Fighting the Gray Tide (Miniature Painting)

[Mad_Jack]

One of these days I'll have to pick up some "cheap" (yeah, right...) plastic models and start building again... I used to kit-bash CAR WARS vehicles together out of regular vehicles with weapons from tanks, ships and planes...

 

[MGibster]

One of these days I'll have to pick up some "cheap" (yeah, right...) plastic models and start building again... I used to kit-bash CAR WARS vehicles together out of regular vehicles with weapons from tanks, ships and planes...

I heard someone suggest going to a toy store, maybe a dollar store, and purchasing some of their toy dinosaurs or vehicles on the cheap to practice on. And that's not really such a bad idea. It certainly beats plunking down $170 for a tank. But also, scale models aren't as expensive as miniatures. You can get a decent tank made by Revell or Tamiya for $20-30 on a good day.

 

[Mad_Jack]

I heard someone suggest going to a toy store, maybe a dollar store, and purchasing some of their toy dinosaurs or vehicles on the cheap to practice on. And that's not really such a bad idea. It certainly beats plunking down $170 for a tank. But also, scale models aren't as expensive as miniatures. You can get a decent tank made by Revell or Tamiya for $20-30 on a good day.

Yeah, I can find some decent-ish-looking weapons on the cheap action figures they sell at the local Dollar Tree for $1.25 each...
I could also get cheap weapons from plastic WH40K sprues. Plus, my FLGS has boxes of old minis from '80's-era spaceship and big-stompy-robot games like Chronopia/Warzone, CAV, and Legions of Steel, all at original prices. I wonder if there's some place online selling bits from failed 3D prints...
And if necessary I'm perfectly cool with scratch-building anything I can't find.

 

[Andvari]

Displacer beast.

 

[Andvari]

The last 2 HeroQuest skeletons...

 

[MGibster]

Plus, my FLGS has boxes of old minis from '80's-era spaceship and big-stompy-robot games like Chronopia/Warzone, CAV, and Legions of Steel, all at original prices. I wonder if there's some place online selling bits from failed 3D prints...

Aw, man. From Warzone, if they have a Dark Legion Bio-Giant, let me know. This was the first large miniature I painted back in 1997 or 1998 and I traded it away. I wish I still had it.

 

[MGibster]

Displacer beast.

That Displacer Beast looks great.

 

[Zaukrie]

The quality of this work is why I don't post mine..... Between dungeons and lasers, bones, and another KS, I must have around three to five hundred unpainted things. On the plus side, a friend is a great painter, so he does some of the more complex items, and encourages me to paint occasionally....

 

[MGibster]

The quality of this work is why I don't post mine..... Between dungeons and lasers, bones, and another KS, I must have around three to five hundred unpainted things. On the plus side, a friend is a great painter, so he does some of the more complex items, and encourages me to paint occasionally....

I think most of us have had similar feelings to one degree or the another from time-to-time. Every once in a while I see someone's painted model and think to myself, "Why the hell do I bother?" Because, honestly, I don't think I'm ever going to get to the level of skill some of those wonderful artist have attained. My work, on my best days, are high table top standards not really suited for competition level display and I'm okay with that. Remember, nobody started out good at painting miniatures. Yeah, some people start out as good artist and know about lighting, complentary colors, etc,. etc, but we all had to start somewhere.

 

[el-remmen]

The quality of this work is why I don't post mine..... Between dungeons and lasers, bones, and another KS, I must have around three to five hundred unpainted things. On the plus side, a friend is a great painter, so he does some of the more complex items, and encourages me to paint occasionally....

My mini painting and terrain crafting is proudly "table-ready." I know my skill level is never going to get past a certain level (though occasionally I accidentally do something that looks better than my typical work) but my philosophy is I'd rather have a ton of mediocre "good enough" paint jobs on my minis than a pile of unpainted ones.