More and more I am seeing airbrushed armies. Don't get me wrong, airbrushing is a great way to get down a base layer after you prime your model, especially with large models and models with larger, flat surfaces. What I mean about "airbrushed armies" are those armies that are nothing but airbrushed. You can often tell them apart by their extreme use of highlights, shading, and lighting effects. I've seen this technique become more and more prominent in the past few years. I see people post pictures of their army and people just love how it looks. I've seen "professionally" painted armies on ebay go for double or triple their retail price because they use what looks like, an airbrush exclusively.

I feel like I am the only one who hates the ways these models look. Obviously a good bunch of people really like these models, otherwise they wouldn't get so much praise and wouldn't sell for such a high price. What do you think?

A big THANK YOU in advance for participating in this poll and/or this thread!

NOTE: The poll is about those models which seem to be exclusively airbrushed, not the use of airbrushing mixed with other techniques.

Personally I don't like the look of the pure airbrush stuff.
I understand that painting models that way is a very quick and easy way to get a lot of models painted to a decent enough standard compared to brushwork, and if you're a commission painter or just have a large army you want to get painted quick then I see why you'd go down that route.

I can also see why people like them, as they make liberal use of OSL and other fancy eye-candy techniques.

So yeah, if you want a cheap commissioned army or just don't have much patience, it's a perfectly valid way to paint up your models and I don't think less of anyone for doing so.

not sold on fully airbrushed models, but I would kill for a cheap airbrush to help me speed along basecoating the armor of my vehicles and marines

It's simply an artistic style, I don't understand why you'd get your knickers in a twist over the artistic style of someone else's models unless you see them as offensive or not fitting the theme of 40k.

There's a lot of artistic styles that I personally don't like, but I still appreciate the time and effort that people put in to them.

Models are rarely "exclusively" airbrushed anyway. It's almost impossible (and would be highly time consuming) to do so.

There's nothing wrong with using an airbrush to do your highlights and shades, it just means they'll be softer and not as sharp which is why people usually also apply an oil wash and/or edge highlights at the end to get the sharp shadows and highlights. I use an airbrush to do highlights and shades, but it's not plainly obvious until you look a bit closer.

Why not add in some pictures to the OP with some examples of what you feel makes airbrushing so horrible.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
Why not add in some pictures to the OP with some examples of what you feel makes airbrushing so horrible.

I don't want to hurt peoples feelings.

I am sure we are all grownups here and can take seeing some examples. And the painters I am sure would stand by their work.

I can't say I have ever seen a model which has been "purely" airbrushed and claimed as finished.

 Brennonjw wrote:
not sold on fully airbrushed models, but I would kill for a cheap airbrush to help me speed along basecoating the armor of my vehicles and marines

Iwata Neo
I have 2 Iwata HP-Cs which are more or less the flagship of gravity feed small needle. The NEO is essentially the same gun made in Taiwan.

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I am sure we are all grownups here

Lol, I've seen too many fights on dakka dakka to believe that.

 Ryan_A wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I am sure we are all grownups here

Lol, I've seen too many fights on dakka dakka to believe that.

So you thought you'd post this thread and start one. Bravo

I'm sure if you post a link to ebay or something it'd be fine (rather than taking a picture from someone's personal gallery).

It is important to explain what you mean for people who might not understand so they don't get put off airbrushing completely

The number of times I've heard something like "airbrushing is cheating" makes me want to bash people over the head with a 40k rulebook after I've just spent a month painstakingly airbrushing a model that I could have painted in a couple of days with a few spray cans and hairy brush

I dislike airbrushing. To me it just doesn't look right.

For those asking OP for examples, for me you could take any airbrushed army. For example, any of those posted by the commission studios in the showcase forum here on Dakka. They're obviously very good at what they do, and much better than I will ever be, but I really don't care for the result. I guess I feel it looks like mass-produced, soulless and boring products instead of inspired works of passion. Subjective opinions being subjective.

@AllSeeingSkink; please don't reduce people's dislike of something to "getting one's knickers in a twist." You're on a forum where people exchange opinions. Some people don't like things that others like. It's ok. Doesn't mean they spend their days fuming over how other people are painting their minis incorrectly. I often see you posting in Dakka Discussions on the state of GW, and you seem like a well-reflected guy, and I'm sure you've noticed some people there who, let's just say, aren't. See what I'm getting at?

 loki old fart wrote:

 Ryan_A wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
I am sure we are all grownups here

Lol, I've seen too many fights on dakka dakka to believe that.

So you thought you'd post this thread and start one. Bravo

I don't see anyone arguing. Everyone has simply stated their opinion. And everyone has been polite and on topic with the exception of you. I request that if you do not want to talk about the topic, please do not post at all. If you do decide to post about the topic in this thread, please be extra cautious to be civil. Thanks!

An airbrush is just a tool, much like a regular brush. The results will vary depending on the skill of the person using it. I've seen some astonishing air brushed stuff and some really rather mediocre, even poor, stuff that's done by people who are clearly either too lazy or insufficiently skilled to utilise their airbrush more effectively.

There is an air brush equivalent of 3 colours an a wash, there is also an airbrush equivalent of Painting Buddha and their ilk.

 Thud wrote:
@AllSeeingSkink; please don't reduce people's dislike of something to "getting one's knickers in a twist." You're on a forum where people exchange opinions. Some people don't like things that others like. It's ok. Doesn't mean they spend their days fuming over how other people are painting their minis incorrectly. I often see you posting in Dakka Discussions on the state of GW, and you seem like a well-reflected guy, and I'm sure you've noticed some people there who, let's just say, aren't. See what I'm getting at?

Well I wasn't talking about YOU specifically....

The OP said he "hates" the way these models look, "hatred" carries the connotation of being an intense feeling, not just a casual disliking. So much so that he decided to make the effort to post a poll about it, probably took several minutes of his time to do so, he didn't even give an option like "I don't like them but it doesn't bother me" or "I don't like that particular artistic style", the only options were "I don't like them because they are lazy/poorly painted/incorrect" and "I hate them". That seems like getting ones knickers in a twist to me.

For those asking OP for examples, for me you could take any airbrushed army. For example, any of those posted by the commission studios in the showcase forum here on Dakka. They're obviously very good at what they do, and much better than I will ever be, but I really don't care for the result. I guess I feel it looks like mass-produced, soulless and boring products instead of inspired works of passion. Subjective opinions being subjective.

It does need clarification because there's pretty much no such thing as "exclusively" airbrushed models and people who aren't experienced in airbrushing often end up making ignorant comments about airbrushing in general while imagining something very specific (the technique of using an airbrush to create extreme contrast). You can actually use an airbrush for the exact opposite purpose, for SMOOTHING out contrast changes.

I mean, do you consider these models to be looking like massproduced, soulless and boring products? I'd hope not, they're not expertly painted or anything like that, but I would be disappointed if someone thought of them as "soulless", but they're mostly done by airbrush and then detailed with a hairy brush...

I think that airbrushing is fine, as long as it doesn't look rushed. Just look at the huge commission sites, it feels like they don't put in any sould or work into it. I hate it. Sure, I'd love to have an airbrush for basecoating and zenithal highlights, but I'd stick to brushwork for everything else.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


I mean, do you consider these models to be looking like massproduced, soulless and boring products? I'd hope not, they're not expertly painted or anything like that, but I would be disappointed if someone thought of them as "soulless", but they're mostly done by airbrush and then detailed with a hairy brush...
snip

I think OP is referring more to minis in the vein of this one


This is not the best example, but it's one of the clearest ones I could find right off the bat. Basic colours with slight shading, spray a bunch of glowing points on it and call it a day.

Most commission painters will have more detail than that, but you can often still clearly see the "feathering" from airbrush spray and a bunch of glowing points strewn about.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Thud wrote:
@AllSeeingSkink; please don't reduce people's dislike of something to "getting one's knickers in a twist." You're on a forum where people exchange opinions. Some people don't like things that others like. It's ok. Doesn't mean they spend their days fuming over how other people are painting their minis incorrectly. I often see you posting in Dakka Discussions on the state of GW, and you seem like a well-reflected guy, and I'm sure you've noticed some people there who, let's just say, aren't. See what I'm getting at?

Well I wasn't talking about YOU specifically....

The OP said he "hates" the way these models look, "hatred" carries the connotation of being an intense feeling, not just a casual disliking. So much so that he decided to make the effort to post a poll about it, probably took several minutes of his time to do so, he didn't even give an option like "I don't like them but it doesn't bother me" or "I don't like that particular artistic style", the only options were "I don't like them because they are lazy/poorly painted/incorrect" and "I hate them". That seems like getting ones knickers in a twist to me.

Obviously you weren't talking about me since I hadn't posted yet. Fair enough about the poll options, though. I guess I'm just a bit quick on the trigger, since I've gotten rather sick of the "You don't love it? Then GTFO" comments that seem to crop up everywhere around here.

It does need clarification because there's pretty much no such thing as "exclusively" airbrushed models and people who aren't experienced in airbrushing often end up making ignorant comments about airbrushing in general while imagining something very specific (the technique of using an airbrush to create extreme contrast). You can actually use an airbrush for the exact opposite purpose, for SMOOTHING out contrast changes.

I mean, do you consider these models to be looking like massproduced, soulless and boring products? I'd hope not, they're not expertly painted or anything like that, but I would be disappointed if someone thought of them as "soulless", but they're mostly done by airbrush and then detailed with a hairy brush...

You're right. Clarification is in order.

I like the Terminator, for instance. But the airbrushing on that is more along the lines of an undercoat before it's been painted normally. The exception being the Crux Terminatus which has that airbrush-feel.

I suppose what I mean when I refer to airbrushed models is when layers of airbrushed paint replaces "traditional" shading and highlighting.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
The OP said he "hates" the way these models look, "hatred" carries the connotation of being an intense feeling, not just a casual disliking. So much so that he decided to make the effort to post a poll about it, probably took several minutes of his time to do so, he didn't even give an option like "I don't like them but it doesn't bother me" or "I don't like that particular artistic style", the only options were "I don't like them because they are lazy/poorly painted/incorrect" and "I hate them". That seems like getting ones knickers in a twist to me.

I'm a philosophy major. As such, I have done quite a bit of studying (*compared to the average person) on aesthetics. I am of the camp that believes when a person says "I don't like that style", that there is a reason behind it. I believe that if a person believes they simply don't like a style for no reason, that there is actually a reason behind this that they just do not understand. Aesthetics is such an untouched category in modern day scholastics that I believe many people think they "just don't like a style for no reason" are simply people that aren't versed enough and don't understand themselves in the area of aesthetics enough to understand why.

From this, when I gave the option of "I don't like them. They seem lazy/poorly painted/incorrect lightning/etc" I hope it is clear(er) that the "etc" was put in there to cover all other reasons that "people don't like them". Furthermore, you say I did not give an option of "I don't like them but it doesn't bother me". I wouldnt think I would need to, since my option "I don't like them . They seem...." doesn't imply that the person is bothered by it.

Finally, to address "hate" and "getting knickers in a bunch". My final option was "I hate them! When I see a person use them, I want to follow them home, smash their models with a hammer, then throw their airbrush and air compressor against the wall!". I thought it was clear that it was a joke. I wouldn't think anyone would believe that I would follow somebody home, smash their models with a hammer and throw their airbrush and air compressor against the wall. It was meant as a joke, as such a notion is rather ridiculous.

The reason I posted this was not because I "hate" the models. The reason was for me to try to understand people's tastes and to see if I was alone in not liking the models in question.


Note: Despite several people believing linking pictures of an example would be fine, I still believe it would potentially damaging. I realize that some people are not getting what I am referring to when I talk about "overly airbrushed", but I feel enough people understand what I mean for this thread to work. Sorry to the people who don't understand what I mean, but you not understanding is simply a casualty of me trying to not step on the toes and alienate painters.

 sockwithaticket wrote:
An airbrush is just a tool, much like a regular brush. The results will vary depending on the skill of the person using it. I've seen some astonishing air brushed stuff and some really rather mediocre, even poor, stuff that's done by people who are clearly either too lazy or insufficiently skilled to utilise their airbrush more effectively.

There is an air brush equivalent of 3 colours an a wash, there is also an airbrush equivalent of Painting Buddha and their ilk.

This is the way to see it. For certain methods, airbrushes make things so much easier/faster/more effective, for others they offer nothing a brush doesn't. Either used on their own, or the two used in concert, will produce a result that directly correlates with the skill of the operator. Give a poor painter the full gamut of tools, techniques and materials and you still won't get a great model; give a great painter a limited selection and you'll still get something that looks good!

For the vast majority of us that fall in between those extremes, the airbrush is not something to dismissed out of hand, but equally, not something that should be considered 'necessary' to be a skilled painter.

vundere wrote:


I think OP is referring more to minis in the vein of this one

.

Your thinking seems logical.

 Ryan_A wrote:

Note: Despite several people believing linking pictures of an example would be fine, I still believe it would potentially damaging. I realize that some people are not getting what I am referring to when I talk about "overly airbrushed", but I feel enough people understand what I mean for this thread to work. Sorry to the people who don't understand what I mean, but you not understanding is simply a casualty of me trying to not step on the toes and alienate painters.

Showing examples isn't a problem as long as you're not doing it to show it off as an example of how not to do things. Disagreeing with someone's choice of style is not the same as saying their work is bad or has no merit. I linked one earlier, I don't think it's an ugly paint job, but it does showcase some of the things being discussed in the thread.

vundere wrote:
Disagreeing with someone's choice of style is not the same as saying their work is bad .

In one of my recent posts on this page, I talk about aesthetics. In this, I say that I believe disagreeing with a "style" is the same as thinking it is bad.

Edit: To clarify. Since there is no objective "bad" in aesthetics (since it is based on opinion), thinking something is bad or thinking you don't like something, is saying the piece is bad.

 Ryan_A wrote:

vundere wrote:
Disagreeing with someone's choice of style is not the same as saying their work is bad .

In one of my recent posts on this page, I talk about aesthetics. In this, I say that I believe disagreeing with a "style" is the same as thinking it is bad.

For the purposes of a more concise discussion about paint jobs rather than a philosophical discussion on aesthetics, I'm going to stick with how it is commonly used in conversation.

Not finding something appealing does not mean you need to think that it's bad/inferior/etc., we all have our own personal preferences and views, disregarding anything that does not adhere to them as bad would be rather narrow minded.

I like jokes.

To me, the main problem is not the airbrush but rather people who get paid for it/win prizes in tournaments for it. And yeah, it feels like "easy mode" for painting, just because you have an airbrush.

Of course, reality isn't that simple. It's a tool you need to learn to use, after all.

vundere wrote:
I'm going to stick with how it is commonly used in conversation.

Not finding something appealing does not mean you need to think that it's bad/inferior/etc., we all have our own personal preferences and views, disregarding anything that does not adhere to them as bad would be rather narrow minded.

I know many are of the field that think this. However, I do not. If I believe something would be offensive, I won't post it. If everyone thinks saying the N word or talking bad about the LGBT community is fine to do, I still won't do it because I believe it is wrong.

Edit: And you are right, we shouldn't be turning this into an aesthetics debate. I said I'm not going to show examples. I would appreciate if people stopped asking me to.

 Ryan_A wrote:

vundere wrote:
I'm going to stick with how it is commonly used in conversation.

Not finding something appealing does not mean you need to think that it's bad/inferior/etc., we all have our own personal preferences and views, disregarding anything that does not adhere to them as bad would be rather narrow minded.

I know many are of the field that think this. However, I do not. If I believe something would be offensive, I won't post it. If everyone thinks saying the N word or talking bad about the LGBT community is fine to do, I still won't do it because I believe it is wrong.

Edit: And you are right, we shouldn't be turning this into an aesthetics debate. I said I'm not going to show examples. I would appreciate if people stopped asking me to.

Well, if you're not prepared to show examples then maybe refrain from starting a debate on this? Random strangers on the internet are not you, if you want them to be on the same page as you, examples are probably going to be needed. I mean it's already caused misunderstandings in this thread as seen earlier. If you're debating something visual, you're gonna need visuals.

PLEASE READ!
To the people requesting pictures from me to show an example: I am not going to show any. The decision has been made and will not be changed.


To the people not understanding the type of airbrushing models I am talking about: I am talking about models which have been exclusively airbrushed. They often have over-exaggerated OSR and lack fine details, extreme shading, and a lack of lining. There have been plenty of people who understand what I mean. If you still do not understand, I would suggest looking up terms like "Object source lighting, shading, etc" in the context of 40k. If after this you still do not understand, I am sorry, but you are simply a casualty of my refusal to post a picture as an example.


TO REITERATE! I WILL NOT SHOW A PICTURE AS AN EXAMPLE. IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT I MEAN, IM SORRY, BUT I STILL WONT SHOW A PICTURE.

Look at this hack, airbrushing exclusively. That practically painted itself!



But in all seriousness, yea, I admit that there is a certain aesthetic style that looks more comic book like out there and it sells well. But...thats as far as one can really go with that. They dont paint themselves, and they arent more or less
than anything else. If someone likes it enough to spend money on it to own it and play with it, then clearly there is a demand for that style and you shouldnt let it bother you. Golden Demon painters are still going to go on being awesome
with their brushwork just as the airbrushers continue to do cartoony Tau armies. There's plenty of room for it.

If an airbrush army wins at a tournament with best painted, then congratulations are just as in order as if they had done it with brush strokes.

 Ryan_A wrote:
PLEASE READ!
To the people requesting pictures from me to show an example: I am not going to show any. The decision has been made and will not be changed.


To the people not understanding the type of airbrushing models I am talking about: I am talking about models which have been exclusively airbrushed. They often have over-exaggerated OSR and lack fine details, extreme shading, and a lack of lining. There have been plenty of people who understand what I mean. If you still do not understand, I would suggest looking up terms like "Object source lighting, shading, etc" in the context of 40k. If after this you still do not understand, I am sorry, but you are simply a casualty of my refusal to post a picture as an example.


TO REITERATE! I WILL NOT SHOW A PICTURE AS AN EXAMPLE. IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT I MEAN, IM SORRY, BUT I STILL WONT SHOW A PICTURE.

Mate, that's really not going to hep the discussion along at all. A picture says a thousand words is quite apposite here. You can describe what you mean 'til you're fingers are bleeding from typing, but the surest way of conveying it is a picture. That way everyone knows exactly.

Clearly you've decided against that, but I do think that is going to be counterproductive and produce the kind of debate you might want.

Thud wrote:Obviously you weren't talking about me since I hadn't posted yet. Fair enough about the poll options, though. I guess I'm just a bit quick on the trigger, since I've gotten rather sick of the "You don't love it? Then GTFO" comments that seem to crop up everywhere around here.

To contrast, I've gotten rather sick of people making overly broad statements about airbrushing which has probably made me a bit quick on the trigger.

I had that Spitfire at my local hobby store a while back (getting some tips on how to improve from the owner who is an awesome painter) and someone else in the store commented "That looks good, but airbrushing is cheating, it makes it too easy" or something along those lines. I didn't say anything but I felt like whacking him over the head because that Spitfire took me close to 3 months to paint, working a few hours every couple of nights, probably close to 100 hours work in it, many of which were painstakingly airbrushing the different effects I wanted and then following up with hours of hairy brush with oils to emphasize panel lines and darken the control surfaces....

....only for some muppet to tell me I'm cheating

Now it's not the greatest model in the world by any measure, but I poured a lot of effort in to it so it is a bit irksome when someone says things like that. A lot of the hours put in to the model were prepping it for airbrushing, masking for airbrushing or indeed doing the airbrushing it self, going back and forward between highlights and shades to achieve just the right effect.

I like the Terminator, for instance. But the airbrushing on that is more along the lines of an undercoat before it's been painted normally. The exception being the Crux Terminatus which has that airbrush-feel.

Funnily enough the Crux is the only part of that model I hadn't painted yet It was still wearing the paint it had on it when I airbrushed the basecoat, it needs to be painted a grey-bone colour.

Ryan_A wrote:I'm a philosophy major.

For a philosophy major you didn't do a great job at constructing the poll.

From this, when I gave the option of "I don't like them. They seem lazy/poorly painted/incorrect lightning/etc" I hope it is clear(er) that the "etc" was put in there to cover all other reasons that "people don't like them".

The smarter thing would have been to not include any options at all rather than only having options which are entirely negative, lazy, poorly painted, incorrect lighting are all things that can only be taken 1 way, negatively. Better to just say "I don't like them (if so, please post why)" rather than leading with such options.

The reason I posted this was not because I "hate" the models. The reason was for me to try to understand people's tastes and to see if I was alone in not liking the models in question.

Well then you might want to edit your original post, because you said... "I feel like I am the only one who hates the ways these models look."

The reason I said "I don't understand why you'd get your knickers in a twist over the artistic style of someone else's models..." is because that's how your original post and poll present themselves.

Note: Despite several people believing linking pictures of an example would be fine, I still believe it would potentially damaging. I realize that some people are not getting what I am referring to when I talk about "overly airbrushed", but I feel enough people understand what I mean for this thread to work. Sorry to the people who don't understand what I mean, but you not understanding is simply a casualty of me trying to not step on the toes and alienate painters.

You just need to be better at analysing other peoples' work. Most people don't mind criticism when it's objective, thoughtful and presented in a positive manner.

Anyone is free to criticise the work in my gallery, just be objective and positive about it.

Disagreeing with a style is only "bad" if you make it bad. I've had long chats with the guys at the local hobby store on styles and techniques and no one is ever insulted, no style is ever put down as being "bad", we simply discuss what we do and don't like, discuss techniques of achieving certain results, discuss the various products on the market for achieving those results and praise each other for the things we do like about each others work.

Not a fan at all of airbrushing. Far too much faffing around for my liking. Don't get me wrong though, you can get amazing results with it if it's in the right hands.

vundere wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


I mean, do you consider these models to be looking like massproduced, soulless and boring products? I'd hope not, they're not expertly painted or anything like that, but I would be disappointed if someone thought of them as "soulless", but they're mostly done by airbrush and then detailed with a hairy brush...
snip

I think OP is referring more to minis in the vein of this one

Spoiler:

This is not the best example, but it's one of the clearest ones I could find right off the bat. Basic colours with slight shading, spray a bunch of glowing points on it and call it a day.

Most commission painters will have more detail than that, but you can often still clearly see the "feathering" from airbrush spray and a bunch of glowing points strewn about.

Yes, that kind of highlights my point. What takes a model from soulful to soulless? Slightly too much airbrushed contrast? Not having a "rough" enough wash to make it look a bit dirty?

To me, that's mostly what people seem to mean when they say they hate airbrushed models, a little bit too much soft contrast and a little bit too clean, an effect you could achieve without an airbrush but is significantly more time consuming.

