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2015/04/04 05:04:44
Subject: What does "Painted to Tabletop Standard" Mean?
darefsky wrote: Again you keep wanting to get into subjective areas. Standards need to be objective. If you want to define something you have to go that way.
Then you will literally never have a painting standard because it is impossible to create 100% objective standards. Even the "three colors" standard is subjective because there is no objective way of determining what a "color" is. Does a tiny dot of paint count as a color? Does the slight variation in color (even if you have to get out a microscope to see it) within that dot count as multiple colors? Do the slightly different shades of gray plastic on a model count as separate colors? What about the white marks where the pieces were pulled off the sprue? If you don't think the three dots should count (and you already called that example "the extreme of stupidity") then exactly what percentage of the model has to be painted with each of the colors for it to count?
When you answer these questions please be sure to be 100% objective, cite objective facts as justification, and do not in any way refer to your personal opinions about what is "reasonable".
Your at the point of sounding like you are arguing about how wet the water should be. It's silly and has no real value....
Except it clearly does have value because people want to establish "tabletop standard" as a minimum requirement that people are expected to meet. The only question now is whether we define "tabletop standard" in a useful way that addresses the quality of the model, or with a ridiculous "three colors" equivalent that has nothing to do with how well the model is painted.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/04/04 05:04:56
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2015/04/04 05:16:21
Subject: What does "Painted to Tabletop Standard" Mean?
-No Exposed Plastic, metal, or resin
-Model must have at least three colors on it with enough difference in hue to be seen by the naked eye.
That seems the most reasonable to me as a baseline without getting subjective. That way you could get by with an army being red, scarlet, and crimson and so long as there was no bare material you could squeak by. Regardless of pigmentation or saturation so long as you have three clear hues or even shades you could technically be considered painted.
It matters not from whence the weave flows, just that it doooo
-Nicki Minaj, Prophetess of Khorne
Dust wrote: -No Exposed Plastic, metal, or resin
-Model must have at least three colors on it with enough difference in hue to be seen by the naked eye.
So a model that has been sprayed with black primer and then given a tiny dot each of blue and yellow qualifies as "tabletop standard"? I don't think this is a very useful definition. And it's still subjective because "difference in hue" is going to be a matter of opinion and/or vision quality that varies from person to person.
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
2015/04/04 06:47:21
Subject: What does "Painted to Tabletop Standard" Mean?
Peregrine wrote: But, again, what does how much effort a person is willing to invest have to do with anything? If a model sucks then you say "it sucks" regardless of whether or not the person wants to improve it. You don't just say "well that's all you want to do, and I guess we have to give everyone a passing grade". You can still call it an unpainted model when talking about it, you can still ban it from events with a painting requirement, etc
You miss the point. If you are going to create rules then you can't bitch when people only achieve the minimum standard.
Alternatively you try and define a higher standard and fail because it's subjective and varies from case to case.
The 3 colour rule isn't there to make sure everyone paints an awesome looking model, it's there so people know there is an expectation of a model being painted. In all my years the worst I've ever seen as far as the 3 colour rule was concerned was someone who painted a Chaos Marine army black with one colour on the left shoulder and one colour on the right shoulder. It still looked better than some genuine attempts I've seen
Yeah, you gave one, it falls under the same category of " I don't think I've heard a definition of a minimum painting requirement that doesn't fail in some circumstances anyway."
1) All parts of the model, including details, are the appropriate color. How many colors this takes is irrelevant as long as it is done correctly.
Who decides what's appropriate? Maybe all the straps, bags, etc are just going to be black. Or maybe you prime the model brown and just leave them all brown.
What about my Orc/Night Goblin regiments, every Orc/Gobbo has their skin, face, weapon and vest painted to the same (reasonably good IMO) standard. But beyond the first 2 ranks, I haven't painted many of the bags and smaller details because frankly you don't notice them very much given how much time it'd take me to go through painting them to the same standard as the rest of the model. So instead of painting them to the same standard as the rest of the model, I leave them flat black because flat black is least likely to draw the eye, ZOMG I KNOW IT'S UNTHINKABLE EXPOSED PRIMERR!!~!11!! But the fact is it looks fine because beyond the first 2 ranks it's just a sea of green skin, brown vests and red spot colours. If you don't think that's up to standard to play against then I'll beat you over the head with my giant WHFB rulebook Because of the effort I put in to the skin, weapons and vests on ALL models I've only ever received compliments for them.
