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Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: Hobgoblin on June 20, 2016, 05:27:38 PM
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A while back, I picked up a copy of the third edition of Warhammer FB. Looking at the pictures of painted miniatures, I was struck by the wolfriders in particular - and the fact that they were painted "solid" grey or brown. That got me thinking about other odd painting conventions that are employed with fantasy miniatures. Here are a few off the top of my head (all of which I've employed at various times, and all of which strike me - on reflection - as a bit strange). Can anyone think of others?
1. Block-coloured wolves: real wolves generally have quite varied pelts, with lots of brown and greys and reddish hues. You do get all-black or all-white ones, but even then, they don't tend to have uniformly coloured pelts. Wargamers, historically, seem to have devoted much more effort to getting horses right than to wolves. I think this one is changing a bit, though - lots of amazing naturalistic wolves on display here and elsewhere. But the block-coloured wolf has certainly loomed large in the past decades of fantasy wargaming.
2. Claws like teeth. The talons of animals - reptiles, mammals, bird - whatever - tend to be dull and are often be closer to black than white. Yes, some bears do have pale claws, but they're typically dull in colour. And many bears have dark claws. Yet, for some reason, matching claws and teeth have long been the unthinking default for dragons, lizardmen and the like.
3. Gold-hilted swords. Even for the humblest goblin! This is one I thought about just recently - I was reaching for the brass paint, when I thought, "hang on ...". And sure enough - most high-medieval swords appear to have steel quillons (which makes sense). Grips appear to be black or brown rather than brass or gold. And so on.
4. Green orcs. This is an odd one, because it was late in evolving and has now become dominant. The advert for the first Citadel paint set showed a cheerful Black Mountain Boy painted in European flesh tones; early White Dwarfs were full of brown and grey orcs. John Blanche did an article on converting in one of the Citadel Journals that was illustrated with a grey-skinned final product. And of course there's no green in sight in the source material - and that was reflected in descriptions of orcs for Tolkien-derived games. But the green orc has won out against his (for example) Angus McBride counterpart as the "default".
5. Ogres in human skin tones. This is the counterpart of 4. And it's just as odd, I think: goblins can be bright or dark colours that are distinctly non-human, and so can trolls. But ogres? Heaven forfend! There's a bizarre logic at work somewhere ...
6. Reptiles are bright green! Of course, you do get plenty of bright green lizards and snakes. But they seem to loom much larger in fantasy games than in real life, where the range of reptile colours is huge. This one may have been eclipsed by "reptiles are bright blue". The possibility of dull-coloured reptiles (like most crocodilians) seems to be much less widely considered.
7. Dwarfs are ruddy, outdoor types. But they live underground ...
Anyway, these are just a few "conventions" that struck me. Now - obviously - there's absolutely nothing wrong with any of them. I've conformed with all of them myself. But they do strike me as a slightly odd set of default assumptions - and it's always good to recognise such things when cooking up paint schemes (or I think so at least :)).
But what other conventions are lurking out there in plain sight?
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Dwarves aren't ruddy outdoor types, they're alcoholics. Those red noses and cheeks (and bloodshot eyes) are from booze rather than a love of hiking. And the grouchy attitudes are from the hangovers, of course. :)
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Dwarves aren't ruddy outdoor types, they're alcoholics. Those red noses and cheeks (and bloodshot eyes) are from booze rather than a love of hiking. And the grouchy attitudes are from the hangovers, of course. :)
Now that is an unanswerable point! :D
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I saw the 'gold' hilts as brass or bronze. Iron and steel was very expensive in past times and anything that could be made of the cheaper stuff, usually was. Even now it's quite common to see brass hilts on knives and such.
The wolf painting I reckon is a product of it being quite tricky to do put nice blended shades onto fur! I find inks and glazes are a simple short-cut.
Yes to the green orc thing. I like to paint them as being all sorts of colours - browns, greens, greys and flesh coloured.
There was a brief convention on painting Dark Elves as dark blue/grey - the old 'Drow' look. I never really understood why they should suddenly develop that odd colour, just by being naughty Elves.
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Ok, so this seems to be mainly a GW orientated thing.
Lizardmen in GW are from Lustria - essentially the warhammer old world version of South America and the Aztecs that were the natives there.
Just like in the real world, the old world was invaded by Conquistador - only in warhammer they were styled Empire. It's then also worth mentioning that some of the original lizardmen were more amphibian like.
There is plenty of reference material encouraging people to paint them in the form of some of the more exotic and colourful examples of lizards and frogs out there. I would suggest for various reasons - some of the most poisonous frogs are brightly coloured or have brightly coloured markings. Not just this but the Amazon is colourful in itself as have the Aztecs been described as being. So I suspect that whilst there are less colourful lizards/reptiles/amphibians in the world colourful perhaps reflects the source material and the historical material it is drawn from.
The wolf issue is odd as I don't remember seeing many block painted wolves. My mid 90's ones certainly carried a mixture of browns and grays.
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I think a lot of these boil down to what people 'know' - going by ingrained memes and shorthand symbolism rather than, well... cracking open a book, or google images. In their mind's eye wolves are grey, lizards are green (a distinctly unmammalian colour) and so on...
A couple of those conventions did change a little in 6th ed: when lizardmen saurus grew a faux-ceratopsian head frill and ogres became obese mongols. The former, and skinks, were 'officially' a bright blue colour, that'd make you nostalgic for acid green; and ogres became a kind of dull, greyish-yellowish brown. I think that ogre colour lasted for about one edition. I still have a spray can of 'ogre flesh' around, somewhere.
McFonz has a point about colourful rainforest animals, buuuut... personally I see a bit of difference between a frog the size of your thumbnail and one that's first cousin to Jabba the Hutt. :) The bigger animals get, the duller they become, even among animals with colour vision like reptiles and amphibians. Almost as if the pigment in the skin is disappated or diluted, or concentrated in specific features.