The other thing I think people don't like sometimes when they see airbrushed models is when there's a hazy look that comes from airbrushing colours that contrast too heavily, which can usually be fixed by applying a filter to blend the colours or having more intermediate steps when airbrushing.

In the end, it's just a style. The style doesn't actually have a lot to do with liking airbrushing or not other than that style is most easily achieved with an airbrush, as much more subtle effects can also be achieved (that you can't achieve without an airbrush).

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
To contrast, I've gotten rather sick of people making overly broad statements about airbrushing which has probably made me a bit quick on the trigger.

Touché.

I had that Spitfire at my local hobby store a while back (getting some tips on how to improve from the owner who is an awesome painter) and someone else in the store commented "That looks good, but airbrushing is cheating, it makes it too easy" or something along those lines. I didn't say anything but I felt like whacking him over the head because that Spitfire took me close to 3 months to paint, working a few hours every couple of nights, probably close to 100 hours work in it, many of which were painstakingly airbrushing the different effects I wanted and then following up with hours of hairy brush with oils to emphasize panel lines and darken the control surfaces....

....only for some muppet to tell me I'm cheating

Now it's not the greatest model in the world by any measure, but I poured a lot of effort in to it so it is a bit irksome when someone says things like that.

This is kinda approaching strawman territory, though. I don't consider airbrushing "cheating" or "low-effort" or whatever else. I simply dislike the air-brush aesthetic.

Take this for example. By all accounts, this is a pretty good paint job, by a very talented artist. I can't do anything like this. But I don't like it. Particularly, the build-up of the greens on the jetbike (and vehicle) bonnets have an aesthetic I don't care for at all. It's not the worst example, as with others there is no shading in the recesses and the air-brushed layers alone make up the highlighting, creating a different effect to the "traditional" painting style, but it's still something that makes it (to me) appear mass-produced, and soulless. Even in those cases when it's not. That's just my opinion on the aesthetic, though, and not a criticism of skill, effort or labour intensity.

Funnily enough the Crux is the only part of that model I hadn't painted yet It was still wearing the paint it had on it when I airbrushed the basecoat, it needs to be painted a grey-bone colour.

Hehe.

 Thud wrote:
This is kinda approaching strawman territory, though. I don't consider airbrushing "cheating" or "low-effort" or whatever else. I simply dislike the air-brush aesthetic.

It wasn't really intended as an argument at all so much as an amusing anecdote (or perhaps not all that amusing ).

Mostly I'm just referring to making sweeping claims. Saying you don't like airbrushing is a bit of a sweeping claim when it's a specific type of airbrushing that is the problem and often the thing separating a model that looks excessively airbrushed and one that doesn't is the application of a filter or a wash to tone down the contrast and make the model look a bit less clean.

I admit I also can find it irksome like, in the OP, you get statements like "nothing but airbrushed" being bad but it's fine to "get down a base layer".... as if there's no in between. People can spend ages building up highlights and shading with an airbrush that are so subtle they don't jump out at you, but significantly change the look of the model. It's certainly more than just "getting down a base layer".

If all I wanted was to get down a base layer I'd buy a spray gun, not an airbrush

Take this for example. By all accounts, this is a pretty good paint job, by a very talented artist. I can't do anything like this. But I don't like it. Particularly, the build-up of the greens on the jetbike (and vehicle) bonnets have an aesthetic I don't care for at all. It's not the worst example, as with others there is no shading in the recesses and the air-brushed layers alone make up the highlighting, creating a different effect to the "traditional" painting style, but it's still something that makes it (to me) appear mass-produced, and soulless. Even in those cases when it's not. That's just my opinion on the aesthetic, though, and not a criticism of skill, effort or labour intensity.

Yeah, I definitely understand where you're coming from.

For me personally, I really like that force from Awaken Realms. I think it looks quite amazing and obviously a lot of effort went in to it (I also prefer the earlier images in that thread which are slightly more subdued than the later ones).

BUT, I wouldn't like that same aesthetic on an Imperial Guard tank, or a Space Marine army, or a Panzer IV or a Hawker Hurricane. To me a large part of the reason it looks good is specifically because it's on a Harlequin army. The aesthetic is over the top, garish, heavily contrasting.... just like Harlequins.

I have to ask, what were you hoping to get out of this topic, OP?
You couldn't have been ignorant to the devisive nature of the subject, and you're not asking for advice, so it seems to be setting the ring for other people to fight it out.

Personally, I came into airbrushing as an artist on paper. I know people who can produce photorealistic portraiture and eyelash narrow sketching with them. Myself I can just about write my name with one and it'd pass for being a mechanical pencil signature. To use them on models is the next step, but a large departure in terms of understanding. 3D space wrapping around, and the physics of paint are very different.

As for other people using them, as long as I'm not paying them or being asked to comment, how another person paints is about as much my business as the air freshener in their car.
The only difference between a bad painter with an airbrush and a bad painter without, is how much money they spent.

I will say there's a tangible amount of bitterness online towards airbrushes from the camp that don't use them. Ranging from the feigned disinterested approach, to passive aggressive "they're unnecessary, you can get any result with patience" to outright calling it cheating.
If you're that invested in another person's work, take a step back and consider a different use of your time.

I like airbrushing as a whole. I just don't like pure airbrushed models. I see the airbrush as a tool to get certain stages done faster and get effects that you can't get (or at least not well) with a regular brush. I think the time you save with an airbrush should then be used for some regular brush techniques. Also some people get carried away with the airbrush and do too much with it or go too extreme with the techniques. Sometimes subtle is better. It all comes down to knowing how to balance things and to be willing to do the regular brush work as well. The best looking models use not just airbrush, but the entire toolkit of techniques.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I have to ask, what were you hoping to get out of this topic, OP?...I will say there's a tangible amount of bitterness online towards airbrushes from the camp that don't use them.

I wanted to get a good ratio on where everyone stands on the issue, thus the poll.

I'd just like to say, for the record, I've been using airbrushes for about a year and a half. I both love it and recommend getting one. However, the pure airbrushed models, in which there are several people who understand what I mean by this, are still an eyesore to me.

edited for spelling

None of the responses on the poll come close to an accurate answer.

What is your opinion on models that seem to be exclusively airbrushed?

Answer - If the end result is good, then I will probably like it. If the end result is not good, then I might not like it.

Also not sure why you're referring to it as a 'craze'. Airbrushing is a thing, just like painting with a brush. The only reason you're seeing more of it than you might have once done is that there are a larger variety of more affordable airbrush setups on the market these days.

At the end of the day, it's a technique like any other - done well, it will look good. Done badly, it won't.

 Ryan_A wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I have to ask, what were you hoping to get out of this topic, OP?...I will say there's a tangible amount of bitterness online towards airbrushes from the camp that don't use them.

I wanted to get a good ratio on where everyone stands on the issue, thus the poll.

I'd just like to say, for the record, I've been using airbrushes for about a year and a half. I both love it and recommend getting one. However, the pure airbrushed models, in which there are several people who understand what I mean by this, are still an eyesore to me.

edited for spelling

They're bland, sure, but no worse than Little Timmy's First Space Marines daubed in primary colours and slathered in metallics. Everything has a learning curve. Learning subtlety for the airbrush is definitely one as well.

What the christ is going on in this thread

I HATE obviously airbrushed models. If you're using an airbrush as a tool to get a clean base coat with no brush strokes, subtle weathering techniques, etc, that's fine. But the "LOOK AT ME I HAVE AN AIRBRUSH" style that certain commission painters use is just awful. The goal seems to be giving the client models that were obviously painted with an airbrush while spending as little time as possible on doing it right. So you get ugly over-done OSL, ridiculously exaggerated shading that rarely has anything to do with areas of light and shadow on the "real" model, etc. And the result is just garbage. Most of those models belong in a bucket of paint stripper, if not the trash can.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Everything has a learning curve. Learning subtlety for the airbrush is definitely one as well.

The problem is that some of the people producing this stuff are experienced commission painters. We're not just picking on poor newbies and their first efforts here.

I don't really care for your options. I don't want to buy painted models, whether by brush or by airbrush. So it's not even part of my thinking in judging the quality of a model's paint.

Also, I don't think airbrushing is a craze, period. Anymore so than using techniques or items from Model Railroading is a craze. It's more a new tool that's being/been discovered.

Any tool or technique can be overused.

What about drybrushing?

I don't like it, generally, but it tends to be an entry level type painting that gets people started easily with a horde for instance. Or, like anything else, it can be used in situations that warrant it, where it's hard to do anything else.

Just because I don't care for a technique, I would not ignore the use/value of it, if I felt it was appropriate or necessary to get the effect I wanted.

Basically my stream of consciousness here is leading me to this point - better painted armies, by any means, than unpainted armies. If an airbrush only is what people feel they need, if drybrushing only is what people feel they need, if spray painting with a rattle can is what people think they need to get it on the table to play, then more power to them. At least they're trying.

The only truly ugly model to me is the unpainted one deliberately left that way.

 Peregrine wrote:
The problem is that some of the people producing this stuff are experienced commission painters..

Which isn't really a 'problem' at all, since the studios that consistently sell that sort of stuff are obviously finding customers who like it. Otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.

 Peregrine wrote:
I HATE obviously airbrushed models. If you're using an airbrush as a tool to get a clean base coat with no brush strokes, subtle weathering techniques, etc, that's fine. But the "LOOK AT ME I HAVE AN AIRBRUSH" style that certain commission painters use is just awful. The goal seems to be giving the client models that were obviously painted with an airbrush while spending as little time as possible on doing it right. So you get ugly over-done OSL, ridiculously exaggerated shading that rarely has anything to do with areas of light and shadow on the "real" model, etc. And the result is just garbage. Most of those models belong in a bucket of paint stripper, if not the trash can.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Everything has a learning curve. Learning subtlety for the airbrush is definitely one as well.

The problem is that some of the people producing this stuff are experienced commission painters. We're not just picking on poor newbies and their first efforts here.

This. This is exactly how I feel and exactly what I am talking about. Thank you Peregrine!

 insaniak wrote:
Which isn't really a 'problem' at all, since the studios that consistently sell that sort of stuff are obviously finding customers who like it. Otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.

The problem is with the quoted post, about how the airbrush has a learning curve, not with the existence of bad airbrushing work. Buttery Commissar's suggestion about the reason for bad airbrushing isn't accurate because it isn't just newbies that are doing it.

Also, the fact that people are gullible enough to pay money for that stuff doesn't make it good work.

 Ryan_A wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
I HATE obviously airbrushed models. If you're using an airbrush as a tool to get a clean base coat with no brush strokes, subtle weathering techniques, etc, that's fine. But the "LOOK AT ME I HAVE AN AIRBRUSH" style that certain commission painters use is just awful. The goal seems to be giving the client models that were obviously painted with an airbrush while spending as little time as possible on doing it right. So you get ugly over-done OSL, ridiculously exaggerated shading that rarely has anything to do with areas of light and shadow on the "real" model, etc. And the result is just garbage. Most of those models belong in a bucket of paint stripper, if not the trash can.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Everything has a learning curve. Learning subtlety for the airbrush is definitely one as well.

The problem is that some of the people producing this stuff are experienced commission painters. We're not just picking on poor newbies and their first efforts here.

This. This is exactly how I feel and exactly what I am talking about. Thank you Peregrine!

Ahh, now I see what the topic was for.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Ahh, now I see what the topic was for.

Shhh! I'm trying to find out who is on my side in the upcoming war.

I don't see it so much as a craze - as a painting method that just took a while for gamers to latch onto.

Scale modellers have been doing it for decades.

It's no different to the NMM "craze", the "realistic weathering" craze with all the different weathering powders, etc.

In the old days (1980s and earlier) we would make our own weathering powders by grinding up artists pastel chalks and applying them, then varnishing to seal them in. You young people with your premade powders will never know that. :p

 Ryan_A wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Ahh, now I see what the topic was for.

Shhh! I'm trying to find out who is on my side in the upcoming war.

You'll never get unification amongst the Pro-Brush Movement as you forgot to take into account the internal schism that is air source.
Those with compressors staunchly fighting off the smaller Canned Air party and the Lesser Spotted Car Tire Tribe can be seen in the bushes clutching their totems/explosive air source.
Then there's that guy over there with a beard who swears if it's not from a hand cranked 1970s air pump, you're not really doing the work yourself.

Love airbrushing, wish I was better at it lol. I like it to get all the undercoating and lots of tedious stuff done so I can spend my time focusing on the details.

Like edge highlighting an entire black power armor army? To gak with that. Zenith all highlight all the armor, couple of washes and then bamn spend all my time on details.

I think all airbrushed armies look good, but there is a different feel to them compared to when someone goes in and does most of it with brush strokes.

 Peregrine wrote:
I HATE obviously airbrushed models.

After opening your post like this I can't read the rest of it without picturing anything but a whining child. "STOP LIKING THINGS I DON'T LIKE!"

Actually that's a bit harsh, when I hang out with my 3yo niece and nephew they're never that bad

I guess it's not a new whining, in the historical models community long before airbrushes became common in wargaming people would complain about other people overly using their airbrush when painting historic models.... but at least then it had some grounding in reality because you were trying to recreate something that actually existed in real life, not a fantasy/sci-fi miniature that can look however you want to imagine it to look. Even there it was annoying because it created a division between cranky people who cared too much about what other people did with their free time, but at least the argument made sense.

Some people like excessive soft contrasting on their models and are willing to pay money for it.... get over it. Just because other people like it doesn't affect you in the slightest.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

 Ryan_A wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Ahh, now I see what the topic was for.

Shhh! I'm trying to find out who is on my side in the upcoming war.

You'll never get unification amongst the Pro-Brush Movement as you forgot to take into account the internal schism that is air source.
Those with compressors staunchly fighting off the smaller Canned Air party and the Lesser Spotted Car Tire Tribe can be seen in the bushes clutching their totems/explosive air source.
Then there's that guy over there with a beard who swears if it's not from a hand cranked 1970s air pump, you're not really doing the work yourself.

Take a exalt!

Well, for certain tasks, I find the airbrush perfect.
For example, I'd been doing camo by hand on my German vehicles, then I got an airbrush and tried it. The models below were painted with exactly the same colours.
- Sprayed Khaki, Used Vallejo reflective green and chocolate Brown. They were then both washed with Army Painter strong tone. I drybrushed the edges with Khaki and added mud.

Are these fully airbrushed? Nope. Could I paint them with just an airbrush? Nope.

Who does paint with just an airbrush? I'm sure everyone that airbrushes uses multiple techniques.
I wouldn't use *just* a # 4 brush on a mini. I'd use a selection of tools and brush sizes. The airbrush is just another tool.

Even those figures that people claim have been airbrushed and nothing else, still tend to look like they've had some type of wash in the recesses to me.
Is the OP really looking at armies ONLY airbrushed? Is there a thread by those people complaining about that "hairy brush craze"?

I'll take the thread more seriously when I see pics from the OP showing me all those airbrush-only armies.


PS: Are my models realistic? I certainly doubt it. But I do know the airbrushed one gets more comments on how good it looks on the game table than the handpainted one.


Handpainted:


Airbrushed:

Done well they can be ok, but people who can airbrush well tend to also be able to use a brush to finish the model off. A lot depends on the force, the style suits some models better than others.

That said I'd prefer to play against a somewhat "oh look another one" airbrushed army of varying quality than another grey or silver legion.

I can fully appreciate a really well done model that incorporates some Airbrushing. People can do some really awe-inspiring work with Airbrushes. There's nothing wrong with that.

What I have an issue with are two types of people: Lazy-Man Airbrushers, and Lighting Effect Airbrushers (sometimes they are the same)

Lazy Man Airbrushers simply Airbrush their models with little to no extra work. Sometimes they don't even bother to paint the eyes. Maybe they do some brush touch-up here and there. Maybe there is a shade. Maybe they do a single highlight. There is usually a horrible lighting effect. involved.

What makes Lazy-Man Airbrush jobs like this extra bad is that they frequently show up as "Pro Painted" ebay items from commission websites.

As an example, I submit for evidence this horrible Awaken Realms airbrush job:



Now I don't have an issue with commissions, and in my mind you get what you pay for. I don't know how much money this person paid Awaken Realms for this model, but I hope it wasn't a whole lot of money, because a whole lot of time and effort did not go into this paintjob, comparative to the amount of time and effort one would normally spend on a model of this size.

That brings us to the lighting effects... oh god the lighting effects. One reason this infuriates me is that for some reason everyone seems to think it looks incredible. They think whatever the lighting effect was took a huge amount of time and effort and skill. It didn't! It took 10 seconds! It's a couple spritzes with a couple colors with an Airbrush! You can learn how to do it by watching a 30 second YouTube video, and probably you can get it right your first try! You don't even really need to practice!

The second reason it infuriates me is that people decide to apply lighting effects to things that clearly should not be light sources. Case and Point, the symbols of Chaos on the model above. Why are they glowing blue? That doesn't even make any sense. The lighting effect isn't even universally applied... the entire symbol isn't glowing... the light source is coming from the middle!

I submit for evidence this Greater Brass Scorpion:

http://imgur.com/a/Q3dlP

Why do the rivets glow? Search me. It's a shame because the blending job is actually pretty good, and this is still a WIP model. But you see what I mean.

Since Airbrushes have become less expensive and more popular to the hobby, I see fewer and fewer examples of people really honing their painting skills to make really incredible models. It seems like people are less interested in learning new techniques than they used to be. Nobody "ooohs" and "ahhhs" over someone's incredible blending skills or NMM skills or freehand. People go nuts for an airbrush job that didn't take half the skill or practice or talent.

Hey it's your hobby, you paint your models the way you want them to be painted. If you're happy with them, great. If you want crazy lighting effects, go nuts. It bugs me more how the COMMUNITY reacts to these airbrush jobs, paying top-dollar for commissions, thinking they are geniuses at blending, and really ignoring paint jobs from truly talented artists.

^ eh, it sounds like you're devoting an incredible amount of energy to being concerned that other people arent 'oohing and aahing' over what you think they should.

People exalt impressive works. Go to coolminiornot and look at the top works there, its mostly traditional brushwork that is truly mindblowing.

I can no more be upset over someone liking what you consider hackneyed painting than I can be upset over people paying for a Justin Bieber concert. I know the jazz musician down the street deserves that money more, but thats how the art economy functions.

Murrdox wrote:
It bugs me more how the COMMUNITY reacts to these airbrush jobs, paying top-dollar for commissions, thinking they are geniuses at blending, and really ignoring paint jobs from truly talented artists.

...except people don't do that. I've seen several threads where painters post their work and get hounded for too much airbrushing. They also occasionally get praised, but why shouldn't they? If someone likes the paint job then they are free to post compliments. Often those paint jobs even though they might lack the technical skill can subjectively look good because they were smart about choosing a striking colour scheme and on 28mm models sometimes that's all a person wants, something that looks neatly done and is striking.

And "truly talented artists" don't really get ignored. In fact I'd say Awaken Realms is a pretty good artist who gets disproportionately hounded because he/she chooses to use that style (and it's not a lack of skill because he/she has demonstrated an ability to wield a hairy brush as well).

I really don't care how other people paint or have their models painted, as it's absolutely none of my business. Their toys, their time, their money. Whether or not I like it is entirely incidental and irrelevant. If I'm playing against it, all that matters to me is that I know what is what.

 Iechine wrote:
^ eh, it sounds like you're devoting an incredible amount of energy to being concerned that other people arent 'oohing and aahing' over what you think they should.

People exalt impressive works. Go to coolminiornot and look at the top works there, its mostly traditional brushwork that is truly mindblowing.

I can no more be upset over someone liking what you consider hackneyed painting than I can be upset over people paying for a Justin Bieber concert. I know the jazz musician down the street deserves that money more, but thats how the art economy functions.

I really don't devote much time or energy into disliking airbrushing. In fact I feel like I wasted some time on making my post too long.

Maybe it's subjective on my part. But 10 years ago it feels like the painting and hobby community had more engagement. There were more threads on Dakka and Coolmini and other websites with meticulous step-by-steps on how to get certain kinds of results with certain kinds of techniques on certain kinds of models. Things like this were in heavy demand from talented artists. There were so many different ways to paint things. Now, when someone posts a cool picture of a cool model, and someone wants to learn how to do that, the conversation effectively ends when you get to "it's airbrushed".

Since airbrushing became popular it seems like a lot of that community engagement has gone by the wayside. A percentage of hobbyists effectively dropped out of the hobbyist community and bought airbrushes since they can get better results easier and with less time than it takes to learn how to paint with a brush. Then these people don't really care about learning advanced techniques. Take that Awakened Realms model I posted earlier. Can you get better results with an airbrush on that model in a couple of hours than you would have if you'd painted it all with a brush? Absolutely. If you're an inexperienced painter, will you get a better result with an airbrush than you will with a regular brush? Probably. But now you've got a bunch of hobbyists who aren't really that engaged with the hobby anymore.

It used to be the case I'd see awesome models constantly. I'd wonder "How'd they do that" and I'd research to try and find out. I'd practice those techniques myself, trying to become better as a painter. I'm still trying to be better as a painter with each project that I do. But more often than not nowadays I don't see as many great models that aren't airbrushed, and the mediocre airbrushed models seem to get just as much attention as the people with tons of talent who airbrush their models. Maybe it's just my skewed perception, but that's the trend I seem to be noticing.

Still sounds like one (or more) of;

A) Fear of change
B) Bitterness about airbrushes because of not owning one
C) Difference of opinion on what is artistic

Ok, that's probably an overly harsh list of reasons.

However in a world full of demonic monsters with skullacne, space elves and giant stompy robots still using medieval style melee weapons... how can you complain about the realism of lighting effects on them?

I like the airbrush, even these "lazy" painted models look much better than also lazy by hand painted models!

None of the poll answers are very good. In fact, they're pretty much all terrible.

This isn't even an airbrush or no airbrush argument, but rather an opinion on styles. Personally, I don't like the 'American style' of non-metallic metals (NMM), even though some of the best miniature practice it. I think it looks fake and cartoonish despite the fact that it's an extremely time consuming technique that requires a large amount of skill to pull off; I much prefer the 'European style' of true-metal metallics.

I have painted plenty of models using only an airbrush, including this one:



And this one:



Save for some details on the pilot figure (which at 1/72 scale is pretty small), no paint was applied using a paintbrush.

Also, airbrushing isn't some "new fad" either. There have been people using the airbrushes in miniature paint for quite some time and even longer in general scale modeling.

Not voting because the poll options are bat-gak crazy and probably represent accuratley absolutely no ones views on the matter.

