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@Spiralingcadaver: That is some impressive painting and I think your conversions improve the original sculpt/ add a sense of agency (refering to the character depicted)..

 Talizvar wrote:
I think I would happily submit that something like the ESRB rating may be a good guide for what audience the model may be suitable for:

First of all, the ESRB is a bit more draconian in nature than MPAA ratings, due to the circumstances under which they were made, and the fact that gaming is a relatively new media that has not yet fought the censorship battles that movies have had to go. We're still in the Hayes Code era of video games, largely because they are still being blamed for everything from school shootings to rape culture.

Second, the ESRB has to cover a wide variety of age groups and capabilities - everything from toddlers to adults. Miniature gaming, due to the requirement of fine motor skills and use of deadly tools (aerosol sprays, hobby knives, files, drills, etc), that the vast, vast majority of people interacting with the hobby will be 13 and older. Anyone younger than 13 will undoubtedly be engaging in the hobby with the oversight and help of an adult, and it would be their responsibility to protect the innocence of their child. Also, I can't think of many miniatures which venture into sexual explicitness or depravity that would bump them up to R or NC-17 (Kingdom Death's Wet Nurse is one).

So really, you are looking at a PG-13, at least, which can include non-sexualized nudity, including boobs, butt, and occasionally bush. It can also include decapitations and blood, which are included in prime time television shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural. Frankly, there aren't a lot of miniatures out there which would be grotesquely inappropriate for a teenage main audience (except, again, maybe the Wet Nurse).

And with the internet being what it is, I'm not sure the same puritanical standards of nudity apply to the upcoming generation. One google image search is all it takes to see some naked people, and with the majority of teenagers losing their virginity at 16, I'm not sure exactly what standards we are using for when it is appropriate for them to be exposed to benign cheesecake miniatures.


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 DaggerAndBrush wrote:
@Spiralingcadaver: That is some impressive painting and I think your conversions improve the original sculpt/ add more agency.

Agency? You do realize they are inanimate objects,right? They don't have agency in how they are designed, nor in how prudish modelers cover them up. Neither action adds more agency.

I was refering to the addition of a dagger. IThe miniature is an inanimate object, but the character depicted has in my opinion more agency on the battlefield with a dagger, than without. My english might fail me here and it maybe not the right word to describe it.

I just think that say a female naked Hoplite in a sensible fighting pose should not be as objectionable as the same miniature in a pin-up pose. I would actually say that it is not about naked or not, it is about posing and making sense in a given historical or fantastical universe.

Thanks, D&B, yeah, I liked the model enough to mess around with it, and I thought she'd be better suited for combat w/ a reinterpreted defensive pose and a ready, concealed weapon, instead of a vulnerable pose with no weapons and a random fantasy bikini. I know the theme is she's a sacrifice, but what are you going to do with that model? Take it out while you're rolling the sacrifice event and put it back? I like my minis to be functional, and no one in my group, of either sex, had any interest in playing some random boob victim as their avatar, so, the mini got a new look. And I got to practice my sculpting.

In contrast, not-Ayla was a mini I didn't modify at all, because she's got a kinda' badass dramatic action hero pose going on, and looks perfectly comfortable taking on monsters in her silly fur cavewoman thing, that fits theme, reference, and combat role in a way I found way more appropriate (well, except the weird choice about some of her mechanics, but that's really a question of gameplay instead of aesthetics).



And agency is the correct word, he's just nit-picking about semantics. You could have said "a sense of agency" to be more technically accurate, but your meaning was completely obvious unless you're going to take every statement literally.

Off-topic, nice logo profile/design. Think it reads better in your sig, with the different orientation/proportion.

I heard of a guy who tried to enter "Armies on parade" with a force of Death Korps Of Krieg painted as Nazis.

 timthehierodule wrote:
I heard of a guy who tried to enter "Armies on parade" with a force of Death Korps Of Krieg painted as Nazis.

Know your audience. I'm sure they were well-painted. Just not very tasteful.

@Spiralingcadaver: And another excellent paintjob. I really like your style, but I see you are a professional painter so no wonder your stuff is so visually pleasing.

