Friday, August 10, 2012

Competition Painting and Tabletop Painting

It never ceases to amazing me how much differently I paint when if comes to competition pieces versus mass army projects. There are so many factors that we concentrate on with a single competition piece that we will tend to either gloss over, or hurry through on a tabletop painting project, even if your typical level of painting armies is above the norm for tabletop standard.

There are gobs of techniques and work philosophies that we can cite for helping us achieve a wonderfully painted force without spending the next decade on it. Let's dive in.

Having most recently spent 18 hours painting Bugman for this past Golden Demon competition, opened my eyes to the details and techniques I focus on for a single competition figure versus the ones I dismiss for Amy projects. You see, in 18 hours I could have painted roughly 6 marines to my typical standard. 3 hours per figure (using a tactical marine as a baseline) for an army really isn't that bad, and if I try I could even push each figure to 2.5 hours apiece. But at what cost? What has to suffer in detail and quality for the sake of speed? And is that cost worth it? These are questions we have to ask ourselves every time we begin a new army project. Obviously we don't want to spend 18 hours or more per figure for an entire army, especially if the end goal is to be able to play with said army. After all, I'm painting the army for me to play with, not to give to my 4 year old son for his future high school graduation!

But maybe these are the wrong questions to ask ourselves. Perhaps instead of asking "What will suffer in quality?", we should ask "How can I get similar results in less time?".

Work Smarter, Not Harder

Come on now, I know we've all heard this expression in the past. This involves the use of tools and techniques available to us to achieve helpful results in less time. Notice I said "helpful results", and not "shortcuts". This isn't about shortcuts, it's about using the tools available to use intelligently. Perhaps this means you purchase and learn to use an airbrush to basecoat all your models with. Maybe you use washes to get that first layer of shadow in instead of painstakingly blending it down. Perhaps you even use those same washes, watered down, to use as a glaze to smooth a transition or tint a highlight. What about coming up with a color scheme, and then pre-mixing a color set into specific painting stages so that each stage takes a fraction of the time compared to having to mix for every figure? Even just expanding your color choices by purchasing paint from various ranges so that you don't have to mix colors all the time is a smart step that can save you time. In no way am I endorsing a paint style of basecoat, dip, then done. This is about quality and quantity, not one or the other.

Take Your Time

Yes, I realize this is a bit of an oxymoron when taken at face value, especially in light of my first point, but I didn't say "Take MORE Time", I said "Take Your Time". Have you ever moved onto the next step in painting a figure, only to realize that because you're hurrying the process, you messed up the part or parts you've already finished? If that happens, all you're doing is creating more work for yourself as now you have to go back and fix your mistakes. If you had just slowed down and taken an extra minute or three, you may not have made that mistake in the first place. I can't tell you the number of times when I thought I was finished with a figure, but found odd spots of paint in places they shouldn't be. It's frustrating and completely unnecessary.

The Right Tools for the Right Job

Your bargain basement brushes don't cut it for the painters who've won Golden Demons and Crystal Brushes, and they shouldn't cut it for you either. Buck up and buy yourself a set of Raphael Series 8404 Kolinsky Sable brushes. Don't look at me that way either..."They're so expensive...waaah...". Right, cause this hobby is cheap, after all. If you own an army of any sort, from any game system you've already paid through the nose for something. A good brush will perform better, hold paint properly, let the paint flow properly and help improve your skills. Now pry open that wallet and buy a well made brush, you'll be glad you did, trust me.

Is this a fully exhaustive list of painting techniques, teaching a step-by-step method by which we end up with a fully painted force at the end? Nope. What it is, is a philosophy and guide to changing the way we think about painting a full army project versus one competition figure, with a little smattering of techniques throughout.

Your turn. Tell me what you do to push your painting beyond the norm on an army-wide scale. I know I left many techniques out, so let me hear from you!

- Tim

 

17 comments:

  1. My motivation to push myself to produce a higher table top quality is looking at other people's armies at the larger events. Seeing how much time and effort was put in to another person's army makes my army look poor in comparison. That is what motivates me to improve my 'acceptable' or 'good enough' quality. Three color minimum just does not cut it anymore for me.

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    1. I knew we'd get to you sooner or later ;) Seriously though, some of your more recent figs show this want and ability to improve, Josh.

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    2. Thank you Tim. Btw, let me know when you want to tackle airbrushing, you are more than welcome to borrow mine.

