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Just looking at these Sigmarines I noticed a few flaws in the quality of their display models. Namely this archer.

This example was just me seeing what they have on pre order and I notced some odd flaws like the really bad mold line on his pouch:



See the pouch there on the right?

Then Look at the bottom of quiver:



That looks messy and the same problem can be seen on the top of the quiver along with gold on the base rim:



I don't think I am being picky, but I can't really recall seeing this sort of stuff in previous models GW has displayed. I think these are pretty bad BASIC errors too.

I am just gonna have a look around but it is not often I see bad model displays from miniature companies.

It seems in the recent past that GW have shifted their model schemes and quality away from what Heavy Metal used to do (high end, high quality display model pieces).

They are presenting "more attainable" but still good looking schemes that can translate easily into WD articles and youtube videos.

It's all about improving accessibility.

Winter wrote:
It seems in the recent past that GW have shifted their model schemes and quality away from what Heavy Metal used to do (high end, high quality display model pieces).

They are presenting "more attainable" but still good looking schemes that can translate easily into WD articles and youtube videos.

It's all about improving accessibility.

Certainly seems that way.

Just looking at Iron Hand straken and the difference between him and the current Sigmar range is huge in quality and technique.

Looking at the newer stuff, it all seems to be heavy highlight instead of voodo mystical painting that it used to be. I have no idea how that Straken was painted, but the Sigmar dudes look pretty paintable.

yeah, Ive been noticing a general drop in the quality of the Eavy Metal Teams output (Im assuming they're still the studio painters), such as paint mistrokes, bad blending, overly thick layering/uneven coat thickness, (especially on things they paint white), etc

The eavy metal team doesn't work there anymore.

I've seen that model in real life as well as the studio's khornates, dark elves among other armies and I can say they look alot less impressive in real life, without the professional lighting and digital retouching. But it's impressive enough for the average punter who paints to tabletop standard.

TBM wrote:
The eavy metal team doesn't work there anymore.

I've seen that model in real life as well as the studio's khornates, dark elves among other armies and I can say they look alot less impressive in real life, without the professional lighting and digital retouching. But it's impressive enough for the average punter who paints to tabletop standard.

It's a pity really.

Nothing better than seeing miniatures painted to perfection by exceptionally skilled people. I personally love looking at diorama events and scale modeling events because it blows your mind what artists can do.

But seeing those sigmar models is like seeing a little above average models at the club, which is cool at the club but not cool from the biggest model company in the wargaming industry.

Look close enough and you can always spot the flaws. For a long time, the 'How to Paint Space Marines' book actually put me OFF drilling out my barrels, because of the frequency that the GW team screwed it up! (Probably 10-20% of the barrels in that book were drilled off-center.)

Have a look through some of the rank and file LotR releases and you'll see similar if not much, much worse.
There's been a decline, noticeably in some areas. For a while (a couple of years back, just before Visions) WD in some sections had some truly average/amateur painting examples and badly taken photographs. I mean to the point I was considering writing and offering some help from the local photography degree class, in exchange for work experience.

It's picked up since, but there are some real clunkers out there. It's a shame because to me it seems to say, "We care a little less about this release. It's just not as important and the really shiny one."

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Have a look through some of the rank and file LotR releases and you'll see similar if not much, much worse.
There's been a decline, noticeably in some areas. For a while (a couple of years back, just before Visions) WD in some sections had some truly average/amateur painting examples and badly taken photographs. I mean to the point I was considering writing and offering some help from the local photography degree class, in exchange for work experience.

It's picked up since, but there are some real clunkers out there. It's a shame because to me it seems to say, "We care a little less about this release. It's just not as important and the really shiny one."

Yea I remember some of those nasty faces:



I know there are some worse ones out there too.

It also leaves a bad impression on the models. I remember when Wargames Factory had some subpar work on their display models not long back and since then they have improved in this area greatly. It makes a huge difference.

Not quite display quality, but on the site none the less.

 Rayvon wrote:


Not quite display quality, but on the site none the less.

