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How to stay on track and what keeps you interested in your army


Rob P

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Techniques are good, true.

But don't dip. We are painters and hobbyists.  If you are just going to apply the exact same shade to the whole model,  regardless of colors, ask yourself if this is really the right hobby for you. Dipping is not painting. It's worse than paying someone else to paint for you. At least they painted the models. 

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What is your definition of dipping? Like, one base, or one shade/wash? I cover some of my models with only the Nuin Oil wash after painting. Gives each colour depth, makes it look greasy and grimey, and it speeds up the process. I like how the black looks on red and yellow and grey.

Then, some others are "game first" and don't want a grey army. Minimum is fine, don't ****** in their punch.

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7 hours ago, Criti said:

If you're like me, you're already in too deep for professional help.  Best to just remember that he who dies with the most unpainted models wins.

 

Snip

I like the level of forethought, focus and planning detailed in this post.  And to everyone else, thank you. Good tips so far with some general underlying themes

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3 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Techniques are good, true.

But don't dip. We are painters and hobbyists.  If you are just going to apply the exact same shade to the whole model,  regardless of colors, ask yourself if this is really the right hobby for you. Dipping is not painting. It's worse than paying someone else to paint for you. At least they painted the models. 

I have many models with a last shade of Nuln Oil or Agrax Earthshade. It helps to blend all the colours and make the model look really dirty. And to some models like skavens and Orcs thats very good.

The Hobby of miniatures wargaming has MANY aspects, some peoples like ones more than others, and some really just hate some aspect, or don't like it at all. I know people that just paint and don't like to play. I know people that just like to play and don't to paint. Don't shame people that like a legitimate technique to paint models, please.

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6 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Techniques are good, true.

But don't dip. We are painters and hobbyists.  If you are just going to apply the exact same shade to the whole model,  regardless of colors, ask yourself if this is really the right hobby for you. Dipping is not painting. It's worse than paying someone else to paint for you. At least they painted the models. 

mouse-in-pocket.jpg

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18 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Techniques are good, true.

But don't dip. We are painters and hobbyists.  If you are just going to apply the exact same shade to the whole model,  regardless of colors, ask yourself if this is really the right hobby for you. Dipping is not painting. It's worse than paying someone else to paint for you. At least they painted the models. 

In your opinion ;) 

If somebody wants to use dip that is fine as that is up to the person doing it and it's their hobby. Just like if they wanted to paint their models pink and orange, it's their hobby and can do it how they want to. :D

 

Back on topic....

For me it's down to having a deadline like a tournament as this helps you get things ready and you tend to stick to what you are using. I also think once you have a painted army, the pressure is taken off and you can work away on things and get them done at your own pace. There is also some fantastic advice in this topic, so pick out what you want to do

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19 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Techniques are good, true.

But don't dip. We are painters and hobbyists.  If you are just going to apply the exact same shade to the whole model,  regardless of colors, ask yourself if this is really the right hobby for you. Dipping is not painting. It's worse than paying someone else to paint for you. At least they painted the models. 

I like dipping. I think it has it's uses, depending on your definition. In the looser definition that you seem to be using, I pretty much just washed my Bloodreavers all over with Agrax Earthshade and called it a day. They looked good enough that I can put them on the tabletop and think "that looks nice" and I didn't have to spend more than a weekend painting 20 guys who didn't even have an armour save until about a week ago. Yeah, you can argue that I'm "wasting time" of sorts if I didn't enjoy painting that unit, but I had the minis and I wanted them painted for the tabletop. The end result still makes me happy to play with, over grey plastic or even a better looking paintjob that I'd paid someone else to do would, because it's mine. And I have my converted heroes and even some smaller units of conversions that I'll have taken longer on to get my hobby jollies from.

Now, you might say 'that's not the same' because I'm not just dipping everything, just the units I don't mind looking a little more basic. Fair play. But I think there's still plenty hobby joy to be obtained from painting an army with a basic dipping technique - I've got about 2500pts of 6th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Dwarfs, some painted, some not. The painted ones are.. basic. They're all old minis and lower on my priority list than any fancy new minis I'd want to start or paint, but when I've got spare time between projects, I like to work on building them up - maybe with the idea of adding some Fyreslayers and Kharadron Overlords into them for a Duardin Coalition of sorts. So, I want to repurpose them, but I don't want to spend a whole lot of my time and effort painting them. My solution has been to dip the already painted ones in Army Painter Quickshade (dark tone), which hides some of the messier edges and shades all the parts that weren't shaded well enough, as well as kinda unifies the whole force. Bonus: built-in varnish, so I don't need to waste time with that step. When that's dry, I repainted their shields what my new coalition colour scheme is going to be, stick them on a new base with some Vallejo Black Lava for texture and then BAM, I've got some playable minis - ready, and good enough looking en masse for the tabletop. That being said, if we're talking about varnish style dip here, the bonus of it being ready varnished and shaded in one go is nice if you don't mind gloss varnished minis, but if you're planning on matte varnishing over it, it's kind of a wasted step - and the thickness of the dip is a pain, and most people brush it on anyway. QuickShade is weird, and I think I'd recommend just brushing on a wash over the QuickShade dipping method for anyone else.

