"18th Century Campaigns" Topic

I think it matters only at what range you judge a paint job.
Bear in mind that I paint my own stuff and like to think I am a decent painter. I've been doing it since 1974 after all.

Do you hold a figure at your nose to judge it? Then you need to paint the eyes. Or do you?
So many painters can't paint eyes to save their lives. Huge white circles with blobs. They post pictures on TMP, they are so proud of them. I think it ruins an otherwise fine paint job.

Take a look at der Alte Fritz's SYW Russian grenadiers. No eyes! Just shading! And they look marvelous. That's because Jim is consciously painting for the tabletop. If you are standing 3 feet away from them, do you notice the lack of eyeballs and irises?
I think not.

Far too many painters waste time doing a poor job on eyes when they should just skip them and merely shade.

In my humble opinion.

"Do painted eyes matter on the tabletop?"

No.

On January 16, I will have a game at my house and it will be the start of an 18th century Campaign. Each player will have several roles. He will be always the king of a country in a possible 12 world Imagi-Nations set up. But he will also be able to adopt other personalities in other situations. For example Take the wargamer Jackson Jills.

Jackson will be the king of the Country Land O'Goshen.

Another gamer will be in Bad Zu Wurst, call him Newt Rogina.

The two of them will be "activated" as opponents in a campaign. The rules used will be my "Narrative Campaign rules." This is a very simple easy set which is run by both players telling me what their intentions are. For example, Jackson says "I want to hold position and train the army." Newt says "I want to forage for supplies." I then decide what the first battle will be, and make up the story that carries the players from the start of the war to the battle, we fight the battle, and then that situation becomes the basis for what the NEXT bunch of intentions are which the two sides give to me somewhere in the ensuing month to the next game. I then cross reference these intentions (given in secret) and make up the story from the end of the first battle to the next, and set up that battle.

Other players play as sub commanders in the battle, even though they may as one of their roles be sovereign of other countires.

They can in addition make up a character IN the forces of one of the two sides. For example Phil O'Dendron decides he wants to play, when playing with Jackson's army as "General Sir Percy Plowdung" who can often be a trial to his sovereign. We then determine the plot from there. Sam Evening decides he wants to be the Grand Admiral of Bad Zu Wurst, Prince Louis von Battenhatch, and his wife, Janet Evening wants to play as his mistress, perpetually being a gadfly to all his efforts. Distraction, shopaholic, gadfly.

Each character will have their own sub rolls as they wish.

The rules are extremely simple and the intentions must be stated out and written in clear English and not longer than twenty words.

We shall see how this goes. I developed the basic system 20 years ago and it worked. We are going to try it with some new wrinkles and ideas.

It is hoped that the development of subsidiary characters will flesh out the story and provide other interesting situations and scenarios. For example, Newt may get tired of Janet's constant interruptions and meddling and arrange to have her kidnapped and sent to a nunnery. Jackson on the other hand, for whom she is an agent, may try and frustrate the alleged kidnapping.

Yhe system will use the big 4 by 8 map I made, but it isn't essential for anything but frame of reference story-telling. It is the intentions of the players when compared that will determine the action of thing.

Otto

No.

"Do painted eyes matter on the tabletop?"

I cannot see it---

THAT'S why if my Officer gives the order 'Don't shoot until you see the white's of their eyes', it always turns out to be a bayonet-ballet!

I agree, no way to discern them. Paint for your battlefield.

OH dear! The bug has REALLY messed up this thread!!

No

No

Usually I prefer to paint the eyes, but I think that the RSM figures (and their faces) lend themselves towards not painting the eyes. They look great and it saves me quite a bit of time.

I might paint eyes on just the Minden officers though.

Fritz

Eyes, when done correctly, and very few wargame painters can do them well, can add some visual value, but done poorly, and most painters do them very poorly, make the figures look silly. At this point I only paint eyes on my 40mm horses.

I don't paint eyes, just use wash to darken them. I use "sit-off-scale" as my gauge, what am I seeing sitting o my chair looking at a unit on the table.

