Monday, December 26, 2011

A joyous Boxing Day to all....


Imagine my surprise when I found out that didn't mean a day long marathon of fisticuffs.

Rather than make updating my blog daily a New Year's Resolution, I decided to start a week earlier. It sort of makes sense when you think about it as I love to talk about the miniature painting hobby. Honestly, I could go on for hours about the hobby and all of its "goings on". Today's post is a quick one, mainly a "workbench" update.


As you can see I finally finished assembling 10 of the viking huscars from Wargames Factory and have even textured the bases of five of them. I can only paint models at one time as I only have one wooden paint stirrer to mount them to. (FYI, you can go to Home Depot and they will give you a handful for free and they are so great for holding squads of troops for painting.) I have also assembled and primered three Germanians from Wargames Factory along with an Askari from Wargames Foundry. The Germanians are for my miniature painting price guide for the three levels of painting I'll be offering for historical plastics (the levels will be similar for plastics except for the level 3 models). The two barechested fellows will be the level 1 and 2 models while the fellow with the horn and fancy staff will be the level 3 model. Trust me, it will all make sense when I show you the painted versions later on in the week.

But in case you are wondering, some painters used a tiered pricing system based upon the paint job's level of detail. Example: A level 1 may consist of blocked out colors and a dip in brown wash. A level 2 may consist of everything level 1 consisted of, but with some additions such as drybrushing and blacking out the eyes. Level 3 is the usual level I paint my personal troop models...eyes dotted, clean highlights and washes, all the little details painted, and possibly a little bit of freehand here and there. Some even go a level beyond 3 for command models and personality models for what they might call a "showcase" level. I myself paint all my RPG models to that level (see any of the photos I've posted for examples).

You should keep one thing in mind when thinking about "paint job levels" is that not all miniatures are the same.
  • Plastics up until recently did not have the detail that metal or resin had (and there are some plastics this is still true of).
  • Not all metal miniatures are made the same and you will find varying degrees of quality in sculpting and casting.
  • There are some models out there a level 3 paint job just can't fix (I'm looking at you Hero Clix).
Let me assure I speak from experience on these points. Personally, I try to steer a customer away from trying to get a substandard model painted up to more than a level 2 because to go much higher isn't really worth the money and more than likely they have another model in their collection that would benefit from a level 3 or higher. In this economy, it is all about getting your customer the most bang for their buck.

Well, that is all for tonight's post. I hope you guys have found it informative and possibly educational. Personally, I'm going to slap a coat of my custom fleshtone base on the Germanians and then crank up Saint's Row 3 and cause some mayhem.

Mike

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