Historical mini challenge

[Oxygenthief]

I\'ve been looking at this site on and off for about 2 years. I\'ve noticed that when I scan the historical section the mini\'s don\'t do well in fact no 25mm (I will clarify) Historical mini has ever made it to the Top 10, which is unfortunate since if it were not for the Historical mini\'s CMON would not exsist. This is not a arbitrary statement, this is a fact (as best I can tell). Historicals started the hobby. I\'ve also come to the conclusion that most people don\'t even understand what the Historical miniatures are all about. I\'m not talking about the 54mm or larger figure either. Those things are two to six times as high as a 25-38mm figure. Nothing against those people but the 54mm and larger requires a whole different kind of paint job that most people painting fantasy don\'t even begin to understand. I\'m talking about the garden variety 25mm figure or smaller. I\'d like to see one of you top 50 painters apply your considerable talents to a Historical figure. Nothing against fantasy figures and I\'m not advocating a flood of Historicals. Historicals are considerable harder to do than fantasy, there are no color choices other than the ones that are right. You cannot just make something up and call it a Historicaly accurate figure. Unfortunately something like Napoleonics doesn\'t have various French chapters like Space Marines LOL. Anyway it would be cool to see somebody take up the challenge, after all the mark of a true master painter is diversity. Have fun, and keep painting!

 

[Coyote]

And I\'d like to see the people who paint 90 and 120mm miniatures paint 28mm to the level of the top 10.

Let\'s call a spade a spade. We\'re talking about two things. Large scale miniatures (54-120mm and up) and historical miniatures.

Not all 120mm figures are historical, not all 25mm are fantasy.

That out of the way. The reason 120mm haven\'t scored in the top 10 is because no-one has posted really outstanding 120mm miniatures.

Let\'s look at the highest ranked historical (and it\'s .2 points below the current #1)


http://www.coolminiornot.com/?id=13400

Ok, so we have here a knight at ease. The face is good, but that\'s expected for this scale. The freehand is pretty good. Not very intricate, but well done.

the highlighting on the tunic would be decent if this were 25-30mm. However, for the scale the layers are just not very tight.

Still, overall a very well painted miniature. I probably would give it an 8.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/?id=37085
The current #1 on CMON.

Here we have a very dynamic diorama with a well executed object lighting paintjobs. There are a few mistakes, such as the hair and robes don\'t match the motion, and the robe doesn\'t seem right (too much highlighting based on the angle of the lightsource)

However, extremely smooth blending. Believable colour-shifting (his claw looks like a blue-steel object under orange light, not orange. Although the object lighting is a bit gimmicky this diorama needs it. It adds interest and tells the story. If the SOB had been suspended in another way, just pointing her guns at the robot it would have looked fairly boring.

So, it looks like historics and larger scales aren\'t under appreciated. The top 10 is a highly contested spot and there are much more talented sci-fi fantasy painters then there are historical painters. Not more talented necessarily, just more of them.

Next time you want to troll, I expect you to do a little bit more research on what you\'re bitching about.

 

[Oxygenthief]

Well you just proved my point! You don\'t get it! I wasn\'t trolling! or Bitching!! You can\'t read???? **** I said not a 120mm****!!!**** I said not a 54mm!!!*** Are you blind I said 25mm or smaller Historical... 54mm all the way up to 120mm and even oh yes 200mm.. figures are a whole different species of miniature. I actually think the fantasy people give those large scale mini\'s too much credit because they don\'t know what they are! They are Giants and the small number of them on CMON are a fraction of what is represented at the shows like SCAHMs where 1000\'s are on display and the competition is more fierce than a Golden Demon event. What I said was I would like somebody else to post a 25mm Historical or smaller figure with an accurate paint job that ends up some where in the top 50 (actual list) not even the top 10 (but that would be cool too) ... I personally posted a figure that would have scored high at a historical show that scored really low here on Cmon. Not that I don\'t completely understand why, since it didn\'t have the flair of a fantasy figure. I would like to see somebody post something of a Historical nature in a small scale (one more time for those that can\'t read) just to see what would qualify as a 9-10 on Cmon. Gosh was that soo tough and by the way I\'m not complaining.. when I am you will know.

 

[Oxygenthief]

By the way I\'ll add this for those of you people that have been trolling Cmon with nothing better to do than attack people\'s posts instead of conversing, if there is already one of these on Cmon my apologies I just haven\'t seen it after all there is only 27 gazillion (not even a real word) miniatures on CMON and counting!