I love my airbrush, it's a great tool but it's just that, a tool, same as any other kind of brush. And like hand brushes you can use a variety of techniques to aply them for achieving a whole raft of effects and, just like with hand brushes, they take time and patience to learn them. I don't particularly like these heavily contrasted lighting and highlighting effects, but those models aren't for me so it really doesnt matter, and obviously there are plenty of people who are fans of those effects and people who have a problem with that need to get themselves sorted out.

I think it also needs to be pointed out that a lot of these "airbrush only" commission works are, in all likely hood, the cheapest level of detail option available. The whole point is to be able to knock out a decently painted army, regarldess of what you think of the style, quickly and cheaply so that the commissioner doesn't have to wait around for months on end to get to use his toys. If you're happy with what you paid for, nobody else has anything to complain about.

 Imateria wrote:
I think it also needs to be pointed out that a lot of these "airbrush only" commission works are, in all likely hood, the cheapest level of detail option available. The whole point is to be able to knock out a decently painted army, regarldess of what you think of the style, quickly and cheaply so that the commissioner doesn't have to wait around for months on end to get to use his toys. If you're happy with what you paid for, nobody else has anything to complain about.

Indeed.

Interestingly enough, I can recall seeing very similar complaints back when dipping started to become a big thing in the scifi/fantasy gaming community... and before that, it was people complaining about drybrushing.

Murrdox wrote:
Then these people don't really care about learning advanced techniques. Take that Awakened Realms model I posted earlier. Can you get better results with an airbrush on that model in a couple of hours than you would have if you'd painted it all with a brush? Absolutely. If you're an inexperienced painter, will you get a better result with an airbrush than you will with a regular brush? Probably. But now you've got a bunch of hobbyists who aren't really that engaged with the hobby anymore.

So what you're saying is there's an easier way to do things.... and that's a bad thing?

I think it is just your perception, I think the general state of modelling and painting has vastly improved from 10 years ago. The basic level of knowledge is better than it ever has been and the plethora of tutorials is better than it ever has been. I think the only downside is with the amount of people using airbrushes in tutorials, newbies might get the impression they have to buy in to it or they won't be able to get models that look as good (and frankly, even though they can, it's going to take them longer.... which is why airbrushes have become so popular in the first place, lol).

And just to be clear, while I don't particularly like the look of excessively airbrushed models, I think that Awaken Realms guy/gal is a pretty good artist, definitely in the top couple of percent of painters. Even if you don't like the style, he/she has very good colour selection and applies it in a way that is striking... THAT'S why people like it. Even though I have an airbrush my models are a long way off looking that good because I lack the artistic talent to pull it off (even though I'm not a huge fan of the style, I'd be more than happy if my armies looked that good ).

Murrdox wrote:
Everything Murrdox said

Totally agree.

Murrdox wrote:

A percentage of hobbyists effectively dropped out of the hobbyist community and bought airbrushes since they can get better results easier and with less time than it takes to learn how to paint with a brush. Then these people don't really care about learning advanced techniques. ..... now you've got a bunch of hobbyists who aren't really that engaged with the hobby anymore.

Using a different tool is not "dropping out of the hobbyist community" and saying that those who use an airbrush "don't care about learning advanced techniques" is a bit assumptive of what countless strangers think. I would argue that buying an airbrush is the very definition of learning a new technique. My first two attempts at miniature painting failed as I was terrible at it. That was in the 80's when WH40K came out. As an adult with some time and disposable income, I tried again and again found that I was more patient but could only achieve table top quality. I was ready to pack it all away but I made the decision to buy an airbrush. This was a turning point as was fun to use and I liked the results. I can say with 100% certainty that my "engagement" in the hobby was renewed. Because I stayed with the hobby, my brush skills got better as well. I have branched out into weathering, rigging LED light circuits, resin casting, and complex conversions all because the airbrush allowed that first small victory where my models did not look like ass.

How bad is it really that an airbrush allows someone to work faster? In the real world, the goal is to "work smarter not harder" and the airbrush is a means to this end. Are not wet blending and glazing not just other more time-consuming ways to get a smooth color transition? When you see those tutorials on the brush techniques, it is always with a small model like an individual figure, never a vehicle. The point is that the airbrush is a tool that is good for specific applications but not others. With the amount of details on today's 40K stuff, there is no way anyone is going to use an airbrush exclusively to paint everything. It is a tool to use with other tools to get a job done. For every example of an airbrushed model that looks like it was just done super quickly to the bare minimum, there must be 100 that were done with a brush to the same degree of completeness. The "cartoon" look and outrageous OSL are also not always done with an airbrush but when they look bad, the airbrush is naturally the bad guy as it is the easiest tool to use for these "looks".

Using an airbrush is also not something that everyone is good at as soon as they start. There are countless posts about issues that new users have encountered with questions like how to thin paint, what pressure to run at, etc. It takes practice to get it right. Too many times have I seen the "cheating" comment and I would bet that the majority who say it , have never even tried an airbrush and in many cases are a long way off on being proficient with the regular brush. The users on this forum are generally fantastic as even when the submitted work is really bad, people always find good points and the harshest criticism is to "thin your paint a little more". However, there is open scorn about using an airbrush or a product like Quickshade. I don't think I have ever seen a post about using Agrax Earthshade or Nuln oil and calling it cheating despite their nickname as "liquid talent".

This issue is too complicated as it blurs the lines between tools, techniques and painting style.

What the feth is this thread ? An airbrush is a tool, just as a regular brush is.

Bad painting is bad painting, regardless of what tools are used. I might as well put up a picture of Little Jimmy's first painted mini and say "Hand Brushing is Bad !!11!!!"

Now here's some tank porn by Adam Wilder (warning ! an airbrush may have been used)

For me, the most jarring part about airbrushing is when OSL is poorly done. It can look really, really fake. I just don't like when the painter seems to think "I'll just hit a couple of random areas with bright green or blue and... done". I know I wouldn't want to pay for results like that.

HOWEVER, playing against such an army is better than playing against an unpainted or primer coated army.

Airbrushing is a great skill to have. I have one and sometime use it for basecoating or initial zenethal highlights. Airbrushing isn't really suited for fine detail work in the same way that a large drybrush isn't suited for fine detail work.

vundere wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:


I mean, do you consider these models to be looking like massproduced, soulless and boring products? I'd hope not, they're not expertly painted or anything like that, but I would be disappointed if someone thought of them as "soulless", but they're mostly done by airbrush and then detailed with a hairy brush...
snip

I think OP is referring more to minis in the vein of this one


This is not the best example, but it's one of the clearest ones I could find right off the bat. Basic colours with slight shading, spray a bunch of glowing points on it and call it a day.

Most commission painters will have more detail than that, but you can often still clearly see the "feathering" from airbrush spray and a bunch of glowing points strewn about.

yeh its more common than people are suggesting.... it looks awful to me but ive actually seen armys like this win best painted at large events lol. to each his own i guess

 Kriswall wrote:
For me, the most jarring part about airbrushing is when OSL is poorly done. It can look really, really fake. I just don't like when the painter seems to think "I'll just hit a couple of random areas with bright green or blue and... done". I know I wouldn't want to pay for results like that.

95% of the time I don't like OSL at all. Actually, 100% of the time on table top models, the only time I think it's appropriate is a diorama.

When you're viewing models under bright lighting and the models have been painted as if they're walking around in daylight, OSL just looks weird. Not to mention the fact people rarely realise how light actually works (eg. red light shining on a blue surface should not reflect any of the light, or very very little of it).

I have seen some dioramas done where it's worked well because the artist has made the whole scene appear as if it's darker than usual and the artist has complete control over ALL the light on the scene, not just a random blob of blue that is surrounding a plasma gun for some reason.

But that doesn't have to do with airbrushing, because you paint OSL without an airbrush and still get it wrong, it's just more time consuming

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:
For me, the most jarring part about airbrushing is when OSL is poorly done. It can look really, really fake. I just don't like when the painter seems to think "I'll just hit a couple of random areas with bright green or blue and... done". I know I wouldn't want to pay for results like that.

95% of the time I don't like OSL at all. Actually, 100% of the time on table top models, the only time I think it's appropriate is a diorama.

When you're viewing models under bright lighting and the models have been painted as if they're walking around in daylight, OSL just looks weird. Not to mention the fact people rarely realise how light actually works (eg. red light shining on a blue surface should not reflect any of the light, or very very little of it).

I have seen some dioramas done where it's worked well because the artist has made the whole scene appear as if it's darker than usual and the artist has complete control over ALL the light on the scene, not just a random blob of blue that is surrounding a plasma gun for some reason.

But that doesn't have to do with airbrushing, because you paint OSL without an airbrush and still get it wrong, it's just more time consuming

99% agreed. OSL is misused MOST of the time, but does have it's place. Light OSL around glowing lights isn't terrible, but it needs to be understated. An inset LED isn't going to illuminate the surface it's embedded in. I painted the linked image using a pretty simple dry brush technique for the OSL. My intent was to go with a pretty understated effect showing the greenish slime stuff to be glowing up onto the underside of the Deff Dread. I think I pulled it off ok. Spraying the whole area with green paint via airbrush would have looked awful.

I have been using the old hairy brush for years and getting quite good at it, started out with enamel paint and got into oils.
Then found that fancy kind of paint called acrylic: made me angry how good that paint went down.
So painted acrylics for a bit and learned a few tricks with shading with inks and technical pens.
Then silly things like "Nuln oil" and stuff like that came out and shading detail that looked awesome and took little effort... cheating I tell you.
Then I got on the airbrush 3 years ago.... a few false starts... the freaking thing is awesome.
I HATE how smooth it puts down paint, HATE how a graveled base is covered in seconds, HATE how I can block paint in minutes not hours... I HATE that darned thing.
BUT, I have found now that there is a point that no matter how fine an airbrush you get and all the masking in the world will not substitute for a few details and washes done by brush.

I can appreciate anything getting painted, that is a given.
I do agree that at some point there is a "tabletop" standard for some airbrush work that should not be passed off as "pro-painted".
An easy sign of this is just look where no masking off was done or the zenithal lighting is all over the place.

For a prime example of needing more work than just a few shots of airbrush:
A great example of pure airbrush painting is this guy "Next Level Painting" I can learn a lot on airbrush techniques from this guy (they ARE awesome) but his style is just not my thing:
http://nextlevelpainting.blogspot.ca/
They get this cartoon look to them, like cell shaded caricatures:
http://www.spikeybits.com/2014/03/40k-how-to-airbrushing-the-knight-titan.html

Then there is these guys who show that a mixture of tools give you a good result:
http://taleofpainters.blogspot.de/2014/02/tutorial-how-to-paint-blood-angels.html

It is just another technique and like with any form of art it is not for everyone.
I am just happy (HATE!) that the airbrush is available, certain results it does so well in minutes what takes me hours with a brush.

 Ryan_A wrote:
More and more I am seeing airbrushed armies. Don't get me wrong, airbrushing is a great way to get down a base layer after you prime your model, especially with large models and models with larger, flat surfaces. What I mean about "airbrushed armies" are those armies that are nothing but airbrushed. You can often tell them apart by their extreme use of highlights, shading, and lighting effects. I've seen this technique become more and more prominent in the past few years. I see people post pictures of their army and people just love how it looks. I've seen "professionally" painted armies on ebay go for double or triple their retail price because they use what looks like, an airbrush exclusively.

I feel like I am the only one who hates the ways these models look. Obviously a good bunch of people really like these models, otherwise they wouldn't get so much praise and wouldn't sell for such a high price. What do you think?

A big THANK YOU in advance for participating in this poll and/or this thread!

NOTE: The poll is about those models which seem to be exclusively airbrushed, not the use of airbrushing mixed with other techniques.

I agree, I am not crazy about the whole, lets completely airbrush the entire army. It may look good from afar but up close it looks awful. You definitely need the right balance of airbrush and hand brush.

There is one studio in particular (not going to name any names), that really over does it with an airbrush (seems like a 90/10 ratio). His prices on ebay for the time he must put into them are ridiculous. As in charges way to much, it seems like he takes pics of the models from afar so it looks great... but up close... no detail.

 Talizvar wrote:
I have been using the old hairy brush for years and getting quite good at it, started out with enamel paint and got into oils.
Then found that fancy kind of paint called acrylic: made me angry how good that paint went down.
So painted acrylics for a bit and learned a few tricks with shading with inks and technical pens.
Then silly things like "Nuln oil" and stuff like that came out and shading detail that looked awesome and took little effort... cheating I tell you.
Then I got on the airbrush 3 years ago.... a few false starts... the freaking thing is awesome.
I HATE how smooth it puts down paint, HATE how a graveled base is covered in seconds, HATE how I can block paint in minutes not hours... I HATE that darned thing.
BUT, I have found now that there is a point that no matter how fine an airbrush you get and all the masking in the world will not substitute for a few details and washes done by brush.

I can appreciate anything getting painted, that is a given.
I do agree that at some point there is a "tabletop" standard for some airbrush work that should not be passed off as "pro-painted".
An easy sign of this is just look where no masking off was done or the zenithal lighting is all over the place.

For a prime example of needing more work than just a few shots of airbrush:

Spoiler:

A great example of pure airbrush painting is this guy "Next Level Painting" I can learn a lot on airbrush techniques from this guy (they ARE awesome) but his style is just not my thing:
http://nextlevelpainting.blogspot.ca/

Spoiler:

They get this cartoon look to them, like cell shaded caricatures:
http://www.spikeybits.com/2014/03/40k-how-to-airbrushing-the-knight-titan.html

Spoiler:

Then there is these guys who show that a mixture of tools give you a good result:
http://taleofpainters.blogspot.de/2014/02/tutorial-how-to-paint-blood-angels.html

It is just another technique and like with any form of art it is not for everyone.
I am just happy (HATE!) that the airbrush is available, certain results it does so well in minutes what takes me hours with a brush.

that next level stuff looks awful.... it looks like a neon cartoon toy. airbrushes are "cheating" in certain aspects but frankly im personally sick of taking hours to basecoat models. i want an airbrush so so so badly but i can really only see using it for basecoats and maybe a few other things. every centerpiece ill ever paint will be most likely 100 percent brush

my biggest hate is the airbrushed nonsense on ebay that they sell for 300 bucks lol. go ebay pro painted bloodthirster and laugh at how gakky it is vs how much they charge.

eosgreen wrote:
airbrushes are "cheating" in certain aspects

No, they really aren't.

An Arbrush is an optional tool. That is it. I use both Airbrush and hand painting for my models. The only issue I have with Airbrushing is the bad OSL done with them. Too much overspray etc. Then again that can be done with hand painting as well it just so happens to happen more with Airbrushes.

airbrushes are "cheating" in certain aspects

Uh NO

I never really see airbrushed models in person, so I enjoy looking at them online. Of course, I'm probably mostly seeing the upper end of the skill spectrum.

 jasper76 wrote:
I never really see airbrushed models in person, so I enjoy looking at them online. Of course, I'm probably mostly seeing the upper end of the skill spectrum.

You're seeing people who can afford to competently photograph and upload/post images, which means a certain amount of finance and tech skill. So yes, another barrier between the average painter and your online viewing.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

eosgreen wrote:
airbrushes are "cheating" in certain aspects

No, they really aren't.

yes they are. theres a reason there used to be airbrush and paintbrush brackets for competitions. certain things an airbrush does, a brush cant compete with. for example blending large scale models. i suppose i could spend 1k hours to attempt to compete but um... yeh....

it drastically reduces the time it takes to paint and makes certain tasks easier. its harder to paint without leaving brush strokes and things of this nature than with an airbrush. certain effects are also made easier with an airbrush.

- it isnt cheating in the normal sense of the word but it feels dirty.

- do you play starcraft 2? airbrushes are like forcefielding ramps. it isnt "cheating" but everyone hates you and thinks you are a dick

eosgreen wrote:
...certain things an airbrush does, a brush cant compete with.

Indeed. Similarly, when you want to paint something blue, using blue paint does a better job of it than orange.

I'm not seeing the issue here.

eosgreen wrote:
- it isnt cheating in the normal sense of the word but it feels dirty.

You know what? You're right. From now on, I'm going to class people who use an airbrush in the same category as those stinking hobby-destroyers who do their basecoats with any brush bigger than a size 0.



It's not 'cheating' in any sense of the word to use a technique or tool that is faster or easier than some other technique or tool. It's just using a different technique or tool.

 insaniak wrote:

eosgreen wrote:
...certain things an airbrush does, a brush cant compete with.

Indeed. Similarly, when you want to paint something blue, using blue paint does a better job of it than orange.

I'm not seeing the issue here.

eosgreen wrote:
- it isnt cheating in the normal sense of the word but it feels dirty.

You know what? You're right. From now on, I'm going to class people who use an airbrush in the same category as those stinking hobby-destroyers who do their basecoats with any brush bigger than a size 0.



It's not 'cheating' in any sense of the word to use a technique or tool that is faster or easier than some other technique or tool. It's just using a different technique or tool.

thats not an equal comparison. it would be like you are using blue paint and im using the ingredients that make blue paint that i mix on the model

im not saying using tools that make a job easier is not smart, im simply saying that its a lot harder to use a brush to do most of the stuff an airbrush does with little effort. its more like using a metal bat vs a wooden one. the wooden bat is harder to use so why do pros use one? because if lesser players get half the connection a pro gets with a wood bat, he sends that gak outa the park every time and that wouldnt be fun. airbrush is great but it takes away so much of the skill required to do the same job as a brush.

would you call autotuning cheating? autotuning is like an airbrush and my natural brush talent is being dirtied next to the airbrushes easy shading.


youre not gonna like this last part but what would you know about the complaints of airbrush vs brush. i looked at your gallery, you havent experienced the problems high level brush paintjobs exp. so how would you know.... you have a black templar chaplain that is edge highlighted with a blue line. have you ever messed with grey paint at a seriously seamless level shading a tank? do you know how fickle grey is? what about red. do you know how many people struggle with shading red lol? airbrushes make those problems a joke....

when people ask me "dude did you airbrush that blade?" thats when you know all that hard work was worth it. the sad part is that it can be done effortlessly with an airbrush in 1/10th the time with 1/10th the skill. just go get really good with a brush and airbrush then come back to me

Yes, using an airbrush is cheating, just like using a can of spray paint or any model that's drybrushed is clearly an indication of cheating. Oh, decals too. Give me freehand or give me death!

Models should be judged by the ability of the hobbyist to paint them with one paintbrush and the cyan, magenta, yellow, white, and black paints!

/snark

I mean, c'mon. It's just a tool. It takes paint and sprays it out. An airbrush and compressor can be had for as little as $80 -- less than a full set of really nice sable brushes. They aren't exotic. It's like saying the guy with greenstuff and sculpting tools is cheating because they can do things that someone without can't. Airbrushes sound all exotic and complicated until you use one, and then it's like, "oh, well, that's simple."

I think fully or mostly airbrushed models can look good or look like poo, no different than models painted with anything else.

If it's a look you like, though, good on ya. But either way, it's silly is paying someone for an army of these models that has that "airbrushy look", because anyone can do that with very little practice, and it really doesn't take long to, uh.. "master" the sort of model that has big panels, some glowy spots, and a bunch of sponging..

 Talys wrote:
Yes, using an airbrush is cheating, just like using a can of spray paint or any model that's drybrushed is clearly an indication of cheating. Oh, decals too. Give me freehand or give me death!

Models should be judged by the ability of the hobbyist to paint them with one paintbrush and the cyan, magenta, yellow, white, and black paints!

/snark

I mean, c'mon. It's just a tool. It takes paint and sprays it out. An airbrush and compressor can be had for as little as $80 -- less than a full set of really nice sable brushes. They aren't exotic. It's like saying the guy with greenstuff and sculpting tools is cheating because they can do things that someone without can't. Airbrushes sound all exotic and complicated until you use one, and then it's like, "oh, well, that's simple."

I think fully or mostly airbrushed models can look good or look like poo, no different than models painted with anything else.

If it's a look you like, though, good on ya. But either way, it's silly is paying someone for an army of these models that has that "airbrushy look", because anyone can do that with very little practice, and it really doesn't take long to, uh.. "master" the sort of model that has big panels, some glowy spots, and a bunch of sponging..

the word cheating is the wrong word but people get so stuck up on it they keep missing the point. anyone who says airbrushing is cheating is refering to the level of skill needed to accomplish the same level of results. decals look gakky but its much harder to freehand my beil tan heart and eldar rune symbol than it is to slide transfer one.

thats all people are really saying. airbrushing is EASIER they just call it "cheating"....


edit - whats with the sensoring of curse words lol. im one google search away from the most horrible things a man can see but god forbid on that same machine someone say the curse word for poo

Anyone that thinks airbrushing is easier has obviously never used one. Cleaning and maintenance are a pig.

Anyone that thinks an airbrush is cheating should be mixing their own paint from pigment and using their own hair to make brushes, as demonstrated here the last time this utterly stupid bait thread happened;

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/394884.page

 Talys wrote:
Airbrushes sound all exotic and complicated until you use one, and then it's like, "oh, well, that's simple."

Press button, receive paint.

I'd put more effort into replying but at this point it's very clear that this topic is clearly someone fishing to receive validation and back-patting for their dislike of a particular technique. It's neither constructive nor asking for help, and doesn't offer a solution for anything.

Airbrushing is becoming more accessible, yes. If you compare the array of figures, paints and devices that we have now to the 80s, almost everything in your hobby box would be fething revolutionary. Etched brass, resin molded bases, laser cut items. Plastics that fit together flawlessly.

If it irks you that people are paying money for things they enjoy and you don't... Well that's energy you could really be expendiing positively.

I hate when people have more money than me and like things that i don't like, they're the worst.

kb_lock wrote:
Anyone that thinks airbrushing is easier has obviously never used one. Cleaning and maintenance are a pig.

Anyone that thinks an airbrush is cheating should be mixing their own paint from pigment and using their own hair to make brushes, as demonstrated here the last time this utterly stupid bait thread happened;

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/394884.page

it is a bait because cheating is the wrong word. the proper phrase is "less skilled"

A drill requires less skill than a hammer. Ban drills!

kb_lock wrote:
A drill requires less skill than a hammer. Ban drills!

id say everyone except myself on this thread is incapable of painting well, what would any of you know about this topic lol.

10/10 post.

eosgreen wrote:
thats not an equal comparison. it would be like you are using blue paint and im using the ingredients that make blue paint that i mix on the model

...and?


Some artists use pre-mixed paint. Some mix their own. Neither is doing it wrong, they're just doing it differently.

im not saying using tools that make a job easier is not smart, im simply saying that its a lot harder to use a brush to do most of the stuff an airbrush does with little effort.

