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| Yeah it's still it's still a WIP... *looks guilty* |
So yeah OK, I guess after Games Workshop finally announced their new paint range my Sunday Sermon was bound to have a painting theme. I'll also fully accept accusations of unoriginality at this point, given everyone else in the universe is Blogging about the paint range too.
However you see, this last Friday just gone I actually ran another Blogger you may have heard of, Von, through an intro game of Freebooter's Fate. On a newly re-sanded board, with new Games Workshop plastic terrain recently assembled and with unpainted miniatures. Completely lame of me, and not how I'd choose to 'hobby'. I'm going to have to be honest here and say that in recent months that's actually not been all that uncommon an occurrence for me personally. I could throw out a thousand and one excuses I guess as to why that is the case, but the truth is that lately I've just not been able to get myself into the right frame of mind to paint an entire faction for... well... anything really.
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| I'm still working on them!!! |
Yeah I know, utterly pathetic isn't it? I mean I used to be able to churn out pretty damn sexy looking armies at an alarming rate, yet recently I struggle to complete single miniatures in a reasonable time frame. I have though taken on the task of producing a new gaming table to fit in with a few more games that I'm playing lately. Namely Infinity, Heavy Gear Blitz, Freebooter's Fate and MoFaux, it's a desert board and I'm sure I'll be covering my adventures and misadventures with terrain building on this Blog over the next month or so. The reason it irking me so much though is that I am actually, ironically, a bit of a hobby snob. I really do 100% believe that it's vitally important to play wargames on good gaming tables, with fully painted factions. It just adds so much to the experience for me and I just think that not much beats playing a game on an appropriate looking board with fully painted factions. It's something my hobby has been missing of late and I guess it's something I really want to put right.
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| Another half finished project. |
Because quite frankly playing that intro game with Von sort of felt like I'd let him down a bit, but I guess it's not just for him I let down, but also my good self as I think the hobby is such a visual experience. I used to pride myself on only ever playing games with painted miniatures, so I'd personally really like to get back to that sort of approach to my gaming. I don't expect everyone to paint like Ben Kommets or Angel Giraldez, but I do like seeing people with painted armies. I'd also really like to get back to playing my games on properly constructed gaming boards, and I have actually been making slow progress along those lines. I'm starting to see light at the end of that particular tunnel and I'm pretty certain it's not a speeding train. So what does all this mean for me? Well I guess it means I really have to pull my finger out and get cracking on with some painting. I've made a good start with my Maagaan display piece, and although that has stalled somewhat I have enjoyed painting him and I'm feeling my mojo come back.
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| My Pirate Crew primed and ready to go nowhere! |
However, I have noticed that for more and more people that the painting and scenery side of the hobby just isn't important anymore. So I'm drawn back to the question in the title of this Sunday Sermon, 'is painting your toy soldiers important?' To me it almost certainly is, but what about you personally? What do you think of painting? For some it's quite clear that the game is the most important aspect of 'the hobby' and that painting is just an unwelcome element of what is otherwise quite a fun past time. I don't want to judge others for being perfectly OK for playing with unpainted miniatures, because hey people in glass houses and all that jazz, but if I'm playing a game I'm doing it with an opponent. So surely I owe it to the person on the other side of the table to at the very least have attempted to have painted my miniatures surely? If I'm not doing it for myself, I should do it for my opponents as it's just common courtesy to try and provide them with as complete a gaming experience as I can.
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| I have finished some miniatures though. |
So I guess what I'm saying is I'm going to have to get this Hobby / Blog balance thingy right again, because right now it's not exactly where I'd like it to be I suppose. Don't get me wrong I love writing for this Blog, and I enjoy the little chats I have with various people who comment on my articles... but how the hell can I talk about 'the hobby' with you all if I'm not doing it properly myself anymore? I'm not totally adverse to being a complete hypocrite, however I'd rather not be one if it's all the same! So I guess I'm going on another Blogging break over the next few weeks, and I'll tone things down a bit in terms of the frequency of my posting. It's probably good timing as I have an exam coming up shortly and I really ought to be upping my revision so I pass it! So yes, things will be a little bit slower around here for the next few weeks while I try to get my hobby on. Peace out!
