Some Miniature Philosophy: Will A.I. paint our miniatures for us?

Once I published this. I sent it to 2 creators who like to tackle philosophical ideas. One politely declined to talk about “things they are not an expert on”. The other was Big Lee from Miniature Adventures who took the time to make a video essay, and for whom I am both moved and grateful that he did.

Two quick points worth mentioning from his essay:

He moved the timeline further in the future where slop appears in our hobby in a physical form. Where you could be buying miniatures that look great online, only to find out messed up A.I. slop sculpts that make no sense.

The second point was a deep philosophical one, where he points out that “In the end the conversation isn’t about wargamers, it’s about how people relate to making things in a world were machines can make things for us.”

So wargamers would not suddenly stop painting once automation is available. Like oil painters didn’t stop painting once printing press and lithography could produce images. It’s just that before lithography, people could make good money painting. Once this was automated, painting was switched from a profession to leisure.

In the video’s comments there was a discussion about the actual technology available right now, and it turns out we already can print painted resin miniatures.

Its not something you can do at home. You would need at least 20k for the printer and I can imagine the materials and costs of the print itself would be prohibitive for wargaming. But the tech is here, which means it will be commercially available one day.

This is the tech for the 3d printing part. Fon Davis (the special effects guy being interviewed) did not mention anything about any A.I. sculpting or coloring the sculpt. Its still 100% human artists, and Fon implied that they are scarce. So for now, even if the printer was available in wargamers homes, actual humans would still have to create coloured sculpt files. This sounds far harder than sculpting a 3d model, so unless A.I. can somehow take the task, owners of said machines will print the same handful of coloured models. Don’t expect to be able to print fully coloured Carolingian Franks in this decade.

As Big Lee says, the hobby will evolve once more. Some people will stick to metal, others will work on 3d prints doing shading or kitbashing, and others will be taking up those skills digitally, pre-painting sculpts, or printing the basic colours and using a brush for details and shades.