"GW Minis -Too Busy to Paint!" Topic

You were asked – TMP link

Have Game Workshop's minis become too difficult (detailed/fussy) to paint for the average painter and gamer?

53% said "yes"
26% said "no"

I don't think the miniatures are too detailed, I think the expected/promoted level at which they are to be painted is the issue.

As a commission painter I say…"Whoopee!!!"

I think, with GW, the move to all plastics may be to blame. As plastic figures (GWs at least) are made in a solid mould from solid plastic, they can have no undercuts. This leaves the painter having to paint on details that are not there. Hair, fur, chainmail are all good examples of this, also some of the bigger monsters have folded skin or scales that seem to vanish as you turn the figure. I can see some people simply not knowing how to deal with this.

The paint range (from GW) is overly confusing, even for me, contrast not helping. They SIMPLY used to have colours. Now there are base, layer, dry, contrast… That's too much for most people to take in, especially if they have not painted before. It also costs more if you feel (with friendly staff help) that you need to buy some of each type.

Tabletop standard is meaningless after drooling over the eavy metal porn on the website and White Dwarf. So, I have an unpainted GW resin figure I've been staring at for 10 months. I don't even know where to begin.

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool, army painter. I gave up on painting beyond GEtGW standard, 20 years ago. I also have more than 1,000 figures I've painted, and game with. They look fine, at arm's length, which is the distance I game with them at. I have zero interest in painting beyond that level. I never have, and I never will, enter a painting contest. I see no point in that level of painting, for me, personally.

I had a good friend who painted for miniature manufacturers, for their advertisements. His figures were among the very best I've seen, anywhere online, or in print. I gamed with him and his figures a couple of times… I hated it!

Miniatures get damaged in games. It is virtually impossible to avoid, unless you handle them with white gloves, and treat them as if they were the Crown Jewels!

He spent 12+ hours painting each individual miniature we gamed with. When they were damaged in play, I was mortified. It ruined the enjoyment of the games for me. All I could think about, was how to avoid damaging any other mini on the table… I couldn't wait for the game to end, so I did not have to touch his mini's again.

With my figures, I expect them to be damaged in play. I invest 10 minutes, average, painting time, per figure. When they get damaged, I know that I will need to invest about 10 minutes repairing them. I tell my players, "Don't worry about it. Let's keep playing!"

I enjoy my games, with my figures. I don't sweat the damage which occurs. I am too interested in getting a great game across the finish line, win or lose. I want a great game -- that's why I play.

I ignore molded details which are too fiddly to paint, when I have 40-100+ in an army to paint. At arm's length, those details won't be noticeable, so why bother!

I'm a huge fan of Caesar and Red Box, 1/72 fantasy miniatures . I own around 150 of Caesar's Goblin miniatures, which are lacking a lot of detail, and I prefer that. I own around 50+ of the Red Box LotR knock-off Warg Riders: they have a surprising amount of details molded into them. Plastic injection-molded miniatures have come a long way in the past 20 years, in quality, and detail. I ignore a lot of these details, as they won't be discernible at arm's length, so no point in painting them. YMMV. Cheers!

I've got to go along w/Sgt Slag. I keep looking at these super detailed minis painted by professionals and think how inadequate my meager skills are. Then I remember that these are painted by "professionals" for the most part and are not really designed to be used, on a regular basis anyway, for gaming, i.e. they are display pieces. After this little bit of therapy I feel much better. My figs look good, at arms length on the tabletop, which is how it should be!

Yeah, just prep and undercoat, then apply a few main base coat colours. That will get you gaming and allow you to go back and do some more work on them at leisure.

Too difficult to paint? Painting is as difficult as you want it to be. I've gotten away with painting a lot of detailed parts with a single color and used dry brushed a highlight to pick them out. That's it. Not all details need to be painted a different color.

I may say that they're getting to delicate/fragile to make handling them a difficult task without something getting damaged.

I use the old GW store 3 colour minimum with a wash and drybrushing to rough out my figures,anything more is reserved for elites,heroes and whether i feel bored at the moment.My old D@D figures from the 80s were painted toa different personal and heroic style but only because i had less than 50 to worry about.

Too difficult to paint? Painting is as difficult as you want it to be.