And that's a problem... why?

It's a lot harder to do some things with an airbrush that can be done quickly and easily with a brush. Or with a knife. Or with a pin.

Again, that doesn't make you wrong for using the airbrush... it just means you're potentially using the best tool for the job.

would you call autotuning cheating?

No. I would call it 'using a different process to get the desired result'.

youre not gonna like this last part but what would you know about the complaints of airbrush vs brush. i looked at your gallery, you havent experienced the problems high level brush paintjobs exp. so how would you know.... you have a black templar chaplain that is edge highlighted with a blue line.

....uh... No I don't...

have you ever messed with grey paint at a seriously seamless level shading a tank? do you know how fickle grey is? what about red. do you know how many people struggle with shading red lol? airbrushes make those problems a joke....

...for those who know how to use them.


Your brush work isn't devalued by someone else choosing to do the same thing with an airbrush, any more than the Mona Lisa is devalued by me printing out a photo of my wife. They're different processes for achieving a similar result. That's all. If you choose to do something using a more difficult process, that's entirely up to you. Doing it that way takes the same amount of skill regardless of how many other people are using an easier method.

eosgreen wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

eosgreen wrote:
airbrushes are "cheating" in certain aspects

No, they really aren't.

yes they are. theres a reason there used to be airbrush and paintbrush brackets for competitions. certain things an airbrush does, a brush cant compete with. for example blending large scale models. i suppose i could spend 1k hours to attempt to compete but um... yeh....

it drastically reduces the time it takes to paint and makes certain tasks easier. its harder to paint without leaving brush strokes and things of this nature than with an airbrush. certain effects are also made easier with an airbrush.

- it isnt cheating in the normal sense of the word but it feels dirty.

- do you play starcraft 2? airbrushes are like forcefielding ramps. it isnt "cheating" but everyone hates you and thinks you are a dick

This isn't a competition. Its a Hobby. So NO it's not cheating.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

eosgreen wrote:

kb_lock wrote:
Anyone that thinks airbrushing is easier has obviously never used one. Cleaning and maintenance are a pig.

Anyone that thinks an airbrush is cheating should be mixing their own paint from pigment and using their own hair to make brushes, as demonstrated here the last time this utterly stupid bait thread happened;

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/394884.page

it is a bait because cheating is the wrong word. the proper phrase is "less skilled"

Less Skilled ? You think using an airbrush over a brush requires less skill ? You have obviously not used an Airbrush. It's just a TOOL you really need to get over it.

I too recall when dry brushing and dipping were scandalous topics.

I'd love to get into airbrushing when I'm in a different living situation. Not a fan of the exaggerated OSL and obvious fading techniques, but as has been said, it's a tool like any other and clearly seems to help people put solid minis on the table at a faster rate.

Painting is one of the biggest barriers to the hobby, so anything that makes the process easier, faster and more rewarding is good in my book. The rise in commission services is also great.

 Kriswall wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:
For me, the most jarring part about airbrushing is when OSL is poorly done. It can look really, really fake. I just don't like when the painter seems to think "I'll just hit a couple of random areas with bright green or blue and... done". I know I wouldn't want to pay for results like that.

95% of the time I don't like OSL at all. Actually, 100% of the time on table top models, the only time I think it's appropriate is a diorama.

When you're viewing models under bright lighting and the models have been painted as if they're walking around in daylight, OSL just looks weird. Not to mention the fact people rarely realise how light actually works (eg. red light shining on a blue surface should not reflect any of the light, or very very little of it).

I have seen some dioramas done where it's worked well because the artist has made the whole scene appear as if it's darker than usual and the artist has complete control over ALL the light on the scene, not just a random blob of blue that is surrounding a plasma gun for some reason.

But that doesn't have to do with airbrushing, because you paint OSL without an airbrush and still get it wrong, it's just more time consuming

99% agreed. OSL is misused MOST of the time, but does have it's place. Light OSL around glowing lights isn't terrible, but it needs to be understated. An inset LED isn't going to illuminate the surface it's embedded in. I painted the linked image using a pretty simple dry brush technique for the OSL. My intent was to go with a pretty understated effect showing the greenish slime stuff to be glowing up onto the underside of the Deff Dread. I think I pulled it off ok. Spraying the whole area with green paint via airbrush would have looked awful.

I understand what you mean and that's a nicely painted model.... but I'm still not a fan of the OSL on it

Most models are painted as if they're in day light. For something to create a visible glow in daylight it needs to be incredibly bright. If a fire is burning during the day, you won't notice the glow of the flames on surrounding objects (unless there's a lot of smoke to darken the area and create a medium for the glow to be seen), a car's headlight, you'll notice it's switched on, but you won't really notice the glow of them illuminating anything. You also have the fact that OSL should be dynamic. In reality the glow from an object isn't static, it changes with your view point.

The models I like which have OSL are typically dioramas where the artist has specfically painted them so the scene looks like it's at night time or low light conditions, so the OSL makes sense.

In the right conditions (which I think are rare), an airbrush can be used to help create the OSL, but it'll need to be cleaned up with a hairy brush, adding edge highlights (as heavily directional light tends to catch edges more than flat surfaces) and dulling down areas where the glow shouldn't be as strong.

I'm also not a fan of LED's 95% of the time.... though in the case of LED's it's usually because they typically don't create properly "scaled" lighting. Not unless you take the time to create lenses/reflecting mirrors (for things like headlights) or properly diffusing the light. Some things like exhaust flames on a piston engine just can't be recreated at all. But that's just my opinion, I know some people love LED's, lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:
I agree, I am not crazy about the whole, lets completely airbrush the entire army. It may look good from afar but up close it looks awful. You definitely need the right balance of airbrush and hand brush.

There is one studio in particular (not going to name any names), that really over does it with an airbrush (seems like a 90/10 ratio). His prices on ebay for the time he must put into them are ridiculous. As in charges way to much, it seems like he takes pics of the models from afar so it looks great... but up close... no detail.

But if your goal is simply to have your models look good from the other side of the gaming table.... what's the problem?

Commission painting costs time and money.... I'd suggest a large portion of commissions are done for models that look good at a few feet away (regardless of airbrushing or not) simply because getting a model commissioned that looks good from 6" away is going to cost you a hell of a lot more money.

Often the commission painters who do airbrush heavy work are more than capable of painting the fine detail you describe, as I mentioned earlier Awaken Realms gets hounded for airbrush use, but if you look at some of their Infinity models you can see they scale it down to something that looks good on a much smaller scale as well.

@Scooty: i don't understand where this idea that NMM is "American style" comes from...
i've seen it called that by a few people, but the first time that NMM exploded onto the scene, around the year 2000, was from the Rackham studio out of France...
it was then picked up and perfected by the Italians and the Spanish long before it became a trend in the US...
i'm American, and i have always painted with TMM, but never felt that i was painting in a European style...
if anything i looked to the French for Zenithal and NMM perfection...

on topic:
can't say i am a fan of the obvious airbrushed look, but if people enjoy the tool, more power to them...
i don't like the lack of tactile feel with the airbrush, personally...
i've had an airbrush for 20 years, and still can't bring myself to use it for miniature painting...
hairy sticks just feel right

for saving time, i'm sure it is a great tool, but being in a hurry to finish a paintjob just isn't my thing...
each paintjob is a journey and a learning experience that i am not in a rush to get through...
as ideas develop, a miniature becomes a better piece than it would have been if i had just rushed through it...
i love that i never know what a mini is going to look like until it is finished, and finally glued together...

stylistically, there are fans of each approach...
there are always going to be people who poo-poo certain techniques and styles, but there is enough room in the miniature painting world for all styles to exist happily...
i love that we get to see a variety of approaches...

cheers
jah

Anything that gets the models to an actually painted state instead of gray plastic, resin or bare metal is okay by me.

privateer4hire wrote:
Anything that gets the models to an actually painted state instead of gray plastic, resin or bare metal is okay by me.

I agree. While I don't care for the style I've been talking about, its better than bare models or just primed models for tabletop. I'm not ganna call somebody out on something I don't like if they aren't trying to pass it off as professionally painted. But the second they are asking triple or quadruple the price of the model for it, I'm ganna say something. But again, its better than bare or exclusively primed models if you are just playing against them.


edited because I typed too fast

 Ryan_A wrote:
But the second they are asking triple or quadruple the price of the model for it, I'm ganna say something.

Why?

 insaniak wrote:

 Ryan_A wrote:
But the second they are asking triple or quadruple the price of the model for it, I'm ganna say something.

Why?

I'll say something to the person who would consider buying it. I'd tell them that it is rather easy to create that model and they could get a model that has a lot more time and effort in it that has what many consider a better paintjob. I'd also tell them that the effect is rather easy to learn, and by buying an airbrush and watching a few youtube videos, they could recreate the same effect. I'd also say that there are several commission artists who would recreate that effect on a model for a lower price.

I would do this so the person wouldn't get (what I consider) ripped off. I'd hope if anyone sees what they think as a person getting ripped off, that they would say something.

With that said, if after I tell them all of this they say "I don't care, I really like it and want it", then more power to them! Buy the models if after all of what I say you still like them and still want to buy. Not going to stop them.

 insaniak wrote:

 Ryan_A wrote:
But the second they are asking triple or quadruple the price of the model for it, I'm ganna say something.

Why?

What a silly question, because people aren't allowed to spend their money on things they like unless they are first Ryan™ approved!

But really, even those quickly airbrushed models still would have taken enough time to paint to justify 2-4 times the price of the bare model assuming someone is willing to pay it. Any commissioned tank is probably a few hours work in assembly if it's done neatly (or more if they bothered to fill gaps and whatnot) and a few hours painting (lets say an hour and a half or so airbrushing + the same time oil washing, edge highlighting weathering, varnishing, etc) which easily justifies a price in that range.

Something like what winterdyne would produce, a model that is good enough that it could possibly win a high level painting comp, you're looking at more like 10 times the price of the original kit.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ryan_A wrote:
I'd also tell them that the effect is rather easy to learn, and by buying an airbrush and watching a few youtube videos

This is BS in a lot of cases. Unless you can link me to some really crappily painted models going for high prices, buying yourself an airbrush and watching a few youtube videos isn't going to get you painting models as good as this...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/672822.page

...unless the person has a lot of natural artistic ability beforehand. It's going to take you a lot of practice before you get to the point where you can paint that, and even if you ever reach that point it's still going to take many hours to paint a model like that.

Put your money where your mouth is and paint some of these sorts of models if you think it's so easy, and tell us if you can do it in little enough time to sell it for only 2x the original price of the kit and still earn minimum wage.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 Ryan_A wrote:
But the second they are asking triple or quadruple the price of the model for it, I'm ganna say something.

Why?

What a silly question, because people aren't allowed to spend their money on things they like unless they are first Ryan™ approved!

I don't appreciate that. I said the exact opposite thing in a recent post of mine. I assume you read it, since you quoted it.

I was being sarcastic (sorry if it wasn't obvious enough) because I think the amount you care and the amount of noise you make about what other people paint and buy is just a wee bit silly.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I was being sarcastic (sorry if it wasn't obvious enough) because I think the amount you care and the amount of noise you make about what other people paint and buy is just a wee bit silly.

I didn't consider this one thread and my 5 or so medium length posts in this thread was making a considerable amount of "noise" nor "caring" too much. I was wondering where everyone stands on the issue. I stated in my original post that I am aware there are a lot of people who disagreed with me (which was the reason I made the thread, to see if there were any at all who agreed with me). I don't believe I have ever even said to somebody or commented on a picture saying I thought it was poorly airbrushed, so I don't know where you are getting "making noise" from. I do care about people getting ripped off. I will say something if I believe somebody is getting ripped off, because I believe that is something any decent person would do.


Edited due to double post

You don't have to justify yourself to me Mr Philosophy major

 Ryan_A wrote:
I will say something if I believe somebody is getting ripped off, because I believe that is something any decent person would do.

I'll just say what I said before since you might have missed it...

This is BS in a lot of cases. Unless you can link me to some really crappily painted models going for high prices, buying yourself an airbrush and watching a few youtube videos isn't going to get you painting models as good as this...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/672822.page

...unless the person has a lot of natural artistic ability beforehand. It's going to take you a lot of practice before you get to the point where you can paint that, and even if you ever reach that point it's still going to take many hours to paint a model like that.

Put your money where your mouth is and paint some of these sorts of models if you think it's so easy, and tell us if you can do it in little enough time to sell it for only 2x the original price of the kit and still earn minimum wage.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Mr Philosophy major .

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

lol

So... you're not actually going to respond to the on topic part of my post? mmk

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

This (models being sold as professionally painted when they are not done well) is BS in a lot of cases.

I agree, its rare. So rare in fact that I have, as I said, never said anything about specific models, since I have never seen somebody in person trying to sell poorly painted models as professionally painted (again, as I said). Twice though, I have sent messages to Ebay sellers stating I believe their models are sub-par when they state they are "professionally painted" and linked them pictures to the same models going for the price they are asking for, yet, what I believe to be, better painted.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
So... you're not actually going to respond to the on topic part of my post? mmk

Oh no, I was, as I did. I keep getting logged out, so I am only posting a little at a time. As you see, I did respond, I was in the middle of responding when you posted this. Sorry for the confusion.

Without examples your point fades to being meaningless. You have judged something as not being worth the money but without any evidence to demonstrate as such we can't know if it really wasn't worth the money or you simply lack a critical eye to understand how much effort went in to painting it.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Without examples your point fades to being meaningless. You have judged something as not being worth the money but without any evidence to demonstrate as such we can't know if it really wasn't worth the money or you simply lack a critical eye to understand how much effort went in to painting it.

124 people believe they understand what I mean enough, without me posting images, to vote. I invite you to read my other posts if you want my position on posting example images about this topic.

I've already read your other posts and they sound like a cop out to me

Also 124 people voted on your poll.... that means nothing more than 124 people voted on your poll.

There is actually a dialogue going on about airbrushing right now, that has not been happening, at all. Its a subject people are afraid to talk about, and now, because of this thread, people aren't afraid to talk about it. People are talking about it. Somebody likes the style, and they type a post (especially in the world right now where you have the internet and anybody right now can actually speak publicly, which was not the case before). So now, somebody actually types a post about the style and they like it, then you read the replies and some of the people who don't like it respond and say their side. Then somebody who doesn't like the style types a post about it, and the people who like the style hold them to task in the replies. Thats an actual, thats a dialogue.


For those who don't get the reference: https://youtu.be/GrsJDy8VjZk?t=2m1s


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I
Also 124 people voted on your poll.... that means nothing more than 124 people voted on your poll.

What? The hell do you mean? Are you saying people randomly signed up for a dakkadakka account, clicked this thread, and then randomly chose the answer?

I said that 124 people believe they understand what I mean enough, that without me even posting images about what I am talking about, that they felt confident enough to take part in the pole. Then you come and reply "well, that just doesn't mean anything".

The hell are you talking about?

Amended: With a reply like that, it seems you and I are on a different level of understanding and I won't reply to you anymore, as I believe everything that I want to say has been said and if you want to know what I mean, just look what I've said before. If you still don't get it, then you and I are just on a different level of understanding basic concepts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you are still not getting, let me invite you to watch this:

https://youtu.be/GrsJDy8VjZk?t=6m50s

I think you've gone off on a bit of a tangent. The discussion at hand was regarding your thoughts that certain models were overpriced and people were being ripped off.

I know what you mean regarding the airbrushing style... but I question your ability to accurately determine the amount of effort that went in to painting a model to decide if it's overpriced and ripping people off.

EDIT: Wait did you transpose Tarantino talking about slavery in to airbrushing styles? Cute.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

I know what you mean regarding the airbrushing style... but I question your ability to accurately determine the amount of effort that went in to painting a model to decide if it's overpriced and ripping people off.

Believe it or not I do commissions. Besides my disability check, doing commissions is the only way I make money. I use primers, airbrushes, brushes, modeling tools, greenstuff/greystuff, basing agents, washes, etc. I've paid for my whole army that I recently purchased as well as my $700 graphics tablet and half my computer from commissions. I know what goes into painting a model.

Now, am I going to show or even hint at what my official email/pen name/etc is? Hell no. Because I keep my personal life and professional life separate. If I was a stubborn mule to somebody in a forum, they most likely wouldn't buy from me. I have not uploaded any of my work that I have done in the last four years for that very reason.

But yes, I know what goes into painting models for commissioned work.

So... "believe I'm right because I say I'm right without proof".

Yeah, that doesn't cut it sorry. Maybe you should stop replying to me because I'm not willing to take the word of some random person on the internet and you aren't willing to demonstrate anything.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
EDIT: Wait did you transpose Tarantino talking about slavery in to airbrushing styles? Cute.

Ya, I thought it would be funny, trying to cut some of the tension. But ya, I suppose we are at an impasse, you want proof I am not some internet schmuck who says whatever I can to seem right and I am not willing to give it. Its too bad we weren't having this conversation in person, we could drink some cheap gin, smoke a joint, and become good friends.

 Ryan_A wrote:
Its a subject people are afraid to talk about

Not sure where you got that idea. It's a fairly common topic of discussion on this and most other forums I've been on.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ryan_A wrote:
Twice though, I have sent messages to Ebay sellers stating I believe their models are sub-par when they state they are "professionally painted" and linked them pictures to the same models going for the price they are asking for, yet, what I believe to be, better painted.
.

I sincerely hope that they told you where to go.

There is an awful lot more that goes into determining the price than just what someone else is charging for similar work, and if you genuinely do commission work I would expect you to be aware of that.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
YThis is BS in a lot of cases. Unless you can link me to some really crappily painted models going for high prices, buying yourself an airbrush and watching a few youtube videos isn't going to get you painting models as good as this...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/672822.page

...unless the person has a lot of natural artistic ability beforehand. It's going to take you a lot of practice before you get to the point where you can paint that, and even if you ever reach that point it's still going to take many hours to paint a model like that.

I'm kind of confused here. Are we supposed to be impressed by that model? Some of it isn't bad, but the glow effect is just awful.

 Peregrine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
YThis is BS in a lot of cases. Unless you can link me to some really crappily painted models going for high prices, buying yourself an airbrush and watching a few youtube videos isn't going to get you painting models as good as this...

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/672822.page

...unless the person has a lot of natural artistic ability beforehand. It's going to take you a lot of practice before you get to the point where you can paint that, and even if you ever reach that point it's still going to take many hours to paint a model like that.

I'm kind of confused here. Are we supposed to be impressed by that model? Some of it isn't bad, but the glow effect is just awful.

Nope.... simply pointing out that if that's what you think looks good (something which is subjective) you sure as hell aren't going to buy an airbrush, watch a couple of youtube videos and expect to be able to paint something that looks as good.

What a load of old bollocks this thread is.

If you like a paint job, you like a paint job. The method don't matter.

If you can afford a certain amount of work from a certain place, that's what you'll get and the market determines going rate, not any form of meritocracy and its bloody naive to think otherwise.

Here's a 90% airbrush job to finish with and you can now return to your regular scheduled mutterings.

 insaniak wrote:

 Ryan_A wrote:
Its a subject people are afraid to talk about

Not sure where you got that idea. It's a fairly common topic of discussion on this and most other forums I've been on.

It was a reference to the Tarantino video.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 insaniak wrote:

 Ryan_A wrote:
Twice though, I have sent messages to Ebay sellers stating I believe their models are sub-par when they state they are "professionally painted" and linked them pictures to the same models going for the price they are asking for, yet, what I believe to be, better painted.
.

I sincerely hope that they told you where to go.

There is an awful lot more that goes into determining the price than just what someone else is charging for similar work, and if you genuinely do commission work I would expect you to be aware of that.

The end product is what matters and is the only thing that matters. If somebody was an amazing painter and painted "amazing model X" in five minutes and then there was somebody who was a terrible painter and painted an identical "amazing model Y' in a hundred times the hours with a hundred times the work, his lack of skill and poor time management does not make the model any different and the price should be the same.

If I was doing pinstripe work on a car and was charging $50,000 for it because I messed up a few times and spent hundreds of hours getting it right, would you buy it even though you could get the same work done by a better pinstriper for $200?

No, nobody would, because the end product is all that matters. Anyone who thinks there is more to determine the price of something than the end product is a fool. If everything is the same in the end, there is no reason for a price difference.

edited due to a quotation error

What the feth are you actually trying to say?

winterdyne wrote:
What the feth are you actually trying to say?

What is the context?

winterdyne wrote:
What a load of old bollocks this thread is.

If you like a paint job, you like a paint job. The method don't matter.

If you can afford a certain amount of work from a certain place, that's what you'll get and the market determines going rate, not any form of meritocracy and its bloody naive to think otherwise.

Here's a 90% airbrush job to finish with and you can now return to your regular scheduled mutterings.

Spoiler:

Quoted for both truth and awesomeness

I wish I could say it as well as you... and then back it up by being one of the best painters and commission painters in the world

 Ryan_A wrote:

It was a reference to the Tarantino video.

Ah. It would probably help keep confusion to a minimum if you limit quotes to things that are actually relevant to the discussion, then.

If everything is the same in the end, there is no reason for a price difference.

When you have more than one painter involved, everything is never going to be the same in the end, because everyone produces different work, due to differences in style and technique. And it's complicated further by the fact that the painter's reputation matters to a lot of customers as well. People will often pay more for a piece painted by a 'name' painter or studio than they will from an unknown.

And, really, where are you getting your baseline from? If you're charging what you think is reasonable for a piece, and a commission artist comes along who is willing to do it for half as much, are you automatically going to drop your price to match his?

Of course you're not. So why would you expect others to match what you think a piece is worth on nothing more than your say so?

Hell, back when I was doing commissions, I had absolutely no idea what anyone else was charging for similar work... I never bothered to look, because it simply wasn't relevant. I charged what I felt my time and my skill were worth, and if a potential customer agreed then we were both happy and a transaction occurred. End of story.

Well so far all I've got from this thread is that you don't like majority airbrush jobs. That's fine. You then go on to disparage work of various commission places, and later attempt to justify this by stating the price for that work is too high.

The truth is that if people want to pay for that level of work, that level of work will be provided. Sure it's not golden demon level stuff up close, but it a badly lit gaming room from four feet away, it's functional. And if people want to pay for it, they will.

What determines the price is not the product in isolation (and you're doomed from a business point of view if you think so) it's the supply of equivalent product (meaning standard of paintwork here), the demand for that product (size of the market), the cost of the product in terms of time (this varies massively- I simply cannot paint as cheaply as a Malaysian studio for my time for example) and finally the amount of capital in that market (determing how much people can pay).