I suppose if you're taking a break from posting, I'll have to use that time to start my own painting... x.x
ReplyDeleteI do quite love to see painted miniatures on the table, and I agree that it makes the experience much greater to see some paint on the table instead of shiny toy men (or grey plastic) all over the field, though for me at least, its hard to get the motivation to get the process started. Despite enjoying the finished piece, when I start painting I tend to critique myself before the whole paint scheme comes together. It doesnt help either that I've never been able to bring myself to letting a detail go, so all those pieces of gear, that holster, the bayonet, the barrel, the shrouds, the insignias each need to have attention in my mindset. To put it simply, it has taken up to 3 hours to paint a single Veteran Guardsman... so when I finally finish and pat myself on the back, I look at the 29 others sitting on my desk, then to the clock and end with a facepalm. lol
I'm hoping to get some WIPs together and force myself to paint a small group before expanding my collection to try and correct this habit slightly, but it's putting together the time and jumping that motivation hurdle first... Though eyeing up all the shiny toys here in this blog doesn't exactly help my cause. :P
Not that I'm complaining of course! ;D
There will still be at least one article per week, I'll at least keep my Sunday Sermons going!!! But it is not going to be the 4 or 5 articles week it has been in the past right now. I've got a lot on my mind.
DeleteI also started this Blog partly as a way to kick start some painting but it just hasn't really turned out like that. I need to step it up and I might start by issuing a rule that I'll only play games where at least 1 of my miniatures is fully painted. That should at the very least spur me on a bit.
I love the look of painted miniatures. Problem for me is, my eyesight is literally so bad I generally cannot see most of the detail on a model. Therefore, my armies are generally block colour, black wash, base, job done.
ReplyDeleteMate that's far better painted than some of my own forces! I do however seem to have perfected an awesome looking shiny metal effect that's really realisyic. :P
DeleteI just need to get as much done as I can. I think I'm going to try and finish my Maagaan display piece first and maybe alternate with completing my EotBS Dystopian Wars fleet.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Deleteblocked out color+wash+green flock is better than 90% of everything I've seen at game stores, it's perfectly acceptable and actually looks pretty good with the current washes out there.
DeleteYeah but I guess I just like to paint everything I do paint to the best of my abilities. I accept I'm not an awesome painter or anything but I do like to give it my best shot. It's just the way I am. I can't do the speed painting thing I just don't work that way sadly. I have tried it with my dwarfs, but I ended up going back over them all and in some cases totally repainting them.
DeleteYeah I'm one of those people that paints at a glacial pace. I enjoy the look of a painted army, I just find that when it comes to painting I get bored very quickly of painting the same scheme, so I get some of the army done, and then just stop. I'm trying to vary what I paint to avoid this, but it's a very rare occurance for me to take the board with a fully painted force.
ReplyDeleteTrying to do a bit more, and even if I only do half an hour on a particular day, at least it's some. Mostly the reason I started my blog, so that I actually have some form of motivation, as then I have stuff to put on it.
I'm not so sure it's boredom with me, I get frustrated or annoyed, plus this back ache kicks in. I'm sure it is psychological because I can sit down and do other tasks without my crippling back pain kicking in. I'm convinced I just need to get back into the swing of things and get sodding painting.
DeleteYeah, I can bust out a character model in an afternoon and he looks fantastic. I can do a squad in a day or two and they look amazing. But if I have to do more than a squad of the exact same figure or slightly different poses of the same figure and I loose interest QUICK.
DeleteSo I tend to work in 2 week intervals on my stuff. Most skirmish games and smaller scale games like Flames of War you can easily finish in that time, 40k armies it gets a squad or 2 or a few vehicles done or mostly done.
The nice thing about paint? Once it's on the model, it's on the model. You can come back weeks or months or years later and pick up where you left off. You can basecoat an army, come back in a few months and do layering/shading/ come back months later and do details or decals or bases. I've been working on my space wolves on and off for 5 years that way.
I used to be able to churn out really good quality units at a fair old pace. A unit of 20 to 30 WFB mini's in a week or so to a very high standard used to be no issue for me at all. Peeps back around 2001 to 2002 used to pay me between £15 to £20 a mini back then too, so I'd get around £300 to £600 a pop for a weeks on and off work too. Back then it just came easily to me.
DeleteI think it was painting WFB armies that killed the joy for me, I really, really do. It's certainly starting to come back to me though, I've started enjoying applying paint to things again recently and I feel like I want to get things done and see them through to completion.
I would say i am a quick painter, mostly due to me being impatient but like others i get bored of the same scheme over and over.
ReplyDeletei have painted a fair amount this year due to the nature of skirmish games and Dystopian wars so paint a couple of ships then paint a pulp hero or an infinity mini then back to the ships
Thankfully the Dystopian minis can look really good from a base/wash/quick highlight approach so i don't go insane!!!!