I agree entirely and approach it the very same way. I convert miniatures to make sense in a given setting/situation, should the original sculpt not be what I had in mind.

Off-topic: Glad you like it. I think the logo works better in a black circle with finer lines, but I couldn't make it work on Dakka.

 DaggerAndBrush wrote:
I was refering to the addition of a dagger. IThe miniature is an inanimate object, but the character depicted has in my opinion more agency on the battlefield with a dagger, than without. My english might fail me here and it maybe not the right word to describe it.

I just think that say a female naked Hoplite in a sensible fighting pose should not be as objectionable as the same miniature in a pin-up pose. I would actually say that it is not about naked or not, it is about posing and making sense in a given historical or fantastical universe.

I think you used agency correctly. If literary characters can exhibit agency why couldn't a sculpture?

I also agree with you that the pose of a model, which ties in with the model's larger context, really helps determine the "decency" of the model for me.

For example, I have a small collection of nude models, but the nudity is contextually significant to what the model are depicting (the aforementioned 6-breasted Daemonettes are an example, or in my case nearly-naked-cat-people from Wargods of Aegyptus). For my half-nude Basti, they represent fantastical cat-warriors fighting in the harsh climate of the Aegyptian desert. The entire range of models, both male and female, are sparsely attired (because the game is set in a hot desert climate) and the game's rules even note that most armor is too hot and restrictive to be used regularly. Also, with a few fan-service exceptions, the models are posed in such a way that depicts them as warriors and not purely as sexual objects. That is enough context for me to accept the models as suitable for inclusion in my collection and I would use them without question at a game shop. I've routinely used the Raging Heroes not-Daemonettes in my allied Chaos force at the LGS and no one said anything other than "cool minis."

It makes it a lot easier for me to collect models with justification for their nudity, and by justification I mean setting/game rationale, not just artistic license, than it is to just collect pin-up models.

There are a lot of well-sculpted models that I can appreciate their artistic merit which I would never want in my collection. Some of the Kingdom Death stuff falls into that category, as does a lot of Brother Vinni's offerings. For me, those models appear to simply titillate rather than having any real or imagined justification for their nudity.

A human female soldier, armed and in an action pose but without her shirt and revealing an ample, exposed bosom is just silly to me. There is no reason for that model's shirt to be missing and her breasts to be exposed except to excite the viewer. Whereas a deviant elf gladiatrix who forsakes armor for speed, and fights in a g-string is also silly, but at least there is some fluff reasoning for her outfit, and her daring attire is reflected by a crappy in-game armor save.

Now of course that topless soldier could be a loader for a very tongue-in-cheek Catachan unit, but there is no fluff justification for female Catachan soldiers going into battle topless (nor is there a rule justification, Catachan tank tops already confer a 5+ armor save, so would these ladies get a 6+ save?), so anyone making such a unit is doing it just to work some boobs onto their game table. Which is fine, but that would be a line for me and I'd consider the model/unit "indecent."

Of course not all fluff is the same, and what one person finds an acceptable justification for nudity another person will disagree with. I think Prodos' Space Crusade is ridiculous and wouldn't be caught with those minis in my collection for all the resin in Nottingham, but generally, if a model seems to be doing more than trying to arouse its audience I am willing to include it in my collection or on the game table.

A bit off topic, although still partially on topic. I know a guy that models, but does NOT game.

He modeled and painted a group of Maori Warriors in the middle of doing the Hakka dance. (google this if unfamiliar) Basically it is a native dance for warriors of the native peoples of New Zealand.

Why is this relevant? I pointed out that to be culturally correct, not only should the models be nude, the warriors did the dance with a full-on erection. (no, I'm not kidding). After confirming this, he seriously started contemplating making another batch of models "historically accurate".

 timthehierodule wrote:
I heard of a guy who tried to enter "Armies on parade" with a force of Death Korps Of Krieg painted as Nazis.