+2 to wizbangs

And good paint jobs are a deterrent to fun gaming due to potential damage to the figures? Really? How many figures do you damage in a game?

Yeah I have a few armies that I carry around just loose in cardboard boxes. They aren't painted any differently from anything else. They dont break in those.

Bowman: it depends on the models. The older metal models with long protruding appendages are notorious from dropping off (even if the are pinned). Durthu the tree man & the Albion giant come to mind. And every game where there are metal Vampire Counts Fell Bats used it's guaranteed one is going to break off it's flying stand.

Regarding fragile plastics, so far it's mostly banner poles & spear shafts.

I find the metal models to be far more fragile than the plastics.

Yes, metal are definitely more suited to a more (careful, usually) adult market. Many historical gamers and collectors (typically adult) seem to prefer metal. Most kids and some adults go for the glossy rattly box (usually plastic these days) as their preference.

H Man, there seems to be some interpretation of people's preferences. Can't we like plastics because we like the material?

My kids are adults, so I assume I am, too.

andy

That is my point.

Some people may prefer plastic. However, I don't think most people buy it because they like it more than metal. Most people buy it because it is either:

*Cheaper.
Plastic is just cheaper for mass production over metal. It's not better as a material, although it has its good points.

*All that is available.
Sometimes there isn't a choice, the road GW and others have gone, so people are forced to buy plastic if they want to buy figures from these companies. I feel many adult buyers would be in this camp.

*Seduced by marketing.
Again marketing plays it's part with most kids and some adults preferring plastics in fancy packaging over metal in plastic bag.

So let's take gw out of the question. Should I choose Perry's metal figures over their very affordable and excellent plastic sets?

Good pick.

Perry's are certainly one that springs to mind that have both metal and plastic of the same units. Perry's though, are basically an offshoot of GW, at least in the figure design (hmm wonder why) and marketing, hense the multi part plastics.

Most people would be buying the Perry plastics as they are cheaper than the metal figures (well, they certainty are not easier to assemble, grumble).

I think you answered your own question. If you find the metal figures not to be affordable, then go with the plastics, that's what they are there for. If you find their plastics excellent, all the better.

I like good plastics because I am a better model builder than painter. "Good plastics" are those with enough heft to not be extremely fragile, are hard enough that they don't deform, that work with plastic glues and don;t require that you use super-glue (I'm looking at you, starship troopers minis), and that have good enough production/QC that they fit together properly. GW plastics are an example of "good plastics".

They are easier to work with (particularly large multi-part models), and easier to repair when they do break (in transport, dropped from table, etc.), and don't do as much damage to each other if they are packed loosely during transport.

I miss having lower production run minis made of metal, because I find most resin minis are hard to work with, fragile/brittle, hard to repair, and larger, multi-part kits tend to warp just as badly as metal kits.

GW is turning characters into giant $200 USD centrepiece collector models, and a lot of their range are in dynamic positions with flowing hair and robes. It can be a bit intimidating. Makes you miss the old rank-and-file where you can just hide them in the back rank and move to the next figure. The downside of skirmish style gaming…

Correct!

When they released 40 dollar (AU) plastic elf characters for The Hobbit 2, I thought the world had truly gone crazy, and they were not even close to over the top poses. Add to this the fact every fan had several legolas metal figures already.

(The obvious reason was the Hobbit 1 game sold terribly, it still had the limited edition radagast by the end of the third film. The elves were meant for the second box that never happened, so were thrown out as over priced blisters. See how other GW plastic characters soon followed)

It just proves how much GW make from their paint. The newer figs are for painting, not gaming, hense the skirmish Style.

Chris1985 +1

The overpriced LOTR/Hobbit ranges were just the beginning. I didn't think they'd top that but it just kept going! I like the look of a lot of the models but so many look very complicated to paint, and when you are an average painter you think "I'll wait til I'm a better painter before tackling that one".

The people in my local GW are pretty helpful with how to use the paint range though. And it's so broad now. Colours I wished were around back when I'd started. I like what they've done. But yeah some of the figures are just nuts. At least when the range had metal I could use paint stripper. Using methylated spirits on plastics works but it's not as fast so you can't strip away the shame as quickly. When the model is 30cm tall that's even more daunting.

+1 Joedog