You current favorite mini genre:
- Thread starter supervike
- Start date
Friar
Dorks for Orks
Voted Sci-fi mainly just cuz I\'m having alot of fun with the space orks 
I\'m also really really tempted with the death korps from fw such lovely minis and with far more interest and scenic appeal then just about anything else in 40k (except the orks that\'d be a tie )
Tho I have a feeling I\'m going to do some historical stuff after this kick, I love so many of the ww1 and ww2 larger models and they represent a time that has alot of meaning and impact on the world. I\'d also love to do some historical diaramas, tanks and their crews and other scenes.
I\'m also really really tempted with the death korps from fw such lovely minis and with far more interest and scenic appeal then just about anything else in 40k (except the orks that\'d be a tie )Tho I have a feeling I\'m going to do some historical stuff after this kick, I love so many of the ww1 and ww2 larger models and they represent a time that has alot of meaning and impact on the world. I\'d also love to do some historical diaramas, tanks and their crews and other scenes.
generulpoleaxe
New member
love historical stuff due to the stories behind it (makes getting the realism a bit easier i find) a well as the darker fantasy (as anders put it, the french style of sculpting)
probably explains why i love sculpters such as Allan and Edgar just to name a couple as well as the painting style of Banshee and Jeremie (Allan as well) just to name a few.
high fantasy stuff is great for kicking back and relaxing and i love painting quick character standard jobs on reaper and dark sword miniatures.
i\'m getting into doing armour at the moment, be it WWII or sci fi (gw may see some of my money )
probably explains why i love sculpters such as Allan and Edgar just to name a couple as well as the painting style of Banshee and Jeremie (Allan as well) just to name a few.
high fantasy stuff is great for kicking back and relaxing and i love painting quick character standard jobs on reaper and dark sword miniatures.
i\'m getting into doing armour at the moment, be it WWII or sci fi (gw may see some of my money
)Fantasy for me.
I am intrigued by the discussion point about different types of fantasy, in particular the comments about D&D fantasy not being up to snuff in some way.
At least for some of us older site members D&D was one of the earliest examples of fantasy translated into gaming system. I never actually played the game when I was younger, but I absolutely devoured all the material I could get my hands on because of the fantasy element.
I may be wrong, but aren\'t many of the creatures/monsters/races in the D&D \"universe\" based on creatures/monsters/races from various cultural stories/legends/myths? Of course certain critters were just created for the game, but if the ideas were well executed, why are they any less interesting or valuable?
I am intrigued by the discussion point about different types of fantasy, in particular the comments about D&D fantasy not being up to snuff in some way.
At least for some of us older site members D&D was one of the earliest examples of fantasy translated into gaming system. I never actually played the game when I was younger, but I absolutely devoured all the material I could get my hands on because of the fantasy element.
I may be wrong, but aren\'t many of the creatures/monsters/races in the D&D \"universe\" based on creatures/monsters/races from various cultural stories/legends/myths? Of course certain critters were just created for the game, but if the ideas were well executed, why are they any less interesting or valuable?
AinuLainour
New member
Originally posted by generulpoleaxe
love historical stuff due to the stories behind it (makes getting the realism a bit easier i find) a well as the darker fantasy (as anders put it, the french style of sculpting)
probably explains why i love sculpters such as Allan and Edgar just to name a couple as well as the painting style of Banshee and Jeremie (Allan as well) just to name a few.
high fantasy stuff is great for kicking back and relaxing and i love painting quick character standard jobs on reaper and dark sword miniatures.
i\'m getting into doing armour at the moment, be it WWII or sci fi (gw may see some of my money
Chris covered my thoughts on the subject perfectly!
No Such Agency
New member
WRT the comment above about \"monsters\" having \"a place in the world\", it always bugged me that so many D&D/classic fantasy creatures were for lack of a better word biologically improbable. Is evolution the driving biological force in the D&D world? I would argue it is, since so many familiar creatures (bears, big cats, dinosaurs) fill the same niches they do/did in our world.
So what to make of owl bears, or ambulls, or my favorite, rust monsters? Saying they\'re all \"magical creations\" generated by sorcerers is kind of a cop-out; are there really all these magic-users out there constantly creating hundreds of bizarre yet biologically viable monsters?
