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Is army painter really fair? What are your thoughts? I think its not.

I assume you mean dips or washes.

2 things for me:

1. It's a hell of a lot better than playing against an unpainted army.

2. I don't view it as a "finishing" technique for my own armies. I understand it's purpose, but to me it's just another tool in my arsenal. I still highlight after doing a wash, and I don't wash every model. It depends on the situation.

It's not cheating if that's what you are getting at. It's just a different path towards the same goal, a painted model.

I think i speak for all the viewers not commenters when i say, what do you mean by this?

is it not fair to spray all of your models to paint them?

please elaborate.

I have painted a whole army using the Base coat, pick out the details, dip meathod. I did not use army painter but the philosophy and the technique are the same. I have to say that i have had a lot of people approach me and say how awsome my army looked. when i told them it was dipped they got upset. Why.

I think it is upsetting to people when they see that my army looks as good or better than theirs and it took less than 10% of the time. I even feel that way when i look at my other armies. Why on earth was i so stupid that i went about painting them the old fashioned way instead of just using the army painter/dip meathod.

Now i dont stress on how armies get painted. Plan ahead. Plan to use the dip, washes, base coat the models so you have to do a minimum of painting to finish them, etc. If you are happy with the end result then do it.

Dark Angels Champ-Master wrote:Is army painter really fair? What are your thoughts? I think its not.

I think you need to explain what you mean. How isa range of painting products 'fair' or 'unfair'...?

insaniak wrote:I think you need to explain what you mean. How isa range of painting products 'fair' or 'unfair'...?

If the poor farmers who grow tins of Army Painter are being paid a fair wage I suppose... though I have never seen a fair trade logo on any of their products so I guess it is unfair Army Painter...

SilverMK2 wrote:

If the poor farmers who grow tins of Army Painter are being paid a fair wage I suppose... though I have never seen a fair trade logo on any of their products so I guess it is unfair Army Painter...

Quote of the day

Excuse my ignorance but whats army painter? I did a quick google and all i could find was the brand Army Painter. Is it the whole company you have a problem with or a product in particular?

To a point I really can understand Dark Angels - When I started out painting, I took a long time with each mini and still only had subpar results - then I saw pics of a tyranid force, which had been dipped - and they looked sooo much better than my first figures. So, in a way, I felt kinda cheated, that with all the time and effort spent, other people took the "easy" route and had better results than me.

Nowadays my skills have progressed to a point where I know, that with a little elbow grease I can achieve better results with painting, than other people can with dipping.

But I do think that dipping has its place in the community. Not everyone is a master painter and some guys just want to get a painted army on the table and play. Especially when playing a hordes army like tyranids or skaven.

Just my two cents :-),


IK-Painter


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Brother Azul wrote:Excuse my ignorance but whats army painter? I did a quick google and all i could find was the brand Army Painter. Is it the whole company you have a problem with or a product in particular?

I think he refers to the Quickshade brand of Army Painter. Just watch the vid Alexandra made ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXKD1zHpE7w ) about the product for better understanding :-).

Cheers,


IK-Painter

@OP: Care to elaborate how a painting technique can be "not fair"? As long as I think about it, I simply can´t wrap my mind around the concept. Even if it would allow for Golden Demon level paintjobs, techniques march on. I doubt anyone ever asked if drybrushing or washes are "not fair", so why would be dipping?

I don´t dip, by the way. I prefer a more controled approach with washing/highlighting.

Are you 12 or something?

"It's not fair" is a line only uttered by kids.

Calling dipping unfair is very snobby when you consider that most painters will only have the time and ability to gain passable to moderate skill in the work they pull off on their armies.

Factor into that the people who just want an army that looks decent on the table and can't spend more time than they have on an individual mini.

I don't class myself as anything more than an average painter (as my gallery no doubt attests), but I know how to use washes to add depth to a mini and this seems to me to be nothing more than an extreme extension of that technique and something that I would consider using myself.

Washing, highlighting and drybrushing are all ways of "cheating" to create an effect, why is using this product to get a large number of table quality minis unfair?

lol, "unfair"? Is this a serious thread or are we being trolled?

No, of course it's not. Why the hell would you think that?

Washing, highlighting and drybrushing are all ways of "cheating" to create an effect, why is using this product to get a large number of table quality minis unfair?

Oh, don't forget airbrushing. That's so unfair, I think everyone's tanks should be covered in thick paint with ugly brush strokes like mine are.

I've seen some discussions in various places around the web and the 'unfair' bit seems to boil down to one of the following things:

1. A spot of jealousy - Some other guy painted his entire army to a better standard than me in 10% of the time using less resources/effort

2. Elitism - It's a modelling and painting hobby. Look at the painstaking methods some of the older/more experienced/generally better modellers/painters use and how long they spend on one model. Then an Army Painter dude comes along who has done x10 the amount of models they have in a lot less time using comparatively basic techniques and they don't look half bad. If you were to place both lots of models side by side, you would be able to tell the difference in quality if you'd been painting for any lenght of time, but anyone at novice painting level or less will ask how both were painted and I garuntee you that of those who pay attention, a big chunk will want to follow the army painter method. Think about how that makes an experience painter feel? They came in to the hobby the hard way and are advocates of traditional and maybe some of the more modern painting methods and then newbies to the hobby barge in with Army Painter and start showing people up. That would be a tad upsetting I think

3. Little understanding of the technique - It does, from the outside looking in, seem a bit too good to be true. A little like when you speak to your first Red Shirt and they tell you that painting those ultramarines to the standard they are in the cabinet is easy peasy and if you pop down on day 'x' they will show you how to do it and you are left more than a little dissappointed by the results..."How the hell can such a basic painting method be used to paint an army in such a short time to such a good standard. I bet there's a step or technique I'm not seeing here..."