I think that was a commission with a nazi color scheme but the the nazi symbol was that of a dollar sign

its a reference to some song or something IIRC

but some people will always see commies in their soups

or sour in their kraut.

i dont know what im on about

I shouldn't post when im hungry

as to the topic. i figure it would 100% depend on what you intend on doing and where you play

if there are kids running around, i high doubt you should bring out the DIAZ daemonetts. pretty much the same as not cursing around children . its mostly common courtesy for the sake of the parents . with friends and beers you can be as weird as you want

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 DaggerAndBrush wrote:
I Now of course that topless soldier could be a loader for a very tongue-in-cheek Catachan unit, but there is no fluff justification for female Catachan soldiers going into battle topless (nor is there a rule justification, Catachan tank tops already confer a 5+ armor save, so would these ladies get a 6+ save?), so anyone making such a unit is doing it just to work some boobs onto their game table. Which is fine, but that would be a line for me and I'd consider the model/unit "indecent."

Of course not all fluff is the same, and what one person finds an acceptable justification for nudity another person will disagree with. I think Prodos' Space Crusade is ridiculous and wouldn't be caught with those minis in my collection for all the resin in Nottingham, but generally, if a model seems to be doing more than trying to arouse its audience I am willing to include it in my collection or on the game table.

While I generally agree with you, there is also a topless Catachan model that is male. No real reason for him to have lost his shirt either.

Well put, DT- I agree that even hypothetical reasons that require some serious suspension of disbelief for silly clothes are far more justified than skin for its own sake.


D&B, thanks, IDK, guess I wanted to point out (IMHO) effective work regarding conversions to back up the point I was making...

 MasterSlowPoke wrote:
I don't understand you people who say they'd paint up the squad for a laugh? What's funny about a squad of women who are nude for no apparent reason?

It's not like IG have any effective armor; they might as well be naked...

 Vulcan wrote:

 MasterSlowPoke wrote:
I don't understand you people who say they'd paint up the squad for a laugh? What's funny about a squad of women who are nude for no apparent reason?

It's not like IG have any effective armor; they might as well be naked...

It's inherently silly, and to some audiences the nudity has no negative connotations. In a private setting, where I'm not running the risk of disrespecting passers-by, it's reasonable that something like that could be acceptable.

i'm curious for those supporting nudity in minis (not saying I do or not, as far as i'm concerned it depends on what the mini is of, a slave mini, yeah nude, getting ready to do battle unless an ancient Celt, Pict or Greek or such then no.) what would they say if they were nude males?

as to the models in question by the OP not having seen them could not give an informed opinion on them.

Honestly, just have similar amounts of male and female nudity, in similar qualities. You have cheesecake in your female minis? Paint up some male cheesecake for the ladies you face.

You have reasonably nude figures, such as Dark Eldar... Well, anything? Make sure there's some dudes mixed in with the ladies.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Honestly, just have similar amounts of male and female nudity, in similar qualities. You have cheesecake in your female minis? Paint up some male cheesecake for the ladies you face.

You have reasonably nude figures, such as Dark Eldar... Well, anything? Make sure there's some dudes mixed in with the ladies.

Does anyone even make a nude male model that would look sufficiently like an IG soldier? I'm wondering if I even have a small enough brush to paint realistic genitalia. Something tells me that a guy with foreskin would be easier to paint.


Wow, that got weird fast.

Asterios wrote:
i'm curious for those supporting nudity in minis (not saying I do or not, as far as i'm concerned it depends on what the mini is of, a slave mini, yeah nude, getting ready to do battle unless an ancient Celt, Pict or Greek or such then no.) what would they say if they were nude males?

as to the models in question by the OP not having seen them could not give an informed opinion on them.

Wouldn't bother me either if we were playing historical and someone brought naked Spartans or were playing warhammer and you slap down a nude barbarian.

Nothing shameful about the human form.

I would have much more sympathy for the pro-nudity arguments if it wasn't for the fact that the vast majority of nude and sexy miniatures I've seen have been really terrible sculpts. It's almost always zero-talent sculptors throwing giant breasts onto a model that wouldn't sell a single copy without them, usually in a context that excludes any possible realism argument in favor of the nudity. It just looks cheap and tasteless, without any redeeming qualities at all.

"Imagine if you will, totally naked women, except they have combat boots and helmets. One has a bolter, one has a flamer, and one has a missile launcher."

I can't believe the problem is nudity...

