"What details do you tend to leave out when painting?" Topic

I paint 99% 28mm figures. Primarily AWI and now SYW. Some Colonials.

So, I hardly ever paint:

Eyes. Every time I see a painted figure with eyes, invariably they're too big. Googly eyes. Since I use Contrast paints on white prime, the face gets naturally shaded.

Hat lace. Naaah. Too hard to get consistent. I don't want to go back and paint black over the lace that went on too thick.

Buttons. Nope.

Yeah, same here. The Minwax 'dip" shades the face well enough. I might put inn the time to do eyes for a special figure but rarely.

I do drybrush hat lace on but as you say, do not coreect.

John, are you using the acrylic markers? I am finding that they are a LOT easier for doing lines, and also for correcting when a line is too large or askew. I did the yellow on the cavalry's legs using a fine tip, and then corrected the mistakes with the lt blue marker. Better results and FASTER than a =brush.

"So, I hardly ever paint:

Eyes"

This would explain John's nearly unbroken, winning record on the wargaming table. His enemy will shout, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes."

And, as a consequence of the OFM's cunning wheeze, they don't fire at all….

eyes .. at 28mm and 15mm, darkened slits do just fine

I don't do eyes.

Details? I don't need no stinkin' details! (OK. Someone had to say it.)

Depends a little on how bad the casting is. With a good casting, the face shades well with modern paints. Some of the older and more decrepit recasts, it's back to a fine white line and a tiny black pen.

Sometimes I do eyes and insignia, but usually not.

Lots on 6mm and 15mm

Eyebrows, finger and toe nails, and anything for which I can use a decal (eg mitre fronts- inevitably the decal is better than my hand-painted attempts).

I decided to stop painting crossbelts, canteen straps, etc. on the Epic 13.5mm ACW figures. Almost no one can paint eyes correctly.

Eyes for 15mm and 28mm

Can't do eyes.

Eyes as well

Yep. Eyes. At best I do a pin-point drop of black or in monsters/magical critters a bright red, orange, yellow, green or purple. But an actual eye pattern? Nope.

I forgot to mention Comanche and Texas Rangers.
But the idea is the same.
I think I owe it to the Comanche to at least attempt warpaint.

Boots for tank commanders…

Horse's hooves

I've largely stopped putting markings on vehicles. Maybe turret numbers and national insignia, but TAC numbers, formation signs…. no.

I only paint eyes on creatures larger than man-sized. Even then its basic,no catch light, etc.

I just do shading for eyes in 15mm, too many figures, to me, are still painted with bug eyes, that look like caricatures of cartoon terror! – or high on something!
I absolutely applaud those that can paint beautiful realistic eyes. All power to them!

For 28 mm I use washes and an artist's pen to just add a little slit for the eyes

eyes and buttons. Not a hard and fast rule , however. Eyebrows are more effective than eyes , anyway.

I don't paint eyes, hat lace, cuff details on my 28mm AWI. Similar on other periods I have been. Once in a while I will get into more detail with an officer or personality figure.

Occasionally I'll put a black dot in for eyes and paint the lips on figures but it's getting less common. Horses hoofs and socks were stopped a long time ago. Buttons and lace deserve at least a dry brush.

Eyes no…buttons yes on 20mm or larger miniatures.

To me, when people try to paint eyes on 28mm figs, it always comes out looking like this:

The fine tip markers make warpaint so easy I have to restrain myself from over-doing it.

I have done eyes on 10mm – for elephants

Humans, almost never do eyes. Couple of command/characters sometimes, but it's more a line of off white and a dot

Lace is fairly easy if you hit it all with white and then use a very dilute black wash

There's also a case that painting too much detail detracts from the figure. A perusal of the games workshop catalog will show you what I mean

There's definitely a case in miniature painting that perfection is the enemy of progress

John

Korvessa. You caused me to double over with laughter. I do "paint" eyes on 28mm figures. But I use markers for the black part of the eye. Pigma Micron 005 works perfectly for me. I have also started using markers for much detail work on my 28mm figures. I don't paint eyes on my 15mm troops.

Mostly on 15mm, shako straps. I do now but thousands don't have anything keeping their hats on.

+2 Korvessa

25mm scale. I only do full eyes (pupils, maybe even the whites) when the sculpt is good enough/large enough to make it work, otherwise I'm content with a mid-brown "slit" in the right place after shading. Works just fine for most minis. This is for humans, mind. Larger than 25mm figures (monsters, etc.), now that's different, I always do full eyes on those.

Same goes for buttons. If they're not cast on and obvious, I leave them be. If they're cast and raised, I'll use a toothpick to dab them very lightly.

Also, any sort of multi-colored/multi-patterned regimental lace on coats (25mm scale). I'll do drummers lace, I can fudge that all right, but not all the OR variants on, say, British regimental lace c. 1745. Those get just a plain one color lace for me. I don't have a problem with hat lace. It's just one color anyway. If I get sloppy, I touch up the black.

I hate wasting time trying to pick out horse harness, bits and bridles, stirrups, spurs, but I do what I can. But usually those are terribly sculpted and cast so trying to do too much creates a muddled mess.

I have painted 20mm figures (mostly 1/72 plastics, some "true 25mm") and I love being able to paint the buttons and lace and hems and cloth patterns and other fine details. It just takes forever.

I find 28mm figures are a painter's version of Zeno's Dichotomy Paradox. Not matter how much I paint, I've only finished about half the remaining detail. There's always more to do. I've painted exactly 6x 28mm figures, a set of 3 knights in both mounted and foot versions. I love the way they came out, but I've never been able to bring myself to do any more. Too much work!

I not only don't paint the whites of the eyes, I'm opposed to doing it. If you look at real-life humans at far enough distance that they would be about the size of a figure compared to your extended hand, you'll notice the eyes are just black dots. It looks artificial to paint the whites of a figures' eyes because it's an unrealistic exaggeration.

Anything smaller than 40mm I don't do eyes. Eyebrows and a wash suffice. Buttons, belt buckles, and button lace I seldom do.

Eyes.

The Ayes have it, the Ayes have it…