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So I just picked up this month's White Dwarf. Rare for me admittedly, but I wanted to know what was going on with the new Tau stuff.

What struck me is how sloppy some of the painting is on the new studio stuff featured in White Dwarf. For example, look at the Riptide suit on the front page, and in fact most of the new Tau stuff featured within the magazine. The white on the "traditional" studio scheme of tan and black is, in places blotchy, with poor coverage, mostly around the details such as on the shield of the Riptide suit and Farsight. Furthermore, the purple-y scheme featured in the battle report, although nice at a distance, looks terrible up close, with ridiculously bold highlights, and again poor coverage, the worst of which is found around the knee pad areas of the crisis suits, although is noticable in other places too.

By no means is this a hate thread. I'm usually a massive fan of the work of the 'Eavy Metal team, and GW's studio painters, I just want to know what the feth is going on. Is it a case of them rushing painters to meet deadlines? Even if this is the case, surely it's nothing their studio photographers couldn't fix on photoshop?

Furthermore, the "Army Of The Month", the Beastmen, look absolutely awful, even people who have never painted before in my FLGS (we also sell card games) agree with this. Although I'm happy to see reader's armies featured, I'd at least expect them to be easy on the eye, instead of the heavily drybrushed monstrosity featured this month.

Love to hear what other people think of this. The minis in White Dwarf have always impressed me, which makes it more of a shame that I find this months offerings so lacklustre. We'll see what happens next month I suppose.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440277a&prodId=prod1710018a

nuff said

Could it be possible that the 'Eavy Metal team no longer exists and they just have some manager to paint for them instead?

Considering some of the cuts they've been making lately, it wouldn't surprise me to hear that they quietly laid off the 'Eavy metal team and just forced some poor schmuck to pick up the slack on the cheap.

Been that way for months now. Either they got shot of the old eavy metal team and replaced them with complete noobs or they had the eavy metal teams skills put in a jar somewhere for better weather

I think its rather the paint system the compaby is selling. Base, wash, highlight, highlight, drybrush, glaze, texture. To sell more paint I suppose and their saying, "sell by example" to 'Eavy Metal. Recently I have begun to pick up on the highlights in the WDs. I can in older issues when I look for it but with the recent mags I can just see it.

I'm glad other people have noticed this too. Having not bought White Dwarf since issue 300 or so, I've always been treated to the 'Eavy Metal standard of painting, with more in depth painting guides for the most part. Think this is what I dislike most about White Dwarf now, I don't even mind that it's just a big advertisement. It's that it's a £5.50 advertisement that doesn't even advertise their product with good examples of the things they are trying to sell.

I'm pretty sure it's like some of those above have said,

they're painting to a standard that doesn't intimidate new gamers by being too good

(like the frankly rubbish paint jobs seen on the leaflets that came with some of the old paint sets, one with 5 free elf spearmen minis comes to mind)

they also seem to want to photograph everything on wildly inapropriate backgrounds (or even worse photoshop them in badly)

and forge world seem to be more and more inclined to chipping/weathering as done by modern armour/aircraft painters (which can look drab/poor if not looked at closely)

This isn't too bad.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat970013a&prodId=prod1940081a

I've seen worse from Gee Dubs.

 WaaaaghLord wrote:

What struck me is how sloppy some of the painting is on the new studio stuff featured in White Dwarf. For example, look at the Riptide suit on the front page, and in fact most of the new Tau stuff featured within the magazine. The white on the "traditional" studio scheme of tan and black is, in places blotchy, with poor coverage, mostly around the details such as on the shield of the Riptide suit and Farsight.

Looks pretty much perfect to me: slightly greyed white with nice blue/grey shading and sharp white highlights. Don't see any blotchyness

 WaaaaghLord wrote:

Furthermore, the purple-y scheme featured in the battle report, although nice at a distance, looks terrible up close, with ridiculously bold highlights, and again poor coverage, the worst of which is found around the knee pad areas of the crisis suits, although is noticable in other places too.

The purple Tau are a staff member's personal army and not touched by the 'eavy metal team. The scheme is a "tron" style which is pretty popular on Tau- I've seen it done countless times. Those bold highlights are intentional. It's purely asthetic; some people like, soe won't.