If you feth up a pinlining job, that's your problem; you can and should factor the chance of your messing up into your initial quote- it forms part of the cost of your product. Awareness of ones own product is critical in running any business, but in a service business like commission painting or IT consultancy it's even more so.

Back to the core point- a fast airbrushed job is quick and more importantly predictable and consistent once a certain level of skill achieved. This makes it a suitable 'base' product for a professional (financially grounded) commission studio.

So I don't understand what you're trying to say other than stating you don't like something.

winterdyne wrote:
Well so far all I've got from this thread is that you don't like majority airbrush jobs.

Over a hundred posts by multiple people and this is all you get? Either you read none of it or you are trolling.

edit: Either way, you would be trolling I suppose.

Of any value, yup that's about all of it.

As for trolling? You don't know me very well yet, do you?

By all means if you have anything constructive or well argued to put forward do so, but so far this has been a bit of bandwagon hatemongering with absolutely no proven standpoint from either an artistic standpoint (post some work, get some feedback), or friom a logical, business point of view.

winterdyne wrote:
so far this has been a bit of bandwagon hatemongering with absolutely no proven standpoint from either an artistic standpoint (post some work, get some feedback), or friom a logical, business point of view.

Clearly false and clearly trolling. Have a good one buddy.

Winterdyne is probably both the most sober and most talented painter I've seen on these forums, or anywhere. Who you are Ryan is not known to me.

Can we lock this useless thread yet insaniak?

I like the tool when used as a shortcut for real painting, but I dislike the painting style that makes miniatures look like van art.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I like the tool when used as a shortcut for real painting, but I dislike the painting style that makes miniatures look like van art.

Since when is van art not real painting?

 Ryan_A wrote:

winterdyne wrote:
so far this has been a bit of bandwagon hatemongering with absolutely no proven standpoint from either an artistic standpoint (post some work, get some feedback), or friom a logical, business point of view.

Clearly false and clearly trolling. Have a good one buddy.

The words pot, kettle and black spring to mind; except in this instance the kettle (winterdyne) has put the pot (you) firmly back in his box with commendable restraint given how ludicrous your posting has become.

kb_lock wrote:
Winterdyne is probably both the most sober and most talented painter I've seen on these forums, or anywhere. Who you are Ryan is not known to me.

Can we lock this useless thread yet insaniak?

I'm not denying he is one of the best painters on dakkadakka. It doesn't give him the excuse to troll. Which his last posts were nothing but trolling.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sockwithaticket wrote:
ludicrous your posting has become.

Please clarify, I don't want to keep making this mistake.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I like the tool when used as a shortcut for real painting, but I dislike the painting style that makes miniatures look like van art.

I can't say anything on the tool itself as I've never used one myself, nor have people around me, but I completely agree with you. I don't think I have seen a single mini that was painted almost exclusively with airbrushing that doesn't make the miniatures look... well, just off.

kb_lock wrote:
Winterdyne is probably both the most sober and most talented painter I've seen on these forums, or anywhere. Who you are Ryan is not known to me.

Can we lock this useless thread yet insaniak?

Yes please. It seems to consist of random people having brain farts without really understanding what they're talking about.

I'm going to go and hand grind some beans for my coffee now. My hand ground coffee tastes much more ernest than beans ground in an automatic grinder or *shudder* ready ground coffee.

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I like the tool when used as a shortcut for real painting, but I dislike the painting style that makes miniatures look like van art.

I can't say anything on the tool itself as I've never used one myself, nor have people around me, but I completely agree with you. I don't think I have seen a single mini that was painted almost exclusively with airbrushing that doesn't make the miniatures look... well, just off.

So in other words.... you haven't seen many minis that were painted almost exclusively with an airbrush.

 jah-joshua wrote:
@Scooty: i don't understand where this idea that NMM is "American style" comes from...
i've seen it called that by a few people, but the first time that NMM exploded onto the scene, around the year 2000, was from the Rackham studio out of France...
it was then picked up and perfected by the Italians and the Spanish long before it became a trend in the US...
i'm American, and i have always painted with TMM, but never felt that i was painting in a European style...
if anything i looked to the French for Zenithal and NMM perfection...

Well, first of all I didn't claim that American painters invented NMM.

There are European painters that are studs when it comes to NMM and American painters that produce amazing TMM models. A painter's geographical location is not the sole thing that decides what style a piece is painted in. Also, NMM and TMM aren't the only two differences between American and European style painting (in short, the American style is more stylized and the European style is more realistic).

However, in the upper echelons of the painting world, broadly speaking, American painters tend to favor one style while European painters favor a different one.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 jah-joshua wrote:
@Scooty: i don't understand where this idea that NMM is "American style" comes from...
i've seen it called that by a few people, but the first time that NMM exploded onto the scene, around the year 2000, was from the Rackham studio out of France...
it was then picked up and perfected by the Italians and the Spanish long before it became a trend in the US...
i'm American, and i have always painted with TMM, but never felt that i was painting in a European style...
if anything i looked to the French for Zenithal and NMM perfection...

Well, first of all I didn't claim that American painters invented NMM.

There are European painters that are studs when it comes to NMM and American painters that produce amazing TMM models. A painter's geographical location is not the sole thing that decides what style a piece is painted in. Also, NMM and TMM aren't the only two differences between American and European style painting (in short, the American style is more stylized and the European style is more realistic).

However, in the upper echelons of the painting world, broadly speaking, American painters tend to favor one style while European painters favor a different one.

I'm not arguing (have no reason to wish to do so), but where do you encounter these differences on display that it's clearly based on geography? I'd be genuinely curious as I'd not realised, thinking the Internet the great equaliser.
That sounds sarcastic as feth, but I assure you it isn't.

winterdyne wrote:
Well so far all I've got from this thread is that you don't like majority airbrush jobs. That's fine. You then go on to disparage work of various commission places, and later attempt to justify this by stating the price for that work is too high.

The truth is that if people want to pay for that level of work, that level of work will be provided. Sure it's not golden demon level stuff up close, but it a badly lit gaming room from four feet away, it's functional. And if people want to pay for it, they will.

What determines the price is not the product in isolation (and you're doomed from a business point of view if you think so) it's the supply of equivalent product (meaning standard of paintwork here), the demand for that product (size of the market), the cost of the product in terms of time (this varies massively- I simply cannot paint as cheaply as a Malaysian studio for my time for example) and finally the amount of capital in that market (determing how much people can pay).

If you feth up a pinlining job, that's your problem; you can and should factor the chance of your messing up into your initial quote- it forms part of the cost of your product. Awareness of ones own product is critical in running any business, but in a service business like commission painting or IT consultancy it's even more so.

Back to the core point- a fast airbrushed job is quick and more importantly predictable and consistent once a certain level of skill achieved. This makes it a suitable 'base' product for a professional (financially grounded) commission studio.

So I don't understand what you're trying to say other than stating you don't like something.

this is the point to end all points. since most people here are poo painters they have never had anyone ask them to paint something or offer to be hired. I get asked all the time and I never do it. the reason is once i said sure, followed by returning the money a day later when it hit me how long it actually takes to get a certain standard without an airbrush

lets talk salary/money

- you paint a squad for commission.
- avg work day is 8 hours and lets say bare minimum 10 an hour
- the client wants an army that will score well at tournys (as many do)


how long does it take you to paint 10 models? an hour each? ok so do you think someones paying 80 bucks for 10 marines to be painted? also it doesnt take an hour each to paint a good model. id be lucky to do one in an hour. is someone paying 100 bucks PLUS 30 for the marines to be painted? he needs like 40 more marines...... and tanks, and special units. what is the price at over a grand? who here is going to pay a grand for a not that well painted army? it will score well kinda, it wont look that great up close?

- heres the most important part

- most people are TERRIBLE painters. i mean AWFUL. that being said a really poorly airbrushed model like that bloodthirster has inherent shading that airbrushes provide and look good from a distance will REALLY appeal to most people and take VERY little time to accomplish. it completely DESTROYS anything most people can even do and what ive learned is that most people who cannot paint well, also cannot really take notice to most of the detail a high standard paint job entails. its just a thing ive noticed.

you can choose to not believe me but go to 5 hobby shops that play tabletop. take note of the plastic awfulness or just downright globbed on garbage paint jobs then think.... those airbrushed models are lookin pretty good right about now.

i still maintain airbrushing needs a sep category at painting competitions

Your points would be taken more seriously if you didn't gak on the people you're trying to convince.

Here's the thing:
If you want us to agree with you, blanket calling everyone else's work a turd is not going to help, especially doing it as abrasively as this.

If you don't want us to agree with you, and are just posting to read your own words, that is masturbation, and we don't need to see it here.

I'm actually on board with many of your points, but your eloquent approach is sullying it significantly.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Your points would be taken more seriously if you didn't gak on the people you're trying to convince.

Here's the thing:
If you want us to agree with you, blanket calling everyone else's work a turd is not going to help, especially doing it as abrasively as this.

If you don't want us to agree with you, and are just posting to read your own words, that is masturbation, and we don't need to see it here.

I'm actually on board with many of your points, but your eloquent approach is sullying it significantly.

im not running for office. i can point out a fact most dont want to admit

"most people are crappy painters" "this stuff looks so good to them"

who am i insulting anyway? bad painters who want to comment about topics involving painting. what a joke. that be like insulting illiterate people in text and being worried

also where do you get this notion i want to read my own words lol. are you upset i made comments that might disqualify you from commenting about the matter? its the internet man you are one google search away from dudes having heads cut off on vid. thicker skin please

also all the logic in the world falls on deaf ears over the internet and even in real life. if anything im wasting my time. accuse me of that

I would posit that one does not need to be a chef to understand that raw sewage is unsafe to eat.

eosgreen wrote:
- most people are TERRIBLE painters. i mean AWFUL. that being said a really poorly airbrushed model like that bloodthirster has inherent shading that airbrushes provide and look good from a distance will REALLY appeal to most people and take VERY little time to accomplish. it completely DESTROYS anything most people can even do and what ive learned is that most people who cannot paint well, also cannot really take notice to most of the detail a high standard paint job entails. its just a thing ive noticed.

I'm not sure if this is support for airbrushes or condemnation of them.

If you can paint a model quickly that appeals to people.... err... that's the whole idea of a business?

You don't get brownie points for doing things the hard way

Also I think you exaggerate what "very" little time things take to accomplish. Faster? Yes. Though still long enough that you are going to end up charging 2-4 times the cost of the model to earn minimum wage.

If the pictures in your gallery are yours then you are obviously a decent painter, but have you actually used an airbrush? If so did you watch the clock? It can feel fast because the paint gets laid down quickly, but once you include the extra effort involved in setting it up, mixing your paints to the right consistency, adding masks to the model, spending a few minutes cleaning it out between colour changes plus the time at the end. It's quicker for large models, no doubt, but it's not some magical "instant complete" button, for small models that are going to require a lot of masking I'd hazard a guess and say it's not much quicker than brush painting for high standard stuff.

Can everyone hold on replying to this thread for 20 minutes while I go buy some popcorn please?

To stay vaguely on-topic: I don't necessarily disagree with many of the points made in the original and follow-up posts, but I very strongly agree with Buttery that "but your eloquent approach is sullying it significantly."

There's a couple of the people replying to you that seem to have wilfully mis-understood or isolated parts of your posts as well. There's still a smidgeon of potential in this thread, but I'm not holding my breath.

Winterdyne - that mini you posted as a '90% airbrush' example - I really like it, but there are tons of details I have trouble seeing being done with an airbrush - are we taking 90% of the painted surface, or 90% of the time spent? Not getting at you - I've just never taken on a project of that type and size so have no clue about it!

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I'm not arguing (have no reason to wish to do so), but where do you encounter these differences on display that it's clearly based on geography? I'd be genuinely curious as I'd not realised, thinking the Internet the great equaliser.
That sounds sarcastic as feth, but I assure you it isn't.

Just follow some of the high profile miniature painters out there and you'll see it. Again, this isn't some hard and fast rule that all painters from certain areas have to paint this one way, but there is a definite trend when it comes to certain styles.

mockingbirduk wrote:
There's a couple of the people replying to you that seem to have wilfully mis-understood or isolated parts of your posts as well. There's still a smidgeon of potential in this thread, but I'm not holding my breath.

I don't think I've wilfully misunderstood but of course I've wilfully isolated parts, when I delete half the post to only quote 1 paragraph it's not an accident I quoted the part I wanted to discuss further. I may have slightly misinterpreted eos's intent due to the tone used in the post, but not enough so to edit my previous reply.

I don't disagree eosgreen's overall post other than I don't think in this day and age we need separate categories in painting competitions for airbrushed or not airbrushed. It's a tool you can choose to use or not choose to use. It's not always the appropriate tool and it doesn't magically make you a better artist, so I don't think it needs a separate category.

The circlejerk in this thread...

I just want to say that although airbrushed miniatures can look good, what's up with spraying blue on all lamps you see?

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I'm not arguing (have no reason to wish to do so), but where do you encounter these differences on display that it's clearly based on geography? I'd be genuinely curious as I'd not realised, thinking the Internet the great equaliser.
That sounds sarcastic as feth, but I assure you it isn't.

Just follow some of the high profile miniature painters out there and you'll see it. Again, this isn't some hard and fast rule that all painters from certain areas have to paint this one way, but there is a definite trend when it comes to certain styles.

It's possibly because I live in Europe, but I think of high profile NMM and I immediately think of Kabuki, Rackham, Golem Studios, etc. and they're quite close to home. I don't disagree with you because I don't have reason to, but I wonder if like I say, it's down to geography and what we are exposed to?

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I'm not arguing (have no reason to wish to do so), but where do you encounter these differences on display that it's clearly based on geography? I'd be genuinely curious as I'd not realised, thinking the Internet the great equaliser.
That sounds sarcastic as feth, but I assure you it isn't.

Just follow some of the high profile miniature painters out there and you'll see it. Again, this isn't some hard and fast rule that all painters from certain areas have to paint this one way, but there is a definite trend when it comes to certain styles.

It's possibly because I live in Europe, but I think of high profile NMM and I immediately think of Kabuki, Rackham, Golem Studios, etc. and they're quite close to home. I don't disagree with you because I don't have reason to, but I wonder if like I say, it's down to geography and what we are exposed to?

I can't say I've noticed the American NMM and Europe TMM trend either, but then I'm Australian I was sure a lot of the NMM I'd seen had come from Europe, especially eastern Europe, but maybe I was mistaken.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I would posit that one does not need to be a chef to understand that raw sewage is unsafe to eat.

the better you are as a painter the more troubles you come to understand is all i am saying

i once was having a conversation with someone about struggling with red and grey glazes. i said "im having issues with the pigment etc blah blah" to which some guy comes up to us and in true socially inept nerd fashion interjects his insightful "really red is so easy how are you having issues"

i then ask the person to show me his models he painted red which he is VERY proud of of which he simply painted GW style of base, wash, rebase leaving lines at armor cracks/plates edge highlight, lighter edge highlight. this is by most peoples standards a very well painted model but im talking about a blend so perfect your eye cant even see the transition of colors that takes hours to do. he doesnt know any better, he CAN'T know any better.

so to your example, it would be like a person describing how horrible war is having fought in one vs someone who has not. sure you understand a GENERAL idea but you don't know anything CLOSE to the guy whos been there and done that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

eosgreen wrote:
- most people are TERRIBLE painters. i mean AWFUL. that being said a really poorly airbrushed model like that bloodthirster has inherent shading that airbrushes provide and look good from a distance will REALLY appeal to most people and take VERY little time to accomplish. it completely DESTROYS anything most people can even do and what ive learned is that most people who cannot paint well, also cannot really take notice to most of the detail a high standard paint job entails. its just a thing ive noticed.

I'm not sure if this is support for airbrushes or condemnation of them.

If you can paint a model quickly that appeals to people.... err... that's the whole idea of a business?

You don't get brownie points for doing things the hard way

Also I think you exaggerate what "very" little time things take to accomplish. Faster? Yes. Though still long enough that you are going to end up charging 2-4 times the cost of the model to earn minimum wage.

If the pictures in your gallery are yours then you are obviously a decent painter, but have you actually used an airbrush? If so did you watch the clock? It can feel fast because the paint gets laid down quickly, but once you include the extra effort involved in setting it up, mixing your paints to the right consistency, adding masks to the model, spending a few minutes cleaning it out between colour changes plus the time at the end. It's quicker for large models, no doubt, but it's not some magical "instant complete" button, for small models that are going to require a lot of masking I'd hazard a guess and say it's not much quicker than brush painting for high standard stuff.

im condemning them for competitions when competing with people using brushes and supporting them for commission work against people who are crying "its not actually well painted it looks terrible"

i agree mixing and cleaning is terrible but, thats why you do large monsters or large assembly line style. the markups on these new large as hell models are very rewarding imo. if i wanted to make money selling models I would most likely do wraithknights and the sort, doing 6 at a time. i imagine this would cut down on the "slow" parts about airbrushing significantly

eosgreen wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I would posit that one does not need to be a chef to understand that raw sewage is unsafe to eat.

the better you are as a painter the more troubles you come to understand is all i am saying

i once was having a conversation with someone about struggling with red and grey glazes. i said "im having issues with the pigment etc blah blah" to which some guy comes up to us and in true socially inept nerd fashion interjects his insightful "really red is so easy how are you having issues"

i then ask the person to show me his models he painted red which he is VERY proud of of which he simply painted GW style of base, wash, rebase leaving lines at armor cracks/plates edge highlight, lighter edge highlight. this is by most peoples standards a very well painted model but im talking about a blend so perfect your eye cant even see the transition of colors that takes hours to do. he doesnt know any better, he CAN'T know any better.

I would say that it is exposure, not talent, that is linked to understanding.
Hear me out here... I paint to an adequate, albeit weird standard. But I live near to WHW's museum, I've been to Golem Studios technique days, I live with an ex citadel catalog painter. It doesn't make me any better at painting, but I know exactly where on the grander scale I stand, and how results are achieved through hours of work, and in many cases, repeats and failures. Outside of miniatures I've done degrees in fine art, and understand methods that I'm likewise incapable of performing. But I can appreciate what went into the pieces I study.
Dave at your FLGS may only know what he's seen in White Dwarf, and the various miniatures in front of him at the store. He doesn't know why it's red, he just know it is indeed, red.
Seeing the bigger picture (or even realising it exists) is not a gift everyone has, but likewise an individual's talent may not be indicative of their own understanding.

Dialling it back from a war comparison, if you are looking online to buy something for your life, say a USB device, you look at reviews. You seek out experiences from those who have similar taste to your own. You don't think, "Well this guy couldn't build the keyboard, I'm only going to take opinions from engineers and factory workers."

eosgreen wrote:
im condemning them for competitions when competing with people using brushes and supporting them for commission work against people who are crying "its not actually well painted it looks terrible"

I cam see where you're coming from, but I think in the end it just comes down to having good judging in a competition rather than separating them.

I mean, it is just a tool, the painter can choose to use it or choose not to use it based on what they want to achieve. The only benefit I see in having separate categories would be so people who can't afford them can compete separately, but even there that only really applies to large models, on a 28mm infantry model I don't think there's much to be gained by airbrushing.

When it comes to larger figures I've seen some pretty impressive work with oils that I rank highly and were achieved in just a few minutes (though you then have to wait a day or two for it to cure before moving on to the next part, and like anything painted to a high standard there's usually lots of tweaking that goes on to make it just right).

I enjoy how passionate the discussion is getting, shows many like their painting or appreciate seeing it.

I think there are two ways to appreciate art:

1) How well the artist got that image out of their head and into the world.
2) How technically proficient the artwork was performed.

I like seeing pointillism as art and marvel at the work, not so much seeing a dot matrix printout.
If I have to use dirt, crayons and a ballista to get what I have in my head into the world... so be it.

I have professed my HATE for the airbrush because all those hours getting good with blending with hairy brush I now drop and reach for the airbrush... it is just so pretty and a time saver.
The airbrush seems like a cheat because it is such a shortcut for painting even the worst of surfaces.

What we are most complaining about in this "airbrush craze" is that the method is better known: the general public now knows how little work and time went into these "pro-painted" airbrush works and are expecting them to up their game with all that time saved.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I'm not arguing (have no reason to wish to do so), but where do you encounter these differences on display that it's clearly based on geography? I'd be genuinely curious as I'd not realised, thinking the Internet the great equaliser.
That sounds sarcastic as feth, but I assure you it isn't.

Just follow some of the high profile miniature painters out there and you'll see it. Again, this isn't some hard and fast rule that all painters from certain areas have to paint this one way, but there is a definite trend when it comes to certain styles.

It's possibly because I live in Europe, but I think of high profile NMM and I immediately think of Kabuki, Rackham, Golem Studios, etc. and they're quite close to home. I don't disagree with you because I don't have reason to, but I wonder if like I say, it's down to geography and what we are exposed to?

Like I've said, of course there are painters and studios that are really talented and focused on certain styles, regardless of where they are located. What you have to look at is the competitive circuit; in the States it's typically more focused on technical skill (super smooth blends, freehand, clean lines, etc.) whereas the European, especially Central and Eastern, it's typically more focused on overall presentation (story, setting, mood, etc.).

The 'European style' is exemplified by artists like Roman Lappat (who uses an airbrush pretty often so I guess that makes him a 'cheater' according to some people), Alfonso Giraldes, Sergey Popovichenko, and Kirill Kanaev. 'American style' is exemplified by artists like Alison Bailey, Jen Haley, and Marike Reimer.

Obviously, lots of other people around the world paint in a similar style as they do and there are lots of painters that blend the two styles together.

mockingbirduk wrote:
Can everyone hold on replying to this thread for 20 minutes while I go buy some popcorn please?

To stay vaguely on-topic: I don't necessarily disagree with many of the points made in the original and follow-up posts, but I very strongly agree with Buttery that "but your eloquent approach is sullying it significantly."

There's a couple of the people replying to you that seem to have wilfully mis-understood or isolated parts of your posts as well. There's still a smidgeon of potential in this thread, but I'm not holding my breath.

Winterdyne - that mini you posted as a '90% airbrush' example - I really like it, but there are tons of details I have trouble seeing being done with an airbrush - are we taking 90% of the painted surface, or 90% of the time spent? Not getting at you - I've just never taken on a project of that type and size so have no clue about it!

More like 90% of the visual impact. To achieve a similar job with a hairy stick would have taken significantly longer and been considerably more taxing to the point that that particular style is only really achievable with an airbrush. Yes, it's doable by hand, but the chance of a screwup in a blush is ridiculously high. I'd have had to quote two or three times what I did to do it confidently. By hand that blue would have easily been 90% of the job. Five mixes, smooth blushes on that many surfaces.... Uh, no. Airbrush time.