Surely, if we welcome wargames, one should probably also welcome nude models (both men, women and aliens)

But boobs are obviously more dangerous than guns...

Antitrist wrote:
"Imagine if you will, totally naked women, except they have combat boots and helmets. One has a bolter, one has a flamer, and one has a missile launcher."

I can't believe the problem is nudity...

Surely, if we welcome wargames, one should probably also welcome nude models (both men, women and aliens)

But boobs are obviously more dangerous than guns...

I keep trying to read your post but for some reason can't get past the 7th word....


...sorry, couldn't help myself

I personally don't have any problem with naked female wargaming models but at the same time I guess I don't really see the appeal because I have never painted one myself.

I think if I were going to paint a nekkid woman, it'd probably be 54mm scale or larger display model rather than a wargaming figure.

Antitrist wrote:
"Imagine if you will, totally naked women, except they have combat boots and helmets. One has a bolter, one has a flamer, and one has a missile launcher."

I can't believe the problem is nudity...

Surely, if we welcome wargames, one should probably also welcome nude models (both men, women and aliens)

But boobs are obviously more dangerous than guns...

Always bugged me that guns and violence are fine but you have to be ashamed of the human body, can't let Timmy see a nipple but a bad guy graphically gunned down is fine.

Completely backwards.

I was about to say did nobody own Morathi on dark Pegasus?

 Sqorgar wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
I think I would happily submit that something like the ESRB rating may be a good guide for what audience the model may be suitable for:

First of all, the ESRB is a bit more draconian in nature than MPAA ratings, due to the circumstances under which they were made, and the fact that gaming is a relatively new media that has not yet fought the censorship battles that movies have had to go. We're still in the Hayes Code era of video games, largely because they are still being blamed for everything from school shootings to rape culture.

Someone has an axe to grind... sorry to hit the red button there.
OK, you do not like that system used and feel it is not applicable due to that particular charged topic.
I was throwing that out there as something to start from.

Second, the ESRB has to cover a wide variety of age groups and capabilities - everything from toddlers to adults. Miniature gaming, due to the requirement of fine motor skills and use of deadly tools (aerosol sprays, hobby knives, files, drills, etc), that the vast, vast majority of people interacting with the hobby will be 13 and older. Anyone younger than 13 will undoubtedly be engaging in the hobby with the oversight and help of an adult, and it would be their responsibility to protect the innocence of their child. Also, I can't think of many miniatures which venture into sexual explicitness or depravity that would bump them up to R or NC-17 (Kingdom Death's Wet Nurse is one).

Yep, 9 years old I got my kids to put together Orks and Marines.
They painted too.
We are on the topic of "explicitness or depravity" that are readily available or can be added to models.
The old metal Daemonetts had a fair bit of bare torso which as you say would fall in the PG-13 rating (I assume you endorse the movie rating system then?).

So really, you are looking at a PG-13, at least, which can include non-sexualized nudity, including boobs, butt, and occasionally bush. It can also include decapitations and blood, which are included in prime time television shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural. Frankly, there aren't a lot of miniatures out there which would be grotesquely inappropriate for a teenage main audience (except, again, maybe the Wet Nurse).

It really depends on what your "audience" has chosen to expose their children to.
I was rather surprised how shows in the 80's I grew up to had more racy and nasty stuff than I remembered (made the mistake of looking back at a few) and make some of the shows today seem tame.
We still see people game between the age of 10 to 15 who are not exposed yet to full-time Call of Duty, Walking Dead, Sparticus or Hannibal.
I would say that a person should keep in mind if they want to show their PG-13 models at the FLGS or at a tournament, you may be playing "kids".

And with the internet being what it is, I'm not sure the same puritanical standards of nudity apply to the upcoming generation. One google image search is all it takes to see some naked people, and with the majority of teenagers losing their virginity at 16, I'm not sure exactly what standards we are using for when it is appropriate for them to be exposed to benign cheesecake miniatures.

I think nudity "for the sake of" is not in of itself a bad thing: they are body parts people have.
Depicted violence and sexual behavior is more the offending material to avoid.
Try not to laugh too hard since we ARE playing war games so violence is rather the topic.
Think of blaster shots to storm troopers rather than Conan disemboweling an enemy and swinging them by their entrails...