Yeah that is the sort of cycle I'm going to try and get myself into. I'm going to be trying to get some more of my EotBS fleet and my Maagaan done this week. I'll probably do some more scenery work for HGB and Infinity as well, plus finish off my new tabletop inserts. We'll see how well that goes!!! :P
Delete"It just adds so much to the experience for me and I just think that not much beats playing a game on an appropriate looking board with fully painted factions."
ReplyDeleteCouldn't say it better myself, but I like talking so I'm going to anyways :P
Painting is extremely important to me, always has been. For myself, it's a way of artistic expression, converting and painting your figs to look just how you want them to look. It's like playig with action figures as a kid, but you get to make the EXACT action figure you want to play with! I love playing too, but there's just something awesome about getting a game in with someone, opening your case and plopping down some fantastic looking figures.
For others, and for gaming as a whole, "it just adds so much"! Seeing unpainted armies on the table very starkly moves the games into "just a board game" territory. They are clearly just gaming pieces, and really might as well just be cardboard tokens. With fully painted armies, you know both sides are taking the game seriously. Fully painted, even if the paintjobs aren't high quality, and the game comes alive in a way that bare plastic and primed metal just can't emulate. I NEVER critique an opponent's paintjobs (unless I'm asked for advice on improvement), but bad paintjobs are immensely better than bare/primed figures, and green flock is better than bare black bases.
It's also a courtesy to your opponent in a way. Painted armies show a commitment to a game and to the hobby, a willingness to put in the time and effort to make the experience more enjoyable for everyone involved. It's one thing to have a buddy that you play with at your house on the kitchen table, but going to a game store or especially a tournament with unpaintd figs is kind of a slap in the face to any opponents who DID put in the time and effort. It's lazy, and it shows you don't care, that you aren't willing to put ANY effort into the back end of the game. With all the colored primers and fantastic washes you can put a great looking army on the table with very little time invested and very little skill. If every army I ever saw was spray painted, had detail pieces and faces colored in with a solid color and slathered in devlan mud (whatever they call it now) with goblin green bases and basic green flock, then game stores the world over would be an amazing experience.
Honesty, I think that the intellectual divide between hobby and board game is the main division in the wargaming community. And which side of that divide you're on is going to inform how you feel about unpainted armies.
DeletePersonally, I don't understand unpainted armies. Why drop no small amount of money on well sculpted toy soldiers just to leave then unfinished and looking rather dreadful? If you want painting play a board game, a video game, a card game; don't play a game with models. But, it takes all kinds, and it seems people pushing around bare plastic enjoy themselves.
You're right that with spray paint (or an air brush) and inks (or wood stain) someone can turn out an army in remarkable time. I've never used those methods myself (I figure I have years to paint my figures, might as well make them look good), but based on the time it takes me to base coat I would guess that if I just blocked in colors, inked the figure and then picked out the details I could turn out 30+ figures in a weekend without any particular stress.
As for taking the game seriously, I agree with you, unpainted figures are a bad sign. When I the guy on the other side of the table plop down a bunch of unpainted figures the first think that goes through my mind is "uh-oh, this guy is going to be a jerk." Is that fair? Maybe not, but that has been my experience.
I'm not going to get all snobby about it, because that's really just not me at all. However, I do expect people to give it a go! It's part of my hobby that I want to play opponents with painted forces. So that kinda means I want people to at the very least slop some paint on their miniatures!!! Even if they look rubbish, it just shows a little effort. That's why I've personally felt so bad about my own gaming recently, I'm the bad person with the unpainted or half painted miniatures. Not good! :(
DeleteWhat, no link? :p Here, let me sort that for you.
ReplyDeleteNow, on to the topic.
"What do you think of painting?"
Short version: I like having a painted force, I like seeing two painted forces on nice terrain, and I do play these games for the sense of spectacle. I don't always enjoy painting, which is why my style has evolved into 'cut corners like a fiend and look good doing it'. This is occasionally a source of guilt when I hear that some people have spent weeks just doing a models' face in umpty-seven layers, but then I remind myself that my stuff a) looks fine, really it does, and b) gets done. I do hate painting the same model over and over again though. Armies are a drag. That's why I'm not doing new ones any more... and I mean it this time!
Armies are a drag, especially big ones. I suspect that part of the reason for the raise in skirmish games has as much to do with paint time as it does with financial comment. Personally, I don't mind painting historical armies so much, the grab of most fighting-men throughout the ages has been fairly plain, but armies of fantasy models with their endless details are nothing short of a nightmare for me.