I'd say the lace monitor (http://www.goldcoastsnakecatcher.com.au/the-lace-monitor/) is one of the biggest colourful reptiles at up to 7 feet (almost two thirds of that tail) but even then it's more about bold patterns than bright colour, with black and a pale or ochre-ish yellow. In up-to-6-feet green iguanas, the biggest individuals are often closer to grey than bright green. Heck, in some big green iguanas, the most notable colour is orange (http://animalimages.net/iguanas/green-iguana/), though still a rusty, ochre-brown than bright orange. Again, notice the bold patterning on the tail.
Oh, and here's something (http://www.sodemons.com/gd23uk/07-whmonster/IMG_7255-01.htm) I entered into Games Day 2003. The claws are the same colour as the teeth (rap knuckles) but otherwise I based it on the false gharial (http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/false-gharial-tomistoma-schlegelii-wildlife-animal-33458170.jpg). The angle of the pic doesn't show the bold patterns going down the back and the tail. :D
It got absolutely nowhere. lol
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Vermis -
lovely looking figure.
Alasdair hit a similar wall with figure basing a few years ago - a GW tournament umpire tried to dock points for his goblin army not having painted/textured bases, but he pointed out they were textured with Tetrion and painted dark grey as slate floors. The umpire had to go away and check what Tetrion was and what slate looked like....
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Because ogres are human flesh colored, and all the rest are because I want to open as few paints as possible. ::)
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Vermis -
lovely looking figure.
Alasdair hit a similar wall with figure basing a few years ago - a GW tournament umpire tried to dock points for his goblin army not having painted/textured bases, but he pointed out they were textured with Tetrion and painted dark grey as slate floors. The umpire had to go away and check what Tetrion was and what slate looked like....
There were a couple of years back in the mid-to-late 80s where there was an unwritten rule in US GW painting competitions that the only acceptable basing was plain green flock glued to the base. You could enter anything you liked, but if your figs weren't didn't look like they were standing on astroturf you got dinged for points by the judges to the point where you stood no chance to win. Had an organizer tell me it was because they wanted to judge based solely on painting skill, and if the bases weren't all as identical (and boring) as possible it drew attention away from the model. Utter nonsense of course, but GW did some weird, weird stuff in the early days of their assault on the American gaming market.
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Some interesting points.
I have a few answers...
Wolves - I think this is down to ignorance and laziness. I always try to refer to references when painting animals, but I am sure that in the past I haven't done this and have ended up painting monotone wolves!
Claws like teeth - I suffer from doing this. On a similar note, Orcs with red fingernails? What? I put it down to 'it looks better' because of contrasts, but I do get your point. I usually LITERALLY paint claws like they are tusks or fangs...
Gold hilts - Hey, it's fantasy! It looks really cool! My Haradrim army for Lord of the Rings featured a lot of Bronze and Gold, my reasoning was that it's more common in Far Harad...
Green Orcs - Yeah, there are so many arguments about this. Apparently, Goblin Green was called that because Bryan Ansell said 'People like painting goblins green'.
Ogres in Human Tones - This actually makes sense to me. An Ogre is a big, broad, dim-witted relative of a Human in my book. I was one of the 'I hate the grey ogres' crowd when Ogre Kingdoms came out for Warhammer.
Reptiles are bright green - again, I think it's a colour contrast thing going on there. It's also an excuse to crack open near-fluo paints that you would never touch. We all love that, right?
Ruddy Dwarves - In Nordic Mythology, they are meant to be born from Maggots, so I can imagine them as pale grey, but I seem to recall them being described as pale blue? The Vanir in Celtos are blue. However, I think of mine as short drunkards, so they are often on the ruddy side. :)
Some great observations. :)
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Because ogres are human flesh colored, and all the rest are because I want to open as few paints as possible. ::)
What color is human flesh, pray tell? Last time I checked there's rather a broad spectrum.
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What color is human flesh, pray tell? Last time I checked there's rather a broad spectrum.
True enough, but it doesn't usually include green.
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What color is human flesh, pray tell? Last time I checked there's rather a broad spectrum.
Look at the label on your paint bottle. That one.
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Thanks Fastolfrus. Looking at it now, thirteen(!) years later, maybe it could've used a lick of matt varnish. :D
Alasdair hit a similar wall with figure basing a few years ago - a GW tournament umpire tried to dock points for his goblin army not having painted/textured bases
Bright goblin green base edges and bright green flock! lol Thank goodness that's died away. I never liked that bog-standard flock: it doesn't even look like astroturf to my eyes, just like what it is - neon green sawdust. I think my biggest use of it was actually on that same kroxigor, painted brown as jungle leaf litter.
Now I've started, some odd conventions I see involve basing moreso than painting. One I first noticed back at that GD was the towering base, and the rise of the cork giant-biscuit-surfboard. I get that people like their 40K/WHFB models on plinth-like bases, makes them look more impressive and imposing in ways, but a lot of the time I think it either looks like a bullet magnet, or someone shouting "help, I don't know how to get down from here!"
But then I think that bog-standard slottabases look too tall these days anyhow, so meh.
One I've thought about recently is battlefield wildflowers, existing only in neatly hemispherical clumps. :) I have trouble getting too wound up about it, because I think that those flower clumps are an interesting new accent for simpler bases (that is, ones with regular dirt and grass, rather than lava, or decks with pipes and gears set right into the floor, or piles of rickety rubble and scrap metal...) and I've just bought a pack of Javis stuff myself. Although on closer inspection I think that's less hemispherical clumps and more a tangle with red flock scattered through it.
But I dunno. Something about the shape and density of the bunches, and the way they often rise high above the surrounding static grass... to my eyes it's starting to look like someone's been over the landscape already, placing little posies (http://www.palmersflorist.co.uk/funerals/posies/) in strategic places, in anticipation of all the carnage. :?
The umpire had to go away and check what Tetrion was and what slate looked like....
