First post of the year so can I wish all readers a happy new year may 2017 bring you plenty of hobby time. For me I plan to get back gaming in 2017 and push my painting skills. To which end I wanted to talk about how I see my hobby and the painting involved.
As I see it as a painting wargamer (e.g I paint more than game) Military Modelling and wargames are either end of the same hobby. For wargames you want plenty of well painted miniatures but these are to be viewed from arms length on a table top. But military modelling is all about making the figures look lifelike and the top painters in this field can make figures look alive. This is a very time heavy way of painting figures can take weeks to complete with the top painters spending hours on maybe a single blend. I have tried this style and find it very tough to be spending as long on one figure as I would spend painting a whole unit of even and army of wargames figures. Its not that I do not like to spend that amount of time, just that hobby time is finite and I still love to play wargames (or new era board games) and want/ need to paint figures for them
check out the top models on Cool Mini or not for 2016
And a few of my own attempts at Military Modelling style painting
I am at heart a wargames painter I excel in this style of work I have a method of painting that while effective is quick enough that painting an army will not take me years. My style for wargames is a simple one best summed up as Face's and Base's. You put extra effort into painting the flesh this gives the figures a great focal point, the rest of the figure can be done is basic colour with minimal highlights you then put extra effort into making the base work as stunning as you can. For me this is the best pay off between getting the army onto the table top and making the figures look great the base is visible form all angles and gives a great first impression and when the figures are looking at closer the well painted flesh will draw the viewers eye and give a impression of higher detail than you have actually put on the model. Below are my latest figures for the Sudan wars which show my face's and base's style (these would be add to a Sabot for the full base effect)
But in the last few years (maybe decade) the biggest growth in wargames has been in skirmish games. games that may only involve a few figures or a squad on each side. For me this is a chance to blur the lines between the two end of my hobby, I still want figures to play with but if I only need to paint a dozen of more figure to get a playable force I can put a few more hours into each figure to make them a bit more of a display piece. To this end I have a few projects that I will be giving this extra level of detail to namely my 40mm Napoleonic figures to play Sharp Practise my newest era Modern Special forces playing the Spectre rules set and maybe some WW2 SAS below are the first figures form my 40mm Napoleonic and my Modern stuff.
The Modern are the Empress miniatures Delta force and the Eureka Miniatures Recon Marines, and as everyone knows the Necromunda are good old GW.