 

[beowulfthehunter]

I find it ironic that you complain about attacking people\'s posts, but instead you decide to attack the person for putting in their two cents becase it differed from the theme of your post. I belive you called the person \"Blind\". That is not right, that is not Christian, I honeslty hope that the peace you need in your hear does not derive from attacking other people.

Amen

 

[Oxygenthief]

[Next time you want to troll, I expect you to do a little bit more research on what you\'re bitching about. [/quote]

that is his direct quote??? quite obviously directed at me.....

As to my comment about being Blind, I can only assume he must have blindly answered my post with his own thought. I didn\'t use a four letter or any other word in my original post so please take the Christianly advice post somewhere else . Man I love controversy.

 

[Coyote]

Well, obviously I didn\'t understand exactly what you wrote. I had a little bit of trouble catching the meaning with your punctuation.

As for complaining. If you say that you think historicals are under-rated and then say that you received a score you didn\'t agree with here.

\"I personally posted a figure that would have scored high at a historical show that scored really low here on Cmon\"

To me, this seems like you\'re upset about your score and blaming the voters for not \"understanding\" the paintjob.

Anyway, I still think you need to do your homework by browsing the forums for historical figures.

the highest rated 25mm figure in the historical gallery:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/?id=18851

Painted in the foundry style. Clean and sharpe, but only a shade, base and highlight. Should be a 7, maybe 8.

BTW, I\'m avoiding fictional characters placed in the historical category (like Sherlock Holmes)

next, same painter:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/?id=18858

Personally, I like the look of the style, but it is definately not top 50.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/?id=6194

Not bad, definately not top 50.

Anyway, let\'s skip ahead. Not many. Out of 320 miniatures in the historical section, from descending rating, 46 were 25mm historical figures.

There\'s a total of 520 submissions in the historical miniatures category.
Based on the fact that the lower the rank, then more 25mm figures there are, we\'ll overestimate the total amount of 25mm miniatures in the historical section at 250.

They lowest mark is 4.3, btw

There are 27 490 total submissions.
That makes 0.9% of those historical miniatures roughly 25mm scale.
I\'d say of the 250 25mm historicals there are maybe 50 that were painted for anything other then gaming.

That\'s 0.1% of the total submissions. And one of those should be in the top 50?

If you are unhappy with your score I suggest you post a link to your mini and ask for feedback instead of trying to tell fantasy and sci-fi painters that we owe historical players, and we don\'t know what we\'re talking about because we don\'t \"get\" historicals.

Here, let\'s turn this thing constructive.
Everyone. Oxygenthief would like some feedback on his 15mm Luchs and Schwimmwagon.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/?id=41679

I\'ll begin. It\'s well painted, but fairly basic in that it has a basecoat, airbrushed camo and sludgewash. Still, with the subject matter there\'s no place to really shine. It\'s a basic tanker asking for directions diorama. There is no weathering on either of the vehicles, one of the places you could have stood out.

The composition is good. It is simplistic but it works to keep the eye moving. However, it is a pretty standard triangle. Interest could have been added by having the driving popping his head out, talking to the guy in the schwimmwagon.

Finally the picture is taken from too high. A view slightly closer to eye level would have help humanize the scene.

Otherwise, a good classic scene, deserving of its score. There are no flaws that detract from the story. The biggest hurdle is find a way to make that scene a little more interesting. A rainstorm, perhaps. Maybe having the direction giver in the process of stepping onto the tread to get to a more comfortable level with the tank commander.

It would also provide us with a visual clue as to whether the tank is moving. For example, is the schwimmwagon moving? Perhaps a piece of paper stirred by it\'s wake (piece of foil, one corner on the ground, the rest in the air, painted to look like a newspaper) would give the impression that it is moving.

Or, resculpt the schwimmwagon driver\'s arm so he\'s turning the wheel (and turn the tires) to avoid the Luchs which has suddenly stopped.

I don\'t think the problem is that no-one understands historicals. After a certain level what you need to improve is pretty untangible.

BTW, if you want some vengence, feel free to let \'er rip at these guys.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/?id=41866

 

[Oxygenthief]

Seriously no I wasn\'t complaining to anybody about any of my marks.

The figure I took down was-
http://www.war-paint-miniatures.com/12.JPG

This is an unfinished website, so sorry for a lack of images.

I took the figure down for a reason I will explain later. I almost took my figures down for the very comment you just made, so please no reprisals on my own postings are necessary, I humbly concede I am not the best.. just trying to get there.

As to the remarks on the diorama, the posting was a whim and I fairly expected it wouldn\'t do so hot. That vehicle in the dioroma is very, very, small 15mm is tiny.