Him (her?) and me both. Well, about what Tetrion is, anyway. lol
Edit: agreed with Rob about ogres. Long before I knew Warhammer was a thing, I had the vague image in the back of my head that ogres were more humanlike than some other humanoid monsters. They lived in castles (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puss_in_Boots#/media/File%3ALechatbotte4.jpg), wore fancy boots (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogre#/media/File%3APoucet11.jpg), and ate the finest children. Not under a slimy bridge, getting excited when a scrawny goat wanders past. :)
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I saw the 'gold' hilts as brass or bronze. Iron and steel was very expensive in past times and anything that could be made of the cheaper stuff, usually was. Even now it's quite common to see brass hilts on knives and such.
Good point. And there certainly are brass-pommelled swords around. But that the huge majority of longswords and the like in museums look like the attached - steel quillons and black or very dark grip. I reckon strength was essential to quillons/crossguard, given their role in swordplay - including offensive use, with knights gripping the blade to "end" someone with the crossguard!
There was a brief convention on painting Dark Elves as dark blue/grey - the old 'Drow' look. I never really understood why they should suddenly develop that odd colour, just by being naughty Elves.
That's a great addition to the list! I did see some nicely painted (Foundry?) elves or sidhe or something here, which were done an eerie blue-white despite not being "Dark elves", though.
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Ok, so this seems to be mainly a GW orientated thing.
I think GW is or has been (inevitably) the main medium for some of the tropes. But it's not the source of all of them.
The wolf issue is odd as I don't remember seeing many block painted wolves. My mid 90's ones certainly carried a mixture of browns and grays.
I painted loads as a nipper. And all the painted wolves I saw were just the same. It's really strange - I spent a lot of time drawing animals, including wolves, and would always consult photos in books or stuffed examples in the museum. But for some unfathomable reason, I (and, apparently, a great many others) never thought to look at a photo of a wolf when it came to painting wolf-riders!
If you look at Warhammer 3rd edition, the wolves are painted almost uniformly very dark grey or strong brown, with just a little variation at the muzzles. They're well-painted miniatures, of course, but they're really not painted at all like wolves. Oddly enough, at least one of the illustrations in the book shows uniformly grey wolves pulling a chariot ...
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I think a lot of these boil down to what people 'know' - going by ingrained memes and shorthand symbolism rather than, well... cracking open a book, or google images. In their mind's eye wolves are grey, lizards are green (a distinctly unmammalian colour) and so on...
Yes, I think that's exactly the point I was fumbling towards. It's a bit like children's drawing - a circle is a face, a dot is an eye, and so on.
Oh, and here's something (http://www.sodemons.com/gd23uk/07-whmonster/IMG_7255-01.htm) I entered into Games Day 2003. The claws are the same colour as the teeth (rap knuckles) but otherwise I based it on the false gharial (http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/false-gharial-tomistoma-schlegelii-wildlife-animal-33458170.jpg). The angle of the pic doesn't show the bold patterns going down the back and the tail. :D
That's a cracker! The claws are the only thing on it that don't look natural - the rest looks splendidly so. Brilliant work! And hooray for gloss varnish - I maintain it always looks best. (I'm aware that I'm in a distinct minority on that - but I know I'm right!)
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Edit: agreed with Rob about ogres. Long before I knew Warhammer was a thing, I had the vague image in the back of my head that ogres were more humanlike than some other humanoid monsters. They lived in castles (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puss_in_Boots#/media/File%3ALechatbotte4.jpg), wore fancy boots (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogre#/media/File%3APoucet11.jpg), and ate the finest children. Not under a slimy bridge, getting excited when a scrawny goat wanders past. :)
All true. But their aristocratic idiosyncrasy suggests to me that they would be more likely to sport an outrageously coloured hide! Or indeed a blue beard ...
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Some interesting points.
I have a few answers...
Wolves - I think this is down to ignorance and laziness. I always try to refer to references when painting animals, but I am sure that in the past I haven't done this and have ended up painting monotone wolves!
Claws like teeth - I suffer from doing this. On a similar note, Orcs with red fingernails? What? I put it down to 'it looks better' because of contrasts, but I do get your point. I usually LITERALLY paint claws like they are tusks or fangs...
Gold hilts - Hey, it's fantasy! It looks really cool! My Haradrim army for Lord of the Rings featured a lot of Bronze and Gold, my reasoning was that it's more common in Far Harad...
Green Orcs - Yeah, there are so many arguments about this. Apparently, Goblin Green was called that because Bryan Ansell said 'People like painting goblins green'.
Ogres in Human Tones - This actually makes sense to me. An Ogre is a big, broad, dim-witted relative of a Human in my book. I was one of the 'I hate the grey ogres' crowd when Ogre Kingdoms came out for Warhammer.
Reptiles are bright green - again, I think it's a colour contrast thing going on there. It's also an excuse to crack open near-fluo paints that you would never touch. We all love that, right?
Ruddy Dwarves - In Nordic Mythology, they are meant to be born from Maggots, so I can imagine them as pale grey, but I seem to recall them being described as pale blue? The Vanir in Celtos are blue. However, I think of mine as short drunkards, so they are often on the ruddy side. :)
Some great observations. :)
Good points all! I think the colour contrasts, along with Vermis's "shorthand", make up the bulk of the explanation for these things.
I do, however, have an unabashed admiration for those John Blanche and Aly Morrison miniatures that just go off the scale with colours - orcs or skaven with red claws, wolves with red noses and lips (http://thecitadelcollector.co.uk/zen/index.php?album=john-blanche/ral-partha&image=image-030.jpg), whatever.
(It's worth noting that, despite its vaguely psychedelic colouring, that wolf does have at least a nod to a real wolf's colouration ...)
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Ruddy Dwarves - In Nordic Mythology, they are meant to be born from Maggots, so I can imagine them as pale grey, but I seem to recall them being described as pale blue?
That's smurfs you're thinking of... Tra-la la-la la-la la la-la la-la
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Good point. And there certainly are brass-pommelled swords around. But that the huge majority of longswords and the like in museums look like the attached - steel quillons and black or very dark grip. I reckon strength was essential to quillons/crossguard, given their role in swordplay - including offensive use, with knights gripping the blade to "end" someone with the crossguard!
Ah, but those are expensive swords for knights. The likes of orcs get whatever they can steal!