In terms of actual time, I'd say that one was close to the normal 30-30-30-10 of build, base coat, detail and finish. Airbrush extensively on the blue, zenithal work on the base as well as priming and varnishing. There's a lot of freehand style chipping on there. If I wanted to use airbrush techniques either hairspray or salt work could have gone on, but that would be a more realistic, gritty look than I wanted and would have put the airbrush time clearly into th majority on the piece (more like 30-50-10-10).

Honestly, I think the difficulty of a particular tool does matter in one way: if something is easy then it's a lot more tempting to over-use it. If glow effects require lots of tedious layering with a brush and a lot of skill to be able to blend the colors properly then you're probably going to be very restrained in how you use them. You're only going to invest that kind of effort if you think that a model absolutely needs it. But if it's something you can do in a few seconds with an airbrush then you're a lot more likely to give in to the impulse to spray some "OSL" all over the model. And so you get garbage like the examples posted earlier, where a decent looking base coat is absolutely ruined by horrible glow effects. Take away the airbrush and it's a much better model.

 Peregrine wrote:
Honestly, I think the difficulty of a particular tool does matter in one way: if something is easy then it's a lot more tempting to over-use it. If glow effects require lots of tedious layering with a brush and a lot of skill to be able to blend the colors properly then you're probably going to be very restrained in how you use them. You're only going to invest that kind of effort if you think that a model absolutely needs it. But if it's something you can do in a few seconds with an airbrush then you're a lot more likely to give in to the impulse to spray some "OSL" all over the model. And so you get garbage like the examples posted earlier, where a decent looking base coat is absolutely ruined by horrible glow effects. Take away the airbrush and it's a much better model.

People actually have to like the look of OSL and the glowingness for them to bother doing it. It's not like you buy an airbrush and think "oh, I have an airbrush, I better do OSL" You might do that once, just to see what it looks like.... but then to actually go ahead and paint an army like that, you have to like the look.

I mean, I prefer realistic looking models to cartoonish looking models.... but I'd rather have a cartoonish looking army that I painted in a month vs a realistic army that would take me 5 years and I give up after a month anyway And the cartoonish model doesn't necessarily look objectively bad anyway.

I actually think an airbrush is an inappropriate tool for most OSL effects. You get the bloom, but you don't get sufficient control over direction.

winterdyne wrote:
I actually think an airbrush is an inappropriate tool for most OSL effects. You get the bloom, but you don't get sufficient control over direction.

I'm not an expert like you, but I always figured if you wanted to get good OSL effects with an airbrush you'd have to do masking to get a separation on panels of slightly varying orientation and then come back with a hairy brush to pick out edges.

That said, as I'm mentioned previously in this thread, I'm not really a fan of OSL to begin with. There's precious few times I've seen OSL I liked and it was always on dioramas rather than table top models.

I don't own a Air brush However I would like to own one mainly for large models and base coating and maybe to use for power armor.I mean most large tanks and things are painted in real life with paint guns so it does help make things look more realistic if done right, But I also love to do brush work. A airbrush is like a hammer you can get a lot done but you are going to need a knife or screwdriver sometimes. Could you imagine trying to paint eyes with an air brush? It works best if you just stay away from the overpowering OSL. I may be a wargamer but I have been outside in the daylight. When out in such daylight I have never seen a red or blue light so powerful it radiates out from its source covering anything withing 10 feet with that hue or color of light. Militarily it also makes no sense a mean neither does bright red armor but why would you ever bolt a bright blue light to your battle suit? Or run your land raiders head lights in the day. I think if you want to do things like lighting it turns out much better just to take the time and install leds into your model and let the laws of physics do the work of OSL for you.

I have seen some great work done with airbrushes but it has always been detailed with a brush and it looks great.


I personally don't care about speed and can and have spent a good 30 mins to a hour painting one guardsmen. I also like to paint then assemble all my models and paint areas that will most likely be covered for the most part but when someone picks up any one of my models I want each to have such detail that nothing loses it appeal at 3 inches away or less."planing to get a super fine brush and a some head gear with a magnifying glass to paint with....I will probably use it on every model, Guardsmen included. (it was at this point I realized I had a perfection issue) . I will have these models forever and spend a good chunk of money on them.

I always hated to see paint jobs rush for tournaments or general play and when it is done poorly not do to a lack of skill but simply a lack of willingness to even pick up a brush. it pains me. Why spend 30-40 dollars on 10 space marines just to slap paint on them and throw them on the table when you could have took the time and done much better. I mostly saw this with flavor of the month armies.
"something new came out that is overpowered better slap it together and throw some paint on it so i can pwn everyone before they realize how to break the new list. "

I would much rather face a half painted army that is getting a great paint job then a army that is so poorly painted just to get the paint on it and on the table.

Now don't take this as me being some sort of painting elitist. I don't put people down who try to really paint their things even if it looks bad at least they tried I might even make suggestions on details or how to do some things or at least point them to a place that can help them improve their skill. I am also not to good myself and my first models look like i dipped them in paint. (which for being 12 when i first started I think I may have done just that,)

eosgreen wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I would posit that one does not need to be a chef to understand that raw sewage is unsafe to eat.

i then ask the person to show me his models he painted red which he is VERY proud of of which he simply painted GW style of base, wash, rebase leaving lines at armor cracks/plates edge highlight, lighter edge highlight. this is by most peoples standards a very well painted model but im talking about a blend so perfect your eye cant even see the transition of colors that takes hours to do. he doesnt know any better, he CAN'T know any better.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

eosgreen wrote:
- most people are TERRIBLE painters. i mean AWFUL. that being said a really poorly airbrushed model like that bloodthirster has inherent shading that airbrushes provide and look good from a distance will REALLY appeal to most people and take VERY little time to accomplish. it completely DESTROYS anything most people can even do and what ive learned is that most people who cannot paint well, also cannot really take notice to most of the detail a high standard paint job entails. its just a thing ive noticed.

I'm not sure if this is support for airbrushes or condemnation of them.

If you can paint a model quickly that appeals to people.... err... that's the whole idea of a business?

You don't get brownie points for doing things the hard way

Also I think you exaggerate what "very" little time things take to accomplish. Faster? Yes. Though still long enough that you are going to end up charging 2-4 times the cost of the model to earn minimum wage.

If the pictures in your gallery are yours then you are obviously a decent painter, but have you actually used an airbrush? If so did you watch the clock? It can feel fast because the paint gets laid down quickly, but once you include the extra effort involved in setting it up, mixing your paints to the right consistency, adding masks to the model, spending a few minutes cleaning it out between colour changes plus the time at the end. It's quicker for large models, no doubt, but it's not some magical "instant complete" button, for small models that are going to require a lot of masking I'd hazard a guess and say it's not much quicker than brush painting for high standard stuff.

im condemning them for competitions when competing with people using brushes and supporting them for commission work against people who are crying "its not actually well painted it looks terrible"

i agree mixing and cleaning is terrible but, thats why you do large monsters or large assembly line style. the markups on these new large as hell models are very rewarding imo. if i wanted to make money selling models I would most likely do wraithknights and the sort, doing 6 at a time. i imagine this would cut down on the "slow" parts about airbrushing significantly

Well the guy might (even though it sounds like ignorance in that case) just prefer the 'eavy metal style of painting over other styles of painting? You do realise that super smooth blends is a matter of stylistic choice and not something that is inherently superior?

On the airbrush vs brush discussion:
I have a friend who is an amazing painter (on canvas as well as on miniatures). He paints with an mute, "earthy" palette, often using the old foundation paints. He has a way to use the direction of the brush strikes to create amazing looking miniatures. Since I can't create the same effect with an airbrush, he must be cheating.

I've been painting a long time, but admittedly I know f**k all about the particulars of airbrushing. I was always under the impression that airbrushes are used to apply basecoats and blending effects to large areas of a model -which certainly looks superior on tanks and other large figures. However I wasn't aware you could "completely paint" a squad model using one, ie. down to the fine details, eyes and highlights. How easy or practical is this to do vs using a fine detail brush? Until I read some of the posts here, I assumed you couldn't achieve much accuracy with a template weapon like an airbrush.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
I've been painting a long time, but admittedly I know f**k all about the particulars of airbrushing. I was always under the impression that airbrushes are used to apply basecoats and blending effects to large areas of a model -which certainly looks superior on tanks and other large figures. However I wasn't aware you could "completely paint" a squad model using one, ie. down to the fine details, eyes and highlights. How easy or practical is this to do vs using a fine detail brush? Until I read some of the posts here, I assumed you couldn't achieve much accuracy with a template weapon like an airbrush.

You can't, practically. The amount of masking required is so time consuming that a hairy stick is faster.

There has been a lot of idiocy in this thread.

I've learned that airbrushes continue to be an invaluable and productive tool, and that threads attempting to blackball their use are full of self aggrandizing idiocy.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
I've been painting a long time, but admittedly I know f**k all about the particulars of airbrushing. I was always under the impression that airbrushes are used to apply basecoats and blending effects to large areas of a model -which certainly looks superior on tanks and other large figures. However I wasn't aware you could "completely paint" a squad model using one, ie. down to the fine details, eyes and highlights. How easy or practical is this to do vs using a fine detail brush? Until I read some of the posts here, I assumed you couldn't achieve much accuracy with a template weapon like an airbrush.

Closest detail the average user is going to get is shading eye sockets and highlighting small lenses. At some point, for an infantry model, you'd have to pick up sticks.

You can undoubtedly get away with it on vehicles and monsters, and many do it well ( in those cases, not "getting away", but excelling). But for human faces, eyes, gems, things we seek specific detail in, it's usually necessary to break out a brush.

winterdyne wrote:

 thegreatchimp wrote:
I've been painting a long time, but admittedly I know f**k all about the particulars of airbrushing. I was always under the impression that airbrushes are used to apply basecoats and blending effects to large areas of a model -which certainly looks superior on tanks and other large figures. However I wasn't aware you could "completely paint" a squad model using one, ie. down to the fine details, eyes and highlights. How easy or practical is this to do vs using a fine detail brush? Until I read some of the posts here, I assumed you couldn't achieve much accuracy with a template weapon like an airbrush.

You can't, practically. The amount of masking required is so time consuming that a hairy stick is faster.

There has been a lot of idiocy in this thread.

Even just painting my WW2 aircraft the amount of masking involved can be longer than if you'd just painted the thing with a hairy brush. Even on a small plane I'll spend a couple of hours masking stuff. Actually I'm positive that if I hairy stick painted my aircraft instead of airbrushing them I could do it faster, you can really chew through the time depending on what techniques you are using.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

 thegreatchimp wrote:
I've been painting a long time, but admittedly I know f**k all about the particulars of airbrushing. I was always under the impression that airbrushes are used to apply basecoats and blending effects to large areas of a model -which certainly looks superior on tanks and other large figures. However I wasn't aware you could "completely paint" a squad model using one, ie. down to the fine details, eyes and highlights. How easy or practical is this to do vs using a fine detail brush? Until I read some of the posts here, I assumed you couldn't achieve much accuracy with a template weapon like an airbrush.

Closest detail the average user is going to get is shading eye sockets and highlighting small lenses. At some point, for an infantry model, you'd have to pick up sticks.

You can undoubtedly get away with it on vehicles and monsters, and many do it well ( in those cases, not "getting away", but excelling). But for human faces, eyes, gems, things we seek specific detail in, it's usually necessary to break out a brush.

The smallest details I can realistically paint with an airbrush are 1-2mm wide lines, 2mm if I need the detail to be consistent, 1mm if I don't mind being off by a little bit. There's always going to be a little bit of overspray (there is always a bit when airbrushing, which is why you need to make sure your masks are a good couple of inches wide when masking panels). And to do so is VERY time consuming. I was determined to get a realistic looking soft edged camo scheme on some 15mm Panzer IV tanks. This took me longer to do than if I'd just painted it by hand, and it took a lot of fething about with different paints to figure out what worked best (I settled on Testors enamels, I couldn't get lines that looked as nice with acrylics). These lines are 1 to 1.5mm thick.





My first attempt was this guy, the lines on this are more like 2-4mm thick (painted with I think Vallejo Model Air).

Thanks for the replies, gives me a better idea. Think I'll just stick to my brush. Nice and all as some of that blending is, it seems like it involves a fair bit of extra hassle.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

eosgreen wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I would posit that one does not need to be a chef to understand that raw sewage is unsafe to eat.

the better you are as a painter the more troubles you come to understand is all i am saying

i once was having a conversation with someone about struggling with red and grey glazes. i said "im having issues with the pigment etc blah blah" to which some guy comes up to us and in true socially inept nerd fashion interjects his insightful "really red is so easy how are you having issues"

i then ask the person to show me his models he painted red which he is VERY proud of of which he simply painted GW style of base, wash, rebase leaving lines at armor cracks/plates edge highlight, lighter edge highlight. this is by most peoples standards a very well painted model but im talking about a blend so perfect your eye cant even see the transition of colors that takes hours to do. he doesnt know any better, he CAN'T know any better.

I would say that it is exposure, not talent, that is linked to understanding.
Hear me out here... I paint to an adequate, albeit weird standard. But I live near to WHW's museum, I've been to Golem Studios technique days, I live with an ex citadel catalog painter. It doesn't make me any better at painting, but I know exactly where on the grander scale I stand, and how results are achieved through hours of work, and in many cases, repeats and failures. Outside of miniatures I've done degrees in fine art, and understand methods that I'm likewise incapable of performing. But I can appreciate what went into the pieces I study.
Dave at your FLGS may only know what he's seen in White Dwarf, and the various miniatures in front of him at the store. He doesn't know why it's red, he just know it is indeed, red.
Seeing the bigger picture (or even realising it exists) is not a gift everyone has, but likewise an individual's talent may not be indicative of their own understanding.

Dialling it back from a war comparison, if you are looking online to buy something for your life, say a USB device, you look at reviews. You seek out experiences from those who have similar taste to your own. You don't think, "Well this guy couldn't build the keyboard, I'm only going to take opinions from engineers and factory workers."

i can get down with this though i suppose you have met the exception to this rule, i have. also damn im jealous of your proximity to that studio. i read about them a while ago and I would KILLLLLLLL for someone who was even SLIGHTLY better than me to bounce off of. im in an area devoid of talent and it took me till the internet became "better" to get good.... i just constantly googled and read whatever i could but as a guy who learns while doing/seeng in person it was hard as hell to get better.... so jelly atm let me crash at your place for a year ye? :p

I don't think I'm the exception, I'm just giving examples of lifestyles - I'd say that nearly everyone who goes online to read articles or watch tutorials is already stepping and pushing. Travelling and having opportunity is only half - curiosity and willingness to ask is the other.
Many people out there will be content to live the Citadel/GW Hobby(tm) life forever. Many will not understand that they can indeed peer over the fence into other realms.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
Thanks for the replies, gives me a better idea. Think I'll just stick to my brush. Nice and all as some of that blending is, it seems like it involves a fair bit of extra hassle.

Airbrushing can be great, but it's not a magic bullet. It can potentially speed you up, but only if you design your schemes around it. On armies with lots of detail it's not going to speed you up at all though. And it's really good for doing large stuff. A hairy brush can be better for smooth transitions over a small area, but an airbrush is miles better for smooth transitions over a large area.

A lot of the things I mentioned above would be alleviated if I wasn't painting historic models, as that forces you in to certain techniques to recreate things that actually existed in real life, but if you are doing sci-fi fantasy you can change the style to suit the technique you want rather than having to use specific techniques to create a realistic style.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Many people out there will be content to live the Citadel/GW Hobby(tm) life forever. Many will not understand that they can indeed peer over the fence into other realms.

In the realm of wargaming, I'd say somewhere between 95 and 99% of people are just happy to get an army on the table.

If you care about figure painting as an artform, you'd be doing yourself a disservice only looking at wargames, figure painters and scale model painters have been creating awesome works of art for decades and the community is tailored to perfecting the art of it rather than just getting 100 models painted so they can get a game in before the next rules change

If you aren't scratch building the ENTIRE model, you're cheating....

http://paulbudzik.com/models/pby.pdf

http://paulbudzik.com/models/tempest-construction/tempest-construction.html



I'm sure many people don't appreciate Paul's models, but they absolutely blow me away because of how mind blowingly realistic they are and how much of it is scratch built.

when painting things like historic models an airbrush mimics them best imo. painting camo is dog without an airbrush to me. stippling looks, imo, garbage.

OP get an airbrush if you can afford/have the setup. its well worth ti

also you are the exception. ive taught tons of people simple things that years later they cannot do see or understand. latent talent in both doing and seeing is a thing, not everyone has potential.

I'll toss my hat in this ring.
I personally prefer hairy brushes to airbrushes. Since I have only used an airbrush once (didn't end well) my experience is minimal. I will say that used as a tool for large surfaces/zenithal highlighting/basecoating it is a godsend. For everything else though, I'm going with a hairy brush

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
If you aren't scratch building the ENTIRE model, you're cheating....

http://paulbudzik.com/models/pby.pdf

http://paulbudzik.com/models/tempest-construction/tempest-construction.html



I'm sure many people don't appreciate Paul's models, but they absolutely blow me away because of how mind blowingly realistic they are and how much of it is scratch built.

...

There are no words sufficient for this.

As someone who voted for "don't like them" I'd like to say that whenever I see miniatures that are airbrushed for an effect that would have looked better done with a brush I feel like it's going to encourage someone else to go and buy an airbrush thinking that it can replace talent.

That makes no sense. If that effect would look worse than it would done with a brush, how on earth is that going to encourage people to do it that way...?

 Quarterdime wrote:
As someone who voted for "don't like them" I'd like to say that whenever I see miniatures that are airbrushed for an effect that would have looked better done with a brush I feel like it's going to encourage someone else to go and buy an airbrush thinking that it can replace talent.

That's nonsense. I can blend with a brush perfectly well. Right now I'm painting an entire space marine company, and I get about 2 hours a week to paint. The only way I'll get that done to the standard I want is to use my airbrush. A lot of people on this thread seem to forget that not everyone in the hobby has that much free time for it, and so a tool to speed up tasks like blending is a godsend.

Also, where have you got this idea that talent is absent from airbrushing? Scroll back and take a look at winterdyne's leviathan dreadnought. If people think that they will automatically produce work like that merely by using an airbrush, they are in for an expensive reality check.

Anyone thinking "Airbrushing is easy mode" has clearly never done it.

This is prep for one model, multi part construction for easier blends and minimal masking takes so much time, it would be faster with a brush in a lot of ways.

Like anything, it is how you do it and what you want to achieve, which is why this would be better off in the religion and politics section instead of the serious business that is painting and modeling

 JamesY wrote:

Also, where have you got this idea that talent is absent from airbrushing? Scroll back and take a look at winterdyne's leviathan dreadnought. If people think that they will automatically produce work like that merely by using an airbrush, they are in for an expensive reality check.

Actually the airbrush work there is about as simple technically as you can get; one of those times where just taking your time with the tool, doing very simple work gives you an effect that is prohibitively difficult to achieve with other means. That's why I used it as an example of an airbrush method. I wouldn't say I was an expert airbrush user; I'm certainly still learning tricks and good situations to use the tool.

Angel Giraldez' work (infinity studio painter) is pretty inspirational for more complex work.

But I think this sums it up; this is a real world hobby we engage in. There is no 'cheating' any more than you can cheat at breathing. You end up with something painted to a standard and style you like, or you don't. I find the talk of such and such a method being a cheat or shortcut dismaying.

winterdyne wrote:

 JamesY wrote:

Also, where have you got this idea that talent is absent from airbrushing? Scroll back and take a look at winterdyne's leviathan dreadnought. If people think that they will automatically produce work like that merely by using an airbrush, they are in for an expensive reality check.

Actually the airbrush work there is about as simple technically as you can get; one of those times where just taking your time with the tool, doing very simple work gives you an effect that is prohibitively difficult to achieve with other means. That's why I used it as an example of an airbrush method. I wouldn't say I was an expert airbrush user; I'm certainly still learning tricks and good situations to use the tool.

Angel Giraldez' work (infinity studio painter) is pretty inspirational for more complex work.

But I think this sums it up; this is a real world hobby we engage in. There is no 'cheating' any more than you can cheat at breathing. You end up with something painted to a standard and style you like, or you don't. I find the talk of such and such a method being a cheat or shortcut dismaying.

Hmm. Pm sent.

I like airbrushing when it's done properly and well. However the majority of people using Airbrushes nowadays do it because they don't like blending and do a half-ass job of it, which really shows.

In general, if I criticize someone for using an airbrush, it's their airbrushing techniques that grinds my gears more than the fact they used an airbrush. It's like Drybrushing in the early days of 40k; everyone too lazy to properly highlight just drybrushed the hell out of their models and was done with it, which looked really bad compared to decently highlighted models.

But they're their models. Why should they use a painting technique that pleases you rather than suits them?

It's one thing when they admit they were too lazy to do so and just needed to meet a deadline for a game.

It's another when they use an airbrush and pass it off as Pro Painted (usually trying to gouge you for more money on the resale) and get indignant when you legitimately criticize it.

kb_lock wrote:
Anyone thinking "Airbrushing is easy mode" has clearly never done it.

This is prep for one model, multi part construction for easier blends and minimal masking takes so much time, it would be faster with a brush in a lot of ways.

Like anything, it is how you do it and what you want to achieve, which is why this would be better off in the religion and politics section instead of the serious business that is painting and modeling

i do most of that with brush work too.

"masking" doesnt take much time lol

Depends on what you are masking. If you are doing a hurricane and need to get the camouflage exactly right, it can take a while.

Making tyranids is easy

Honestly 9/10 troll posting, i can't help but respond

Where is the "I'm using hairbrush, because I am poor" answer?

I'm fairly certain that most of this thread is "im poor and get upset when people pay for commission work" or "im poor and that somehow makes me elite".

kb_lock wrote:
I'm fairly certain that most of this thread is "im poor and get upset when people pay for commission work" or "im poor and that somehow makes me elite".

Well If I had one it will save me tons of time coating.

 JamesY wrote:
Depends on what you are masking. If you are doing a hurricane and need to get the camouflage exactly right, it can take a while.

I'm painting 2 Hurricanes as we speak, a 1/72 and a 1/48. I'm not looking forward to masking the canopies That's one area where I'd rather just paint them by a brush, but if I paint the canopy by brush and the rest of the plane by airbrush it'll look weird. I don't expect the camo pattern on the Hurricane to take me too long, I'll take a guess and say it'll probably take me close to an hour to mask each plane's camo pattern, maybe a bit longer if you include the underside. Some people will print off the patterns to scale but I prefer just looking at images laying the pattern by hand directly on the model which I then use to cut the masks.