EDIT: to answer the question, probably steampunk.
This is, of course, completely subjective. Personally, I am not very keen on the archetypical DnD or fantasy novel cover artwork type fantasy imagery. I like my fantasy darker, grittier and more \"real\", if you see what I mean. I am much more intrigued by creatures like Gollum, or the mini I showed previously, than by \"fantastical\" monsters like cockatrices, griffons, unicorns etc. Like Jim, I\'m more fond of the way magic is described in LOTR (where they hardly ever use it), than in many modern fantasy novels (or RPGs), where magicians battle it out with spectacular spells and such.
In a way, I guess I want fantasy to be less fantastical, so that it could almost be real.
That being said, this is my favourite style of fantasy, and it doesn\'t mean I don\'t like anything that falls outside of this frame.
And, of course, I like other genres as well: steampunk, horror, post-apocalyptic, even historic. I do however have slight aversion to sci-fi. I don\'t know why, and I\'ve tried numerous times to get into it. But, I just don\'t seem to be able to. :~(
@NSA - Valid point, but I think there are some reasonable explanations for some of the \"hybrid\" monsters in the D&D universe. The evil mage/druid creating beasts magically would be one example. Another possibility are rifts that allow chaotic matter from other planes to affect the Prime Material plane, leading to abberations. Similarly, based on canon, some of the demon lords specialize in creating monstrosities from creatures they capture. Some of the really bizarre creatures seem to come directly from Lovecraft - mind flayers/illithids must have been thought up by a Cthulhu fan.
Some hybrid creatures like the cockatrice come directly from European folklore, I think. Similarly lycanthropes, undead, golems, rakshasas, etc are based on cultural legends.
Some hybrid creatures like the cockatrice come directly from European folklore, I think. Similarly lycanthropes, undead, golems, rakshasas, etc are based on cultural legends.
S
Shadzar
Guest
all but historical. i prefer not to be bound by some design of the past, ie civil wars minis that \"should\" be painted blue/grey respectively.
i don\'t paint to reproduce something, i paint to try new things and enjoy making things my own.
@Fantasy option: too many sub-genres to encapsulate each in its own poll option, and many consider sci-fi to be fantasy. like star wars as a space fantasy, or other ways that mean simply something not of this world.
which would mean all things not past or modern would be fantasy to some...
i don\'t paint to reproduce something, i paint to try new things and enjoy making things my own.
@Fantasy option: too many sub-genres to encapsulate each in its own poll option, and many consider sci-fi to be fantasy. like star wars as a space fantasy, or other ways that mean simply something not of this world.
which would mean all things not past or modern would be fantasy to some...
generulpoleaxe
New member
the origional dark 40k with blanche style was cool, most of it is a bit child friendly kind of dark now.
Avelorn
Sven Jonsson
Hm. I don\'t know I think visually it has gotten darker since I first started playing in 1995.. even more gothic. Some BL stories are a bit daft perhaps but I wouldn\'t call them more childfriendly maybe just a bit superficial perhaps? Evil vs. Good.. Easy solutions so to speak. Still there are good exceptions. It is my favourite framework telling stories in anyway.
Ick! I\'ve never been a big fan of Blanche. Some of his early stuff was quite good like the Empire sea captain but as the years go on he just seems to be getting messier and lazier in his illustrations. Admittedly most of the stuff he does now are concept sketches and they don\'t need to be as polished but I regularly dread flicking through a new Codex and coming across the obligatory Blanche piece. The Mordheim book was the last time he drew anything good and that\'s only because it fitted in with the general madness of the book.
On the surface the 40k stuff may seem quite inoccuous and child friendly but go deeper and there are distinctly adult themes throughout the whole thing. I don\'t think any of the races can really be described as \"good guys\" they all have unpleasant aspects to their character, admittedly some more than others. In a similar vein none of the races are ihnerently \"evil\" with the possible exception of Dark Eldar. They just do what is in their nature to do, even Chaos isn\'t inherrently evil although it may seem callous and cruel. Dark Eldar are really the only ones who I could describe as evil as they make a conscious choice to be a bunch of right bastards.