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Yes, I think that's exactly the point I was fumbling towards. It's a bit like children's drawing - a circle is a face, a dot is an eye, and so on.
Yup. It's (representational) art instruction 101 - 'learning to see'. Observing the real shapes, proportions, colours, relationships etc.
All true. But their aristocratic idiosyncrasy suggests to me that they would be more likely to sport an outrageously coloured hide! Or indeed a blue beard ...
Point. lol
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Yup. It's (representational) art instruction 101 - 'learning to see'. Observing the real shapes, proportions, colours, relationships etc.
Or choosing not to, of course, as in Ancient Egypt!
I suppose there might be an argument that - at certain scales at least - a "block" grey wolf might somehow look more lupine than a more realistic one. It's not one I'd buy, but there might be other examples in miniature painting where symbol/suggestion trumps realism.
Point. lol
The more I think about it, the traditional Perraultian ogre is a much-underutilised figure in gaming. Thinking along my "down with factions" lines, I could see a terrific army or war band based around a single aristocratic ogre and his supernatural minions. Hounds, of course, and perhaps intelligent animals of other sorts.* Or simply human soldiers or generic "henchmen of evil".
*I think Beorn in The Hobbit has many of the characteristics of a traditional ogre. A big house, magical animal servants and a fair bit of ogreish cruelty too, if we remember the tortured orc and flayed warg ...
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Some good observations there!
I think some of them have been answered well enough already, but I think there's two points I wanted to add/emphasise:
1) Wargamers generally paint models for contrast and visibility, and armies for the mass look / theme. This means that brown wolves with brown goblins and rusty brown swords just looks like... Well, from the other side of the table, like not much at all. Grey wolves, green goblins (or bright blue lizards), bright metals, and some uniformity = discernible unit from 4' away, and a nice eye-catching unit.
2) When most people learn to paint, they are often taught to paint a shade in the recessed areas, then paint a main colour leaving the recesses alone, and finally apply a highlight on the most prominent parts (...roughly speaking). I think often this convention is mindlessly applied to everything on a model, including things like horns and teeth and whatnot. It's probably the same reason that wolves are all painted dark-mid-light grey, instead of including some patterning or other colours. In other words, it's not as more a convention, but more just painting by rote.
Another one for your list is why do people paint things like fire the wrong way around? ;)
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Some good observations there!
I think some of them have been answered well enough already, but I think there's two points I wanted to add/emphasise:
1) Wargamers generally paint models for contrast and visibility, and armies for the mass look / theme. This means that brown wolves with brown goblins and rusty brown swords just looks like... Well, from the other side of the table, like not much at all. Grey wolves, green goblins (or bright blue lizards), bright metals, and some uniformity = discernible unit from 4' away, and a nice eye-catching unit.
Yes, excellent point. I think reams could be written about how the "god's eye view" matters much more in wargaming than miniature enthusiasts seem to think. I've often seen miniatures that are individually more poorly painted than even I could do, but look much better en masse.
I might quibble slightly on wolves - real wolves tend to be much paler than seems to be imagined by many gamers. If you replaced the block-colour wolves in WHFB 3rd edition with naturalistic ones painted with the same degree of skill, they'd stand out much more.
2) When most people learn to paint, they are often taught to paint a shade in the recessed areas, then paint a main colour leaving the recesses alone, and finally apply a highlight on the most prominent parts (...roughly speaking). I think often this convention is mindlessly applied to everything on a model, including things like horns and teeth and whatnot. It's probably the same reason that wolves are all painted dark-mid-light grey, instead of including some patterning or other colours. In other words, it's not as more a convention, but more just painting by rote.
Yes - I think this covers the wolves quite nicely.
Another one for your list is why do people paint things like fire the wrong way around? ;)
Yes! That's a perfect example! And that is one where the red inside to yellow/white outside is so clearly the default assumption. I remember as a kid being genuinely puzzled by why I couldn't get flames to look at all convincing.
Also: red glowing eyes for orcs. Now, I like this a lot and use it for my pallid "cave goblins", reasoning that it's the simplest way to connote the eyes of supernatural subterranean creatures. But it is an odd convention. I suspect it started with Bakshi. Tolkien does refer to an orc as having eyes "like coals", but that could mean they were black or simply fierce or caught the light.
Actually, I'm toying with this for my 15mm wargs - both for effect and to make it plain that they are no ordinary wolves (you can't really rely on size for that in 15mm, I think).
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Food for thought, this thread...
Here are some more:
- An arrow's fletching is always white
- Wood is always brown (preferably reddish)
- Chainmail is always bright silver
- Ginger hair is a reflective safety-orange
- Blond hair is yellow
- Orcs have beady red eyes
- Small dogs are white, with a black spot over one eye (or a reddish brown)
And for terrain:
- Water is bright blue
- Windows are black with blue
- Wood is brown here too
- Tree trunks are brown as well
- Grass is a uniform green
- Rocks are grey, even when sitting on/in brown(ish) sand
And I just know there are a few more lurking in the back of my head, but I just can't seem to recall them right now... lol
+++EDIT+++ Seems like i got beaten to the red orc eyes.
Another one for your list is why do people paint things like fire the wrong way around?
Oh goodness yes!
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Food for thought, this thread...
Here are some more:
- An arrow's fletching is always white
- Wood is always brown (preferably reddish)
- Chainmail is always bright silver
- Ginger hair is a reflective safety-orange
- Blond hair is yellow
- Orcs have beady red eyes
- Small dogs are white, with a black spot over one eye (or a reddish brown)
And for terrain:
- Water is bright blue
- Windows are black with blue
- Wood is brown here too
- Treetrunks are brown too
- Grass is a uniform green
- Rocks are grey, even when sitting on/in brown(ish) sand
And I just know there are a few more lurking in the back of my head, but I just can't seem to recall them right now... lol
Many more good ones there! I'm certainly guilty of brown wood (I've been looking at how some of the really top-notch painters get a convincing black/grey shade, though). My fletchings tend to be red or black, though!
