Curious painting conventions

[nic-e]

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.

[Major_Gilbear]

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?

[nic-e]

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?

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.

[Elbows]

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!". 

[finbikkifin]

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?

[Hobgoblin]

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

[Hobgoblin]

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, 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.

[Elbows]

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

[dwbullock]

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?!?    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.

[jon_1066]

...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.

[Major_Gilbear]

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!

[fastolfrus]

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.

[Conquistador]

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...?

[Will Bailie]

I was thinking about this thread as I painted my elephant grey, because everyone knows that elephants are grey.



Aren't they?

[von Lucky]

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