One particular example that always sticks in my mind is a passage from the BFG rulebook about the Gothic war. It concerns the Chaos invasion of an Imperial planet and the leaving of massive piles of charred rattling skulls. Planetwide genocide is hardly a fit bedtime story for a five year old lol
On the surface the 40k stuff may seem quite inoccuous and child friendly but go deeper and there are distinctly adult themes throughout the whole thing. I don\'t think any of the races can really be described as \"good guys\" they all have unpleasant aspects to their character, admittedly some more than others. In a similar vein none of the races are ihnerently \"evil\" with the possible exception of Dark Eldar. They just do what is in their nature to do, even Chaos isn\'t inherrently evil although it may seem callous and cruel. Dark Eldar are really the only ones who I could describe as evil as they make a conscious choice to be a bunch of right bastards.
One particular example that always sticks in my mind is a passage from the BFG rulebook about the Gothic war. It concerns the Chaos invasion of an Imperial planet and the leaving of massive piles of charred rattling skulls. Planetwide genocide is hardly a fit bedtime story for a five year old lol
How dare you two hijack this thread and lead it into discussions about SF!
We were hijacking it into discussions about Fantasy!!
I did however, choose SCI FI...but I like my Sci-Fi a bit dark and grittier. I like the \'sci fi grunge\' look. Aliens, the Riddick series, even Bladerunner (although I cannot like that movie!) ...
Firefly and Battlestar Galactica fill that out nicely too.
We were hijacking it into discussions about Fantasy!!
I did however, choose SCI FI...but I like my Sci-Fi a bit dark and grittier. I like the \'sci fi grunge\' look. Aliens, the Riddick series, even Bladerunner (although I cannot like that movie!) ...
Firefly and Battlestar Galactica fill that out nicely too.
I choose fantasy, but mainly because that is what to me Fantasy and Sci-Fi encapsulate (yes i know how it was defined at the beginning of the topic). i can\'t remember who said it and i am too lazy to check, but to me what is passed around as Sci-Fi is Space Fantasy. I am a purist at heart now (blame my wife for that one) and i consider Sci-Fi to be Asimov, Heinlein and others, but mostly Asimov. Using technology as a way to get around current impossibilities in society to explore human nature and behaviour. In this vein, Blade Runner is an excellent example of traditional Sci-Fi (although i don\'t really like Phillip K. Dick).
No Such Agency
New member
treide: I guess I can\'t help looking at it from a biologist\'s perspective, but I suppose that all makes sense especially since it explains normal and \"magical\" creatures living in the same areas.
Of course I now have to ignore the other scientific voice saying \"Shelob wouldn\'t have been able to sustain such a large body mass with an arachnid\'s type of respiratory system\"
Of course I now have to ignore the other scientific voice saying \"Shelob wouldn\'t have been able to sustain such a large body mass with an arachnid\'s type of respiratory system\"
I choose Other, i only really like Sci Fi stuff, but its quite specific, im very into the Cyberpunk / Post Apocolyptic genre so its not really the run of the mill 40K stuff, there are so many awsome miniature companies out there that you can create your own little world populated with all sorts of cool looking dudes... for those that have read it think Transmetropoliton mixed with Ghost in the Shell and Mad Max
Originally posted by No Such Agency
treide: I guess I can\'t help looking at it from a biologist\'s perspective, but I suppose that all makes sense especially since it explains normal and \"magical\" creatures living in the same areas.
Of course I now have to ignore the other scientific voice saying \"Shelob wouldn\'t have been able to sustain such a large body mass with an arachnid\'s type of respiratory system\"
I hear you! It is definitely an exercise in suspending disbelief, but that is what makes escapism fun.
If you think Shelob had a hard time breathing, what about her mom Ungoliant? As I recall, she devoured huge tracts of land!
A few more fun examples:
Modrons - I have to suppress a giggle when I see them depicted.
Gelatinous cubes - since when do semisolids assume cubical shapes?
Beholders - Big floating eye with a mouth as the only orifice. Where oh where does the waste go?
Maybe that is why most monsters are chaotic or evil - they realize they are an affront to all things natural and they are mad about it!