On grey rocks on brownish sand, though: I was looking at the flanks of Arthur's Seat recently and noticed that there are some prominent grey-black rocks emerging from red-brown mud/earth. And I do often see grey rocks on yellowish sand - I saw lots on Arran this year, for example. Here's a more striking instance (http://www.panoramio.com/photo/34413741) from elsewhere.
I don't pretend to know the geological explanation!
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On grey rocks on brownish sand, though: I was looking at the flanks of Arthur's Seat recently and noticed that there are some prominent grey-black rocks emerging from red-brown mud/earth. And I do often see grey rocks on yellowish sand - I saw lots on Arran this year, for example. Here's a more striking instance (http://www.panoramio.com/photo/34413741) from elsewhere.
Of course; that could just be me, living in a country that has just 17 boulders in total in it; we're all living on plain sand or clay down here... lol
+++EDIT+++ the whole grey rock on sand-coloured... sand ::) just stood out to me one day, when I was basing some dinosaurs, because I was doing it matter of factly...
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I think "painting by rote" as it were is responsible for a lot, including things like horns being lighter rather than darker at the tips.
Tolkien does refer to an orc as having eyes "like coals", but that could mean they were black or simply fierce or caught the light.
Yeah, I always assumed he meant black and hard-looking rather the glowing red!
@ Daeothar:
Ah well, during GW's famous "red period", a lot of those things (wood, arrow fletching, eyes) would have been bright red, with an orange highlight, and some neat blacklining instead. lol
Some other things I've often observed:
- Extraordinarily few people paint eyebrows on(to) models unless they are sculpted on, even on miniatures with relatively big faces like ogres.
- Nearly all Fantasy human figures are painted as white Caucasians (although I suspect that this is more for reasons of brightness/high contrast on small figures rather than anything untoward).
- Undead always seem to have freshly painted shields with suitably skull-themed motifs. I wonder if warriors of these Fantasy worlds are buried with carefully-wrapped shields repainted in anticipation of a Necromancer requiring their services in future?
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- Nearly all Fantasy human figures are painted as white Caucasians (although I suspect that this is more for reasons of brightness/high contrast on small figures rather than anything untoward).
This one gets me too. Other ethnicites seem to very rarely exist unless part of some exotic, orientalist nation specifically called out as non-White.
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Here's (http://gardensofhecate.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/lxxxix-ogre.html) a rare (and very nice) example of a "Perraultian" ogre miniature - based on Arthur Rackham's illustration (http://gardensofhecate.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/lviii-ogre-and-liebster-award.html) of Puss In Boots.
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I think the "Perraultian ogre" is where one of those Marauder landsknecht ogres would really come into its own. But is there an equivalent in 15mm? Hmm ...
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I dont have the time right now to go into detail, but a lot of these things have their origin in some form of racism.
Not the wolves etc. obviously, but the mentioned dominance of white skin for fantasy minis, the skin colours for orcs, the "Drow" thing with that black-greyish skin etc.
It is because we still draw from old fantastic literature and this literature was written by white European men and just going back 60 years or so and further "racism" was still the "default" in a lot of minds.
Tolkien and lots of other authors had certain stereotypes in their minds. Not saying they were bad people.
But Im saying they couldnt shake their upbringing.
And all this baggage is found in their literature.
And so today orcs are still these degenerated "impure" creatures, their skin colour - no matter if it is green or any kind of grey or brown or black - indicating their "evilness" and their characters "ugliness".
Their skin shows that they are not trustworthy.
Heroes are often blonde, bad guys have black hair...
White = good; black = bad
All this fits the beliefs people had 100 years ago and further back that there is some kind of relationship between a persons or animals character and its/his appearance.
People thought that you could recognize evil by looking at it.
So this is what they wrote.
And so this is why Europeans thought of the African people as "savages" when they colonized Africa.
For the Europeans "white" was at one end of the spectrum, representing nobility, civilization, knowledge, moderation...
so "black", that devilish colour, had to be at the other end of the spectrum. That was their (very flawed) logic.
I think it is important to be aware of these things if one is into any kind of fantasy stuff...
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I dont have the time right now to go into detail, but a lot of these things have their origin in some form of racism.
Not the wolves etc. obviously, but the mentioned dominance of white skin for fantasy minis, the skin colours for orcs, the "Drow" thing with that black-greyish skin etc.
It is because we still draw from old fantastic literature and this literature was written by white European men and just going back 60 years or so and further "racism" was still the "default" in a lot of minds.
Tolkien and lots of other authors had certain stereotypes in their minds. Not saying they were bad people.
But Im saying they couldnt shake their upbringing.
And all this baggage is found in their literature.
It's an interesting argument, and it's certainly true in some instances. But I think it's not always applicable. I'd say the main reason that humanoid creatures have non-human skin hues is simply to show that they're not human.
Tolkien is an interesting one. There's certainly his infamous letter in which he says that orcs look like "repulsive and degraded versions" of the "least attractive (to Western eyes at least) Mongol-types". But you don't get that really get that from the books. I'm sure that Tolkien drew on Roman descriptions of the Huns (at one level, there's a parallel between the Goths and the Huns and the Rohirrim and the Orcs). And it's important to note that Tolkien doesn't say that the Orcs look like "Mongol-types"; he says that they look like hideously distorted versions of them. It doesn't sit well in contemporary ears, but I think it's hard to convict Tolkien of racism when he pops in that "to Western eyes" caveat. That actually strikes me as a remarkably sensitive comment for the times.
But the main defence is that the Orcs don't behave like any kind of racist caricature. What they do behave like are the worst elements of the British army - bullying officers and sadistic NCOs. And, if I recall correctly, Tolkien makes that parallel explicit on more than one occasion.
And so today orcs are still these degenerated "impure" creatures, their skin colour - no matter if it is green or any kind of grey or brown or black - indicating their "evilness" and their characters "ugliness".
Their skin shows that they are not trustworthy.
