"The Theory of Miniatures" Topic

I've painted and gamed for years. Just recently I find myself in the position of having to write about miniatures – in this case a collection of model ships. I've been scouring the Internet for some sort of theoretical / philosophical or phenomenological background material to put my discussion within a more academic framework. One of the few sources I've found references Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Space. So my question is: does anyone else know of anything related to the theory or philosophy behind the concept of miniaturization? Any and all suggestions will be most gratefully received.

Little Wars has a bit of theory/philosophy about miniature wargaming in the intro that might be helpful.

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Minatures are just pretty game counters.

Time Bandits movie sums it up for me. :p
When Napoleon says "The little puppets hitting each other… that's what I like. Little things hitting each other!"

Just my opinion here- The use of miniatures with gaming goes back to the idea that we wanted to combine the use of our models and toys into something more useful than simply eye-candy. Using them in games (in the modern sense- 1950's on) has a connection to model trains. Adding a few buildings and trees , colored sawdust added more "suspention of disbelief" to the layouts. Mixing our toy soldiers on our gameboards was a natural progression for the kids who's imagination was spurred on by the latest release of "Our Army at War", Sgt. Rok and Fury etc. issues of 10-12 cent comics and TV shows like "The Big Picture", "Rat Patrol", "Gallant Men", "12 O'Clock High" and of course "Combat"! We didn't have much to differenciate our soldiers other than the color of the plastic, then who's soldiers belonged to whom…so we started in painting. When more than one green became available (remember Testors verses Pactra and Revell paints in the 60's?) we went nuts trying to find the "right color" for what our minis should look like in our mind's eyes. Well, the rest is history!

In some ways, I miss those days of discovery and simple inspiration! ….Friends discovering some new product or technique to try out on our figures, etc. brought many times over in joy than what we were paying for the toys! Let's not forget about the joy of trading off figures we no longer were crazy about just to get something "new", to us!

The drive to reproduce what we see in our minds eye, made by our own hands (IE: The Craft in us) provides self satisfaction in knowing we made them look like they are supposed to look (in our mind's eyes) to the best of our abiilities spurred many a mini gamer along for (dare I say…) decades! It still does for most…(well at least "I" remain one!

Best
Tom

Medieval chess pieces include detailed miniatures:

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They didn't have the easy access to written materials that we enjoy, so they used simple rules that they could keep in their heads.

You could always start out with one of the basics of product design – form and function.

Form is about how the piece aesthetically speaks to the audience, independent of its purpose. There are tons of artistic elements of minis – shading, color, finishing, decorative bases, level of detail …

Function is about how well the piece supports what it does – recognition, evocation, WYSIWYG, "accuracy", …

I also remember that the Pharaohs of Egypt were sometimes buried with miniature armies and ships. If it was religious purposes in the afterlife, military protection in the next life or for the entertainment of the Pharaoh in the afterworld, I could not say.
The most ancient known miniatures in the world found to date.

I think that people enjoy owning or creating models of things. You can't own a battleshio but you can buils a model/miniature of onr to have. Think of people who buils and collct dollhouses. They have different themes, or are used to represent an era. Even set designers on Broadway build a miniature of the set. It allows them to see it with out going through the expense of building the full scale set. Architects do the same thing.

War is the real "sport of kings." Somewhere or other I once read of specially commissioned sets of metal miniature soldiers commissioned for one or another royal prince--probably in part simply for entertainment value, but also, I think, as an aid to the education of the prince for his future role as commander-in-chief. Now industrial mass production has democratized this one elite activity so that most any of us serfs, churls and villeins can enjoy playing at war.

"Miniatures are pretty game counters" – Yep.

And the terrain on the table makes the board 3D.

Works for me.

I second Dye4Minis. Same experiences early on and same perspective now.

Have a look at classwargames.net.

You may also want to look at the neuroscience of perception and how our brain differentiates between shapes. As well as the role of contrast in perception and how that might impact decisions being made. There may also be something to be found in the art history periodicals in terms of miniature paintings and why certain decisions are made because of the smaller size of the canvas/plank.

To explore this question you have to delve into the individual human psyche. On the one hand it's not so difficult. It is all make believe and escapism, playing with dolls and losing ones self in unreality.

On the other hand you are entering a very dark area of the mind. Bring a shovel.

You are not in the realm of logic and theory here, you are in the realm of the emotions and the passions.

I disagree.

You could very easily approach the question related to concrete behaviors that people do in regards to miniatures (in this case model ships). This would include social activities that show it can be more about engagement with other humans than escapism. I know for myself, I do miniature things not as a means of hiding from the world or reality but as a way of engaging with history, artistic technique, and social interaction.

You could probably draw on some scholarship related to sub cultures as well. Loads of stuff there.

Another place to look might be academic articles published in architecture periodicals related to modelling. Aerospace engineering is another field where professional miniaturists exist and I'd be surprised if there's not a peer reviewed article based on that.

If this is for an undergrad class, then I think the answer of where you should or can look will be in the description of the assignment and the nature of the class. if it's post grad, it may also have that or its something you need to discuss with a faculty member.

Write to the assignment either way.

Thanks everyone for your input. I'm the editor of a peer-reviewed journal and so it will be my orientation piece to a publication focusing on the life work of a particular ship modeler. As a gamer I'm always struck with how insular that type of modeler tends to be, in contrast to those of us who paint and model miniatures primarily as part of a broader social interaction at the gaming table.

Sounds to me like you found your angle and surely there's been publications on how people spend times by themselves vs social activities.