2) All paint is applied cleanly without sloppy color placement/visible brush strokes/thick paint covering up details/etc.
Who defines what is sloppy?
Do we define a maximum ridge height for allowable brush strokes? What if it was purposely painted with brush strokes to give texture? How many microns off do we define as "sloppy"? What's the difference between sloppily drybrushed and purposely scratchy weathering?
It's all subjective.
3) Some level of shading is included, even if it's just a simple wash + drybrush. [/i]
Why? I have some models that instead of shading them, they are painted with a pearl paint. Some of my early miniatures (I was painting finescale models before I was painting miniatures) were Bretonnians where I only shaded the face, the rest of the model was just painted with flat colours and they might not have looked awesome but they looked perfectly fine for a beginner. In fact I'd go as far to say they looked better than a lot of my friends who started at the same time and tried more adventurous techniques but did them sloppily.
There's also times when you don't necessarily WANT to shade/highlight things, when the natural sheen of the paint gives you the desired effect.
The way I see it, you either define a standard that is extremely loose (3 colours, bro, do whatever) that simply encourages people to paint regardless of their skill level and allows them to set their own standards... or else you try and come up with some all encompassing definition of TTS that takes a single spaced 11pt A4 page to describe and is still probably going to be massively subjective and no one is even going to bother reading it.
I tend to prefer the former. I think "no plastic visible, 3 colours" is fine as a minimum standard just to let people know it's expected that they have a go and don't bring completely unpainted models.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/04/04 08:18:33
2015/04/04 11:25:45
Subject: What does "Painted to Tabletop Standard" Mean?
-No Exposed Plastic, metal, or resin
-Model must have at least three colors on it with enough difference in hue to be seen by the naked eye.
That seems the most reasonable to me as a baseline without getting subjective. That way you could get by with an army being red, scarlet, and crimson and so long as there was no bare material you could squeak by. Regardless of pigmentation or saturation so long as you have three clear hues or even shades you could technically be considered painted.
Peregrine wrote: But, again, what does how much effort a person is willing to invest have to do with anything? If a model sucks then you say "it sucks" regardless of whether or not the person wants to improve it. You don't just say "well that's all you want to do, and I guess we have to give everyone a passing grade". You can still call it an unpainted model when talking about it, you can still ban it from events with a painting requirement, etc
You miss the point. If you are going to create rules then you can't bitch when people only achieve the minimum standard.
Alternatively you try and define a higher standard and fail because it's subjective and varies from case to case.
The 3 colour rule isn't there to make sure everyone paints an awesome looking model, it's there so people know there is an expectation of a model being painted. In all my years the worst I've ever seen as far as the 3 colour rule was concerned was someone who painted a Chaos Marine army black with one colour on the left shoulder and one colour on the right shoulder. It still looked better than some genuine attempts I've seen
Yeah, you gave one, it falls under the same category of " I don't think I've heard a definition of a minimum painting requirement that doesn't fail in some circumstances anyway."
1) All parts of the model, including details, are the appropriate color. How many colors this takes is irrelevant as long as it is done correctly.
Who decides what's appropriate? Maybe all the straps, bags, etc are just going to be black. Or maybe you prime the model brown and just leave them all brown.
What about my Orc/Night Goblin regiments, every Orc/Gobbo has their skin, face, weapon and vest painted to the same (reasonably good IMO) standard. But beyond the first 2 ranks, I haven't painted many of the bags and smaller details because frankly you don't notice them very much given how much time it'd take me to go through painting them to the same standard as the rest of the model. So instead of painting them to the same standard as the rest of the model, I leave them flat black because flat black is least likely to draw the eye, ZOMG I KNOW IT'S UNTHINKABLE EXPOSED PRIMERR!!~!11!! But the fact is it looks fine because beyond the first 2 ranks it's just a sea of green skin, brown vests and red spot colours. If you don't think that's up to standard to play against then I'll beat you over the head with my giant WHFB rulebook Because of the effort I put in to the skin, weapons and vests on ALL models I've only ever received compliments for them.