 Peregrine wrote:
I would have much more sympathy for the pro-nudity arguments if it wasn't for the fact that the vast majority of nude and sexy miniatures I've seen have been really terrible sculpts. It's almost always zero-talent sculptors throwing giant breasts onto a model that wouldn't sell a single copy without them, usually in a context that excludes any possible realism argument in favor of the nudity. It just looks cheap and tasteless, without any redeeming qualities at all.

I've seen the types of models you describe, and while many are over the top I think a lot of them are dated as well. A lot of contemporary models do take the actual human form into consideration when sculpting female models. I think the industry is getting better in that regard, at least with the more well known smaller operations and even some mainstream companies. Some of the topless female models GW made for Fantasy right before The End Times looked less like a 12 year-old boy's dirty doodles of a woman and more like actual women (I am thinking of the Lamia and some Dark Elves, can't be bothered to find pics at the moment, though). So, some progress. I wonder if the inclusion of more female sculptors in the industry is helping in that regard?

hobojebus wrote:
Always bugged me that guns and violence are fine but you have to be ashamed of the human body, can't let Timmy see a nipple but a bad guy graphically gunned down is fine.

Completely backwards.

Agreed. It is backwards that sexuality and the human form are less accepted than violence in our culture. However, these are miniature war games and not miniature sex games so I can also understand why some people want to cut most or all sexual components out of their gaming.

 Talizvar wrote:
Someone has an axe to grind... sorry to hit the red button there.

It's not that I have an axe to grind, it's just that traditionally, new media tends to get blamed for the corruption of our youth. Movies were at the beginning, television, comic books, role playing games, heavy metal - and traditionally, this tends to lead to efforts in censorship through things like the Hayes Code, Comic Code, and the ESRB. The ESRB is a censorship system masquerading as a rating system, but no retailers will sell an AO games (nor will consoles allow them at all), and certain sinful topics like religion, drug use, and sexuality are weighted far heavier than they should be. Thong becomes a M rating, smoking or drinking alcohol gets you a T, and even something as benign as boobs will get you an AO rating in many cases. The only AO rated game for violence is Hatred, and that was due more to the political statement made by the game and game team than any sort of actual gore. Recently, Criminal Girls 2 redrew a significant portion of the artwork to remove bondage in an effort to "give the female characters more agency" due to fears of an AO rating from the ESRB.

I think that video games really need that major challenge that they can overcome and become legitimized. They need their cds to be burned by a parent organization, and Tom Hanks movies made about their satanic influences. Video games need their Beyond the Green Door and Birth of a Nation. They haven't had that yet (not really), and I think it is largely because the ESRB is working as a chilling effect on transgressive works, preventing video games from reaching their true potential.

Miniature games have never really broken into the mainstream enough to be challenged, which is why things like Kingdom Death can exist without complaint. But miniature gamers are all too happy to censor their own games out of a misguided concept of equality and a deep shame felt with regards to the human body.

We are on the topic of "explicitness or depravity" that are readily available or can be added to models.

Readily available? Not sure that's the case. Don't think you can walk into your corner gaming store and walk out with anything like that. You pretty much have to go out of your way to find it, and even then, the explicitness and depravity of the models is debatable.

It really depends on what your "audience" has chosen to expose their children to.
I was rather surprised how shows in the 80's I grew up to had more racy and nasty stuff than I remembered (made the mistake of looking back at a few) and make some of the shows today seem tame.

When I was a kid, the comic book store I went to kept adult comics on the top shelf where kids couldn't reach them - but they could still see the covers. I vividly remember some of the covers to Clive Barker Presents and Vampirella, and they were as bad or worse than most anything in the miniature gaming sphere, and I wouldn't argue that the comic book store did anything wrong by displaying them where children could see them. That comic book store is long gone, but I wouldn't have a problem with any other comic book stores doing the same thing. Part of the appeal of being a kid in a comic book store is that it isn't a kid's store. That it does have some adult material, and that it hasn't been sanitized down to the shortest common denominator. Same appeal for when kids watch R rated movies. I saw Aliens in the theater when I was 10 and it was amazing.