Delete@Von... play fair old chap! This article went live before yours did. One can't be expected to produce a link to an article that doesn't yet exist old bean. Any way it's been fixed now as I'd always intended to do. Firstly I'm glad you enjoyed the intro game, and it was good to finally meet you.
DeleteI hate, hate, hate the idea of painting a big army now. Fills me with dread. Just couldn't and wouldn't sit and do it right now, Plus I've yet to find a game of mass combat right now that would make me want to go out and do the required brush work to play it. They all bore me for one reason or another.
To the blog at large would have done, old sprout. Still, what's done is done!
DeleteNice meeting you too, boss-man. And I hear you with the army painting thing. I'm actually at a loss as to how I ever got the first half of this Vampire Counts army done when I was eighteen. I know it was just banged out with nary a care for quality (and my god it shows) but still, I must have been mad. It's taken me a week to peck away at twenty Zombies and frankly they're not much better than figures I painted eight years ago...
Hey look, I'm leaving a comment!
ReplyDeleteOkay then, on to the topic at hand. Painting is one of the hurdles that I'll have to overcome to get back into miniature wargaming. Since I'll have to be the one converting people, it'll mean I need to provide two painted forces. It's a daunting prospect, really. Like you and others have said, I used to be able to get painting done. I think it was Warhammer Fantasy that really burned me out. After that I struggled to get anything done. Since I quit WFB and W40K, I think I've painted one force (a small Space Marine group for Epic) and a dozen or so different models, mostly Warmaster or historical units. I need something to get me back in the habit. I look forward to reading about your paint-related trials and tribulations, hopefully it will inspire me to go buy some paints and paint...anything really.
Interestingly as you'll see from my other comments, it was painting WFB armies that killed the hobby for me dead. Just sucks the fun out of everything and turns it into a totally joyless experience for me. I hope I can inspire myself matey first. If I do that then I'll consider that a major achievement. If I inspire others along the way then that will be viewed as an added bonus by myself!!!
DeleteTo me, having fully painted forces on lovely terrain is what makes this hobby what it is and raises it up above others such a aboard gaming. Don't get me wrong, I like board games but they usually aren't as visually appealing as a well-prepared tabketop wargame.
ReplyDeleteThis is easier because in recent years I've inky had gaming occasions a handful of times a year, so I an plan and try and get things finished for each one. This leads to natural peaks and breaks which even out over time. Of course I never get everything done I plan and similarly lose enthusiasm for orojects but this usually doesn't matter.
I understand others aren't so fussed about the creative side, but I would always prefer to play someone whose forces are painted, to whatever standard.
Phil
http://infrequentwargamer.blogspot.com/
The thing is right now, partly because of this Blog I'm playing and reviewing a lot of games and also desperately trying to find a job. This might sound utterly bizarre, but I feel like I actually had way more hobby painting time when I was in full-time employment. Any time not spent in front of a computer searching for jobs or applying for them, just feels like I'm somehow not doing enough. Even when I'm sleeping I'm dreaming about job applications!!! Perhaps that's another reason I get so angsty while sitting at the painting table, perhaps it's guilt I'm not trying to get a job... hmmm... psychology kicking in. I might have hit upon something there.
DeleteI actually hold myself to a much higher standard than I do others or an opponent. I can play against unpainted armies as long as mine looks awesome! Basically I rarely play with a force until its painted. So my lack of free time combined with having game and faction ADD means I rarely get to play. It's ok though because painting is my favorite part of the hobby.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I used to try and make each model a golden demon winner (not really but you know what I'm saying). Over the years, it has become all about how fast I can go and still put something on the table I cn be proud of. Thats why I got into airbrushing for example.
Ultimately the reason I try to only play with painted armies is I want my opponent to enjoy playing against me.
I too hold myself to a far higher standard than I do my opponents. I will spend a silly amount of time painting stuff that everyone tells me looks amazing and I'll go... 'it's crap'. Yet I'll look at someone elses ham-fisted attempts and find ways to praise them and encourage them, and genuinely mean it. I wish I could just get back into the churning stuff out mode, or even speed painting mode. Hopefully I'll get there sooner or later.
DeleteHeya Frontline!
ReplyDeleteSorry I've been sorta missing. Today is the Crazy Lady's Burfday...hopefully this week my life returns to normal.
As far as painted models go....it's what separates us from the cavemen.