2) All paint is applied cleanly without sloppy color placement/visible brush strokes/thick paint covering up details/etc.
Who defines what is sloppy?
Do we define a maximum ridge height for allowable brush strokes? What if it was purposely painted with brush strokes to give texture? How many microns off do we define as "sloppy"? What's the difference between sloppily drybrushed and purposely scratchy weathering?
It's all subjective.
3) Some level of shading is included, even if it's just a simple wash + drybrush. [/i]
Why? I have some models that instead of shading them, they are painted with a pearl paint. Some of my early miniatures (I was painting finescale models before I was painting miniatures) were Bretonnians where I only shaded the face, the rest of the model was just painted with flat colours and they might not have looked awesome but they looked perfectly fine for a beginner. In fact I'd go as far to say they looked better than a lot of my friends who started at the same time and tried more adventurous techniques but did them sloppily.
There's also times when you don't necessarily WANT to shade/highlight things, when the natural sheen of the paint gives you the desired effect.
The way I see it, you either define a standard that is extremely loose (3 colours, bro, do whatever) that simply encourages people to paint regardless of their skill level and allows them to set their own standards... or else you try and come up with some all encompassing definition of TTS that takes a single spaced 11pt A4 page to describe and is still probably going to be massively subjective and no one is even going to bother reading it.
I tend to prefer the former. I think "no plastic visible, 3 colours" is fine as a minimum standard just to let people know it's expected that they have a go and don't bring completely unpainted models.
Pretty sure he is trolling you guys. If not, the discussion is going nowhere anyhow.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/04/04 13:19:21
2015/04/04 13:24:05
Subject: What does "Painted to Tabletop Standard" Mean?
-No Exposed Plastic, metal, or resin
-Model must have at least three colors on it with enough difference in hue to be seen by the naked eye.
That seems the most reasonable to me as a baseline without getting subjective. That way you could get by with an army being red, scarlet, and crimson and so long as there was no bare material you could squeak by. Regardless of pigmentation or saturation so long as you have three clear hues or even shades you could technically be considered painted.
Peregrine wrote: But, again, what does how much effort a person is willing to invest have to do with anything? If a model sucks then you say "it sucks" regardless of whether or not the person wants to improve it. You don't just say "well that's all you want to do, and I guess we have to give everyone a passing grade". You can still call it an unpainted model when talking about it, you can still ban it from events with a painting requirement, etc
You miss the point. If you are going to create rules then you can't bitch when people only achieve the minimum standard.
Alternatively you try and define a higher standard and fail because it's subjective and varies from case to case.
The 3 colour rule isn't there to make sure everyone paints an awesome looking model, it's there so people know there is an expectation of a model being painted. In all my years the worst I've ever seen as far as the 3 colour rule was concerned was someone who painted a Chaos Marine army black with one colour on the left shoulder and one colour on the right shoulder. It still looked better than some genuine attempts I've seen
Yeah, you gave one, it falls under the same category of " I don't think I've heard a definition of a minimum painting requirement that doesn't fail in some circumstances anyway."
1) All parts of the model, including details, are the appropriate color. How many colors this takes is irrelevant as long as it is done correctly.
Who decides what's appropriate? Maybe all the straps, bags, etc are just going to be black. Or maybe you prime the model brown and just leave them all brown.
What about my Orc/Night Goblin regiments, every Orc/Gobbo has their skin, face, weapon and vest painted to the same (reasonably good IMO) standard. But beyond the first 2 ranks, I haven't painted many of the bags and smaller details because frankly you don't notice them very much given how much time it'd take me to go through painting them to the same standard as the rest of the model. So instead of painting them to the same standard as the rest of the model, I leave them flat black because flat black is least likely to draw the eye, ZOMG I KNOW IT'S UNTHINKABLE EXPOSED PRIMERR!!~!11!! But the fact is it looks fine because beyond the first 2 ranks it's just a sea of green skin, brown vests and red spot colours. If you don't think that's up to standard to play against then I'll beat you over the head with my giant WHFB rulebook Because of the effort I put in to the skin, weapons and vests on ALL models I've only ever received compliments for them.
