Sculpting : as necessary a skill as blending?

[neonlights]

Looking at all the galleries on CMON, one thing that stuck me was not only the quality of the painting, but the quality of conversions.

When I first started out years ago, it seemed that only GW sculptors and painters were able to do amazing conversions using loads of different bits and GS to not only fill up the joints but add loads of other details, perhaps even whole limbs! Most conversions that you saw in Golden Demon back then were identifyable - ie if you knew the models well, you could almost figure out which bits were used for the arms, head, body, weapon etc. And then the rest was obviously milliput to make the joints seamless, with maybe a few extra embellishments.

Now, I\'m blown away by the 100% sculpts I see on here! Even \'conversions\' seem to be 90% GS with small bits of metal or plastic added on - it used to be the other way round!! :wow:

Looking at all the outstanding minis on CMON, it almost seems to me that not only is a superb paint job required, but for true orginality and that extra wow factor you need to have converted it, and not just glue various bits together but make stuff out of thin air! Of course I\'m not talking just about your average table top gaming piece, but the collectors and display pieces, especially competition pieces. Let\'s face it, if judges see 3 space marines with amazing paint jobs, 1 is a standard mini, 1 is a small conversion and the other is a 90% GS conceptualised sculpture - you wouldn\'t bet on the first 2!

What does everyone think? Is sculpting becoming as essential skill a skill as blending?

 

[finn17]

Nah...It\'s only the GW sculpts that need converting....

Because they are so crap to begin with.....

You will see very few conversions of Rackham /Warmachine minis etc because they tend to get them right in the first place.

There is more than a little bias in this post by the way....

 

[Capt spalding]

well I\'m a sculptor first a painter waaaay past second anyway so i guess that I\'m totaly biased too

I did hear that GW was banning scratch builds for gduk this year though, can anyone shed some light on this?

 

[Dammekkos2]

Originally posted by Capt spalding
well I\'m a sculptor first a painter waaaay past second anyway so i guess that I\'m totaly biased too

I did hear that GW was banning scratch builds for gduk this year though, can anyone shed some light on this?

I hope they don\'t. They need a separate category for work that is more than, say 1/3 scratch. They also need a few \"standard model\" categories (one for WFB, one for 40k, one for large scale)

 

[minimaker]

Origineel geplaatst door Capt spalding
well I\'m a sculptor first a painter waaaay past second anyway so i guess that I\'m totaly biased too

??? Painting? You mean, those little figurines we make, people put paint over them?

Just kidding. lol I\'m also in the group of sculpting first and painting way second.

As to whether sculpting is a necessary skill. Depends a bit on how good a mini is and how original you want to make it I\'d say. Some people can blow everybody away by just doing a grand paintjob.

 

[james9487]

Unfortunately for me, I think sculpting is necessary to do some damage at the Golden Demon Competition, but like minimaker said, if you are that good at painting then you don\'t need to sculpt to succeed.

 

[MarkusTay]

I\'m also in the sculpter/not painter category. I\'ve been converting stuff since the 70\'s, and back then we didn\'t have Greenstuff (not the guy, the material). I had to do everything by filing and filling with regular epoxy. The stuff didn\'t come out all that great, but since I was the only person that knew of that was converting people were blown away (and sniffing the Epoxy was a plus).

I\'ve actually sold some sculpture pieces way back then, but they were fairly large, about 1 foot tall (30 CM?). Mostly fantasy, Dragons and Leprecauns. I\'ve only begun painting in a non-embarrassing fashion lately.

I\'d have to go with Minimaker, though. Sculpting helps. Scenery/background helps more. Look at EricJ\'s \"atmospheric\" work to see what I mean, no conversions there, just brilliant presentation. But it all comes down to the paintjob in the end. A greatly painted mini that makes people\'s jaw drop will win every time.

 

[james9487]

Originally posted by MarkusTay
Look at EricJ\'s \"atmospheric\" work to see what I mean, no conversions there, just brilliant presentation. But it all comes down to the paintjob in the end. A greatly painted mini that makes people\'s jaw drop will win every time.

Actually, check out Eric\'s Tyrant. He did a decent amount of converting and sculpting on it. Not to disprove what you said Markus, because I agree, a mini has to be well painted to look good in the end.

 

[EricJ]

it\'s actually funny, on my dark maiden I really really wanted to sculpt waves, but after failing that 2-3 times I decided to go in a different direction to compensate for that inability. It turned out ok in the end!

But I am obviously a painter first and sculpter second, if I can even call myself a sculpter. But I really feel there is a fine balance between the two. I struggle to find minis to express my ideas with at times, while if I could sculpt there wouldn\'t be this problem at all! And I imagine the opposite migh be true for those who sculpt without developing their painting, that in essence they can create the perfect canvas for themselves, but then have a bit of a problem expressing their vision with paints.