 WaaaaghLord wrote:

Furthermore, the "Army Of The Month", the Beastmen, look absolutely awful, even people who have never painted before in my FLGS (we also sell card games) agree with this. Although I'm happy to see reader's armies featured, I'd at least expect them to be easy on the eye, instead of the heavily drybrushed monstrosity featured this month.

I'd kill to be able to paint as good as those Beastmen. They're not Golden Daemon standard by any means, but they're well above table top. Very nicely done. And if we're going to see staff or reader armies in WD, then we're goin to have some which are less than top class standard.

 Deadshot wrote:
I think its rather the paint system the compaby is selling. Base, wash, highlight, highlight, drybrush, glaze, texture. To sell more paint I suppose and their saying, "sell by example" to 'Eavy Metal. Recently I have begun to pick up on the highlights in the WDs. I can in older issues when I look for it but with the recent mags I can just see it.

This is it exactly. They now have a 'formula' of steps to match all of the studio paint schemes, so it seems that they're actually painting now in the same style they're suggesting gamers paint their models.

Personally, I'm fine with the change, but I did definitely notice it, especially in the latest Deathwing color scheme for Dark Angels.

That's why I call it "Paint by Trademarks". You just follow the steps.

 Deadshot wrote:
I think its rather the paint system the compaby is selling. Base, wash, highlight, highlight, drybrush, glaze, texture. To sell more paint I suppose and their saying, "sell by example" to 'Eavy Metal. Recently I have begun to pick up on the highlights in the WDs. I can in older issues when I look for it but with the recent mags I can just see it.

+1

Can agree more. The painting articles were what I use to pick up WD for. The Master Class stuff was great. The introduction of the new paint line has set painting back to the late 90's. The 6 edition Chaos Warrior book was the bottom of the barrel. Bolt Gun dry brushed warriors.

I can understand the idea of making things appear more accessible, but come on. Show there is more to painting than just that. Me and some friends were eager to see how the Ogre Fire Belly had been painted, but the MC stuff had just ended. That was one of the last great paint jobs they put out for a regular model. There are still some gems in the "alternative colors" sections of books. But nothings front and center any more.

Well at least my Massive Voodoo Painting Guide should be arriving soon

These look absolutely amazing to me. I really do wish I could paint black and white armour to this standard. It's easy to blame a paintjob you see as inferior to another from the past on the new paint system, but I believe that to be confirmation bias more often than not.

GW paint miniatures to sell miniatures. They have to showcase their product but they also have to hit deadlines. I find it hard to believe they're trying to micro-manage their staff to such a degree as to limit the way they can paint.

Although I do agree that those sternguard weapons are just a mess in every way.

CSM, DA, and CDs have all looked great. Don't see it.

 Davylove21 wrote:

These look absolutely amazing to me. I really do wish I could paint black and white armour to this standard. It's easy to blame a paintjob you see as inferior to another from the past on the new paint system, but I believe that to be confirmation bias more often than not.

GW paint miniatures to sell miniatures. They have to showcase their product but they also have to hit deadlines. I find it hard to believe they're trying to micro-manage their staff to such a degree as to limit the way they can paint.

Although I do agree that those sternguard weapons are just a mess in every way.

I don't think its a situation of them micro-managing their painters purposefully 'limiting' the way they're painting, nor do I think they've somehow lost the ability to hire the best painters in the world...they're still easily the largest miniatures company in the world and I'd guess they're still able to offer on average a higher salary for painting models than other companies are.

However, I DO think its clearly apparent that they are having their armies now painted in a style that is 100% based off of the steps available in their new painting line. So before, painters would simply paint how they paint and then you'd sometimes see a masterclass article kind of explaining how they did something, but for the most part even if they did have a tutorial you kind of had to be an accomplished painter already to even have a chance of matching their steps.

Their new system allows customers, especially newbie painters, to simply pick up all the different 'steps' for the army they're going to paint (each step represented by a different paint) and essentially just paint one step (one paint) after the next to get results roughly similar to the GW pics (with skill/attention to detail still obviously being the big dividing line in how the model turns out).