Again, in Tolkien, there's very little description of Orcish skin - and even less of its colour. One small tracker is "black-skinned", but the description indicates that that characteristic is unusual. And the letter says that Orcs have sallow skin - but that's never mentioned in the whole of LotR (you might infer it from the description of the half-orcs). So, Orc skin isn't really a "signifier" in Tolkien - it's almost never mentioned. What is mentioned is their short stature, their long arms, their drooling fangs and hairy ears. And - above all - their coarse and barbarous talk and actions.
I think there's quite a convincing case that Orcs are almost entirely defined by their speech and actions in The Lord of the Rings. Their appearance is, remarkably, largely secondary. It's the same in The Hobbit - their actions (cruelty, cunning, bullying, squabbling) define them.
Here's a pertinent quote from The Two Towers:
"‘No other folk make such a trampling,’ said Legolas. ‘It seems their delight to slash and beat down growing things that are not even in their way.’"
There's much more of that sort of thing in Tolkien than any description of skin colour.
Heroes are often blonde, bad guys have black hair...
White = good; black = bad
Except in Tolkien, of course, where the "noblest" human heroes have black hair - and the Hobbits are sometimes described as "brown-skinned".
And the really bad guys - the Black Numenoreans, the Witch King, etc. - are white-skinned.
All this fits the beliefs people had 100 years ago and further back that there is some kind of relationship between a persons or animals character and its/his appearance.
People thought that you could recognize evil by looking at it.
So this is what they wrote.
And so this is why Europeans thought of the African people as "savages" when they colonized Africa.
For the Europeans "white" was at one end of the spectrum, representing nobility, civilization, knowledge, moderation...
so "black", that devilish colour, had to be at the other end of the spectrum. That was their (very flawed) logic.
I think it is important to be aware of these things if one is into any kind of fantasy stuff...
I'd say that giving monsters characteristics of "The Other" is universal in human society. It's not confined to Europeans by any means.
And that's what makes Tolkien interesting. His monsters - the Orcs in particular - are uncomfortably close to home. Ugluk, Grishnakh, Shagrat and Gorbag are remarkably well spoken - they speak like British officers, not like foreigners. They aren't "Othered" except in the most basic ways. They're "Ussed" instead.
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Hmm, sorry... I regret making the comment now! :-X
Anyway, although this is posted in Fantasy, I actually see this across all non-historical genres.
I also did not suggest that it's some form of widespread racism (as I carefully noted in my post); instead I suspect that often the paler colours just contrast better than darker colours on small models that are typically around an inch high or smaller.
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Hmm, sorry... I regret making the comment now! :-X
Anyway, although this is posted in Fantasy, I actually see this across all non-historical genres.
I also did not suggest that it's some form of widespread racism (as I carefully noted in my post); instead I suspect that often the paler colours just contrast better than darker colours on small models that are typically around an inch high or smaller.
There's probably also a "default fantasy Europe" assumption at work too in "fantasy". I think it's possibly more of a "thing" in sci-fi, where "European" skin tones seem to predominate to a degree that looks quite wrong from a contemporary perspective.
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Yeah, I don't see any of this as accusations of direct and conscious racism. It's about our default assumptions, and the fantasy genre, especially in wargaming, is very white.
I tend to enthusiastically collect exceptions to this.
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Jesus wept.
Aaaaand, I'm done.
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Yeah, I don't see any of this as accusations of direct and conscious racism. It's about our default assumptions, and the fantasy genre, especially in wargaming, is very white.
I tend to enthusiastically collect exceptions to this.
Yes, indeed.
You can, though, sometimes get an odd phenomenon in which the assumption that Dead White Males must be making racist assumptions leads to a reading of everything they wrote in a hypercritical light - and, indeed, to a misreading of it. It's the same with classist assumptions. I've been told time and time again that Tolkien's Orcs are unmistakably Cockney (and thus snobbishly depicted), but the sole trace of this that I can find is the use of the exclamation "Garn!", which only a couple of the Orcs use - and is in any case (a) not exclusively Cockney and (b) almost certainly a "minced oath" - the Orcs, if you play Tolkien's game, actually said something unprintable. Ugluk, for example, uses precisely no Cockney. Nor, if I remember correctly, does Grishnakh.
And, more conclusively, there are no other Cockney words in the Orcish argot. Snaga might say "Garn!", but he talks about the "stairs", not the "apples ...". :D
Robert E Howard and HP Lovecraft, on the other hand ...
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Back on topic!
Gleaming white teeth and tusks are another default - see Cubs' terrific orcs for a spectacular corrective.
And bright white eyes too.
Also, tiny pupils.
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Or choosing not to, of course, as in Ancient Egypt!
I suppose there might be an argument that - at certain scales at least - a "block" grey wolf might somehow look more lupine than a more realistic one. It's not one I'd buy, but there might be other examples in miniature painting where symbol/suggestion trumps realism.
Perhaps... I was interested to read that Calimero's painting style (http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=91200.msg1128340#msg1128340) was described as ligne claire, and I wonder if that a good direction to develop a style in.
I've also seen articles by Tyler Provick (since deleted) on the General's Tent blog, using a fairly stark shading style that's somewhat similar to cel-shading. To be fair it's not a million miles away from basic shading on a lot of minis out there, but it actually enhances the realism of the mini because it's placed realistically. Wish I had a link...
On the subject of grey wolves... mmmyeah I dunno. I still think it's an unconscious - and as Major Gilbear says - painting by rote situation, moreso than consciously ensuring the minis are distinctively marked for the tabletop. Thinking about it, and considering the Major's remarks on brown (sorry M_G) I wonder if colour itself falls victim to preconceptions. 'Brown' can cover a fair swathe of the colour wheel or colour space and isn't ring-fenced off from the basic hues. Though in this discussion, maybe it's more helpful to think of desaturated colours (or in the case of flat grey, any saturation above 0!) rather than a single colour name.
- Wood is always brown (preferably reddish)
And covered in deep bark texture. lol Good points overall!
I think "painting by rote" as it were is responsible for a lot, including things like horns being lighter rather than darker at the tips.
Depends what type of horns. :D
《《《
That's photo's more than just a weird avatar, it's reference!