Masking can be quite time consuming, on an aircraft there's usually several hours involved of just masking.

It took some thinking about how to mask the FW190 because it's 3 colour camo pattern which is hard edged in some places and soft edged in others. It was quite the process, took me 2 nights to airbrush the camo scheme without any weathering/shading/etc (decided to post-weather it because the masking was so fiddly I didn't want to have to deal with it, lol). Basically have to paint first colour, mask the entire aircraft to do the hard edged bits for the first colour, remove the mask to do the soft edged bits of the first colour, remask the entire aircraft to do the hard edged bits of the 2nd colour, remove the mask to do the soft edged bits of the 2nd colour.

A deceptively difficult thing can be D-Day stripes. Just straight lines, yeah? No. They're straight lines on a fuselage which is a cylinder of decreasing radius, so to create straight lines the masks need to be curved. Masking a concave curve isn't too hard, but masking a convex curve the tape wants to wrinkle and if there are wrinkles, the paint will get under the mask. And if your curve is off by a little bit then it'll look stupid. That's why many kits include decals for the stripes, I just don't like the look of the decals

At times it also greatly extends the painting process, many paints you can't mask for a day or two after spraying so even if the masking itself doesn't take much time, it extends the project. Most hairy brush techniques you can just keep working until you get bored.

So yeah, it depends. Sometimes masking = holding a sheet of paper over the panel you don't want sprayed (like the panel shading on a Panzer IV schurzen) other times it requires a bit of planning to get it right and lots of careful trimming, stretching, bending.

Usually if you rush your mask you pay for it later when you get paint under it (or if you are intentionally trying to get paint under the mask for a soft edged scheme, being inconsistent about it). You often see models where they've rushed the mask and it's shown through on the final product.

 DalinCriid wrote:
Where is the "I'm using hairbrush, because I am poor" answer?

I've had a few recommended Airbrushes that were pretty cheap. If I wanted to go legit with my hairbrushes I could very well end up spending more than getting an Airbrush and compressor (mainly because I go through a lot of brushes, even good ones).

My view is this (for any medium):

If it looks good, then it doesn't matter what made it.

If the technique reminds me of the technique instead of the overall beauty of the model (heavy airbrushing, rough dry brushing, etc.) then it's bad.

IMO the very best model is "how did they do that?" where I can't tell what medium was being used.

For me, the problem with airbrushed miniatures is that they too often look like cake frosting.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

 DalinCriid wrote:
Where is the "I'm using hairbrush, because I am poor" answer?

I've had a few recommended Airbrushes that were pretty cheap. If I wanted to go legit with my hairbrushes I could very well end up spending more than getting an Airbrush and compressor (mainly because I go through a lot of brushes, even good ones).

You might want to address your technique and invest in something like Masters Brush Soap, then. That shouldn't be happening.

@moopy your philosophy is a good one, as long as you aren't vocalizing it when you think other people have done a 'bad' job.

@ skink post some pics when you are done. I have done a couple on commission for (and this is the honest truth) a blind guy I used to be acquainted with. His partner was very heavily disabled and needed a lot of equipment, so he collected 144 scale because of the lack of space. First one i delivered, he whipped out an eyeglass and closely inspected the whole thing. He obviously had some vision, and I was glad I'd ignored my friends and families advise to paint it pink. I was also glad I'd spent 2hrs just filling and sanding the joints.

Personally I think it has become 'cool' for keyboard hipsters to say they don't like airbrushing and/or OSL. I remember when airbrushed models first began to appear in large numbers on this site, and they were generally met with an overwhelmingly positive response. As with all things, when there is an apparent consensus, certain people feel the need to take an opposing view, and it has got to the point where any post with a large amount of airbrushing usually has lots of negative replies. One I found particularly distasteful was the bashing of Kenny Boucher at Next Level Painting http://www.nextlevelpainting.blogspot.co.uk/ who received a lot of, in my opinion, unfair comments on his work. Granted, it is heavily airbrushed, but check out the gallery - this guy has skill. As Winterdyne rightly said, if you think airbrushing is cheating or easy mode and a replacement for skill, check out Angel Giraldez.

In addition, I think it is interesting to discuss why airbrushing now has greater prevalence. When I first got into the hobby about 25 years ago, people tended to have one army for 40k, and one army for Fantasy. These armies were lavishly painted and converted, and choosing a chapter or race to play was a big decision, as people didn't switch from one to another. It was just as important as choosing a football team. Many people named each individual model and wrote them on the base. If your codex was weak, you rode the bad times in the hope that the next army book would make them a little more competitive Now, the trend appears to be to switch from one army to another depending on the newest OP codex. People don't feel embarrassed to say "These Space Marines painted as Ultramarines with Ultramarine symbols are now actually White Scars because their codex is better". Changing armies means there is a greater need for quickly but basically painted models at an army level, often straight out of the box and unconverted. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is up to you but the increased use of airbrushing is a reflection of the attitude of the people who play these games.

So much smug, lol.

I saw comments about how easy airbrushing is, or how this reminds them of the time when everyone drybrushed stuff for speed, and etc etc etc...

You know what? Most of the models you see from people in this hobby are on the table to be played. I don't see people bringing models into the game store real often just to show off their Golden Daemon paintjobs (it happens, but not often). That means that people like me will use some of these methods to get an army on the table to play the game at a reasonable level of detail. I completely air and dry-brushed 30 bane knights for warmachine (well, mostly... I did their heads/hands with a brush) and on the table from a couple feet away they looked good. Are they gonna win awards? Heck no, but they looked good on the table and WAY better than metal/primed models look.

To blame the airbrush is a bit silly. Just like regular brushing, you have a spectrum of users from the crappiest beginners to the highest levels of art, and at the highest levels I think we can all agree that you use all the tools you have to get the best effects across the board.

It is just funny to me that there are so many judgmental people when it comes to topics like this. Who cares what tools were used? Not everyone will be great at painting, and often just having a crappy tabletop standard is better than bare models (though not always, I have seen some models that made me think the person should just skip that whole "art" piece!).

GOOD airbrush work is as hard to pull off as good traditional brush work. You can get "acceptable" work done faster with an airbrush, but to get the same levels of quality out of an airbrush takes skill and talent. There are a lot of people here with opinions on things they obviously have not experienced.

 JamesY wrote:
@ skink post some pics when you are done. I have done a couple on commission for (and this is the honest truth) a blind guy I used to be acquainted with. His partner was very heavily disabled and needed a lot of equipment, so he collected 144 scale because of the lack of space. First one i delivered, he whipped out an eyeglass and closely inspected the whole thing. He obviously had some vision, and I was glad I'd ignored my friends and families advise to paint it pink. I was also glad I'd spent 2hrs just filling and sanding the joints.

Nice! !/144 is tiny, I have tons of (really poorly painted) 1/144 WW2 fighters from when I was a kid, they're what started me in the hobby when I was 6 or 7 years old.

I'm still a while off finishing the Hurricanes, doing the 1/72 in Battle of Britain camo and the 1/48 I'm planning on doing tropical, though I'm still tossing up because it's a MkI and I want to put a MkII desert camo scheme and I'm not sure the rivet counter in me will let me do it

Almost finished with the cockpits, which means I haven't even started assembling the actual airframe yet I spent an hour and a half last night just doing this, whoever thought doing decals is fast never tried this....



Then I need to figure out how to do the seatbelts, a few touch ups on cockpit paint and they'll be ready to assemble.

 JamesY wrote:
Depends on what you are masking. If you are doing a hurricane and need to get the camouflage exactly right, it can take a while.

a task that looks, imo, unrealistic and gakky when using a brush. camo patters with airbrushes look like real life because they use this style application in real life. i guess they also use the weird dipping thing but ye.... google dipping hunting gear in camo. its crazy...

I've seen some pretty good looking hand painted camo schemes. Like, good enough that you can't tell the difference between a hand painted one and an airbrush painted one. Most people I've seen do good hand painted camo use enamels, thin them down plenty and do several coats. But I was looking at a thread on Britmodeller where the colours looked pretty damned smooth and it was just done with Tamiya acrylics painted by hand.

I've even seen some mottled schemes that didn't look bad from 12+" away. If you look under a magnifying glass you can see they were hairy brush painted, but then if you look at a lot of mottled airbrushed schemes if the painter didn't get the consistency and air pressure right sometimes you'll see a bit of out-of-scale hazing as well, so the airbrush definitely isn't fool proof.

There's a video on youtube somewhere that shows a mottled scheme done by hairy brush. Coated the surface with humbrol thinner, applied enamels, feathered them in a bit, then went back over with a heavily thinned version of the base colour, repeated a few times to get a pretty good effect.

EDIT: Some examples (not necessarily the most brilliantly painted models, but ones where it's hard to tell that they were painted with a hairy brush)...

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234934183-tamiya-148-f4u-corsair-in-fleet-air-arm-colours/

http://www.largescaleplanes.com/articles/article.php?aid=2234

http://gregers.fr.yuku.com/topic/14791/Airfix-172-Spitfire-IX-2009-kit#.VolRtfl96Ul

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n339wMbtABU

There is no poll option for "They're neat in good hands but I bought a really cheap one to just get base coats on a lot of marines and skeletons done in a hurry."

well thats depend on the quality, as every painted minis are. for example if it like this
of course i hate it.
but if it like this

i love it.
basically, what i'm trying to say is, airbrush is just a tool to be a better painter, if that person use it as another tool to pour his imagination and soul to a minis, of course everybody will acknowledge him. but if he use it just for to be "painted" to be played on the table, most people will hate it

sigasana44 wrote:
but if he use it just for to be "painted" to be played on the table, most people will hate it

Really, that's what people have devolved to? Hating someone elses models simply because they were painted to be played with? That's a bit sad.

If someone showed up with an army painted as well as that Trygon then they'd automatically be doing better than 90% of gamers I've played with.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
. When I first got into the hobby about 25 years ago, people tended to have one army for 40k, and one army for Fantasy. These armies were lavishly painted and converted, and choosing a chapter or race to play was a big decision, as people didn't switch from one to another.

While I agree with the latter part of that, my experience from back then was that while people tended to only have one army, those armies tended to be incompletely assembled, or at best partly painted. Outside of tournaments, the vast majority of my games (in various different locations) in 2nd ed 40K were against partly-painted or unpainted armies, and that held true all the way through to 5th edition, when dipping started to be a thing and Devlan Mud hit the market.

I see a lot more effort being put into finishing armies off these days than I ever did back then.

 insaniak wrote:

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
. When I first got into the hobby about 25 years ago, people tended to have one army for 40k, and one army for Fantasy. These armies were lavishly painted and converted, and choosing a chapter or race to play was a big decision, as people didn't switch from one to another.

While I agree with the latter part of that, my experience from back then was that while people tended to only have one army, those armies tended to be incompletely assembled, or at best partly painted. Outside of tournaments, the vast majority of my games (in various different locations) in 2nd ed 40K were against partly-painted or unpainted armies, and that held true all the way through to 5th edition, when dipping started to be a thing and Devlan Mud hit the market.

I see a lot more effort being put into finishing armies off these days than I ever did back then.

Ha, I agree with Insaniak, 2nd ed 40k you were lucky if all the arms were glued on.

I guess it depends on your location. 2nd edition here I mostly played painted vs painted because that was the policy of the local store. Also armies were significantly smaller (most games I played back then consisted of a couple of squads and maybe a vehicle).

In stores, presentation was often paramount, but in back rooms, garages and pubs around here, according to most of my friends in their 40s and 50s, you'd be lucky if you found someone who understood the merit of even painting metallics rather than leaving the blade bare metal.

And again I'll say that the very act of posting armies online requires a level of interest and competence with technology that means we very rarely see the very baseline of modern painting.

I'm a lurker on dakka, not a poster, but I had to spill some virtual ink in response to this thread. I will share, said by someone that has been involved in art, scale modeling for most of my life and wargaming for multiple decades. I wanted to say something on the subject as someone who *actually uses* airbrushes extensively in my art/modeling, throughout the entire process, not only to 'blast' paint onto a model.

First an observation re: the poll: The poll is incredibly skewed to favor the clear bias of the OP (that became apparent throughout the discussion); hence I didn't vote. There is no where NEAR the spectrum of options there should be. 4/5 of the options clearly represent the type of myopic vision that has been pervasive in this little world of wargaming for decades. Even the "I think they are good" was followed up by "nothing I would pay for."

Second, I echo the sentiments of those who have been around long enough to have seen the response to other "technological innovations" that have been thrust upon the wargaming community as a whole. Whether it's drybrushing, washes, using inks, etc. etc. etc. it doesn't matter- it's always been the same. I never cease to be amazed by these reactions. But I think it's reflective again of the myopic view of many in this community, and their individual judgement of what it means to be a painter, hobbyist, modeler, wargamer, and what is 'right' about how you do it.

So, when I hear people say things like 'its cheating, you can do things faster/better than I can... it doesn't represent skills with a brush... What I believe is actually being said is. 'hey, I paint this way, and get these effects and with my limited set of tools, it takes some skill. Since you are not doing it my way, but using some short cut, you are effecively 'cheating' to get the same outcome.'"

However, art/hobby/modeling, etc. is not akin to playing chess, where there are a limited set of objectives and rules that you play by, and if you don't you are 'cheating'. I'm not sure if this is more pronounced in the wargaming world because most of the time, there's this pervasive overarching meta of 'playing a game' with everything, thus you have to play by some sort of rules (<<< this is just conjecture folks... don't get your proverbial shorts in a knot...). But you just don't see this in other modeling/art worlds.

In fact, in the modeling world, the idea is to get the best outcomes with the least amount of energy. You are hailed as brilliant for doing this if you can. In the wargaming community? Heckled as a heretic and unclean/unwashed, because you are doing something different that some sort of predefined 'rules' that apparently everyone has agreed to, but in reality no one has nor could ever define. Just amazing to sit and think about, actually.

Third, for everyone who has thought at all that airbrushing is cheating... Prove it. Show me how it's cheating... can you?

I have a challenge for you: let's meet up. I'll give you all the equipment I use, and I'd like you to show me how you 'cheat.'

I've done this when I demo airbrushing. I love the look on people's faces when I hand them the brush, then they commence to look like a toddler trying to ride a 2 wheeler for the first time. It makes me chuckle EVERY. TIME. when some pedantic prig of a painter says something like this, then tries to airbrush. They can't do it, they get rudimentary outcomes at best or they screw up the project. They can't control the paint, can't control the brush, can't control the air. Can't paint over time without spatter, drying, clogging, etc. etc. etc. Their models look like crap. They do usually 1 of two things: they retreat and become more entrenched in their myopic view about painting or the hobby, or humble themselves, realize that a larger world exists than themselves, and either have more of a respect for someone who can use an airbrush artistically or realize that they have a lot to learn.

Because it takes literally hours just to get competent, and 100s of hours to really get proficient with this tool. It's incredibly frustrating at times. And the process can repeat itself with any change in the formula- new paints, different air, different work environment (humidity, lighting, airflow), shooting for different outcomes, slighting changes in the build up of a project.

What I've noticed is that many of us who like to airbrush do it because we like the tool, and we are willing to put up with all this to gain some level of proficiency, and then we enjoy it. It's not because its necessarily easier. And I'm talking about using an airbrush for more than a glorified spray gun, to basecoat.

Lastly, airbrushing has helped me improved my brush painting significantly. I know how to control the qualities of paint, not only from an artistic standpoint, but how it acts in general. But the most important thing I've learned is that everything I can do with a brush I could do with an AB, and vice versa. It's more about being pragmatic when choosing which to use. Now, this said, to answer the questions post above: there are people who use an airbrush and IMO don't really 'finish' the project to the common standard that mainy figure painters would commonly expect. I've used AB/brush work for years on figures, and am totally stoked that Giraldez is promoting this idea, but you can't just blast the figure with a bunch of pain, and call it done. This is the main critique that people have. It's not the use of the AB; if anything its 'laziness' in finishing a project.

Clearly, the photo posted by winterdyne demonstrates what I am speaking about, in comparison to the other photos posted. Most of the other pictures show projects that IMO aren't finished because they are not adequately detailed. I say this as an individual who has painted many commission pieces over the years.

And this is where I now say there are things you can do with a brush that are just much simpler, accurate, faster, easier than with an AB. So, does that mean because I didn't mask it off a section and painted it with my AB, or because I can feather out highlights and shadows much more quickly and accurately with brushes than an AB, that I'm cheating?

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
In stores, presentation was often paramount, but in back rooms, garages and pubs around here, according to most of my friends in their 40s and 50s, you'd be lucky if you found someone who understood the merit of even painting metallics rather than leaving the blade bare metal.

And again I'll say that the very act of posting armies online requires a level of interest and competence with technology that means we very rarely see the very baseline of modern painting.

Again it just depends where you live. A large portion of the gaming community in the last 90's revolved around the local store and so most people I know had forces that were painted. We would play larger games at home with unpainted models, but lacked terrain and whatnot so most my games back in those days were at the store that required painted models.

These days the local store doesn't have the same policy. I don't game there any more, but when I've passed through I see hordes of unpainted plastic more often than not.

 The_Inquisitor wrote:
I'm a lurker on dakka, not a poster, but I had to spill some virtual ink in response to this thread. I will share, said by someone that has been involved in art, scale modeling for most of my life and wargaming for multiple decades. I wanted to say something on the subject as someone who *actually uses* airbrushes extensively in my art/modeling, throughout the entire process, not only to 'blast' paint onto a model.

First an observation re: the poll: The poll is incredibly skewed to favor the clear bias of the OP (that became apparent throughout the discussion); hence I didn't vote. There is no where NEAR the spectrum of options there should be. 4/5 of the options clearly represent the type of myopic vision that has been pervasive in this little world of wargaming for decades. Even the "I think they are good" was followed up by "nothing I would pay for."

Second, I echo the sentiments of those who have been around long enough to have seen the response to other "technological innovations" that have been thrust upon the wargaming community as a whole. Whether it's drybrushing, washes, using inks, etc. etc. etc. it doesn't matter- it's always been the same. I never cease to be amazed by these reactions. But I think it's reflective again of the myopic view of many in this community, and their individual judgement of what it means to be a painter, hobbyist, modeler, wargamer, and what is 'right' about how you do it.

So, when I hear people say things like 'its cheating, you can do things faster/better than I can... it doesn't represent skills with a brush... What I believe is actually being said is. 'hey, I paint this way, and get these effects and with my limited set of tools, it takes some skill. Since you are not doing it my way, but using some short cut, you are effecively 'cheating' to get the same outcome.'"

However, art/hobby/modeling, etc. is not akin to playing chess, where there are a limited set of objectives and rules that you play by, and if you don't you are 'cheating'. I'm not sure if this is more pronounced in the wargaming world because most of the time, there's this pervasive overarching meta of 'playing a game' with everything, thus you have to play by some sort of rules (<<< this is just conjecture folks... don't get your proverbial shorts in a knot...). But you just don't see this in other modeling/art worlds.

In fact, in the modeling world, the idea is to get the best outcomes with the least amount of energy. You are hailed as brilliant for doing this if you can. In the wargaming community? Heckled as a heretic and unclean/unwashed, because you are doing something different that some sort of predefined 'rules' that apparently everyone has agreed to, but in reality no one has nor could ever define. Just amazing to sit and think about, actually.

Third, for everyone who has thought at all that airbrushing is cheating... Prove it. Show me how it's cheating... can you?

I have a challenge for you: let's meet up. I'll give you all the equipment I use, and I'd like you to show me how you 'cheat.'

I've done this when I demo airbrushing. I love the look on people's faces when I hand them the brush, then they commence to look like a toddler trying to ride a 2 wheeler for the first time. It makes me chuckle EVERY. TIME. when some pedantic prig of a painter says something like this, then tries to airbrush. They can't do it, they get rudimentary outcomes at best or they screw up the project. They can't control the paint, can't control the brush, can't control the air. Can't paint over time without spatter, drying, clogging, etc. etc. etc. Their models look like crap. They do usually 1 of two things: they retreat and become more entrenched in their myopic view about painting or the hobby, or humble themselves, realize that a larger world exists than themselves, and either have more of a respect for someone who can use an airbrush artistically or realize that they have a lot to learn.

Because it takes literally hours just to get competent, and 100s of hours to really get proficient with this tool. It's incredibly frustrating at times. And the process can repeat itself with any change in the formula- new paints, different air, different work environment (humidity, lighting, airflow), shooting for different outcomes, slighting changes in the build up of a project.

What I've noticed is that many of us who like to airbrush do it because we like the tool, and we are willing to put up with all this to gain some level of proficiency, and then we enjoy it. It's not because its necessarily easier. And I'm talking about using an airbrush for more than a glorified spray gun, to basecoat.

Lastly, airbrushing has helped me improved my brush painting significantly. I know how to control the qualities of paint, not only from an artistic standpoint, but how it acts in general. But the most important thing I've learned is that everything I can do with a brush I could do with an AB, and vice versa. It's more about being pragmatic when choosing which to use. Now, this said, to answer the questions post above: there are people who use an airbrush and IMO don't really 'finish' the project to the common standard that mainy figure painters would commonly expect. I've used AB/brush work for years on figures, and am totally stoked that Giraldez is promoting this idea, but you can't just blast the figure with a bunch of pain, and call it done. This is the main critique that people have. It's not the use of the AB; if anything its 'laziness' in finishing a project.

Clearly, the photo posted by winterdyne demonstrates what I am speaking about, in comparison to the other photos posted. Most of the other pictures show projects that IMO aren't finished because they are not adequately detailed. I say this as an individual who has painted many commission pieces over the years.

And this is where I now say there are things you can do with a brush that are just much simpler, accurate, faster, easier than with an AB. So, does that mean because I didn't mask it off a section and painted it with my AB, or because I can feather out highlights and shadows much more quickly and accurately with brushes than an AB, that I'm cheating?

This entire post should be the last in this thread as it is one of the few that demonstrates logic and sums it up beautifully.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
In stores, presentation was often paramount, but in back rooms, garages and pubs around here, according to most of my friends in their 40s and 50s, you'd be lucky if you found someone who understood the merit of even painting metallics rather than leaving the blade bare metal.

And again I'll say that the very act of posting armies online requires a level of interest and competence with technology that means we very rarely see the very baseline of modern painting.

Again it just depends where you live. A large portion of the gaming community in the last 90's revolved around the local store and so most people I know had forces that were painted. We would play larger games at home with unpainted models, but lacked terrain and whatnot so most my games back in those days were at the store that required painted models.

These days the local store doesn't have the same policy. I don't game there any more, but when I've passed through I see hordes of unpainted plastic more often than not.