And this really isn't speculation, but rather fact. All the new army paint schemes are done using the new paint lines and they are all literally a relatively few number of steps using a relatively few number of the existing colors...so it is clear that the painters are now painting so as to create an easy to follow blueprint for players to match.

In addition, it seems pretty clear that the release schedule has picked up this year. And to have this many models ready and painted for release THIS YEAR means they had to start ramping up the number of models painted LAST YEAR to be able to do this. So if you're going to try to make your paint schemes easy to understand and follow, then this also lessens the amount of time your painters have to spend on every model, so you're able to get more models out to compensate for an increased release schedule.


But let me be clear...I don't think this change is a bad thing. The HARDEST part of getting into painting miniatures is the beginning, and I think GW's current system of buying a set number of paints to create a set scheme makes that barrier for entry less intimidating than ever. Frankly I think once you've got a few years and some experience under your belt you don't need as many 'tutorials' anymore because you're okay trying things out yourself or purchasing masterclass DVDs, etc...but in terms of being helpful to a general market, relatively few people ever become talented enough to be interested in painting OSL or NMM, so if GW is going to focus its efforts on one or the other it makes sense to aim for helping the base-level painting enthusiast who just wants to get his models on the table looking pretty decent.


----


And as for the GW Deathwing scheme that really stood out to me, this is it:



The bone color is just generally completely flat with only a tiny bit of highlighting and shading on it. This is quite different from older versions of the Deathwing they used to do that had a much wider palette of shading.

I have been rumbling about GW returning to The Red Age for a few months now.

This is another herald of those evil times come round again.

During the Red Age, the paint schemes in GW's books and magazines became highly simplistic and flat (with much red...). This was intentional as the management decided the previous 'high art' painting being shown off was too complicated and unattainable for the plebs buying their stuff, so they (Kirby) made the studio paint stuff far more simply to show more reachable goals and have kids think they were painting 'just like in the magazines'. Shortly after there were several new 'how to paint' books with step by steps and a push to integrate the (then) new paints like washes and the new added colours like Salamander Green and Blood Angels Red (which was a strong terracota colour if I remember).

So we are full circle. This is indeed 'Red Age 2: The Overprice-ening'!!

 yakface wrote:
However, I DO think its clearly apparent that they are having their armies now painted in a style that is 100% based off of the steps available in their new painting line. So before, painters would simply paint how they paint and then you'd sometimes see a masterclass article kind of explaining how they did something, but for the most part even if they did have a tutorial you kind of had to be an accomplished painter already to even have a chance of matching their steps.

Just like how all the terrain they show is always stuff you can buy in store, and contains nothing created outside of the plastic kits.

Im not so sure. Some of the painting looks great, others not so much.

it could be that the new models are getting really really fricken detailed and the painters only have so much time to finish them.

The Deathwing model referenced above shows how the lack of depth in the armour is offset by the large amount of gubbins on the figure, so that a relatively complex piece is achieved with a set of individually simple operations.

However I have always felt that paintwork that looked "too good" was likely to put people off painting their models at all. I am glad that there is a system by which good results can be achieved relatively easily. There are several, of course, and GW want to sell theirs.

There is a considerable gulf between the work of GW's painters done for commercial purposes and that done for fun and their personal collections. A well as being against the clock, Studio painting is done to a strict recipe in order for a project to be handled by multiple painters simultaneously whilst still achieving a unified appearance. That's in addition to the desire to present an "achievable, yet aspirational, standard" for readers.

Whilst Eavy Metal painters aren't the best in the world, whatever GW might wish us to think, they are the very best at doing what they do (painting fast, to a prescribed method as part of a team) and, outside the Studio workload, are still really, really good painters whose personal work far outstrips what usually sees the light of day in White Dwarf.

R.

 precinctomega wrote:
There is a considerable gulf between the work of GW's painters done for commercial purposes and that done for fun and their personal collections. A well as being against the clock, Studio painting is done to a strict recipe in order for a project to be handled by multiple painters simultaneously whilst still achieving a unified appearance. That's in addition to the desire to present an "achievable, yet aspirational, standard" for readers.

