Reply To: Are older miniatures better ?

[wolfie65Participant 1238xp 0]

The painting part is one aspect. I just watched a TheirTube video on various painting techniques, including  ‘slapchop’ – I guess folks are starting to get a tad sick of black undercoats and the extreme dullness they produce – and they also showed the ‘dip’, which is basically an overall burnt umber/sienna wash to achieve shading. Quite effective as a speed painting method and the figure did look pretty good, but if you did this with a Minifigs or Prince August model ,you’d end up with a humanoid-shaped brown blob.

None of those techniques apply to me, I use watercolors, so black undercoats, dips and such are a no-no, I neither own nor want an airbrush and washes have to be VERY carefully controlled to not make a mess.

The look of the models is another aspect. Until the early 00’s, most figures looked more or less like something from history, mythology, folk tales, literature or pop culture, starting with Rackham’s Confrontation , they began to look more and more like someone’s nightmare or something from a video game. See Bardic Broadcast’s TheirTube video on the subject of Heroquest. I have a Wood Elf army consisting of mostly 5th edition and older Citadel, some Grenadier, some Harlequin/Black Tree Design and assorted others, I look at today’s ‘Sylvaneth’ and I don’t even know what any of those are supposed to be. Demented trees ? Heroin-addled Hippies on an extreme starvation diet ? Walking toxic waste ? There’s no way I’m buying any of those figures.

And not only are they plastic – for the price they should be platinum – they are oh-so-very thin and fragile, just looking at them too hard might break something off. Guess I should be glad they’re not 3D-printed (yet), which would make that even worse. I’m VERY careful with my figures and a 3D-printed rabbit assassin broke 3 times in 2 places just while painting…..

I hate to think what would happen if I would actually use her in a game.