To illustrate a point, I think Copplestone Castings are amongst the best sculpts around, they are not to everybody's taste tis true, but personally having painted a few of 'em they are up there with the best. Nice and crisp and not difficult to paint well..........or so I thought.
I won't name and shame, its nobody here btw, but I think that answers the point.
Tim, Those Union infantry jackets look just right. Looking forward to seeing them track across my table.
Regards
John
The Perry/Copplestone thing is a funny one. CSs are really nice to paint with well defined details little flash etc etc. Perrys can be tricky to paint, need careful prep, make me swear a lot painting them and yet they do look nice when done.
I'd chose CS to paint but Perry to own. (I have both).
When I need one last battalion to break through the enemy's line, I don't care how badly it is painted or what brand of figures the battalion contains. At that moment, I just need more troops. :lol:
When I need one last battalion to break through the enemy's line, I don't care how badly it is painted or what brand of figures the battalion contains. At that moment, I just need more troops. :lol:
Equally when mine are running away I wondered why I even bothered painting them.
I've had a few ECW games where units have legged it without even firing a shot.
Ultimately, I suppose, it comes down to the question of how aesthetically pleasing a game/collection you want. Some people want to get troops on the table ASAP and might compromise on painting to achieve that, whilst others will slave over every figure and their productivity/gaming will be reduced as a result. Every gamer falls somewhere along that scale as most, I think, find a happy medium between quality and quantity; a few will be the "extremists" at either end of the scale.
What matters most to me in a game is consistency - the games I see at shows are largely either visual p*rn or basic 'n fun; the games that fail for me are those where there is a variety of painting styles or competencies and a mix of excellent and crappy sculpts - those games just look messy, IMHO, but I appreciate that large games often require this compromise to achieve the quantity of figures required.
Ultimately, I suppose, it comes down to the question of how aesthetically pleasing a game/collection you want. Some people want to get troops on the table ASAP and might compromise on painting to achieve that, whilst others will slave over every figure and their productivity/gaming will be reduced as a result. Every gamer falls somewhere along that scale as most, I think, find a happy medium between quality and quantity; a few will be the "extremists" at either end of the scale.
What matters most to me in a game is consistency - the games I see at shows are largely either visual p*rn or basic 'n fun; the games that fail for me are those where there is a variety of painting styles or competencies and a mix of excellent and crappy sculpts - those games just look messy, IMHO, but I appreciate that large games often require this compromise to achieve the quantity of figures required.
Equally, and this links to that Friday poll about quality, I do wonder why some paint gorgeous figures to then place them on not so gorgeous terrain. Really they'd be better of using not so good models on great terrain. That WW2 game in Giles' SELWG images shows this. Drop dead gorgeous terrain and good but not brilliant figures but it looks amazing. I do wonder if generally we have the focus wrong – too much effort on the minute figure details and not enough thought in the terrain (generalisation, with notable exceptions).
With different painting styles consistent basing can mitigate this to a degree. My ECW figures have been done over 25 years and some a quite ropey but the basing is all the same and that helps pull the whole thing together somewhat.
Painting, you only have to look at the standard AB drags irregular upto.
cheque is in the post for you.
I agree though, paintjobs.