I wonder how much the guy was paid to paint that shoulder pad?

Don't Tau come with transfers for this?

 Swastakowey wrote:
I know there are some worse ones out there too.

We really could play GW-or-Not because there are people on Dakka who can and do get me more jazzed up about GW's figures.

Yes they're more realistically attainable paint jobs. But were the display boxes, gallery images or artwork ever harming sales? To me they were building on this gorgeous, well honed aesthetic that was associated with the brand.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Don't Tau come with transfers for this?

So do Marines, but that doesn't stop them from doing crap tons of sculpted Marine shoulder pads, though.

The Tau Empire symbol is sculpted on so you'd have to cut it off and smooth it down to apply an Enclave transfer, and that's if there's even one the right size on the sheet (and I'm pretty sure there isn't).

Winter wrote:
It's all about improving accessibility.

Which is funny, because their prices still do the exact opposite. Painting everything like crap and going "See, you can do this, too!" isn't going to stop people from thinking "Yeah, but I'm still not paying $50 for five models."

At first I thought you were being picky, but the top of the quiver and gold on the base look unfinished. Maybe the guy was right on the deadline?

The best and worst part of this hobby is admiring 'eavy metal's work, then realizing how far I am from it

I know some of the display armies in the GK codex are pretty bad. Some of the models are practically just a single color for each detail (straight boltgun armor, red slathered in the eyes, plain white purity seals, etc). They're clean, they just have zero highlights, blending, shading, etc that you would expect from a quality army.

Coming from a military modelling background of over 45 years, GW paint jobs are the worst examples of painting in the extreme.

Would never catch Tamiya painting their models that bad.

GW painting in general is shyte.

 Achaylus72 wrote:
Coming from a military modelling background of over 45 years, GW paint jobs are the worst examples of painting in the extreme.

Would never catch Tamiya painting their models that bad.

GW painting in general is shyte.

I am a fan of realistic painting 99% of the time. GW has gone for an artistic style (super highlights and nothing subtle). I too think it's pretty bad from a personal taste and a technical stand point.

you are being picky for sure. It is a nice job. The blue shine spot on the shoulder pad is very beautiful. nice execution, im assuming they used an airbrush for that.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Achaylus72 wrote:
Coming from a military modelling background of over 45 years, GW paint jobs are the worst examples of painting in the extreme.

Would never catch Tamiya painting their models that bad.

GW painting in general is shyte.

I am a fan of realistic painting 99% of the time. GW has gone for an artistic style (super highlights and nothing subtle). I too think it's pretty bad from a personal taste and a technical stand point.

It is bloody disgraceful that is what it is, and the point is that it is not needed, however the worst point about it is that future generations of painters are mislead by GW in how to paint figures.

Yeah it's a shame, their Eavy Metal guys used to do some insane blending and detail work. Nowadays everything must fit the base-layer-highlight method. I do love their painting videos though, they're pretty great.

kb305 wrote:
you are being picky for sure. It is a nice job. The blue shine spot on the shoulder pad is very beautiful. nice execution, im assuming they used an airbrush for that.

May just be i'm on a brighter monitor, but from here it looks like just very well executed brush blending on the blue pad.

And it's not picky to point out there is spilled and stray paint on a product photograph.

Would you not consider a stray hair or half blinked eye on a large company perfume advertisement to be sloppy?

 Mymearan wrote:
Yeah it's a shame, their Eavy Metal guys used to do some insane blending and detail work. Nowadays everything must fit the base-layer-highlight method. I do love their painting videos though, they're pretty great.

I have wondered if they'd reduced the quality of the painting to closer match the quality of their tutorials. Not that their tutorials are bad... but rather you'd never achieve an eavy metal style model following their tutorials.

Also possibly time constraints. Really nice looking models can take even a skilled painter a day or more to paint each infantry figure, if you ask them to paint 100 of the blighters in a certain amount of time it might be inevitable you have to lower the quality.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Achaylus72 wrote:
Coming from a military modelling background of over 45 years, GW paint jobs are the worst examples of painting in the extreme.

