Painting Ruffians is Rough

A Bit of Theory, A Bit of Whining

As usual, feel free to scroll down to the pictures, and I won't be offended.  If you want to read a little bit about the process of painting miniatures, and why I found these models to be so difficult, then here we go...

Miniatures can be painted to different standards.  I can't even start there, though.  Let's back up and talk about what a painter has to do to paint a good-looking miniature.

When you look at an object, you may immediately register a single color, but there is a lost more going on that that.  Look down at your shirt.  Specifically, find some place where the fabric has bunched up a bit.  Now, your shirt may be one color, perhaps even white.  But if you look into the deepest part of that wrinkle in the fabric, it probably looks almost black.  The fact is, the interplay of light and shadow means that you never get something completely one color.  It is always a range of different shades and intensities.

Because of the scale of a miniature, there won't be those harsh shadows.  If something is painted a single color, there will be very little difference in shade.  It will look flat and unrealistic.  So, a painter has to "trick" the eye.  Some areas need to be darkened to look like shadows, and others brightened to look like they are being hit by light.  While there are other skills are involved, in general you can tell how good painters are by how well they implement this tonal variation.

Now, let's talk about how to rank the quality of a paint job.  Exactly what constitutes each standard isn't completely well-defined, but after giving it more thought than it probably deserves, the way I rate them is by how many steps it takes to do each region of color.  This ties to the above, in that usually the steps are making some areas shaded and others highlighted.

"Unpainted" is pretty obvious.  Whether bare plastic, or just primed, these are models that have yet to have any serious work done to them.

"Battle Ready" is a term that I first saw from Games Workshop, and it basically means 1-2 steps done for each color.  The colors are blocked out, and maybe a wash is done over the areas to get some quick shading done, but there hasn't been a lot of care given to the model.

"Tabletop Standard" is probably the most nebulous, because it means different things to different people.  However, I basically consider it to be 2-4 steps done for each region of color.  Some small areas may only get a base coat and a wash or a single highlight, but most should either get two levels of highlighting, or a shade and a highlight.  Important areas like the face should get a shade and two or three highlights.

"Studio Quality" is what is used for photography for books and packaging.  Typically, it involves around five steps per region of color.  The way I most typically see it done is to start with a mid-tone, then add a shadow, and then inside the shadow add a deeper shadow.  Then, add some highlights, and again raise up a portion of the highlighted area even brighter.  Often these are done with some sort of blending process to get the transitions to be very smooth.

"Competition Quality" may only do the same number of steps as the studio quality, but in some way takes it up to another level.  This may be intricate patterns added onto a cloak, or "object source lighting" to make it look the light is coming from a glowing orb or other light source in the mini.

At any rate, when I paint, I'm strictly going for tabletop quality.  I do try to push for the higher-end of it (rarely does anything only have 2 steps, and I will push some areas to 5 if I think they really need to draw the eye), but I know I'm not a studio-quality painter.

So why do I bring this up?  Well, for whatever reason, these models have felt like the standard number of steps I'd do for a region just isn't enough.  Things I'd normally leave with 2 steps, I have to push for three.  Things where three steps should look great, I end up doing four, because there just doesn't seem to be enough contrast.

Add to that the fiddly straps on the legs (I could write two or three paragraphs on those), and I just felt like I was working, and working, and working, and getting very little done.

In the end, I think the problem is that I painted these to the same level as I probably will do the heroes, which doesn't make any sense for trash enemies.  Oh well.

I did the fair-skinned ones first, so I'll start with those photos.

One of the minor things I did was give each one a different hair color.

I have far less experience painting dark skin.  In fact, I was thinking about it, and I can only recall one other model that I've painted with African-toned flesh.  So, this was rather an experiment.  I think they came out really well, but I now need to experiment with a lighter black skin, since these are very dark.

I felt much more limited on hair colors, so there are two with black hair, and one with gray.  I actually like the gray one much better.  Once again, it comes down to contrast.

There is one more enemy model to do (the troll), but I think I'll hold off for a bit before tackling it.  I'm not sure what to do with it yet, and while I consider it further, I'll work on getting the heroes done.