Painting from Prison????

[Dragonsreach]

But truthfully, 99 percent of us have no idea who we are ethnically.(*) So basically, you guys actually have castles and such still standing over there, and so a greater fascination for medieval fantasy. And Nottingham. And a monarch. Of course I have no data to back this up, just some rational deductive reasoning. But this has failed me before. Once.

I'm gonna say nope.
The average bod in the UK, is no more fascinated by medieval fantasy than your average American. If anything it's the "outsiders, the unusual" who have any fascination which is beyond the limits of the TV, Football.
Truth to tell I work with someone, who is now in their fifties, who hasn't read a book since they left school, never seen a movie which didn't have an explosion and who's social experience is limited to the pub and Liverpool's football ground. Regretfully he's not alone in that mentality.

We who paint models, game, or do "anything" which doesn't fall into the above limitations or who choose to have any aspirations outside the 'norm' are a minority and just like a lot of Minorities are viewed with either scorn or contempt.

(* Ethnicity is such a stupid means to categorise a person, and every time the Ethnic Monitoring Survey comes round my work they get the same answer from me....HUMAN BEING. They shouldn't need anything else!)

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

Games workshop, while having the advantage of being based in the UK, is by far the greatest distributor of miniatures in the world. If you want to find out where miniatures are most culturally acceptable, and I say MOST, then you need only look at who buys the most. According to GWs 2011 Profit Report, page 36, GW sells more miniatures in the UK than they do in all of North America. Only continental Europe buys more than the UK, and just barely. I am certain that this trend would be duplicated for all miniatures in general. Please take note that I am by no means contending that miniatures are mainstream anywhere. Just that, if it has found just a bit of acceptance anywhere, I would say that the UK would be the candidate.

Of course, if my government wants to categorize me by ethnicity they will get a similar response as you offer your own government. However, I for one wish I could identify with some sort of ancestral heritage. I am like most Americans in that I cannot. I only say that it is perhaps this sense of medieval heritage that MAY, and only may, be a contributing factor to the UKs dominance of the miniature market.

 

[Dragonsreach]

I'm unsure about your point about GW sales, but you have to consider that their target 'audience' is Midlevel income supported teenagers, with a limited gaming lifespan. GW expect that their customers will not last more than three years before puberty and girls feature more actively than toy soldiers. So I wouldn't take the level of GW sales as an example for all games or as an expectation of a level of the number of gamer/painters, or cultural awareness.
As an example out of 170 people in my division, I am the only one who has any 'artistic outlet', no others are involved in anything remotely as creative and as for gaming unless it's on a console, forget it!

 

[Avelorn]

Sweden's pretty welcoming. Even the cool guys paint. Like me! I'm cool...

I wear sunglasses. In a forum.

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

Sweden's pretty welcoming. Even the cool guys paint. Like me! I'm cool...

I wear sunglasses. In a forum.

Thats pretty darn cool. In the UK, you'd need a security detail.

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

Hmm, not so sure about GWstarget audience, as you have described them, DR. The average middle class parent isn't going to drop the kind of change required for their child to play Warhammer. For a 2000 point army (small), your going to need to buy around 10 models/units. These cost $20 to $100 a piece. Probably averaging around $40-$50. Then you have to buy the Army book, the $90 rulebook, all the paints and prepping materials. Then dice, templates, and other accessories. You're looking at spending $700-$1200 to play. I can't see many parents supporting this financially. Most people would probably expect to be playing within a year of their initial purchases or they'd lose interest. I started out wanting to game, before I realized that really I just want to paint. However, I use my Warhammer Army as a sort of basis for what I am going to paint, mainly because having a legit army will give me the opportunity to show off my minis.

Not sure of my point here, just that I think GWs audience isomer adult than you might think. I am surrounded by talentless morons too in my life. These are universal. There is probably no way of proving my thesis that miniature painting is most popular in the UK. But you have to acknowledge that there is a disproportionate number of mini manufacturers, if not painters and gamers in the UK. Maybe not.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Hmm, not so sure about GWstarget audience, as you have described them, DR.
And yet that is GW's stated target audience
The average middle class parent isn't going to drop the kind of change required for their child to play Warhammer. For a 2000 point army (small), your going to need to buy around 10 models/units. These cost $20 to $100 a piece. Probably averaging around $40-$50. Then you have to buy the Army book, the $90 rulebook, all the paints and prepping materials. Then dice, templates, and other accessories. You're looking at spending $700-$1200 to play.I can't see many parents supporting this financially
I've been watching this very situation occur and re-occur since 1992 and you'd be surprised at how much parents will cough up to keep their kids happy instead of interacting with them.

There is probably no way of proving my thesis that miniature painting is most popular in the UK. But you have to acknowledge that there is a disproportionate number of mini manufacturers, if not painters and gamers in the UK. Maybe not.

I've been model making for 40+ years and seen a huge change in the development of miniature production.
It's not "disproportionate" merely an 'accident' of that development.
Historical war gaming (Napoleonic, English civil war, Medieval, WWII) has always had a strong basis in the UK possibly due to our colonial history, possibly due to our European proximity and respective length of history while American civil War has always had a stronger showing in the states.

As a teenager Science Fiction models didn't really exist beyond a few 'ropey' Star Trek clones. Only after the first Star Wars movie did the SF "market" start to gain momentum. A lot of the existing companies have developed out of people who worked in the industry to start with, GW came out of people who had worked for Foundry, Warlord from ex-GW staff and so on for a lot of other companies. Look at Infamy, James (lono) is an ex-GW staffer and a lot of companies are based in Nottingham because of their connections.
Plus you have to take into account GW is not the sole gaming object Privateer Press, Wyrd are American, Freebooter German, Sphere Spanish, Rackham was French.
Gaming/Painting cannot be designated as 'National' because the market place is international thanks to the development of the internet and it's ease of trade between countries.