Curious painting conventions

[Hobgoblin]

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 ...

[Hobgoblin]

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 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. The angle of the pic doesn't show the bold patterns going down the back and the tail.

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!)

[Hobgoblin]

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, wore fancy boots, 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 ...

[Hobgoblin]

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, 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 ...)

[FramFramson]

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

[Cubs]

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!

[Vermis]

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.

[Hobgoblin]

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.

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 ...

[Major_Gilbear]

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?

[Hobgoblin]

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).

[Daeothar]

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...

+++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!

[Hobgoblin]

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...

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 from elsewhere.

I don't pretend to know the geological explanation!

[Daeothar]

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 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...

+++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...

[Major_Gilbear]

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.  


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?

[Ogrob]

• 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.