You're sort of disagreeing and agreeing with me at the same time whilst trying to correct me, and I'm very confused.
I'm talking about the people who you wouldn't see because they're not at the store, how could you or I possibly know what percentage of consumers that made up?
I only have a rough idea because I know the manager of what was the town's only FLGS in the 80s. So he did know counter sales vs appearances. JamesY up there was in a similar position (albeit I won't assume the same decade).

Strangely not all GW staff I talk to like or support the enforced paint to play approach in tourneys. But that's another topic.

 The_Inquisitor wrote:
I'm a lurker on dakka, not a poster, but I had to spill some virtual ink in response to this thread. I will share, said by someone that has been involved in art, scale modeling for most of my life and wargaming for multiple decades. I wanted to say something on the subject as someone who *actually uses* airbrushes extensively in my art/modeling, throughout the entire process, not only to 'blast' paint onto a model.

First an observation re: the poll: The poll is incredibly skewed to favor the clear bias of the OP (that became apparent throughout the discussion); hence I didn't vote. There is no where NEAR the spectrum of options there should be. 4/5 of the options clearly represent the type of myopic vision that has been pervasive in this little world of wargaming for decades. Even the "I think they are good" was followed up by "nothing I would pay for."

Second, I echo the sentiments of those who have been around long enough to have seen the response to other "technological innovations" that have been thrust upon the wargaming community as a whole. Whether it's drybrushing, washes, using inks, etc. etc. etc. it doesn't matter- it's always been the same. I never cease to be amazed by these reactions. But I think it's reflective again of the myopic view of many in this community, and their individual judgement of what it means to be a painter, hobbyist, modeler, wargamer, and what is 'right' about how you do it.

So, when I hear people say things like 'its cheating, you can do things faster/better than I can... it doesn't represent skills with a brush... What I believe is actually being said is. 'hey, I paint this way, and get these effects and with my limited set of tools, it takes some skill. Since you are not doing it my way, but using some short cut, you are effecively 'cheating' to get the same outcome.'"

However, art/hobby/modeling, etc. is not akin to playing chess, where there are a limited set of objectives and rules that you play by, and if you don't you are 'cheating'. I'm not sure if this is more pronounced in the wargaming world because most of the time, there's this pervasive overarching meta of 'playing a game' with everything, thus you have to play by some sort of rules (<<< this is just conjecture folks... don't get your proverbial shorts in a knot...). But you just don't see this in other modeling/art worlds.

In fact, in the modeling world, the idea is to get the best outcomes with the least amount of energy. You are hailed as brilliant for doing this if you can. In the wargaming community? Heckled as a heretic and unclean/unwashed, because you are doing something different that some sort of predefined 'rules' that apparently everyone has agreed to, but in reality no one has nor could ever define. Just amazing to sit and think about, actually.

Third, for everyone who has thought at all that airbrushing is cheating... Prove it. Show me how it's cheating... can you?

I have a challenge for you: let's meet up. I'll give you all the equipment I use, and I'd like you to show me how you 'cheat.'

I've done this when I demo airbrushing. I love the look on people's faces when I hand them the brush, then they commence to look like a toddler trying to ride a 2 wheeler for the first time. It makes me chuckle EVERY. TIME. when some pedantic prig of a painter says something like this, then tries to airbrush. They can't do it, they get rudimentary outcomes at best or they screw up the project. They can't control the paint, can't control the brush, can't control the air. Can't paint over time without spatter, drying, clogging, etc. etc. etc. Their models look like crap. They do usually 1 of two things: they retreat and become more entrenched in their myopic view about painting or the hobby, or humble themselves, realize that a larger world exists than themselves, and either have more of a respect for someone who can use an airbrush artistically or realize that they have a lot to learn.

Because it takes literally hours just to get competent, and 100s of hours to really get proficient with this tool. It's incredibly frustrating at times. And the process can repeat itself with any change in the formula- new paints, different air, different work environment (humidity, lighting, airflow), shooting for different outcomes, slighting changes in the build up of a project.

What I've noticed is that many of us who like to airbrush do it because we like the tool, and we are willing to put up with all this to gain some level of proficiency, and then we enjoy it. It's not because its necessarily easier. And I'm talking about using an airbrush for more than a glorified spray gun, to basecoat.

Lastly, airbrushing has helped me improved my brush painting significantly. I know how to control the qualities of paint, not only from an artistic standpoint, but how it acts in general. But the most important thing I've learned is that everything I can do with a brush I could do with an AB, and vice versa. It's more about being pragmatic when choosing which to use. Now, this said, to answer the questions post above: there are people who use an airbrush and IMO don't really 'finish' the project to the common standard that mainy figure painters would commonly expect. I've used AB/brush work for years on figures, and am totally stoked that Giraldez is promoting this idea, but you can't just blast the figure with a bunch of pain, and call it done. This is the main critique that people have. It's not the use of the AB; if anything its 'laziness' in finishing a project.

Clearly, the photo posted by winterdyne demonstrates what I am speaking about, in comparison to the other photos posted. Most of the other pictures show projects that IMO aren't finished because they are not adequately detailed. I say this as an individual who has painted many commission pieces over the years.

And this is where I now say there are things you can do with a brush that are just much simpler, accurate, faster, easier than with an AB. So, does that mean because I didn't mask it off a section and painted it with my AB, or because I can feather out highlights and shadows much more quickly and accurately with brushes than an AB, that I'm cheating?

I agree 100% with everything you said. I use a regular brush, but I also use an airbrush. My hands start to shake after some time when using a regular brush, but they don't shake as much when using an airbrush, and when they do shake with an airbrush it is easier to mitigate (for me anyway). I won't claim to be anything other than average at either technique, but the airbrush helps speed up the process a bit allowing me more time to focus on details. Considering I am an extremely slow painter this is a huge boon. Wish I could afford to use a painting service because my models deserve better imo and I don't think I will ever have the skills, time, or eyesight needed to achieve that. Maybe some day I can afford to give my models they love they deserve. Also probably doesn't help I am lacking in space to do painting lol.

eosgreen wrote:
"masking" doesnt take much time lol

Yeah, right.

I spent more time masking every single one of these panels than I did painting them. There are eleven different colors used on the paneling:


These B-wings for the X-wing Miniatures game were almost completely painted with an airbrush and tons of masking:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
You're sort of disagreeing and agreeing with me at the same time whilst trying to correct me, and I'm very confused.

I'm just saying it depends on the group and always has depended on the group. There's no way you can know if there was more painted armies back then or less painted armies back then. Armies were smaller back then so it wasn't nearly as much as an endeavour to paint one, but these days I'd say there's more easy access to information on how to paint an army decently in a short period of time.

I was just pointing out that anecdotally the local store required painting back then and doesn't now, so I personally observed more painted armies back in the day. I believe the local club also required it, or maybe they didn't and it just happened to be that at that club I only ever saw games with painted models.

As an aside, for how prolific airbrushes *seem* these days, I rarely see an army painted with them outside of the internet and events, several of the people I know who own them don't even use them. I don't even use mine for most my armies.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
In stores, presentation was often paramount, but in back rooms, garages and pubs around here, according to most of my friends in their 40s and 50s, you'd be lucky if you found someone who understood the merit of even painting metallics rather than leaving the blade bare metal.

And again I'll say that the very act of posting armies online requires a level of interest and competence with technology that means we very rarely see the very baseline of modern painting.

Again it just depends where you live. A large portion of the gaming community in the last 90's revolved around the local store and so most people I know had forces that were painted. We would play larger games at home with unpainted models, but lacked terrain and whatnot so most my games back in those days were at the store that required painted models.

These days the local store doesn't have the same policy. I don't game there any more, but when I've passed through I see hordes of unpainted plastic more often than not.

You're sort of disagreeing and agreeing with me at the same time whilst trying to correct me, and I'm very confused.
I'm talking about the people who you wouldn't see because they're not at the store, how could you or I possibly know what percentage of consumers that made up?
I only have a rough idea because I know the manager of what was the town's only FLGS in the 80s. So he did know counter sales vs appearances. JamesY up there was in a similar position (albeit I won't assume the same decade).

Strangely not all GW staff I talk to like or support the enforced paint to play approach in tourneys. But that's another topic.

In the 90's I used to play in clubs, bedrooms, sheds, the gw store in Lincoln, and even an aircraft hanger once or twice. Sure some people had beautifully painted, heavily gloss varnished armies. Some of use were heavily into converting (rare, as a head swap on a metal marine with nothing but a lock knife isn't easy). But it was rare. The reality of regular gaming and transporting metal armies in tool boxes meant that you never went anywhere without superglue. This meant patch ups done in haste, and ruined models. Most people stopped bothering very quickly. I recall full tactical squads with only the heavy weapon glued on so you knew which one had it, predators with sponsons placed beside the tank etc.

Reg painted armies for tournis, I believe it's unnecessary. As much as I like playing with and against painted armies, not everyone enjoys painting, or even wants their models painted. It forces them into it, hence all the quickly dry/airbrushed armies that some people on the thread have an issue with.

 DalinCriid wrote:
Where is the "I'm using hairbrush, because I am poor" answer?

I own an airbrush, but I use the old hairy stick because my compressor died.

On the upside, I don't have to paint a 1500 miniature 40k army, so the hairy stick works fine.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
One I found particularly distasteful was the bashing of Kenny Boucher at Next Level Painting http://www.nextlevelpainting.blogspot.co.uk/ who received a lot of, in my opinion, unfair comments on his work. Granted, it is heavily airbrushed, but check out the gallery - this guy has skill.

I, on the other hand, think he should be criticized. His work is better than bare plastic but it's really not impressive and is a good example of how not to use an airbrush: massively exaggerated highlighting which seems to exist for the sole purpose of proving that an airbrush was used and has nothing to do with where light and shadow would be on the "real" thing, awful OSL/glow effects, etc. And let's not forget that he isn't some poor newbie getting bashed for trying to show off their cool toys. He's a commission painter running a for-profit business.

 Peregrine wrote:

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
One I found particularly distasteful was the bashing of Kenny Boucher at Next Level Painting http://www.nextlevelpainting.blogspot.co.uk/ who received a lot of, in my opinion, unfair comments on his work. Granted, it is heavily airbrushed, but check out the gallery - this guy has skill.

I, on the other hand, think he should be criticized. His work is better than bare plastic but it's really not impressive and is a good example of how not to use an airbrush: massively exaggerated highlighting which seems to exist for the sole purpose of proving that an airbrush was used and has nothing to do with where light and shadow would be on the "real" thing, awful OSL/glow effects, etc. And let's not forget that he isn't some poor newbie getting bashed for trying to show off their cool toys. He's a commission painter running a for-profit business.

I don't think his stuff is the best or the worst. He does try to help others get better, though some might say he is teaching people wrong. I can't comment too much sense I haven't seen a lot of his work. His style isn't my thing. What I have seen of his work has been a lot of rainbow colors and bright colors. I prefer duller grittier work. I can be okay with a little bit of rainbowing on metal barrels since they can turn a bit of rainbow color with heat, but he overdoes it imo. I wish more of the better painters out there would be more prominent and aggressive in giving out tips and tricks. Helping people improve their painting skills won't kill your business or make people as good as you. It will however, get people to respect you more and look up to you. Good publicity like that is more likely to get you more business. I also feel a lot of the wargaming community isn't as helpful as it used to be in the past as far as things go towards converting, modeling, painting and kit bashing ect. Yeah there is stuff out there on how to do it, but it doesn't hurt to rehash things or at least help people find what they are looking for.

As a commission painter I can tell you it's not fair to compare work standard to the standard we are capable of. If a client wants to pay me $1000 for a dreadnought, they'll get something very close to the best I can do. Less than that, well you'll get something less than the best.

Don't confuse what's an economic decision with a level of ability. Airbrush work OSL and high contrast spot highlighting may look wrong or overly stylised to some (myself included) but it is quick and simple to do once you have the knack. This makes it economically viable for far more clients than carefully hand lit OSL, so you can realistically expect to see more of it around.

So if you're going to berate someone's business, do have the courtesy to check their client reviews; your expectations are not necessarily what was asked for. In this case NLP have been going for a fair few years and I don't think I've heard anything other than positive comments?

Also, just because we do work of a certain type doesn't mean we personally like it. I really don't like space marines, but they're probably a good 80% of what I'm paid to paint, so I suck it up.

 Peregrine wrote:
massively exaggerated highlighting which seems to exist for the sole purpose of proving that an airbrush was used and has nothing to do with where light and shadow would be on the "real" thing, awful OSL/glow effects, etc.

People don't do those sorts of effects to prove an airbrush was used, they do it to create excessive contrast (which is time consuming to do with a hairy brush). And it has nothing to do with being "real", it's done to stand out.

When I see models like that, I tend to think of them like anime or some such. They aren't meant to be real, you're not supposed to be comparing it to Caravaggio. It is its own artistic style which you may or may not like. Even though I'm not a fan enough to bother trying to paint my own models like that, the same way I'm not a fan of anime, I can still appreciate things like choice of palette, visual impact and having a sense of proportion (which not all models painted in that style have, even when painting that style it's easy to spot a newbie from a more experienced painter).

Not everyone WANTS to create gritty realism, especially on armies like Eldar or Tau. It's not always a failure, sometimes it's a choice, just may not be a choice you would have made. And it may be a choice that helps a business be economical.

Not everyone WANTS to create

This is the point here, berating a commission painter because you don't like their style is the stupidest reasoning ever. So what if his overly airbrushed style isn't your preference? Here's a novel suggestion: don't commission him to paint for you.

If other people are happy for that style, and to pay for it, what business is it of anyone else's?

 Peregrine wrote:
I, on the other hand, think he should be criticized. His work is better than bare plastic but it's really not impressive and is a good example of how not to use an airbrush: massively exaggerated highlighting which seems to exist for the sole purpose of proving that an airbrush was used and has nothing to do with where light and shadow would be on the "real" thing, awful OSL/glow effects, etc. And let's not forget that he isn't some poor newbie getting bashed for trying to show off their cool toys. He's a commission painter running a for-profit business.

And since he seems quite successful at it, it would seem that at least some people like that style.

The fact that you don't is a reason for you to not hire him to paint your stuff. It's not proof that he's doing it 'wrong'.

 insaniak wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
I, on the other hand, think he should be criticized. His work is better than bare plastic but it's really not impressive and is a good example of how not to use an airbrush: massively exaggerated highlighting which seems to exist for the sole purpose of proving that an airbrush was used and has nothing to do with where light and shadow would be on the "real" thing, awful OSL/glow effects, etc. And let's not forget that he isn't some poor newbie getting bashed for trying to show off their cool toys. He's a commission painter running a for-profit business.

And since he seems quite successful at it, it would seem that at least some people like that style.

The fact that you don't is a reason for you to not hire him to paint your stuff. It's not proof that he's doing it 'wrong'.

The things I dislike about Kenny is I'm not a fan of the whole "Dawg" speak, In the videos I've seen he likes to portray his method as the only way and the correct way to do things, he pushes The Long War thing too much, and he tends to wander a bit at times. That being said, I think he has good intentions and while his results aren't bad, they are not for everyone. Do I think he is the best out there? No. But he is far from the worst. But like I said I am not into super shiny and bright colors. I like my grim dark to be, well, grimy, gritty, and dark.

It would be nice if we could keep the discussion to airbrushes and their pros and cons, rather than analysing the personal habits of commission painters.

 insaniak wrote:
And since he seems quite successful at it, it would seem that at least some people like that style.

The fact that you don't is a reason for you to not hire him to paint your stuff. It's not proof that he's doing it 'wrong'.

Lots of people pay money for fast food hamburgers. That doesn't make it good food.

 Peregrine wrote:

Lots of people pay money for fast food hamburgers. That doesn't make it good food.

It does if you like fast food hamburgers.


You're trying to apply an objective grading to something that is purely subjective. You may not like it. It may not be technically 'correct'. But to someone who likes that effect, the fact that the highlighting isn't technically correct is as relevant as the fact that explosions in space don't make noise to someone who loves Star Wars.


Hell, when you get right down to it, there are very, very few painters who actually manage to get highlighting 'correct', and most of them are either not doing private commissions or would cost you several kidneys to get your hands on their work. Picking on airbrush artists specifically for that seems somewhat nonsensical, really.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

sigasana44 wrote:
but if he use it just for to be "painted" to be played on the table, most people will hate it

Really, that's what people have devolved to? Hating someone elses models simply because they were painted to be played with? That's a bit sad.

If someone showed up with an army painted as well as that Trygon then they'd automatically be doing better than 90% of gamers I've played with.

wops i'm sorry with my misleading words. what i mean is someone who claimed the minis is "professionally painted" while it's just bunch of airbrush. gamer people is okay, since he won't care about painting and love at playing it, but if he act like he care about painting but you don't see his effort at all it's annoying. i apologize because i can't really convey what i really meant in words, but i hope people understand it

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I like airbrushing when it's done properly and well. However the majority of people using Airbrushes nowadays do it because they don't like blending and do a half-ass job of it, which really shows.

In general, if I criticize someone for using an airbrush, it's their airbrushing techniques that grinds my gears more than the fact they used an airbrush. It's like Drybrushing in the early days of 40k; everyone too lazy to properly highlight just drybrushed the hell out of their models and was done with it, which looked really bad compared to decently highlighted models.

No. The majority of people using an airbrush use it as a tool along with hand brushing.

I would say the main argument is that the wow factor of airbrushing as a "new" thing is pretty much over.
We have a better understanding of just how little time is needed to get good coverage and some light effects / gradient shading on a surface.
We are probably in the realm of how much is that degree of effort worth, for the result given, for a certain commission fee.

I had pointed out Next Level Painting because he does have a style that is striking and I would think is not to everyone's taste.
I would comment that his skill is obvious and much can be learned from him and his is willing to share, so that is worth noting.

I look at airbrush as a means to get the main painting done and the finishing detail done by brush.
As pointed out by others: there is a point with all the masking that it becomes a lesson in diminishing returns.
Or then there are those who look at overspray as a cool feature... like when I spray the base of the miniature and overspray on the boots is just dirt!

I think the airbrush craze is needed: it would be a shame to ignore such a useful tool otherwise.
The trick is to not get so stuck on one tool you exclude all others "When you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

I had pointed out Next Level Painting because he does have a style that is striking and I would think is not to everyone's taste.
I would comment that his skill is obvious and much can be learned from him and his is willing to share, so that is worth noting.

Well yeah, but Next Level Painting looks like... totaly not 40K for me.If there was Halo miniwagame that will be totaly Nex Level Painting. Just does not suit me for 40K.

Air Brush as a new thing was over in 1988 ...just a new set got a hold of them again ...and whammy big deal made again ..i have used an airbrush for more than 25 years of painting models ..I do not use it exclusively never did never will.. it has its place in my tool kit and always will..Heck certain rattle cans have a place in my tool kit ...but nothing can detail like a 1 hair brush and some true inks (Ie the kind one would use to write with on paper with a quill) but I digress as I said its one tool of many in my kit ..0

 insaniak wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Lots of people pay money for fast food hamburgers. That doesn't make it good food.

It does if you like fast food hamburgers.


You're trying to apply an objective grading to something that is purely subjective. You may not like it. It may not be technically 'correct'. But to someone who likes that effect, the fact that the highlighting isn't technically correct is as relevant as the fact that explosions in space don't make noise to someone who loves Star Wars.


Hell, when you get right down to it, there are very, very few painters who actually manage to get highlighting 'correct', and most of them are either not doing private commissions or would cost you several kidneys to get your hands on their work. Picking on airbrush artists specifically for that seems somewhat nonsensical, really.

I'd go as far as to say there is no such thing as "technically correct" in 40k at all. The miniatures aren't a representation of something that is real and they aren't even realistically modelled. You have troops with giant bobble heads, guns with absurdly large calibre, tanks that can't fit the breach mechanism in the turret let alone the commander/loader/gunner. Also, ya know, a bunch of space elves and greenskinned cockney Football hooligans thrown in for good measure.

Picking on someone for painting models in a stylised fashion when those models themselves are a stylised representation of an imaginary universe just seems like the height of absurdity to me

It's not even like comparing fast food hamburgers with restaurant hamburgers, it's like comparing Das Boot to Akira.

I think they're a lovely tool that people use for too many things. For putting down a base coat or doing some kind of blending like on a power sword or whatever they look great, but I think the overreliance on just that one tool looks incredibly tacky.

My position is one that sort of bounces back and forth contradicting itself a bit because I'm a massive hypocrite.

I own an airbrush, and am not particularly good with it. I can just about apply a base coat to a larger model, but it'll end up with loads of overspray everywhere that'll require a fair amount of correction with a traditional brush.

I quite want to get better, to the point that I can do stuff like a decent OSL effect, or blended effects for swords and such.

On the other hand, if I see models that are done purely with an airbrush, I almost always have a negative reaction. I think it's like a sort of analogue to streaks in paint from using a brush; being able to immediately tell without a doubt that the model was painted solely with an airbrush is like leaving streaks in paint, it shows that the technique isn't quite being used as well as it could.

That's not to say that airbrushes are bad, as such. If you know what you're doing airbrushed models seem to often look spectacular, but I get the impression that a lot of people's perceptions of airbrushing are tainted by people who get an airbrush but then can't use it very well, but whose models are very obviously airbrushed.

With other models, like the x-wing above, you can't tell in the slightest that it was airbrushed; it's an amazingly painted model, but if people were to look at it they'd go 'oh, that's a really cool model, I wonder how they did it' without making the immediate association that it was airbrushed, whereas if it was done more shoddily, you'd probably be able to tell quite readily that it was airbrushed, and so that's be registered in the 'airbrushed' column.

So yeah, I guess I think that because airbrushing is much less apparent when done at a higher level, it doesn't get as much credit as it should.

Similarly, there might also be an aspect of the distinction between the painter and their tools being credited. Again with the x-wing, with a model painted that nicely all of the credit has to go to to Scooty's ability, whereas I think there might be a perception that a worse painted model is worse because of the airbrushing. For a traditionally painted model on the other hand, a very well painted model is again attributed to the painter, but a badly painted model would likely be attributed to a lack of skill on the part of the painter, not lain at the feet of traditional painting methods.

I may have rambled a bit there.

 Goliath wrote:
My position is one that sort of bounces back and forth contradicting itself a bit because I'm a massive hypocrite.

Exalted just for this opening line

I'll be honest I got bored half way through reading this all, basically sums up like this - airbrush is a tool for painting and requires just as much skill as a paint brush takes - different results and different skills - the below pictures where airbrushes only





I use an airbrush for my models - mainly as the effect I am trying to get would be very difficult to do with a brush (below) - does everyone like the style or painting, no. Do I really care, no