Matey I've been sorta missing on my own Blog of late. No worries, I don't expect people to comment on my Blog... I just think it's nice when they do!!! :P
DeleteI agree painted armies are a big thing for me and I need to get a crack on with the mountain of stuff I have to do in my gaming room. I need to start getting on top of some of my own projects and getting things just done. I just hope my inner perfectionist will let me!!! o.0
I much prefer to play with and against painted miniatures. For me, wargaming is as much about the visual spectacle as it is about manouvrring armies of my little toy soldiers. I'm not a fascist about it though. I personally won't put an army on the table until it's at least 75 percent finished -and even then I'm pretty uncomfortable doing so.
ReplyDeleteBut I understand that not everyone enjoys the painting aspect of the hobby as much as I do (not looking at Mecha Ace in particular here, honest), can paint as quickly as I can or even has the sort of lifestyle that allows them to spend as much time painting as they would. Given that I paint for a living, sitting down for 8 to 16 hours of painting at a stretch may be nothing to me, but a lot of folks have trouble maintaining their concentration or a steady hand for more than an hour or two at a time.
And then there are the gamers that simply aren't physically able to paint. I'm not about to ostracise someone (in a gaming context -or any other context) purely because their hands and eyes aren't up to the task of fielding a painted army.
I've never lambasted or ridiculed anyone for their painting ability or indeed for not having a painted army. I wouldn't not play someone who had an unpainted army... BUT... if I'm being honest I'd much rather play someone who had painted their army. It just adds so much to the atmosphere of a game. So it's more that I feel guilty about not having that many painted forces at the moment with all these new games out there and I feel I'm letting my opponents down myself. Which I know is silly because many of them don't have painted miniatures either!!! We need to rectify this i think.
DeleteNo, I didn't think for one second that you wouldn't play against an unpainted army. You were very clear about.
DeleteIf you want to up your painting speed, can I make the suggestion that you challenge yourself? Before I started painting mini's for a living I wanted to make sure I could sustain my interest in painting day in day out. I declared on my blog that I was going to paint a miniature for every day of the month, each month, for a whole year. It didn't matter if it was a 10mm goblin or a 28mm Super-tank, it only counted as a single mini. It worked for me, maybe it will work for you?
Yeah I have thought about setting 'targets' but hey I'm pretty bad at sticking to hobby target right now. I might just keep trundling along on my own and try to up my productivity rate I guess. It's bizarre, but set me targets in any other walk of life and I hit them every time, nay exceed them. But in my hobbies? No I just think they're meant to be fun, don't want to turn it into a chore again.
DeleteWhen I used to work for Games Workshop, I had the ethic of 'everything has to be painted' drilled in to me, and it carried on like that until I started playing Space Hulk...
ReplyDeletePainting's been something of a transition for me over the last few years. In the beginning, (from when I started working for Games Workshop,) I recognised that it looks a lot better to have painted armies than not, and the games looked far better and more enjoyable for that. The models I painted, then, were supposed to be conducive to this; a means to an end. I paint an army, I get a couple of games in with it. If I haven't painted something, I don't use it. This is something I've stuck to even to this very day...
Now that I don't work for Games Workshop and the one person I know who collects it has no money, wargames are a bit thin on the ground for me these days. I still enjoy it and I always will but I only occasionally get a game in - I managed it about 3 or 4 times last year.
I keep painting, though, and I enjoy it a lot more than I ever did before. But I don't paint whole armies, just lots of little ones. I've got, lets see... 6 on the go at the moment. One of them is Gondor for Lord of the Rings. Lots of silver. I've enjoyed painting them, and my Faramir model, but if I thought silver was the only colour I was going to get to paint for the next however long it takes me to get the army finished, it would drive me crackers. My 40K armies are Space Marines, Orks and Chaos, and I've painted little bits and pieces of those and picked them up again when I was ready.
I doubt I'll get a game in that's more than 500pts in the near future, but I'm enjoying my painting a lot more. Since I don't have to rely on anyone else in order to paint, this is the bit of the hobby I spend the most time doing at this point* - so I might as well try to enjoy it!
*Notwithstanding the board games and role playing games I've been playing, but I figured we're specifically talking about war games here...
It was my dad and his friends who drummed it into me to paint my miniatures as best as I could, and to only play with painted miniatures. So I have done that in the past and it's stuck with me as an important part of the hobby. Just really got to get cracking with it I guess.
Deletelol, started going through the comments too but TL/DR, sorry
ReplyDeleteI love test models and single figs (all set to do another character tomorrow) armies are the joy killer srsly.
I think ten models of the same colour/army/force are about my upper limit after that we are heading further and further into torture territory.
To be honest fully painted armies do look much better especially when the terrain is of a similar quality, now imagine, it takes me ten hours to paint a raider , how quickly is it blown of the table ?
