What matters more? Lead vs Paint

[Presence]

What do you think matters more regarding the overall finished product, whether it be for gaming, vignettes or dioramas: the artists sculpting of the metal/plastic or the artists ability/imagination with the painting process?

Of course I think both matter, but does one matter more? Can a customer with a reasonable amount of imagination and/or ability turn a crummy piece of lead into a work of battlefield art?

[Mitch K]

It's like cooking: a really bad cook can take fillet steak and turn it into something that tastes like stewed sock and dumplings, and a really good cook can make any old bit of sow meat and make it mouthwatering.

On the whole, it's easier to make something great from great ingredients (like a really nice crisp casting) but the end result really depends on both casting and painter

[AKULA]

Buy the best sculpt you can and its a joy to paint.

Buy the cheapest sculpt you can and its like polishing a turd.


 

[gary42]

You can make a crap mini look good with excellent paint work.  The reverse of course isn't true:)

[Dolmot]

Well, there is the "hopeless" level in both, which is exactly that, but...

I've seen mediocre or even poor "plumbing putty & soft lead casting" minis from the 70s or early 80s, which have been salvaged by a skilled painter. After all, you can e.g. paint eyes where barely any have been sculpted or did survive the casting process. Some of those are even brilliant - maybe a bit "artistic" if the anatomy is wildly off, but still sort of neat.

However, take a very high quality mini like Tom Meier's best and give it to a mediocre painter. It won't be great. Or more importantly, it won't be that much better than a mediocre sculpt painted by the same painter. If the paint job is clumpy, flat, stripey or poorly covering, no amount of accuracy or detail in the sculpt will really make the overall effect pleasing.

I'd say I prefer a nicely painted "archive" mini to a fancy 15e mini with spilling colours and saucer eyes. But obviously it depends on how you define "poor", "average" and "fine" sculpting and painting...

[Cubs]

Sculpting, without a doubt.

I've tried polishing some real turds of a model before and it's just impossible sometimes to get it beyond 'poor', no matter how hard you try.

[Steve63]

Sculpting, without a doubt.
Colouring in the miniature is not art, it's craft

[Dr Mathias]

I'm finding it more difficult to be exited about painting crude sculpts. For example as I'm working on Crusader gladiators I find myself wishing they were the recently released Paul Hicks sculpts.

I've also purposefully painted figures deemed horrible by most people to see if they can be salvaged. Sometimes it can be done

I like figures that are clear and crisp, could be Copplestone or Kev White as long as they're sharp.

[robh]

Painting everytime.

No matter how wonderful the sculpt, a second rate painter is going to produce a crappy result.
Conversely a talented brushman can take even sub standard sculpts and make them look great.

[gary42]

Painting some plastic zombies right now....  Yikes.  We'll see how they come up but zombies are pretty forgiving.  Turd polishing eventually results in diminishing returns.

Good sculpt all the way.

[Captain Blood]

It's like cooking: a really bad cook can take fillet steak and turn it into something that tastes like stewed sock and dumplings, and a really good cook can make any old bit of sow meat and make it mouthwatering.

On the whole, it's easier to make something great from great ingredients (like a really nice crisp casting) but the end result really depends on both casting and painter

Sums it up perfectly Mitch  

Colouring in the miniature is not art, it's craft

That's a debate that's been had many times before, and not everyone would agree with you.
Some people paint toy soldiers using repetitive steps, learned technical skills, and no imagination - that's craft.
Some people paint toy soldiers creatively using imagination, invention, and a level of skill which transcends mere craft. That surely counts as art.

[Cubs]

Colouring in the miniature is not art, it's craft

If all someone does with their paintbrush is colour in, then that's true.

Art is an imaginative creation. If you can do that with a brush, you're an artist by definition.

[HerbyF]

In the end it is the paint job that matters the most. A good painter can make a fairly poor figure look good, although I have seen some figures that were so crappy that nothing would help. But I have seen a lot of poor paint jobs on good figures that made them look like shit.

[Dolmot]

I'm finding it more difficult to be exited about painting crude sculpts.
--
I like figures that are clear and crisp, could be Copplestone or Kev White as long as they're sharp.

While undoubtedly true, I don't think that answers the original question at all. Of course painters of any level prefer a good sculpt to a bad one. (Let's not confuse that further with "detailed", "cluttered" and "simple", which are a matter of taste and another issue altogether.) Also, it's fairly obvious that "a good sculpt painted to my level" beats "a bad sculpt painted to my level" every time. Does that one even need to be discussed?

The actual conundrum is how far you can polish a bad/average sculpt with painting, or a bad/average paintjob with sculpting. I'd say the former is tedious yet doable to some reasonable extent, while the latter is extremely difficult if not impossible. As you said,

I've also purposefully painted figures deemed horrible by most people to see if they can be salvaged. Sometimes it can be done

For example, LPL rounds have been won with minis which are indeed bordering on unpolishable as long as the painter is competent. Switch the roles and the outlook suddenly gets a lot bleaker. I've been impressed by many paintjobs on, say, rather lumpy West Wind minis. On the other hand, a rough paintjob remains exactly that even on those trendy skirmish character sculpts commissioned at $1000+ apiece. That's what we should be comparing, not the same painter working on two minis of different quality. What would be the point of that anyway? "Both matter" is quite obvious too, and found already in the starting post. It's the trade-off which makes the question interesting.

(1000th post, by the way. I'm ashamed of my spamming. Also, didn't bother finding anything particularly special for this one. Move on.)

[Presence]

Yes, I definitely think that painting is more of an artistic ability rather than merely a craft.