Disclaimer - This is my opinion, based on lots of lurking on a myraid of other forums and after a tonne of conversations with other modellers (Lots of them grumpy old gits) and I do not assume that everyone falls in to one category or another.


I could just be spewing gak though...

Yes, dipping is clearly overpowered and cheesy and should be banned from tournaments

Nothing is unfair or cheating when it comes painting.

There are only skill level, time involved and results.

Do I care that someone spent 10% of the time with the same or better results then me? No, I want to know how they did it.

Some people can't paint and dipping, as far as I can see how it's done, as a finishing method yields better results for them. Then there are skilled painters who use dipping with awesome results. THEN you have races *cough*tyrnaid*cough* that lend themselves better to the technique.

And in the end, a painted army is a lot better then a not painted army.

It is only unfair if you use it in a speed painting competition where it is explicitly against the rules of the competition.

Other than that, it is as 'fair' as any other method.

Why be jealous or upset at how another person gets their army painted? Frankly that seems juvinile to me.

Jake

This is hilarious! Do people really feel this way? A guy in another thread the other day was going off about how using an airbrush was "cheating" lol.

That's like saying I cheated because I took my car to work and you rode your bike. There's nothing unfair about it, it's simply a different method.
Someone must have self confidence issues to care so much about how someone else painted their army....

Fair? unfair? This must be a joke.... How can any form of modeling or painting be fair or not.. I dont get it...

I just want to point out that my earlier post was based on what I had seen in other places when people saw this technique as unfair.

I'm all for the method personally, I just don't use it.

Ummmmm. Unfair? What?


It's PAINT. To be honest, if i knew how to do it and had the equipment i would have sprayed/dipped my entire necron army.

To say that a method of painting is unfair because it's nto how you did is.....ridiculous.

To each his own. yes they dipped and painte masses of medoel a lot faster than you, but by doign that they may have sacrifice some fo the finer quality and detaisl that can be achieved any painstakingly paintign each model in a more "traditional" way.

As has been said. No method is the "right" one. For identical horde armies (nids, skaven...adn necron warriors IMHO)) dipping can be an abdolute god-send. more more ornate or detaisl heavy armies (GK or BA for example) dippign will case you to lose a lot of details and your armie coudl even look worse because of it.

For my IW i use the one model at a time approach, and get moderate results. if i ever do a horde army, you can bet your ass i'll be looking for the right shade of spray paint.

What if you dipped, and then painted over it to achieve better than tabletop quality results? Will that be unfair?

I agree with the consensus, fair isn't the right right term. I don't get upset by dippers because i feel i can create a better result through painting.

I do feel a stab of jealousy when i see well done airbrushing though simply because i don't have the budget for one. I don't whine about it because i know its just that, jealousy.

Same thing really.

I don't see the issue with dipping and what not. It's the persons own technique that they want to use...

What the problem is?

Dark Angels Champ-Master wrote:Is army painter really fair? What are your thoughts? I think its not.

Painting isn't a competition, nor part of the game itself. Army painter is a tool as are all paints, tools, brushes, pigments, paint markers, etc., etc.

If the end result is a fig that the owner likes, then the road taken to get there is irrelevant.

Thus your question is illogical.

Not to mention it sort of smacks of elitism...

As long as the miniature is on the table and painted, how it got there doesn't bother me. Would I use that method for all of my armies? Heck no, however for certain armies, it works wonders.

Are Citadel washes cheating? In some ways, Devlan Mud does almost the exact same thing as army painter for the middle tone, and badab black for the dark tone.

Anything is better than the gray/metal horde that I see across the table from me all too often.

I also happen to think that dipping, done correctly, can look really nice.

I'm not jealous. If I wanted to buy quick shade or a primer I could do that quite right now. And in fact Dave_Salmon, I paint my models nicely for my age if you check my gallery.
-Thanks

Dark Angels Champ-Master wrote:I'm not jealous. If I wanted to buy quick shade or a primer I could do that quite right now. And in fact Dave_Salmon, I paint my models nicely for my age if you check my gallery.
-Thanks

I guess the jealousy i was referring to was more aimed at the efficiency not the result.

I didn't mean my comment to sound as egotistical as it may have come off.

I think that dipping is an excellent resources for players. I am an older player and I just started dipping my models. for my tabletop paints, who cares? I just want them to look decent not win contests.

"cheating" to me would only be paying someone else to paint for you, and claiming the work as your own. otherwise all is fair in love and warhammer.

just dipping the models is not really enough though, there are better techniques for them to turn out better. its an excellent method, but its not a complete paint job IMHO.