Not really sure what I'm trying to say, this Sunday sermon has kicked off a whole bunch of conflicting crap in my head.
I think I would paint more if I did not play 40k and could just cherry pick exactly what I want to paint when I want to paint it.
I'm in a bit of a mexican stand-off in my head atm, where I want very much to just finish all the crapola I have lying about for the DE as I want a complete army but not enough to subject myself to the hours of mindless boredom required.
I really need to drop my standards and just fire stuff out.
The 'anal' is strong in this one .....
Who let you comment on a painting post?
DeleteYou, sir, can take your ENTIRELY TOO WELL painted models back to whatever other-worldly realm you came from, and leave us mortal painters alone.
I mean, seriously....it's not even fair....
Indeed Mr Shards Dark Eldar are lovely looking. However, knowing him in person I know the anguish and pain he's gone through to paint them, and just what that has done to his painting mojo!
DeleteLol, "other worldly" I can assure you I'm quite real, frontline can attest to that, he occasionally summons me from the webway ;o)
DeleteLol, yeh , since October I have painted five models .... mojo= 0
And thanks for the backhand compliment sinsynn :oP
Hopefully my next mini will get those bile glands frothing all the harder, coming soooon.
I can definitely confirm he's mortal... Dreadfleet very nearly killed him. :P
DeleteI like to paint, but to be honest, I love converting and sculpting more. I'm a mediocre painter at best, and am just beginning at sculpting. That's the bit I love though. I like painting, but not as much as the other stuff. So I'll spend a bunch of time doing a conversion/sculpt on something that won't ever see a drop of paint, and never see a game table. Just because I think its cool. If I play I try to play full paint, or as much as I have done. Having a game to play energizes me to get stuff done, but the rest of the time, it just waits to be painted. I think that part of it is that I am extremely outclassed as a painter compared to most of the people I know, but I'm the only one even attempting sculpts.
ReplyDeleteYeah sculpting stuff can be fun. I started doing my own stuff a few years back. Nothing special, but I found it actually gave me a far greater appreciation for those who can achieve such splendid results.
DeletePainting is part of assembling the mini as far as I'm concerned. Glue it together, clean the mould lines off, paint and base, and at that point it is finished and useable, not before!
ReplyDeleteI think the key is not buying too far in advance. A sea of unpainted minis will be so intimidating it will put me off and nothing will get done at all. Better to just buy a couple of things, paint them up, and then buy a couple more, I seem to get much more done this way, and I can reward myself for getting a unit painted by buying another! So my Khornate Chaos Space Marine army, acquired piecemeal this way mostly from Ebay is nearly done, and the horde foot Imperial Guard (ultra-cheap Mutant Chronicles figures) which I had to buy all at once isn't even started yet...
Knight_of_Infinite_Resignation
Yep I'd agree. I think the overload of miniatures I own is just blowing my mind at the moment. It also doesn't help ythat I know so many people who all want to play lots of different games with me. Right now I feel like I've not got any spare time left over to paint. That's got to stop because it's having a negative effect on my hobby.
DeleteTo me, gaming is half the fun. The other half is painting. :)
ReplyDeleteI hate gaming with unpainted minis, so I try to avoid it as much as possible. I don't like playing with sub-standard painted minis in my army ether, it simply scream "LAZY!!!" to me.
Ironically for me I actually think painting used to be the bigger part of the hobby. Just what the hell happened along the way to change that I'm not quite sure!!! lol. It's only really very recently I've played with unpainted miniatures... and I don't really like it!
DeleteI get to game infrequently, so if I forced myself to only play painted stuff I'd never get to play :D
ReplyDeleteThat said, painting is a big source of my enjoyment. I love painting my armies and putting a fully painted army on the table is a thing of beauty. I really cherish the few Best Painted awards that I have managed to win.
Rikk I can honestly sympathise with that sentiment I really can. I however feel like I have to do something to put right this lack of painted forces I own. I need to get cracking, I'm going off to paint some of my EotBS... after I finish replying to comments... *ahem* :P
DeleteSometimes, I feel like gaming is like an 80's heavy metal album cover. Sometimes the look and feel is more exciting then the music other times it's the opposite. I really like a well painted table and army. Sometimes, I just don't have the time to do it. I really enjoy gaming. While I really like the look and feel of full painted armies squaring off against each other the best games that I've played usually have nothing to do with army being painted.
ReplyDeleteAs weird an analogy as that is... I think I actually get it. Maybe! I think you're right though, some of the best games I've played were so good because of the game itself, not necessarily the look of the board or the mini's. Having said that... some of my most memorable games were so memorable because of the board and armies playing on it. My sexy Wood Elves versus a friends exceptionally well painted Bretonnians on a wonderful scenic board at a club near Milton Keynes was a joy to play because it just looked amazing and the game was great. Drew a crowd too.