In addition I actually airbrushed that vehicle, and I have never seen its like duplicated anywhere on the web in that scale. I have also been published in quite a few rule sets and magazines so justification is not the goal either... I really do like your suggestion about the turned wheels on the schwimmwagen ( I do think that might have been lost on this crowd but just MHO) and I have even drilled hatches and replaced crew figures before. I have another site...

http://www.panzerpalette.com/

feel free to view that any time. I think you are right about the view of the photo as well because I am the worlds worst at photos. Leaving that alone , my whole point is this .. How to get a 9-10 with a historical 25mm or smaller mini? You showed me (3) 8\'s I overlooked when I did my search. I think they are all outstanding in a foundry paint job kind of way. On this site Historicals are forced to compete with miniatures from people Like Jennifer Haley and Bobby Wong, just 2 of my all time favorites off the top of my head, and yet if I handed a historical WWII figure to them and said make this a ten. I think they would look at me and say your nuts. If I am wrong then my challenge is well met. In addition I am forced to compete with 54mm to 200mm Historicals and with voters that I\'m not totally convinced know the difference. I know many of those kind of large scale painters and they wouldn\'t even consider slapping a paint brush to a small scale mini and they think the small scale painters are nuts. As you said it\'s 2 different kinds of hobbies.

In addition when you scan the Galleries and you see a magnificent Dragon with 50 layers of shading and some girl on the back your immediant response may be \"man that\'s a nice piece\". The next image is of some boring british soldier with a tommy gun regardless of how well it\'s done or how accurate and it gets a 6-7 vote or less because to a younger viewer it\'s not as \"cool\". My point, and it\'s not being taken well, is that I think my challenge is impossible? I don\'t know ?? I have yet to see a 9 or a 10 on CMON but I would sure like to. Feel free to join the spirit of this and not attack me at any time.

 

[SaintRigger]

Aside from the bickering, there is a point here and that is there really aren\'t many historical minis posted, and nothing of the spectacular quality that is becomming they norm here.

On another forum, the question was raised about the quality of fantasy painters vs historical painters (and I don\'t want to get into that jihad either).

As was brought up, the the number of pictures posted here, only a small fraction of them were historicals (and looking back, it was historicals and wargaming that actually drove the mini hobby for a long time)

I would also, as a challange, like to see some well painted historicals. To keep up my end, I will be posting some gladiators and some WWI american soldiers in the next week or two (although they probably won\'t be good enough to crack the top 100). I\'d love to see some of the other painters here pick up a historical and paint it.. if for nothing else, lets just boost the number available. Sounds like a bit of a giggle, really.

 

[Oxygenthief]

Thanks for that comment, for that is the spirit in which this thread was started. I look forward to seeing them.

 

[Coyote]

See, that\'s what I don\'t get? Why pull miniatures from this site?

Because you don\'t like the score they got?
Because I\'m an asshole?

People have done it before and I will never understand it. I doubt anyone here who recognizes my name likes me. I\'m still not going to pull my miniatures.

As for the mini you pulled, the biggest problem is that the chest is muddy and the detail there is hard to see. This may be why it has done better in real life. In real life there isn\'t that problem (because you can view it at different angles)

Perhaps a greater difference in colour between the metal and the beading underneath. Perhaps darklining to help them show up. This is a situation where NMM is stronger then metallic paint - metallic paint makes really detailed areas hard to see.

Say what you want about NMM being unrealitic, in the case of that horseman\'s chest the cleanlyness of NMM would certain help.

 

[Oxygenthief]