Whilst Eavy Metal painters aren't the best in the world, whatever GW might wish us to think, they are the very best at doing what they do (painting fast, to a prescribed method as part of a team) and, outside the Studio workload, are still really, really good painters whose personal work far outstrips what usually sees the light of day in White Dwarf.

R.

Agreed.

The point I'm trying to get across is that GW's current paints are essentially a 'system' that make it easy for people to paint a really decent model. Any article discussing their new paints takes great pains to spell this out. So what would be the point of creating a 'system' to make it easy for people to paint if then GW went and made all their example models in the codex painted in amazing styles that could not be easily replicated with their system?

I am sure that when a new codex is being worked up all the painters get together and look at the existing paint ranges and try out different colors and techniques using the new paint line to come up with a simple, easy to follow method that will still produce solid results and then once that blueprint has been agreed upon, they all paint that way.

This is how they're now able to provide a completely comprehensive guide to their new paint schemes using their new line of paints.

For the cynical, yes you can say this is clearly done to sell the new paint line and push the painting guides on iOS that are charged for (all of which is totally correct), but again this method also has the huge benefit of being incredibly easy to follow and replicate for those who are on the lower end of the painting skill spectrum (which are the people that tend to benefit the most from such tutorials).


So back to the OP's premise...do I think the eavy metal painters are worse in skill now than they used to be or just getting sloppy? Nope, I don't think that's the case at all.

But are they painting in a style that is much easier for painters of all skill levels to replicate now? Yes, I think they are, evidenced by how relatively easy the schemes are in their new painting guides.

 progreen10 wrote:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440277a&prodId=prod1710018a

nuff said

Couldn't they have taken the time to straighten out wonky parts like the lightning claws? Who models that and feels happy it's a good effort?

I saw a Tyranid army a year or two ago in a White Dwarf that looked like the painter had done nothing more than assemble the bugs and put a wash on the bare plastic. It was pretty sad looking. I wish I could remember the issue or find some pictures to post here, but the article went into great detail about what a wonderful painter he was and used these pretty dodgy looking Tyranids to back the point.

Sorry but something is not consistent with the message here...

I expect a company that labels itself for collectors, best in the world, ferrari level etc, etc to publish an image consistent with that.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Couldn't they have taken the time to straighten out wonky parts like the lightning claws? Who models that and feels happy it's a good effort?

They're FineCost. Do you think they could have done so to tiny LC blades without breaking them?

I have found the WD new army stuff to be of a similar standard to that of previous years, its neat, tidy and to a higher standard than normal, these are the figures used for box art etc so have to be quite high.

However the stuff you see making up the numbers has fallen over time.

The most glaring issue i have is the FW new release stuff, specifically the HH marines, some of the painting on them is quite shocking, compared to what FW used to do with their marine sized models, and its quite sad.

However the sculpting of the heads of some of the marines has gone back to the steroid faced constipated look, which first saw the light of day on the plastic scouts.

a shame, but doesnt stop me wanting more HH accessories hehe.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The Deathwing model referenced above shows how the lack of depth in the armour is offset by the large amount of gubbins on the figure, so that a relatively complex piece is achieved with a set of individually simple operations.

However I have always felt that paintwork that looked "too good" was likely to put people off painting their models at all. I am glad that there is a system by which good results can be achieved relatively easily. There are several, of course, and GW want to sell theirs.

Whereas by contrast, I feel that when the company who makes and advertises the miniatures puts no effort into painting them to a high standard, lots of people will just think "meh, they don't bother, why should I? *basecoat+sloppy drybrush*". I learned to paint -and wanted to learn- because GW at the time was awash with creativity. I got White Dwarf or a new Codex and the models inside looked incredible, I went into the stores and the display/demo armies were still of fantastic quality but more achievable; I wasn't intimidated by that, rather I saw the clear progression from the basic stuff I and other newish/game-focused people were churning out up to the masterclass standard stuff done by the studio or seen at GD. And more than that, the store itself was full of knowledgeable staff members and vet players who were happy to sit down with you and walk you through a technique, or show you a cool new trick. I'm still nowhere near that level, but I enjoy the process of learning, and I'm not convinced that the new paint-by-numbers attitude at GW will help people find that enjoyment.