DeleteIs painting your toy soldiers important? The short answer, in a word, yes!
ReplyDeleteNow to waffle on about the subject...
I think the main reason I got into the hobby was from seeing all the pictures of fully painted armies on well made battlefields and the dream of one day owning something comparable. To me, the spectacle of a battle and the narrative it creates are the most important things when playing a game. Playing with a grey army just doesn't create that atmosphere.
At that time when I first started collecting I didn't think so much about the gaming side; I didn't have any opponents and so I concentrated on painting, however, when the opportunity of a game came up I was pretty excited. Not all of my minis were painted and very few of my opponents were but that didn't matter... at first...
After playing a few games it felt like something was missing and I soon realised that this wasn't living up to the spectacular ideal that I had imagined when first getting into gaming. I made a real effort to get my army fully painted and encouraged my regular opponent to do the same but this never materialised. Rather than the situation improving I found it got worse; rather than playing against unpainted minis, I soon found I was playing against incomplete minis, a squad of Guardian legs, 3 half jet bikes with colured blobs on the noses to represent different weapon options until finally I turned up to face some Dark Eldar only to be confronted by a DE character and vehicle accompanied by various incomplete Eldar models and some carnifexes; it seemed like what started out as not bothering to paint an army descended into not bothering to build minis or even buy them. Now, whilst I'm aware that not everyone enjoys the same aspects of the hobby, don't feel that they can paint, don't have the time to paint, can't afford models etc. a line has to be drawn, facing armies like this were detrimental to my enjoyment of the hobby and threatened to kill my enthusiasm completely.
Thankfully, having spent a number of years in the hobby despite living in a relatively small community I've managed to find a lot more wargamers many of which share my ideals with regards to gaming. The club that I attend doesn't have a strict 'painted only' rule but if you turn up with unpainted minis you might get a couple of dirty looks and if you turn up a month later people are going to start taking the piss so the friendly banter definitely encourages everyone to make the effort whatever their skill level.
I, like most people, do still struggle to motivate myself to paint sometimes; I sit at work thinking about what I'll go home and paint and then get home and struggle to get my arse in gear to actually sit down and paint but once I get started I really enjoy it. The prospect of regular games at the local club is a good motivation and recently I've found that listening to audiobooks is a good thing for me whilst painting (I've just started on Lord of the Rings and the chapters are about an hour long which is ideal for painting sessions of a couple of hours).
Having painted up a few 40K armies over the years, like others, I've moved towards smaller skirmish games, I've still got about a bazzillion points of Empire models that I'd like to paint one day but can't face them at the moment, the upcoming releases might encourage me to make a start, but hearing the horror stories others have had with painting Warhammer armies I'm not so sure I want to start... :)
You see in the early part of my hobby it was my dad who encouraged me. He'd never let me put unpainted miniatures on the table. Painted armies and good looking boards were always part of my hobby. Even at Uni where I ran the wargames club for two years I managed to get every army finished and build interesting looking scenery. So I know I've got it in me. I just need to find where it's hidden. But like you I really think it's a huge important part of the enjoyment I used to get from games, seeing two fully painted forces going at it on awesome looking boards!
DeleteI think painting is a very important part of the hobby and yet I've yet to completely finish a single model. Does that make me a hypocrit?
ReplyDeleteThere are a number of reasons for this unfortunately.
1) I'm very new to this hobby and while people tell me I'm ok with a brush, I can't seem to prime a model to save my life. As a result I'm starting to fear picking up a spray can to ruin yet another model
2) My enthousiasm of picking a cool faction in 40k (''Giant space locusts? I must have them..'' was quickly tempered when I starting researching the practical side (''I'l need to paint how many gants?''). I got to about 8 untill I decided 'later' would be soon enough.
3) A severe case of ooooooh-shiny-syndrome. Which isn't a brilliant combination with this blog to be perfectly honest. At the moment I have a small tyranid force, the start of a pano force, a medium nomad and some anima tactics mini's laying about. Meanwhile I'm convincing myself that I really don't have the time, space or money to buy any sexy brotherhood figures.. Or amazons.. Or pirates..
I'll have to finish them someday though, as I don't really want to play a game with grey figures.
Why can't you prime a mini? Can you tell me what goes wrong / what you're using and how. Plus the situation you're priming them in? Maybe I can offer you some help?
DeleteThank you very much!