2) All paint is applied cleanly without sloppy color placement/visible brush strokes/thick paint covering up details/etc.
Who defines what is sloppy?
Do we define a maximum ridge height for allowable brush strokes? What if it was purposely painted with brush strokes to give texture? How many microns off do we define as "sloppy"? What's the difference between sloppily drybrushed and purposely scratchy weathering?
It's all subjective.
3) Some level of shading is included, even if it's just a simple wash + drybrush. [/i]
Why? I have some models that instead of shading them, they are painted with a pearl paint. Some of my early miniatures (I was painting finescale models before I was painting miniatures) were Bretonnians where I only shaded the face, the rest of the model was just painted with flat colours and they might not have looked awesome but they looked perfectly fine for a beginner. In fact I'd go as far to say they looked better than a lot of my friends who started at the same time and tried more adventurous techniques but did them sloppily.
There's also times when you don't necessarily WANT to shade/highlight things, when the natural sheen of the paint gives you the desired effect.
The way I see it, you either define a standard that is extremely loose (3 colours, bro, do whatever) that simply encourages people to paint regardless of their skill level and allows them to set their own standards... or else you try and come up with some all encompassing definition of TTS that takes a single spaced 11pt A4 page to describe and is still probably going to be massively subjective and no one is even going to bother reading it.
I tend to prefer the former. I think "no plastic visible, 3 colours" is fine as a minimum standard just to let people know it's expected that they have a go and don't bring completely unpainted models.
Pretty sure he is trolling you guys. If not, the discussion is going nowhere anyhow.
I'm sure he is. I am mostly replying in the hope that other people who are reading this will see the point of the argument and maybe form a new opinion.
Like I mentioned earlier the whole attempt to establish a "tabletop standard" is just too subjective.
If I was running a tournament (because this is probably the only case where it maters at all.) I would include in the tournament rules/announcement some basic examples of the paint level expected to play, not in words but in photos. Put in some real photos of each troop type from each faction painted to the level expected and then encourage people to send a sample photo of their minis before the tournament date so they would not be surprised tournament day with a DQ for paint level. Then on tournament day before a person is assigned an opponent, their minis are inspected, if the judge says they don't meet the standard of the posted photos they are simply eliminated from the tournament.
Probably a bit harsh, but if you want to enforce some kind of standard this is probably the best way to do it.
This is kind of the way I grade projects in a college class I teach. I assign 2 computer design projects. I give students examples of work that has earned an "A" in past classes and give them a basic list of thing I want to see. The when grading I check for the basic list of things, if they have those basic things they get a "C" everything after that is subjectively graded by comparing it against the samples, better or worse.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/04/04 13:42:26
2015/04/04 16:59:58
Subject: What does "Painted to Tabletop Standard" Mean?
So: if I take cans of blue, green, and red spay paint, spray all the fronts blue, backs red, and sides green, call it "Eldar Holofields" do I satisfy "3 colors" and "tabletop standard"? Heck, there will even be blending and gradients.
The thread, which started as a legitimate question, seems to have devolved into something pretty silly now
2015/04/04 23:23:28
Subject: What does "Painted to Tabletop Standard" Mean?
Talys wrote: I can't believe this one still going strong.
Yes, it was several posts ago I started wondering "what the hell am I doing with my life?"
So: if I take cans of blue, green, and red spay paint, spray all the fronts blue, backs red, and sides green, call it "Eldar Holofields" do I satisfy "3 colors" and "tabletop standard"? Heck, there will even be blending and gradients.
My contention is that "tabletop standard" is very much a personal thing, so hey, maybe spraying a model with 3 colours from 3 angles is sufficient for you personally to consider it "tabletop standard".