I think the only inballance arrises due to the nature of the hobby. Sculpts have sort of become a product, due to the mass casting and production, while painting is still the art, due to the unique nature of it. I don\'t think it\'s really fair, however it seems to be how it\'s percieved.

-Eric

 

[MarkusTay]

Originally posted by james9487
Actually, check out Eric\'s Tyrant. He did a decent amount of converting and sculpting on it. Not to disprove what you said Markus, because I agree, a mini has to be well painted to look good in the end.

I was actually thinking about his Blue Lotus - Dragyri Wail, May Faith Protect, and Dark Maiden. I know his Tyrant is amazing, but I identify him more for these works.

It\'s funny, Eric. We were talking about this recently at my LGS. We couldn\'t think of any sculpters that painted their own stuff. Most hire outside talent to paint their minis for their galleries (I had brought this up after looking at Werner Klocke\'s Freebooter site.

I guess everyone has their specialty. Only incredibly gifted people are multi-faceted.

 

[Calavera]

Originally posted by MarkusTay

Originally posted by james9487
Actually, check out Eric\'s Tyrant. He did a decent amount of converting and sculpting on it. Not to disprove what you said Markus, because I agree, a mini has to be well painted to look good in the end.

I was actually thinking about his Blue Lotus - Dragyri Wail, May Faith Protect, and Dark Maiden. I know his Tyrant is amazing, but I identify him more for these works.

It\'s funny, Eric. We were talking about this recently at my LGS. We couldn\'t think of any sculpters that painted their own stuff. Most hire outside talent to paint their minis for their galleries (I had brought this up after looking at Werner Klocke\'s Freebooter site.

I guess everyone has their specialty. Only incredibly gifted people are multi-faceted.

Well, let\'s take a look on Steve Buddle with his Spyglass minis, the multi-talented git sculpts and paints them ! And they all look great !

 

[minimaker]

Origineel geplaatst door MarkusTayWe couldn\'t think of any sculpters that painted their own stuff.

That\'s right, most don\'t. Though in the case of Werner I think it\'s more that he doesn\'t have the time. He likes painting and is well capable of it and has won several prices. I\'ve seen some of his paintjobs in real life and it\'s good stuff. I\'ll see if I can remember to take some pics of his work when I\'m at Miniatureansichten.
Oh, and Cindy is another sculptor who does both . As to me, I can paint but am much less interested in it. And painting stuff is harder to carry around.

Bye, Ming-Hua

 

[MarkusTay]

I didn\'t say that no one does it, just that it is a rare sculpter indeed that paints his own models. If you could do that, Ming-Hua, I would love to see his stuff. He is my favourite sculpter right now, but Chaz Elliot is running a VERY close second. It figures, their styles are similar. - Mark

 

[SJB]

Doesn\'t necessarily get you the whole distance in competition. I pretty much threw the entire technical manual of techniques at my Ultramarine Terminator for last years Golden Demon and got beaten to death with the wet end.

Originally posted by Calavera

Well, let\'s take a look on Steve Buddle with his Spyglass minis, the multi-talented git sculpts and paints them ! And they all look great !

 

[Capt spalding]

sculpting vs painting?

at some point most of us have to make a descision on which to persue properly. Better a master of one trade than a jack of two

however some of the clever gits ie: steve B, and more recently the french invasion, (allan C, JAG, cyril, jeremie.....) Have made me consider picking up painting sticks again, the quite laughable end result should be at this years gduk

and remember kids, without sculpting you still have a painted mini that you can enter into a competition, without painting us sculptors just have a sculpt that needs painting ???

 

[EricJ]

ok, this is dangerous, if all the sculpters of the world start painting at the same level, they won\'t need us painters who can\'t sculpt anymore!! Then I\'d have to learn to push the putty...

 

[SJB]

Nope, this sculptor still needs painters despite being vaguely able to paint. Because otherwise I\'ll be broke and will have to find an actual job.

Steve B

 

[Infidel Castro]

As we\'re talking about Mike McVey over on the National Styles thread, he also warrants a mention as a sculptor-painter. I suppose Mike started out painting but was good enough to sculpt for himself. Tim Prow also...

 

[minimaker]

And Cyril. Sylvain too. And I know Chaz Elliot has a similar background story. Dirk Stiller does more painting than sculpting but is actually a sculptor too (did things for demonworld).

 

[MarkusTay]

I didn\'t say sculpters COULDN\'T paint, I was just pointing out that most tend to have other people paint their stuff for their galleries, as is the case for Freebooter. Is that because they feel someone else could do it better justice then they could, or is it that they are to busy sculpting proffessionally to have the time to paint the stuff once it gets cast? I would love to see pics of Chaz Elliots painting as well as Werner\'s, that would be awesome!

Okay, I\'m a fanboy, but I\'m proud of it! lol