DeleteIn the beginning I wasn't paying attention to weather condition, which I was later told I should have done. The main problem I have now is that I can't seem to get the distance right. The first passes have a chalky look and as a result I overcompensate and drown the details. I use gw white by the way.
Although yesterday it seemed as though the paint refused to stick to the zoanthrope I was trying to prime, very odd
It is difficult to describe this from memory. I'll pick up the spray can later and write down what I do.
But I must thank you for this article. Instead of chucking that zoan back in the to-do box, I'm going to try and see it through. Even if only to see where I stand at the moment.
Not to but-in before FLG, but from personal experience I find GW's white spray to have been severely lacking. I tried to white spray some marines to do an Imperial Fist list, but that didnt get far because the white spray didnt cover well under good conditions anyways. I ended up using a whole can for 10 marines and a rhino. Even then after left to dry I had more grey plastic sticking through than I planned on.
DeleteUnless others have a better method, I had more luck with black primer and painting white the areas I wanted lighter colors to be.
Well every miniature in this Blog was sprayed white with GW Skull Whit spray paint... or whatever they're going to call it after the paint range change. I had no problems. Here are some quick and easy tips I find that helps me.
Delete1) Warm what ever spray can you have in a bath of luke warm water to heat it up slightly.
2) Shake it really, really vigorously. I mean really vigorously.
3) Spray paint will dry in the air if you spray it from too far away. How far away is too far away? Depends. Always have a test model handy to try out on first. I have Harold the smothered Orc to help me guage range of spray.
4) Clean the mini first. I don't care what people tell you, ALWAYS clean your resin, plastic and even in some cases metal minis in luke warm water with washing up liquid. It just helps clear them of grime that can mess up undercoats.
5) This is one that many will disagree on, but always spray indoors. It's a controlled environment, unlike outdoors. Where a breathable face mask and make sure the room is well ventilated (window open).
That's it. Those are the tips I'd give.
Thank you! I tried it again with your tips in mind and it worked perfectly. I can't thank you enough..
DeleteWell I'm glad I could be of some assistance with your undercoating. I think like most things it's just knowing what to do and then practicing.
DeleteI'll be honest, i'm one of those guys who doesn't care about the paint job, good, bad or otherwise. I play the game because i enjoy the game, not because i enjoy looking at pretty miniatures/ That aside, with the release of A Call to Arms: Star Fleet (star ship combat, ships are all TOS-style Star Trek ships) i've started painting some, but that's more because its the meeting of 2 separate kinds of fandom in my head, Star Trek / Star Fleet fandom, and Miniatures. maybe i'm the odd one out though
ReplyDeleteWell you see in this hobby I'm pretty sure we're all the odd one out at something. Now while all of the response to this so far have been about how important painting and painted forces are to people, I do actually know an awful lot of people for whom it actually isn't that important to at all. However, I do feel it's very rare for those people to stick there head above the parapet and say "hey I don't care I just love the game" because there does appear to be a stigma attached to it.
DeleteHell maybe I'm partly to blame for that, because here in this article I've said it is important and I believe it is. While I wouldn't go as far as to not play somebody who hadn't painted their force or to call them names, I do think it's important. Some people go further than just trying to encourage people to paint their stuff like I do, I have heard people being called a 'poor hobbyists' and other such names if they game with an unpainted force.
That's just wrong in my eyes. I wouldn't personally judge anyone badly for it, and in fact I don't like judging people in any way shape or form. But there are all sorts of elitist snobbery that goes on in our hobby. The amount of people who have 'played' Necromunda or 3rd Edition WFB is astounding. It's almost like you're not a proper gamer if yu can't remember the good old days. Well here's a news flash, Necromunda was a creaky game when it was released and although fun is massively out of its depth in todays markets and 3rd Ed Fantasy was too slow a game system to represent the massed battles, 6th Ed Ravening Hordes Era Fantasy was better.
There, now a certain sub-set of game snob will ostracise me too, so you're not alone.
I just hate painting. Assembling, its is fun, evenremoving mould lines, filling in gaps etc is alright (though I can take rather long over this, some of my BFG stuff took days, to the extent of heating the metal and bending it back into shape).
ReplyDeleteBut painting? Virtually all of it has been at the last minute for a tourny. I now do my best to try and buy 2nd hand painted models so I don't have to paint them.
Yeah, but at least you recognise the importance of having painted miniatures. Myself, I like to paint my miniatures, but I can understand those who see it as a chore and a slog.
DeleteSadly yes. Still you can now 3d print in basic colours so soon my pretties, soon...
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