The funny thing in this scenario is that despite the momentously 'basic' paint jobs, it all looks good enough on the table and it looks like my work. The colour scheme is mine. The unit choices are mine. The conversions and unique aspects are all mine. No, they're not as exciting or make me as proud to field as my better painted armies that I took more time on, and most of the work I've done to get them tabletop ready has been more of a chore than a fun exercise, but the end result still makes me happy and excited and I never feel like I wasted my time getting these guys together.

Everyone can enjoy whatever parts or all of the parts of the hobby individually or as a complete as they like, I'm sure no-ones arguing against that. Some of us like gaming, some of us like painting, some of us like collecting, some like all of the above. For some, myself included, playing against grey plastic can be a bit of a downer and ruin a bit of the fun of the hobby (which is to say, the visual spectacle of it all), so I don't think we should ever argue against any technique employed to get an army looking tabletop worthy, because I'll take dipped minis over grey plastic or a black undercoat any day.

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45 minutes ago, rokapoke said:

Okay, so I'm definitely a hobby newbie but I have no idea what it means to "dip" a model. I'm afraid to look it up on Youtube because anything can happen there. Can somebody clearly define this for me?

Dipping is taking a beautiful model you bought,  carefully assembled,  painted a variety of colors,  and then submerging it in brownish gunk and shaking off the excess. 

It quickly adds shading at the expense of just about everything else.

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4 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

Dipping is taking a beautiful model you bought,  carefully assembled,  painted a variety of colors,  and then submerging it in brownish gunk and shaking off the excess. 

It quickly adds shading at the expense of just about everything else.

OK, thanks. So it's like applying a shade over everything in a very "quick and dirty" manner.

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12 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

Dipping is taking a beautiful model you bought,  carefully assembled,  painted a variety of colors,  and then submerging it in brownish gunk and shaking off the excess. 

It quickly adds shading at the expense of just about everything else.

Dipping in the old sense of the word isn't really a thing anymore. Can't remember the last time I saw a model/army that utilised the polyurethane woodstain method (most notable the old tins of Army Painter Quickshade). It was a technique that served a purpose back in the day, but the actual act of dipping and shaking (wahey!) was rarely used, it was ugly and messy.

Nowadays, the term has evolved to typically mean the process of basing a model with a variety of neat basecoats, before applying an all over wash. @Sleboda is clearly not a fan, which is fine (I totally get his reasoning tbh), but it should not be disregarded. For someone looking to get their army on the table for the first time, or for finishing an army for a tournament on a tight deadline etc, it definitely has it's place.

It's not (or at least shouldn't be) a case of slopping a wash thicky over a model. Brush flow and control is important to stop pooling (this is what the shaking was for on the older method). Often this will result in models that are table top ready, but more notably IMO; models that now can be highlighted in their various colours etc. It provides a good base. Citadel and Army Painter washes are good for this method.

For context, I am someone that has painted armies to a very high standard, winning many Best Painted/Army trophies at tournaments over the last 8 years. However I still consider this method a useful tool at times...and tbh, I have also rushed out what I call #sh*tspeedpainted armies to this standard that look good on the tabletop.

In short; don't disregard it.

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4 minutes ago, Chris Tomlin said:

Nowadays, the term has evolved to typically mean the process of basing a model with a variety of neat basecoats, before applying an all over wash. @Sleboda is clearly not a fan, which is fine (I totally get his reasoning tbh), but it should not be disregarded. For someone looking to get their army on the table for the first time, or for finishing an army for a tournament on a tight deadline etc, it definitely has it's place.

I think you are probably right about the evolution of the term.  I even have done that on my Black Plague models since they are zombies, more like game tokens than real models,  get abused like heck in games,  and are not really meant to be hobby ooo ahh inducing armies.

I even get the speed factor for deadlines, but I always find myself wondering "Why? Why would someone, new or not, who was attacted to this hobby - a large part of the initial draw being painted pretty models - why would they then want to skip the painting?"

If it's such a chore or pain in the rear, why did it at all?  If you have a deadline,  use your older,  lovingly painted,  models if your new force is not painted in time. You can take your new stuff to the next event.

It would be like making a reservation at an exclusive fancy strakhouse for 6 p.m., waiting weeks for the big night, and then buying 7 p.m. movie tickets from your phone while sitting at the table. You tell the waiter to hurry up, you chug the bottle of wine,  and wolf down your steak, barely tasting it.

