"Fantasy: Clean or Dirty?" Topic

Do you prefer your fantasy figures in general to look parade-ground clean, or mud-and-blood dirty?

Orcs mucky, elves shiny, the rest somewhere in between

I concur with Timbo W.

Yes, somewhere in between. If endless skulls and pointy things, big weapons, scarred/tattooed/pierced fighters and women in ridiculous outfits fall under "dirty", I don't much like it. I do, however, think a weathered look is very appropriate--like Aragorn when he, Frodo and Sam fled from Bree.

On the other hand, some older fantasy might have been a little too squeaky clean, or Disney-esque in its approach.

My orcs have rusty, dried-bloody weapons, and their "pet" giant needs a bath.
But the elves are clean and shiny, and the dwarves know how to care for their metal, and the men want to keep up appearances.
So, "both."

Oh, I misunderstood the title. I should have realized that this is not the 'Nude and Semi-Nude Figures – NSFW' board.

I had the same thoughts, Pertti! :-)

I like mine all covered in paint and varnish.

I use The Dip technique on nearly all of my figures. The others get Magic Wash in the appropriate colors, as needed. In other words, nearly all of my fantasy races are muddy, and dirty looking. The only ones which are not dirty looking are those which are cold dwellers: Frost Giants, Winter Wolves, Ice Devils, etc. They all get a bluish Magic Wash, which makes them appear somewhat cleaner than the mud & blood's of the rest of the races. Cheers!

I don't like anything to look parade ground clean (except my Victorian circus and Japanese civilian parade figures).

As an evocative piece, I tend to drive the degree of mud and blood on figures based on how savage I want them to look. Same thing with most other aspects of painting them – tone, color palette, mods to positioning and the sculpt, painting on details, etc.

Also mud is different from blood for me. Blood indicates savagery and mud indicates hard work in unclean environments. They don't necessarily go together, so they mean something more when they are together.

… oh … and angels. My angels are pristine and have a "reverse wash" of day-glo and UV fluorescent paint.

Monty Python summed it up for me in The Holy Grail.
"You can tell he's a king, he's not covered in like the rest of us".

A mix. Its nice to have some figures lookiing "neater" than others but given the realities of campaigning, mud, blood, dust and dirt will accumulate in places. So, for the majority of my fantasy troops I like the "campaign" look shall we say, over the "parade ground" look.