I don't object to their having an easy to use "system" in their paints, I applaud it in fact since it likely will mean a rise in the quality of the general "tabletop-standard" paintjob, what makes it paint-by-numbers is that that's ALL there is. It's not sold as a way to give beginners a step-up, or to help game-focused hobbyists who're less concerned with painting to achieve a better standard without much extra effort, which then leads into more advanced stuff "like the studio guys do", it's just "Buy your Games Workshop^TM Official^TM Paint Set^TM and follow the Official^TM Colour Scheme^TM for your Blood Angels^TM and you too can have an Army^TM like the Amazing^TM Master Level^TM forces painted by the Studio Team^TM!".

There's room to both encourage with easily achievable techniques, and to inspire with difficult high-quality paintjobs, it's not an either-or proposition.

I agree that they are "simplifying" their paint schemes, but I would like a bit that shows you how to paint beyond a beginner stage. Then again, gw are directing everything at beginners and leaving the long tern gamers/collectors behind...

Obviously split opinions on this. But I know that one of the things that got me into the hobby was seeing how cool the models could look if you invested time into them. I wasn't daunted by overly complex painting guides as most people seem to think. In fact, the second model I ever painted was a Razorback following the painting guide in the GW when the kit came out. Obviously it sucked to high heaven, but I was proud that I'd followed all the instructions and thought it looked the bees knees at the time. Simplifying the paint schemes doesn't promote this at all in my opinion. The days of 4 page long painting guides are gone. Obviously I'm still not at the standard of all those painters I used to look up to, but it's still a shame to see that GW are dropping that sort of detail in their WD tutorials in my opinion.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The Deathwing model referenced above shows how the lack of depth in the armour is offset by the large amount of gubbins on the figure, so that a relatively complex piece is achieved with a set of individually simple operations.

However I have always felt that paintwork that looked "too good" was likely to put people off painting their models at all. I am glad that there is a system by which good results can be achieved relatively easily. There are several, of course, and GW want to sell theirs.

Whereas by contrast, I feel that when the company who makes and advertises the miniatures puts no effort into painting them to a high standard, lots of people will just think "meh, they don't bother, why should I? *basecoat+sloppy drybrush*". I learned to paint -and wanted to learn- because GW at the time was awash with creativity. I got White Dwarf or a new Codex and the models inside looked incredible, I went into the stores and the display/demo armies were still of fantastic quality but more achievable; I wasn't intimidated by that, rather I saw the clear progression from the basic stuff I and other newish/game-focused people were churning out up to the masterclass standard stuff done by the studio or seen at GD. And more than that, the store itself was full of knowledgeable staff members and vet players who were happy to sit down with you and walk you through a technique, or show you a cool new trick. I'm still nowhere near that level, but I enjoy the process of learning, and I'm not convinced that the new paint-by-numbers attitude at GW will help people find that enjoyment.

I don't object to their having an easy to use "system" in their paints, I applaud it in fact since it likely will mean a rise in the quality of the general "tabletop-standard" paintjob, what makes it paint-by-numbers is that that's ALL there is. It's not sold as a way to give beginners a step-up, or to help game-focused hobbyists who're less concerned with painting to achieve a better standard without much extra effort, which then leads into more advanced stuff "like the studio guys do", it's just "Buy your Games Workshop^TM Official^TM Paint Set^TM and follow the Official^TM Colour Scheme^TM for your Blood Angels^TM and you too can have an Army^TM like the Amazing^TM Master Level^TM forces painted by the Studio Team^TM!".

There's room to both encourage with easily achievable techniques, and to inspire with difficult high-quality paintjobs, it's not an either-or proposition.

This is really just meant to show how to paint an army easily using thier "system". To be honest, I like the approach. I'd rather have 10 people at the club have your "basecoat+sloppy drybrush" and have the people feel like they accomplished something, than one with an 'eavy Metal paint job that no one feels like they can achieve.