Nearly all Fantasy human figures are painted as white Caucasians (although I suspect that this is more for reasons of brightness/high contrast on small figures rather than anything untoward).
Hmm, sorry... I regret making the comment now! :-X
Anyway, although this is posted in Fantasy, I actually see this across all non-historical genres.
I also did not suggest that it's some form of widespread racism (as I carefully noted in my post); instead I suspect that often the paler colours just contrast better than darker colours on small models that are typically around an inch high or smaller.
I'd lean towards Hanlon's razor, myself. With fantasy gaming traditionally being the remit of stereotypically nerdy, white, insular males, I'd hazard it didn't occur to many to depict their little metal surrogates as anything other than caucasian. And then painting by rote might kick in, too. Lizards are green, wolves are grey, humans are white. ;)
Edit: hmm. Ninja'd a bit, there.
(Ninja'd on the 'lots of Tolkien's heroes are dark-haired' bit, too!)
Undead always seem to have freshly painted shields with suitably skull-themed motifs. I wonder if warriors of these Fantasy worlds are buried with carefully-wrapped shields repainted in anticipation of a Necromancer requiring their services in future?
Oh yes. lol
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I simply paint whatever colours work...contrast well enough and provide a result I like in the end. I use brass/gold to add a little contrast in certain places. Reality has very little place in painting fantasy stuff for me. Don't care what X is supposed to look like.
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Perhaps... I was interested to read that Calimero's painting style (http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=91200.msg1128340#msg1128340) was described as ligne claire, and I wonder if that a good direction to develop a style in.
I've also seen articles by Tyler Provick (since deleted) on the General's Tent blog, using a fairly stark shading style that's somewhat similar to cel-shading. To be fair it's not a million miles away from basic shading on a lot of minis out there, but it actually enhances the realism of the mini because it's placed realistically. Wish I had a link...
I was struck by this blog's photos of classic Kev Adams miniatures (http://eldritchepistles.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Kev+adams) (many of which will be familiar from White Dwarf or Heroes for Wargames). Photographed as they are here, what's noticeable about them is how dark the shading is - almost "black lining" in places, especially on some of the trolls. That doesn't come across in some of the professional shots in Heroes for Wargames, but I bet they'd look fantastic on the tabletop.
On the subject of grey wolves... mmmyeah I dunno. I still think it's an unconscious - and as Major Gilbear says - painting by rote situation, moreso than consciously ensuring the minis are distinctively marked for the tabletop. Thinking about it, and considering the Major's remarks on brown (sorry M_G) I wonder if colour itself falls victim to preconceptions. 'Brown' can cover a fair swathe of the colour wheel or colour space and isn't ring-fenced off from the basic hues. Though in this discussion, maybe it's more helpful to think of desaturated colours (or in the case of flat grey, any saturation above 0!) rather than a single colour name.
That's an excellent point. It can take people a very long time to learn to thin their paints. And I only read up about desaturating colours last week .... lol
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I simply paint whatever colours work...contrast well enough and provide a result I like in the end. I use brass/gold to add a little contrast in certain places. Reality has very little place in painting fantasy stuff for me. Don't care what X is supposed to look like.
And you can't argue with that!
I suppose what I'm thinking about here, though, is that the "conventions" occupy a strange middle ground between faithful imitation of reality and completely off-the-wall stuff like this old John Blanche miniature (http://thecitadelcollector.co.uk/zen/albums/john-blanche/ral-partha/image-031.jpg). Each to their own, but I like the extremes better, and so I like to learn how to avoid the "strange middle ground". In this regard, your "credo" above sounds terrific.
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- Undead always seem to have freshly painted shields with suitably skull-themed motifs. I wonder if warriors of these Fantasy worlds are buried with carefully-wrapped shields repainted in anticipation of a Necromancer requiring their services in future?
A bit like Raedwald (possibly the Sutton Hoo king) erecting altars to Christ and the Devil side by side (just in case ...)!
"Bury me with a top-end suit of armour with skull motifs and vile runes - and a particularly ghastly shield. And a couple of horse skeletons too. If I'm to be summoned from my grave, I will not be joining the bloody infantry!"
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Yes, excellent point. I think reams could be written about how the "god's eye view" matters much more in wargaming than miniature enthusiasts seem to think. I've often seen miniatures that are individually more poorly painted than even I could do, but look much better en masse.
Take the dioramas at warhammer world. Including the vast one that takes up a whole room. Figures are bunched together in groups of 5-15, and basically just primed and given a spray of one colour. Up close theyre awful but in dramatic lighting, bunched up by the thousands and arranged around several well painted focal point models, they look bloody stunning.
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Here's another one for you guys:
I'm sure we've all seen models where some carefully applied blue-grey wash was painted around the lower face to simulate the look of a six o'clock shadow... But when was the last time you saw an Elf that was painted to look he needed a shave? :P
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Here's another one for you guys:
I'm sure we've all seen models where some carefully applied blue-grey wash was painted around the lower face to simulate the look of a six o'clock shadow... But when was the last time you saw an Elf that was painted to look he needed a shave? :P
I think that come from the old D&D convention that elves generally don't grow beards. Tannis from dragonlance even grew one deliberately to avoid being associated to closely to his elven kin.
I think Tolkiens Cirdan had a beard.
I don't think any warhammer elves were ever described as bearded.
Honestly the fact that almost most human models in the warhammer world were short haired and beardless strikes me as odd, but perhaps i'm just biased as i sit here stroking my beard.
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That is one thing I've never much liked about any Undead style stuff...organized with undead motifs despite simply being brainless walking mobs of skeletons/zombies etc. I figure they'd resemble very much the people they were prior to death.
It's the same issue I have with stuff like Chaos forces in 40K. At what point did they embrace being turned and think "spikey...brass...everything!".
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Skeletons don't sleep, and there's only so much bone-polishing they can do while their Necromancer naps. Why not spend their time painting skulls on everything?
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Skeletons don't sleep, and there's only so much bone-polishing they can do while their Necromancer naps. Why not spend their time painting skulls on everything?
