainly not drastically incompatible.

@Arrigo

and to be quite honest comparing a 54 millimeter figure to a normal wargaming figure is a bit silly

Thanks for your kind words Arrigo, but as you would have seen if you had looked, the Andrea Napoleonics are 30mm.Interestingly a size measurement especially made for wargamers that often aren't capable of scale math.Some would consider this a lot worse than silly.
I never said one or the other style is better.To be precise I am a known defender of personel taste against arrogant and pompous intolerant old and young farts with ill temper.
As they say here in Germany, the tone makes the music.

This whole discussion started with a post in which a particular style was lambasted as being "second rate", when in fact, as can be seen from many of the subsequent posts, this style has a following every bit as strong as the following for the more anatomically-correct style.

However, I do think the original poster is correct in the sense that the slimmer style seems to be gaining some traction as the incoming fashion at the moment. So perhaps it is indeed "the path of the future", but only because it may be the fashion, not because it is necesarily any better.

As a lover of both styles (though it took me quite a while to say that about the anatomically-correct style), I would reiterate that they are both valid styles. I strongly suspect the guys who sculpted the chunkier style figures are in most cases talented enough to make slimmer figures too, if that is really the way that fashion takes us.

.

Those Alban figures are horrid. I can't believe Sir Ansell did them. Yuk.

There was a BBC documentary about art some years ago which concluded that all our art and representations are abstrations to one degree or another. We tend to distort reality in favour of a perceived representation. For example this :

picture

Will be represented as such as it has passed through our primate brains :

picture

I've never had a particular preference for either realistic or wargaming style miniatures. There are some bulky highly out of proportion figures that I am very fond of, as much as some of the more realistic ones (Front Rank vs Immortal) As a result I tend to rate figures on their individual merits.

For me my choice is more practical. I use the best figures available when I start a period/army. The figures I choose after that are chosen to match those I already have. The biggest point to me is that all the figures on the tabletop match in style and size and nothing looks out of place. I haven't yet faced the proportional/Abstract dilemma since I have stepped into any of those periods recently.

The thing that would bother me is mixing the chunky 28mm figures with the correctly proportioned ones in the same fight. Nothing bothers me more than seeing true 25mm figs going up against large 28mm, or say 15mm Old Glory paired with a smaller true 15mm figure for SYW.

Exactly my MO; and on that basis the Alban figures are excellent but the Minden Miniatures (by the same sculptor)are utter e!

"all our art and representations are abstractions to one degree"

Well… yes, but so is our direct perception of reality, our senses abstract and focus on elements in everything, natural or artificial so I don't see the value of making a distinction.

The argument with respect to gaming figures comes down to are they scale models or are they toys. It's similar to the argument over to what degree rules should be simulations or games. No simulation is is a perfect representation but only a workable one. As you abstract and emphasize elements you make it more of a game and less of a simulation.

It's the same with figures, no figure is ever going to be a perfect scale model and as you abstract and emphasize elements you make it more of a caricature, like a toy. I wouldn't say this makes it more striking or appealing as some have asserted, only that it becomes appealing or striking in a different way. The analogy would be how classical music puts many people to sleep while others thrill to every note. It's partly what you are used to but it's also how you approach perception.

Having read this, it appears that I've completely misjudged the market!
In future I shall go back to sculpting in my old style of bigger heads hands and weapons seeing as that is what the majority of gamers seem to wish.

Richard

Hi all

First of all I have to say that I donˇ¦t play wargames. I just paint figures (trying to be as realistic as possible) and obviously I prefer better proportioned figures than the average ˇ§heroic styleˇ¨ 28mm figure. I must say that I havenˇ¦t seen too many war-game battlefields so maybe all that Iˇ¦m going to say is dead wrong.

If I ever should have an army I would like all my figures to be modelled by Mr. Meier and painted by Mr. Horan (or this last one can do all the stuff if Mr. Meier doesnˇ¦t want to join the venture :)) If that would ever be possible I would place my army in front of the Craddle/Hobbit Grognards Army, sculped by company X and painted by Mr.C and then we would see which army ˇ§looksˇ¨ better.

If we follow the idea that figures are modelled ˇ§wrongˇ¨ because they look better at a distance, I suppose in forthcoming movies with battles, besides doing CGI armies they should also CGI the soldiers and give them huge heads, short legs, huge hands and pole like firearms (in the long shots of course) so they will look better…

I quite donˇ¦t understand why if the idea is to represent a battle as realistic as possible it all goes down the drain when it comes to painting and sculpting? Gamers research uniforms, flags formations etc..up to the very last button to try to make it as real and accurate as possible and then they put all that research and effort into a abnormal human like figure??? Doesnˇ¦t the figure have to be also accurate?

saludetes

Doesnˇ¦t the figure have to be also accurate?

Yes and no. I want the ankles on my gaming figures to be bigger so my figures are not as fragile. Same goes with the weapons. I also want the deep details to aid in painting.

Also, when one paints realistic figures, does one forgo the shading and highlighting? Sure, it helps the detail pop out and makes for a nicer figure but it is anything but realistic.

"Also, when one paints realistic figures, does one forgo the shading and highlighting? Sure, it helps the detail pop out and makes for a nicer figure but it is anything but realistic"
…well I don't really agree with that. You have to shade and highlight becasue you have to "scale" the light/ lighting reflected in the figure. Then depending on different skill levels or tastes this can look realistic or not.

I love Richard's figures. They have a lot of character.

I have to say that there is a point at which abstraction becomes distraction. Pumpkin heads are that for me. There are a couple manufacturers that the heads are just too big for my liking, and they cover some of my periods of interest. Of course, everyone's line in the sand is different – some people view Foundry as pumpkin heads.