Well I\'ll tell you why I pulled my 25mm foundry figure, since I said I would and didn\'t explain it. After 36 votes it was sitting on just just barely over 5+ or in other words just barely better than table top. I didn\'t take it personal, I didn\'t cry about it. I got thick skinned and I simply yanked it. Thats a bogus vote and I know it.. and the problem with that vote is, the magic number for voting is 50 votes and then the object, at least to my understanding pretty much stays at that level for the duration of its stay + or - 1 level. CMON has tons of 4-5 mini\'s already I don\'t see the need to add one more. Especially since there are more and more mini\'s being added every day and voting is getting scarce. By the way not one comment was left to explain it, just of course the vote a 5+. Maybe we should examine why I got a 5 vote. Is it because it has a murky chest as you suggest or is it because it competed in the viewing gallery with a bunch of Fantasy figures that are more elaborate and colorful? I tend to suspect the later, but lets even say you are correct for arguements sake and it is because of the murky chest. That is not my doing it is foundry\'s, I didn\'t sculpt the chest which by the way is historicaly accurate and they really even look that murky in real life. You say I could fix that with NMM, I personally dislike the \"lets actually paint metal\" look for historicals. I also think it\'s over used. It\'s great for Fantasy.. I certainly would love to master it, but I\'ve been painting for 20 years and the NMM is fairly new. That\'s my choice. I\'m sure somebody could have offered me a comment without even going to the NMM. Here\'s my thought and this is a little bit of a snipe I guess, I don\'t give bad remarks, votes, comments or otherwise to things I can\'t do.. I certainly don\'t feel I\'m qualified to do that. The general feel to this site is to pretend your a Golden Demon judge. I can\'t! I tried and like everybody else I vote what I like. I comment to ask questions or offer suggestions in areas I really understand, sometimes people even reply but I do know my limits. I would never ever try to comment on NMM techniques, as I don\'t have a firm grasp on it myself. I can tell good from bad and I do vote that way, but without comment. But mostly since I didn\'t want to debate the image which I can say with pride is one of my best works in quite some time .. I dumped it and I will try again with another image until I get tired of fighting the super fantasy that somebody else pointed out is becoming the NORM more and more, and then I will quit posting all togethor and just watch the other prettys go by. My friends are all historical gamers, and great painters and they say I am stupid to even put Historical Mini\'s on this site of the scale I like because this is predominately a Fantasy site but what do they know??? I think I\'m a glutton for punishment. The bottom line is this I would love for somebody maybe even you to prove me wrong. Back to the challenge paint a historical mini that is a 9+ in a normal scale like 25mm or 15mm. You keep argueing for the reasons why its not but I want to see it happen, if not by you or me then anybody. Can anybody paint a 9+ Historical mini in a traditional wargames scale.

 

[Coyote]

the 5 had nothing to do with the subject. Sounds like you got a few bad votes.

for an example, a historical miniature, 25mm scale. unbased with a bad badground, and otherwise no-where close to the standard you have on yours

http://www.coolminiornot.com/?id=41866

as I write this, the score is 6.4, a full 2-3 points higher then they deserve. It was actually around 6.7 for a while, which blew my mind.

I\'m not saying there\'s anything terrible with the chest. If you wanted to look at why the model didn\'t get a 9 or 10, that\'s when you would look at things like the chest.

Yes, it may be historical, but it detracts from the figure. Metallic paints have a very un-even finish due to their nature (which is why often the pewter itself is buffed)

This un-even finish, coupled with low contrasting colour, makes that area indistinct. Indistinct detail will keep you out of the top 50.

Personally, if I were to vote on that I\'d give it an 8. The dappling on the horse is superb and the leopard spot is perfectly in scale, both in regards to size, but also in regards to subtlety.

 

[sivousplay]

wow ...

Well, having painted mostly fantasy my entire painting career and only recently jumping into larger scale pieces (fantasy) and from there to larger scale historical, I will definitley say that there are (as oxygenthief stated) many differences in painting a 25mm, 90mm, or 200mm figure. I\'ll happily discuss this too because it\'s an interesting topic, but not the one for this thread.

Of my top pieces here on cmon, I have eveything from some 200mm females to a group of 28mm vampires, some 28mm dioramas (w/ dragons and balrogs ... definitely big figs), some wolfen, and a 54mm historical.

So, I\'ve tried just about everything but 25mm historicals and promise I\'ll get to my point soon ...

When I pick up a model to paint, I want to be wowed by the sculpt and by what I think I can produce with it.

With the wonderful 25+mm fantasy models being produced by Rackham, Reaper and the rest, it\'s obvious why it\'s fun to paint these figs. You have a wide-open pallette ... the sky is the limit and the wonderful sculpts support just about anything you can dream of.

With the large scale historicals made by the likes of Andrea, Pegaso, etc. you get unbelievable detail and while you are limited in color choices to remain historically accurate, when you\'re done, you have a piece that can sit in your display case, bookshelf, whatever and looks quite striking and even people who aren\'t into the hobby can still appreciate it because they can actually see all the detail without squinting So, they make great room decour.

Similarly, all the large scale resin pieces from anime to the very sexy stuff from JJ models and the like are clearly striking in their own way and make wonderful display pieces.

Dioramas, group displays, dragons etc. done in 28, 54mm whatever scale fall into one of the aforementioned categories of cool stuff that everyone can appreciate and enjoy looking at.