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  2. I find that I have several philosophies when it comes to painting models vs armies vs speed painted armies. On one extreme, as you illuminated, is spending 19+ hours on a single figure. The other extreme is batch painting an army. Somewhere in the middle is working on one squad/unit at a time.

    I have found that working on a single unit at a time allows for a nice compromise of speed vs quality. I also find that I need to set aside a specific work time each day. This leads to consistency. Working one to two hours per day will lead to more productivity and quality than 10 hours straight.

    As far as techniques go, for raw speed I find that batch painting any complex part of a squad/unit/army all in one go is the best way to do it. For example, painting all of the tabards for an army in one sitting.

    Thanks for a neat article,

    Dave

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    1. Funny you mention going one 'squad' at a time. I'll be doing this myself with my Necrons for next year's Adepticon! Thought for me the initiative for doing so came out of a lack of funds to purchase everything at once, I'm finding it keeps me interested in the project more than the Build Everything - Paint Everything scenario.

      Batch Painting is a whole other monster that I'll be doing my best to avoid en-mass from now on, personally :P

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  3. The most effective tool I have found for improving productivity as well as quality is social painting days/nights. If you are lucky enough to have a few friends who enjoy painting (or, at the minimum, NEED to paint), invite them over for a session of "painting while we BS". You'll not only be forming a coalition of friends who just won't let you be lazy, but you'll also likely be combining a whole laundry list of expertise and talent. If you're working on model X and hit a snag, painter Y may have already surmounted that hurdle on another piece and be right there handy to guide you through or, maybe even, give you a practical demonstration. This is something we discovered while working on our Adepticon team army a few years ago, and we learned a lot during that time.

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    1. My local crew and I keep trying to push this social painting idea, we just keep missing on the dates :P We haven't given up yet, though, and I am a full supporter of soundboarding and critiquing to help us improve!

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  4. Timmy,
    You know the best technique ever is dipping :P

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    1. Mmmhmm... You sir, are just trying to stir up crap. :)

      Go tell this to Blaine ;)

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  5. Thanks. I am notoriously slow at either high quality (bah. relatively speaking) or table top, so anything to improve that quality/quantity balance is helpful.

    People like Jim Wappel always amazes me at the speed they can crank out armies that look fantastic.

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    1. Folks like Jim Wappel are the exception in our hobby world, in my opinion, and I too admire the speed and quality at which he cranks things out.

      At the same time, the poor man barely got any sleep the week before Games Day :( He's prolly still catching up on it!!

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    2. I have just started base coating with my airbrush after using it to prime and paint vehicles only. Getting 3 colours base coated on some Ork Loota's was a very quick experience just the detail work now to finish it off.

      It does work best if the models will all be the same colour i had to vary it up a bit cos it was orks and i cant stand them being the same.

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  6. For me it's unit by unit to keep me interested when painting. Also take small breaks to do little one-offs in between when you start to get bored. Terrain, dioramas from spare bits and objective markers are all great ways to add to the army but take a break while keeping the momentum up...Fast is nice but pretty is more rewarding for me.
    Besides now that Allies is in you can work on several forces and completely avoid power armour burn out or whatnot. "Yes, honey I these blue ones are for the same army of green ones -the rule book says I need to have allies. Sorry, rules are rules. Now can you move those heels so I can put my new storm raven there..."

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  7. I'm really curious about when needing the better brushes to produce better work comes about? I'm just starting out, should I invest in better brushes now and get used to working with them, or work with okay brushes until my brush work is better than "okay"?

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    1. Honestly, I would start out with good brushes. Invest in them now and learn to paint with them. Why discourage yourself when a brush's tip doesn't hold it's shape properly, or ruins quickly due to poor quality? A Raphael Series 8404, size 0 will cost the same as three of the others. but last longer than all 3 combined so long as you take proper care of it.

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    2. Sounds like a plan, I just googled that and looked it up on Amazon, doesn't seem like a bad investment, but are there kits or local (STL) stores to buy the comparable sizes to the GW brushes?

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    3. As a Local St. Louisan, I can honestly, and unfortunately, tell you that no store in the area carries the Raphael Series 8404 Line. However, I've ordered all of mine from Dick Blick online because they both carry them, and there is a local store, just in case.

      As far as what sizes to order to compare with the GW sizes...that's a matter of taste, really. Your questions have inspired a post from me on the subject for next week, Tuesday...but if you don't want to wait, email me at the address in my profile and I'll be happy to give you my suggestions before the article next week.

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