The 3 colour rule, IMO, is separate to "tabletop standard". It's mostly just a tool for tournaments and events to let players know that painted models are a requirement, without actually imposing some "standard" (because trying to impose a standard is always going to be flawed anyway).
If people really genuinely hate painting so much that they are willing to spray a model in 3 colours from 3 directions to fulfil the 3 colour rule then I think they were probably never doing to attempt to paint something good anyway, so even if you had more rigorous rules their models will still look like arse. You could impose a "sloppiness rule" but then it just becomes massively subjective and someone painting their first army might fail simply because they don't know how to paint any better.
The thread, which started as a legitimate question, seems to have devolved into something pretty silly now
No arguments there.
2015/04/05 02:08:36
Subject: What does "Painted to Tabletop Standard" Mean?
1) All parts of the model, including details, are the appropriate color. How many colors this takes is irrelevant as long as it is done correctly.
2) All paint is applied cleanly without sloppy color placement/visible brush strokes/thick paint covering up details/etc.
3) Some level of shading is included, even if it's just a simple wash + drybrush.
While any experienced 40K gamer probably already works to that standard, tabletop standard usually reads more like
All parts of the model, including details, are the appropriate color, applied cleanly without sloppy color placement/visible brush strokes/thick paint covering up details/etc.
Talys wrote: I can't believe this one still going strong.
So: if I take cans of blue, green, and red spay paint, spray all the fronts blue, backs red, and sides green, call it "Eldar Holofields" do I satisfy "3 colors" and "tabletop standard"? Heck, there will even be blending and gradients.
Whoa dawg you're right. With the gradients that's like infinite colors.
2015/04/06 16:56:34
Subject: Re:What does "Painted to Tabletop Standard" Mean?
Ok, seeing as this is still going, here's a picture of one of my TTQ squads.
The colour scheme comprises 3 shades of grey, silver, gold, blue, flesh and 2 washes+1 ink.
Quick and easy, but looks good on the table from 4 feet away.
Spoiler:
Rather ashamedly, I don't have anything really above this quality. Nothing worth calling 'display quality'.
My $0.02, which since 1992 has rounded to nothing. Take with salt.
Elysian Drop Troops, Dark Angels, 30K
Mercenaries, Retribution
Ten Thunders, Neverborn
2015/04/06 17:34:11
Subject: Re:What does "Painted to Tabletop Standard" Mean?
While this term usually means that all parts of the models are painted, with at least 1 shade and highlight, a lot of people use this as an excuse. For me tabletop means that the models all look good as a whole, and the army is presentable. If you pick up a model there are no glaring flaws or unpainted areas, but it is not some master painted miniature that should be viewed alone. Tabletop standard is usually what people paint there grunt units to, since it can be done rather quick and with large numbers of miniatures at once. An example would be to paint an ork's clothing brown, its skin green, its teeth bone, and its weapons silver, then give it a wash and then layer over the colors again leaving the recesses dark. However lots of people use it as an excuse to justify terrible painting. There are lots of people at a few shops I go to who slop on paint, or have no idea how complimenting colors work, and end up with hastily done paint jobs that they then justify as being "table top standard". Then you have commission painting companies coughcoughbluetablepaintingcough that consider priming and drybrushing colors roughly in the right spot as tabletop standard and then charge around $3-5 a model for something the average person could do in 5 minutes.
2015/04/06 23:41:59
Subject: What does "Painted to Tabletop Standard" Mean?
You guys crack me up. Where we play, anything it just means... it's painted. lolz.
Felldrake, I hear you! There are so many commission painters that seem to spray on one color, paint a little bit of something else, drybrush and wash, and then charge for that. I'm not saying that my models are much better, but I'm shocked that people will pay for this.
2015/04/06 23:56:59
Subject: What does "Painted to Tabletop Standard" Mean?
Like from the very beginning its a meaning less word that people value differently in different ways so obviously its going to clash with different people.
Mordant 92nd 'Acid Dogs'
The Lost and Damned
Inquisition
If not, the discussion is going nowhere anyhow.
Dark Angels, 30K
