"Compulsive Painting Sydrome" Topic

I know that one of the attractions of 6mm is the ability to turn out painted troops, en mass, quickly. But, I'm interested to know if I am the only one who can't help but cram every little detail into my figures even though I know that without considerable magnification I have no chance of seeing it! Piping on cuffs, stripes on trousers and even tricolour cockades. Am I mad or are there a lot of us about?

No, you have company – especially when it comes to painting Napoleonic hussars! At least I have stopped the interiors of tanks that have closed hatches

I think the less paint the better the eye appeal for 6mm. Small bold block paint job.

I agree with Mike, on 6mm the lesser the better. Besides, my eyes are too old to try for any sort of detail on 6mm figures. I can barely do a lot of detail on 28mm figures.

See link (6mm) versus link (28mm).

Jim

the smaller the scale the more contrast you need. detail doesnt matter as much though. I have issues with really good 15s(18s) like AB because of so much detail then end up taking almost as much time as 28s to paint.

Am I mad or are there a lot of us about?

Count me among the afflicted. Adler cavalry is my OCD experience on steroids. Painting the little N on the blanket rolls along with buttons, piping, cuffs and collars makes the whole 6mm easy thing a bit of a moot point.

I'm not as loony on Baccus infantry and as with them I can be a bit less OCD although correct collar, cuff and shoulder straps are still required.

I painted for cash for a while and found that most buyers wanted all the detail you could get on a figure cleanly. With practice it isn't as hard as you'd think. The worst is collars on figures that don't have them moulded in – getting those to show up is murder.

My craziest is doing the coloured tape on a 3mm zouave jacket. It was moulded on the figure so I painted it.

These days I'm less fussy than I used to me, largely due to a decline in eyesight. However my rule of thumb has always been that if it looks ok from a metre away then it's good enough.

Cleanly being the keyword Gildas. If I end up pushing my abilities to get all the details, well it usually ends up looking horrible.