I think kids need to be exposed, in small doses, to adulthood as they are growing up so that they aren't surprised by it. And I say that as a parent of two. I think part of the problem with society right now is how we mollycoddle our young, with the end result of actually delaying the onset of adulthood by up to a decade. I've seen 25 year olds who aren't prepared for the real world, and I can't help but think, if only they had been exposed to Slaanesh a bit when they were younger.

I think nudity "for the sake of" is not in of itself a bad thing: they are body parts people have.
Depicted violence and sexual behavior is more the offending material to avoid.
Try not to laugh too hard since we ARE playing war games so violence is rather the topic.
Think of blaster shots to storm troopers rather than Conan disemboweling an enemy and swinging them by their entrails...

I think it is important to keep a little perspective here. We are, as a species, extremely violent, and throughout our history, children have been exposed to violence and sexuality. It wasn't that long ago that we were drafting 18 year olds into wars, and it wasn't that much longer before that when 12 year olds were being married off. Ghandi himself was married at 13 and apparently enjoyed a normal sex life (before becoming sex crazy later in life and sleeping next to naked 14 year old girls). There used to be mixed gender swimming classes where girls had suits on and the boys swam naked (there's a 1941 issue of LIFE that included a picture of young boys naked in the locker room, to absolutely no angry response at all). And if you go way, way back, kids were taken to arenas to watch slaves get disemboweled by exotic animals.

My point is that our standards have become more prudish over the years while at the same time becoming less prudish. In some ways, we are exposed to more than our predecessors, and in others, things that used to be commonplace have become dangerous ideas to hide and feel shame about. I realize that the reality of the current day is different. If I let my kids walk to the park alone, I'd get arrested, even though I did it as a kid. But I'm not convinced that the more prudish ways are better, and I can't for the life of me figure out what harm is being done by tiny little naked statues.

My father had a miniature replica of the famous statue where a nude Perseus (hanging dong) is holding the severed head of Medusa (gore). Don't remember that having an adverse affect on my mental well being. Someone will have to explain how that is different to the models described in this thread. Or how a plot point in the PG film The Goonies involved the penis of a David replica falling off ("that my mom's favorite part") and being glued on upside down to look like an erection is inappropriate for children. Is The Goonies secretly an R-rated film?!

I have no problem with nudity. Sexy models, fine, just not my cup of tea. The point is context. They don't make sense in the games I play and thats it. While Wargames Exclusive makes some good models they also make female servitors that are practically 90% robot except for their tits and vag hanging out for everyone to shoot their bolters at. Just, why? I don't get why people would need sexual gratification from their miniature tabletop games. It doesn't get weird looks because its naked, its gets weird looks because its just pointless and distasteful. If it were I dunno, like an actual work of art like a statue of David then nobody would care. You can't compare non-sexualized greek sculptures to half naked pin-up models.

I don't care about whats appropriate for what age because I'm an adult playing a game with other adults. I care about what makes sense on the goddam battlefield. Warhammer is about the girm darkness of war where everything is in constant bloody battle with each other. To sit there and ask why violence is ok and not tits just makes no sense in the context of whats going on.

Paint them up or sell them on ebay.

Asterios wrote:
i'm curious for those supporting nudity in minis (not saying I do or not, as far as i'm concerned it depends on what the mini is of, a slave mini, yeah nude, getting ready to do battle unless an ancient Celt, Pict or Greek or such then no.) what would they say if they were nude males?

as to the models in question by the OP not having seen them could not give an informed opinion on them.

Having faced a Slanneesh army using naked Pict minis for their barbarian core units without having a stroke or any other sort of nasty side effects, I can safely say there is no problem.

A 1mm wang is nothing to be scared of.

Just Tony: I've got it. I painted a bikini top on her, too. The Queen of All Elves does not reveal herself to just anyone...

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Some of the topless female models GW made for Fantasy right before The End Times looked less like a 12 year-old boy's dirty doodles of a woman and more like actual women (I am thinking of the Lamia and some Dark Elves, can't be bothered to find pics at the moment, though). So, some progress. I wonder if the inclusion of more female sculptors in the industry is helping in that regard?

Their shirtless guys, however...