Would never catch Tamiya painting their models that bad.

GW painting in general is shyte.

I am a fan of realistic painting 99% of the time. GW has gone for an artistic style (super highlights and nothing subtle). I too think it's pretty bad from a personal taste and a technical stand point.

I call it a 'heraldic' style. it's intended to be easy for moderately skilled painters (like me) to copy and get decent results without madd skillzzz. The design of the models, with lots of embossed detailed complications, is designed to help it.

TBH I think the Sigmarine is fine, but I am not fussed about super-high-quality paint jobs on small wargaming pieces. I have often thought that the super-high paint jobs done by Eavy Metal and other top class painters are counter-productive in terms of convincing ordinary players to do an okay job getting a painted army out on table, and thereby contributed to the hordes of grey death phenomenon.

But that is just my view.

The mould line on the satchel would have taken about 1s to scrape off with a modelling knife, so that is quite a lapse.

I must be blind because I can't actually see the mould line in question.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I must be blind because I can't actually see the mould line in question.

The pouch on his waist in the first photo has a mould line down the middle of it.

 ImAGeek wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I must be blind because I can't actually see the mould line in question.

The pouch on his waist in the first photo has a mould line down the middle of it.

You mean that black thing hanging from on the left side (our right side) of his belt?

That's not a mould line, that's a seam, it's supposed to be there It's just the angle of that image the light catches it and makes it look more prominent than it probably should.

Or is it something else we are talking about?

Its too bad the staff artists appear to be instructed to push the "tron look" pretty heavily. All the "showcase" models show heavy edge highlighting to the exclusion of most other techniques.

The "showcase" models at the GW stores these days seems miles behind the studio painting... YMMV of course.

 keezus wrote:
Its too bad the staff artists appear to be instructed to push the "tron look" pretty heavily. All the "showcase" models show heavy edge highlighting to the exclusion of most other techniques.

The "showcase" models at the GW stores these days seems miles behind the studio painting... YMMV of course.

The showcase models at GW stores I've been to have always been miles behind the studio stuff, even going back 20 or so years (I wasn't around GW stores before then to comment).

My local GW store probably peaked around the late 90's, dropped off for a while and then picked up again in recent years mainly because the current manager is quite passionate and seems to put a lot of effort in to the models he paints for the store. But either way, always been miles off the studio stuff.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I must be blind because I can't actually see the mould line in question.

The pouch on his waist in the first photo has a mould line down the middle of it.

You mean that black thing hanging from on the left side (our right side) of his belt?

That's not a mould line, that's a seam, it's supposed to be there It's just the angle of that image the light catches it and makes it look more prominent than it probably should.

Or is it something else we are talking about?

In the first picture, the line running down the pouch also carries over onto the metal rims. Pretty sure that's a mould line.

Although the second pic does appear to have the problem corrected, and there is indeed a seam on the pouch (but further behind where the mould line is [was?])

 Tim the Biovore wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 ImAGeek wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I must be blind because I can't actually see the mould line in question.

The pouch on his waist in the first photo has a mould line down the middle of it.

You mean that black thing hanging from on the left side (our right side) of his belt?

That's not a mould line, that's a seam, it's supposed to be there It's just the angle of that image the light catches it and makes it look more prominent than it probably should.

Or is it something else we are talking about?

In the first picture, the line running down the pouch also carries over onto the metal rims. Pretty sure that's a mould line.

Although the second pic does appear to have the problem corrected, and there is indeed a seam on the pouch (but further behind where the mould line is [was?])

We're talking about this bit, yeah?



That line is supposed to be there. The line on the metal rims is the lighting reflecting off the model (and possibly an intentional edge highlight). Have a look at the 360 view on the website.

http://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU/Stormcast-Eternals-Judicators

The line is a seam in the leather (or whatever) that the pouch is made from, there's one on the other side of the pouch as well. Definitely not a mould line, it's been intentionally highlighted and I don't think the studio guys are stupid enough to take the time highlighting a mould line instead of removing it