Now we come to historical 25mm ... you\'re limited in color choice to remain accurate, you\'re limited in WOW factor on the sculpts because of the subject matter, you\'re limited on sculpting quality because of the scale, and in my own case I don\'t game with them. I imagine that most painters here are going to reject 25mm historicals for one of those reasons and that\'s why you don\'t see many on the site.

If there are some really cool 25mm medieval historicals (sculpts), maybe you can change my mind, but I haven\'t seen any ... most that I\'ve seen are of the quality of old RP minis which is tabletop at best.

jim

 

[Oxygenthief]

I think I may have gotten some bad voters too but, oh well I will try harder next time. Thanks for the comments coyote. It\'s interesting about the NMM I actually did have a 3 second debate as to weather to try that or not. Sounds like I maybe should have.. Another day another dollar. As to the Canadians you posted. I think they are fine for a table top game looks alot like what I see on everybody\'s table for just a game. I generally rate thing between a 5-6 if I would like playing with the figures in an actual game everything else is up from there with a 10 being those knock out things.

And yes Sivousplay they are tons different If only I had a larger storage area and another lifetime to learn it all in LOL I still experiment from time to time. I didn\'t think to call it the WOW factor but that\'s an excellent word for it. I have seen some new sculpts that are nice but come no where near the level of 54mm up to 120mm. You might look at some of the new stuff on the perry twins site or an even newer figure maker called Renegade miniatures.

 

[sivousplay]

Thanks for the \"links.\" I checked out both places and I\'ll stand by my WOW statement. They are nice minis, but if you aren\'t into historical gaming, they seem quite dull by comparison to what most of us paint, and it would be quite the challenge to turn them into a 10 ... just not enough to work with. And, I\'m afraid that if there is someone who could paint those to a 10, they wouldn\'t be historically accurate any more.


jim

 

[Coyote]

there\'s also the point that, generally, historical sculptors aren\'t putting the same effort into the miniatures as fantasy sculptors. It\'s not a skill thing, and there are definately some exceptions.

It\'s a simple fact that when you\'re putting out miniatures at the prices most historicals are at you simply cannot afford to make each one a masterpiece.

Look at Old Glory. Much maligner producer of historical figures. Say what you will about Dwarf Wars, the figures are definately sculpted to a higher standard then their historical figures.

I mean, if the sculpt you\'re starting with is poor, you\'ll definately be at a disadvantage.

Not that the hussar you linked to was a poor sculpt. I\'m talking about in general.

 

[Oxygenthief]

Too funny.. Sivousplay I agree your WOW statement is still the answer. Still I may have some that might be flashy enough to try it, we will see. The Old Glory mini\'s are cheap and you can get alot of them. but they lack style so I switched to Foundry , which for what they are charging price wise they should be the WOW part of what Sivousplay had to say earlier. Unfortunately they really lack detail and you almost have to paint it on. Way too smooth for my tastes. And yes I too got sucked into buying a box of Dwarf Wars from Old Glory. LOL... They are a very nice and inexpensive dwarf or other army and great to game with but your also right they aren\'t competition pieces. I\'ll post some pics of something I finished last night a little later and if you don\'t mind maybe you can give me your honest opinions.

 

[Coyote]

Hey, no problem.

The only historical miniatures I\'ve painted are those WWII figures.

They\'re revell WWII British Infantry (painted as canadian) which means they are soft plastic.

The one thing soft plastic provides is the ability to have realistically sized rifles. However, it makes detail a little soft, especially on the face. Poor face.

Which makes me think, what is the most important bit of the miniature?

Face
Pose
no anatomy errors

Small details aren\'t going to help if those 3 are off. Now, I\'m not evening mentioning smooth surface. If you can\'t keep the sculpt from looking like a 3 year old made it out of playdoh then you need to work on that first

 

[Sand Rat]

Jim, I\'ve got to disagree with you here. There are some folks who can do excellent work with large scale and small scale historicals - Shepard Paine and Francois Verlinden leap to my mind immediatly. Both of them work primarily in large scale historicals (54-200mm) and are where I draw a good amount of inspiration (ok, so I\'m biased).

As for historicals lacking that wow factor because of the lack of options, in my opinion they are much harder to paint because of those limitations - if you think the GW thought police are bad (as in what color do I paint Blood Angels) just hang out with some historical painters for a while - shade variations that should not matter or be visible to the human eye will get you reamed out by some of them. One of the reasons I quit playing historicals in public is I got tired of listening to the bullshit some gamers were spouting about how that shade wouldn\'t have been used by Napoleon when they were invading Russia and so forth like they were actually present for the invasion.