Clark Ashton Smith had some original thoughts on what the undead get up to:
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/61/the-empire-of-the-necromancers (http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/61/the-empire-of-the-necromancers)
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Take the dioramas at warhammer world. Including the vast one that takes up a whole room. Figures are bunched together in groups of 5-15, and basically just primed and given a spray of one colour. Up close theyre awful but in dramatic lighting, bunched up by the thousands and arranged around several well painted focal point models, they look bloody stunning.
That's interesting. I was looking at this terrific (but sadly inactive) blog (http://gamepieces.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/not-quite-monochrome.html), and the near-monochrome techniques reminded me of a brilliant miniature that a friend of mine once painted (decades ago): a Citadel Orc with only the face painted (in "European" flesh tones and the rest left black. I think the idea was that the rest would get a muddy dry brush and be left at that (it was never finished, and I callously stripped and repainted it later to fit in with another project).
I'm sure that there are loads of unconventional "cheats" that could be used to create good-looking armies at great speed.
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Heck, all I do is cheat. I made this post on my blog to show how well dip works...I painted these Lizardmen fast and poorly, and the dip turned them into excellent looking figures. It doesn't take much!
http://myminiaturemischief.blogspot.com/2014/08/lizardmen-and-how-tofor-beginners.html
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There is the obvious -- I started painting my GW orks green when I first purchased them, because that's what people did. Now, I constantly question when it comes time to paint new orks/orcs/goblins. I want to paint a different skin tone (blue would be fun) but how to pull that off and still be able to mix and match with the rest of the models? I know you could argue humans have a wide range of skin tones, but I fear it might wind up looking odd. The red eyes on my orks/orcs/goblins though ... well, that's because I paint eyes like crap and I think the red ones give a nice 'not human' look. Incredibly easy to just put a little blob of red on there.
I will say, though, that while overall they are green, a lot of my models have different shades of green. Not to differentiate the 'older/tougher' models, like GW suggests, but because with long gaps between painting models, I forget the colors I used, just grab what I have available, and paint. This works well with skirmish type games, as each model is slightly individualistic.
Personally, though, I do go with the crazy hair colors -- a lot of my goblins have red, pink, blue hair, etc. Something that is far less 'human' than my human models.
As to why Caucasian? I tried painting a few other colors of skin tones. They just looked like racist caricatures, sadly. Again, I am not the greatest of painters when it comes to tiny details. A dark skinned model with white eyes comes off a bit ... iffy, when painted with my limited skill.
Why brown wood? Because we've already painted all of our rocks gray, and if we painted the wood more realistically aged (grayish) then how would we tell the different between the wood and rocks?!? :D I have toyed with some sandstone terrain with the grayish wood, but again, would that stand out too much with my already painted terrain? A lot of my gray is taken up to almost white levels, though. Not sure why, other than recent influence of watching Peter Jackson and liking Osgiliath.
Are we, at heart, just creatures of habit? We paint green orks, because we've always painted green orks? Gray rocks, because always painted gray rocks?
My undead, though ... wow. They are a motley mixture of colors. Lots of different colored skeletons in various shades of dirt, with shields and weapons that look like absolute rot. I think undead provide the greatest opportunity to use every color in your paint collection. Who knows where this particular skeleton came from, and why he can't have a shield with a riot of colors. It could be clean as well as dirty, the paint pristine or chipped and faded.
Finally, agree with wolves vs. horses. Why do we spend so much time making horses look real, while wolves are usually far more generic? Do we just see horses more often? Other than pictures, I've never seen a wolf in real life in a natural setting, but I can't drive five miles from my house without passing at least one or two horses farms with different types of horses.
Few issues I have with undead -- 1. If you are a living skeleton, why put skulls on your banner poles or use other skulls as drums, etc? I can imagine animated skull drums getting pissed and angry everytime you hit them with a stick. Isn't that part of a potential soldier you are just wasting? 2. Skeleton musicians with trumpets (um.... they have no lungs so how do they sound those trumpets?) or even better, bagpipes. Pretty sure bagpipes, while looking cool, would require a great deal of lung power missing from your average soldier comprised only of bones.
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...Pretty sure bagpipes, while looking cool, would require a great deal of lung power missing from your average soldier comprised only of bones.
This one is easy to answer. Bagpipes being the work of the devil are already animated by evil and require in fact no lung power to play just a connection to a creature of the night to be unleashed.
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Skeleton musicians with trumpets (um.... they have no lungs so how do they sound those trumpets?) or even better, bagpipes. Pretty sure bagpipes, while looking cool, would require a great deal of lung power missing from your average soldier comprised only of bones.
Well, firstly, those are really sculpting issues more than painting conventions.
Secondly... Without muscles, sinew, cartilage, etc, how do skeletons move? Without eyes how do they see? Without ears, how can they hear their own unit's musician? It's by Magic! ;)
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Few issues I have with undead -- 1. If you are a living skeleton, why put skulls on your banner poles or use other skulls as drums, etc? I can imagine animated skull drums getting pissed and angry everytime you hit them with a stick. Isn't that part of a potential soldier you are just wasting?
Maybe the musical bits are being punished to encourage the others.
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Never painted my goblins green.
I have green and blue and etc., colored goblins from second hand sources but I just say they dyed their skin for religious/warrior society reasons.
Hmmm, would they bleed black, red, orange...?
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I was thinking about this thread as I painted my elephant grey, because everyone knows that elephants are grey.
(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yPrM0nO6NHs/V3M43iVpYQI/AAAAAAAAA8A/G-ABovBkBfk9fu5QE32ArydVlKIkQf3kACLcB/s1600/20160628_194113.jpg)
Aren't they?
(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y54N96hh-yM/V3M6X0jIZRI/AAAAAAAAA84/To6p2MDaBgg1I2YcpUYqvwnsNXM6Ome2ACLcB/s1600/Sri%2BLanka%2BNov%2B09%2B007.jpg)
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That's one of the things I stopped myself from doing when I painted a Carthagian army (ie searched for reference material), though I still have the urge to go back and redo the elephants in the light grey lol