BTW I can't see well enough to paint eyes anymore anyway :)

Commenting on eyes

Most of us older folks cannot focus on anything less than 2-3 foot away, so what you see at that distance is good enough (look at us peering at cell phones held an arms length away)

I paint as much for my own pleasure as anything else. So I like to do eyes on (larger) 28mm figures. At this scale I only paint a few figures for skirmish games

Good luck

John

No eyes. Never have succeeded since the days of 54MM (Plus) Charles Stadden beauties.

Imrie/Risley figures, again 54mm – often made with separate heads, arms, torsos, abdomen/hip/leg, back packs, bayonets, did a book on painting, and I remember using off white in the whole eye cavity. Then a dot of brown, and closing in with almost a straight line under the dot – and touching is. Then an arc – more rounded – above the dot, and again touching it. After that, us flesh to close in on the brown above and below, leaving thin lines with the dot inside.

Gave up early on 28mm eyes!

GdeP

I only paint eyes on the backs of heads to deter miniature magpie attacks (local wildlife reference).

no – and a lot of otherwise excellently painted figures get ruined by too big – too staring eyes – I don't do them.

The only person who sees a lot of the detail and effort put into a figure is the guy who painted them. Everyone else sees a hat, a musket and a coat (shield, spear, helmet). Paint what makes you happy but don't expect applause.

Depends on the sculpt. If they can be done I do them.

No

It depends on where you are between gamer and painter. For the former, no. For the latter, yes. In between, maybe.

It depends on the style of game. For skirmish games where people look at each figure, yes. For massed-battle games, no, if you ever want to play with painted figures.

It depends whose figures they are. If they yours, maybe no. If they are mine, yes.

Depends on the sculpt of the miniature. Some 28s move into 30mm and have well defined eyes. Some have almost none and are better off left w/ an impression through shading w/ washes.

On figures smaller than 54mm, NO! On 54mm and larger, Yes, maybe, depending on your eyesight, and preferences. Cheers!

On 54s, yes--but on 28s, no, please don't. They really don't work at all with the scale of the figure, and I've seen very few that are done well--much less an army's worth. For example, there's a professional painter whose work appears on TMP from time to time, and his stuff is completely over the top--I zoom into everything he posts, trying to pick up tips. Otoh, he insists on painting eyes; does a fairly good job for 28mm eyes, but they are so out of whack and scale that the immersion is shot and the figure ruined.

Some wise person had a little article in MWAN about 15 years ago giving a an easy test for this: hold a figure with painted eyes out till you can just see the eyes (a con is a good place for this). Now watch someone coming towards you until they're the same relative height as the figure. Can you see their eyes? If not,the eyes on the figure are too big.That will be the case almost every time.

And I'd add,if you CAN see the person's eyes at that distance, it's time to call the National Guard.

Interesting discussion. I have painted eyes and I think they look decent. However, unless you really look straight at the figure you won't notice. If you paint them well you won't notice your painted eyes either, except under close inspection.

My point, don't bother unless a display figure. It is a waste of time for a 28mm figure in a wargame.

For 28mm scale and below, I say no, especially for gaming. Most times just doing a good shading of the face will create brownish/red recesses in the eye areas that look better than if you try to actually paint the actual eyes.

However, if you have an especially big miniature in 28mm, such as monster cavalry or a particularly large mount or creature, then I will paint eyes simply because they are more visible.

Same applies if a particular 28mm figure is a bigger heroic size, then I will sometimes paint the eyes.

But for rank and file, like Warhammer 28mm rank and file, I generally find that just doing shading on the face is enough.

no. mainly because i can't do it at any scale. i already have enough problems just doing faces to worry about eyes.

Pete,I hear ya. It will seem heretical and horrible to some,but here's an easy,and fast,way with faces a friend came up with: paint the whole face with Raw Sienna,then highlight with a flesh. I prefer a more "tan" shade of flesh,rather than a pinkish one,and you'll want to play around with it,but it's really just two steps. Try it!