Yeah, sure, you went to the steakhouse, you had the steak, but you missed out on so much.  You missed the "why" of gong there instead of McDonald's. 

Dipping an army to just get it done creates a disconnect ftom the very thing we all claim to love.

It diminishes the hobby for the person doing it and,  importantly, for their opponents. 

In my opinion.

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I love painting models. I don't love the monotony of painting the same models over and over. If I had to do up 80 clanrats, I'd base coat them and then just wash over them once and be done with it. If you find this diminishing toward you, then maybe it's you who is in the wrong hobby.

The weapons teams, the rat ogres, the stormvermin, the warplock engineer... those I'd spend a load of time on. People have different priorities, man. You can spend three hours on a clanrat if that's what you love, and sincerely good for you for taking the care to do that. But recognize that it's both a hobby and a game that attracts people for many different reasons, none of which are necessarily right or wrong.

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43 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

Dipping is taking a beautiful model you bought,  carefully assembled,  painted a variety of colors,  and then submerging it in brownish gunk and shaking off the excess. 

It quickly adds shading at the expense of just about everything else.

b9aYS7n.jpg

I am in favor of anything that lets people get their models finished.  Would that beastman have been better off with a different colour shading for the hooves than the flesh, probably.  Do I think a person should then also add some spot highlighting and clean up things like where it pooled on the end of his spiked club, yes.  But if the person is happy with it, then I think it's way better than a lot of what I've seen people put on the table top.

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On 4/13/2017 at 10:52 AM, Nin Win said:

b9aYS7n.jpg

 

Test #1?

C'mon man...that's "documented Test #1 done by a practised hand."

Where's the asterisk or the quick talking announcer who says "Results not typical.  Your results will vary."

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I'm constantly torn between half a dozen projects at any given time. My problem stems from inspiration; I'm constantly getting inspired by the work of others, specifically unique paintschemes.  For instance, I happened across a wanderers army painted with night blue skin and gold tattoos with muted yellows and light greens for their cloaks and whatnot as a was looking to sell my old wanderers force. I'm now mixing up colours and grabbing my brushes to put my own spin on this colour scheme.

I also like to do my models justice when I paint them so I tend to take my time with each mini, because just as much as a like to be inspired, I love to bring my armies to my local and inspire others. I'm more of a collector and painter than aplayer, what usually happens is that I paint up a 500-1000pt army play a few games with it (lose most of them) and get underwhelmed by the rules and start on my next project. I could (and often do) discuss painting/modeling at my local shop for hours on end but I can't last more than 10 minutes talking about rules.

In short, what keeps me going is being inspired and inspiring others, I just love to build excitement and the community.

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For me, I love assembling models while watching a crappy show/movie.

I just decided recently to not allow myself to assemble any models unless the last thing I assembled is painted.

It's making it really tough but at least if I don't make it through all the boxes I bought and move on to another army, they haven't lost their value much since they're still on sprue...heh.

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9 minutes ago, opuswild said:

For me, I love assembling models while watching a crappy show/movie.

I just decided recently to not allow myself to assemble any models unless the last thing I assembled is painted.

It's making it really tough but at least if I don't make it through all the boxes I bought and move on to another army, they haven't lost their value much since they're still on sprue...heh.

This is how i've worked since September, but it just means i'm still working on September stuff!

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On 4/12/2017 at 1:46 PM, Sleboda said:

Techniques are good, true.

But don't dip. We are painters and hobbyists.  If you are just going to apply the exact same shade to the whole model,  regardless of colors, ask yourself if this is really the right hobby for you. Dipping is not painting. It's worse than paying someone else to paint for you. At least they painted the models. 

 

If you enjoy spending hours and hours painting one model at a time, that's fine.  But I think it's kind of rude to poop on someone else's parade if they prefer to paint to a tabletop standard and be done with it.

I've been commissioned to paint for people, and I enjoy painting.  But sometimes I get sick of paint 100 copies of the same model.  Or sometimes I just want to play and would rather not spend hours painting because that's not the mood I've been in recently.

And think about this - you can totally dip a model (or cover it completely by hand in one colour shade) and have it ready for the table to play with a full painted army.  THEN you can go back later whenever you feel like and add highlighting, drybrushing, more details, etc.  It's a VERY easy way for people to step the aesthetics of the game up greatly without a massive time sink.

There's no reason for you to act like dipping is "wrong" and a sin of the hobby.  The hobby exists for fun (and for the companies to suck up every last drop of our money).  If people want to dip models and they enjoy the look, then it's totally fine.  And dipping actually works EXTREMELY well for some armies (orruks, skaven, slaves to darkness, undead, etc).

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