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Actually, I complimented YojimboJones' example (as it is the Thousand Son painted by develain), because it's not something you see every day, which I always respect in a painting. It's not the extreme examples of hardlining that bother me. It's the extremely generic ones that you see in every other space marine ever painted, that take no time to complete. As long as you are taking as much time with hardlining as you would with blending (like Jah-Joshua's last example, I'd like to think), then I can respect it completely.

I'm definetly not trying to insult anyone. I just said that I can understand someone being so frustrated with their OWN technique (nothing to do with other people's critiques) that they don't even want to try their hand at advancing their ability to paint, and instead of practice, they fall back on extreme simplicity. It is good to take pride in your work, no matter how "crappy" it may be, or otherwise you may be tempted to throw up your hands and quit before you're even started. I can appreciate any painter that's willing to try. The most important thing about a good artist is their willingness to keep on refining their technique, no matter how long they've been at it.

Again, I'll say that I would have absolutely no problem at all with hardlining if most of the hardlining I've seen wasn't just a kind of half-assed thing to make a model look tabletop worthy. It is very easy to see the difference between someone who has tried and someone who hasn't. And if you really do try to make it look good, it will (Again, jah-joshua's last example comes to mind).

I really couldn't play at all if I had to have my entire army painted beforehand. I have compulsive urges to switch around the army that I'm working on painting, which isn't healthy for completing anything fully. So I have to play with half-primed half-finished armies. So I'm definetly not against anything that anyone wants to do in regaurds to how "finished" your army has to be to play it. I just said I don't understand how anyone could be truly satisfied, paying so much money and investing so much time in something and then doing a quick five-minute paintjob and leaving it at that. I could definetly understand if you got everything done and then went back and touched them up once everything was "tabletop worthy", as people like to put it. But I haven't really seen that all too often.

Chiming in with my 2 cents...

Personally I'm not the biggest fan of hard-edge lighting appearance-wise, as it is pretty unnatural. I mean, nothing "lights up" in that manner in real life. However, having said which, it is very effective on the tabletop in making your minis pop, though if photographed up close I think it would lose much of its effect.

As a compromise, I prefer to use a combination technique where there are highlights up on the raised areas, and I use edging on the "dark" regions to pick out the details there.

P.S IMHO, NMM is meant to look good from one, and only one angle. I've tried some basic NMM on my models, and if you look at the NMM-ed areas from any angle other than straight on, they look odd. I can only imagine how minis with crazy SENMM on all their surfaces would look on the tabletop... probably like a clown. Real-metal highlighting with metallics (sic? check the CMON article) looks much better.

Can you crop your KSons image please. Wide threads are a hassle to read.

Chrysaor686: I think your position is admirable, but personally I wouldn't enjoy spending that much time painting. For me, painting is only a small part of the hobby, and it's all about the pleasure of putting down a finished army on a nice board and playing a few games. I'm more of a gamer who tries to do his best with painting than anything else. If I spent longer than I do on painting, it would become a chore, and my life has enough of those already.
I do respect your position though, I'm just not interested in attaining the same standards. It's nice to see people that do though, and it inspires me to improve bit by bit. Like I said, I'm slowly branching out into other techniques these days, mostly because I want to emulate the really high standards I see here and in other places.
The hard edge really suits those Cygnaran Jacks actually.

Now I see the pictures I get exactly what is meant by hardlining. I do use it on sharp edges, and I use it on black models.

The problem with highlighting black is that too much makes the model go grey, which isn't the desired finish at all. Thus I paint the figure black and highlight only the edges and corners to give the figure some distinction.

But with lighter colours or particularly harsh hardlining, I don't find it particularly attractive.

"And you know, some people are rubbish painters, but it's you who decided it was rubbish"

Sorry, I argue with myself. Theoretical statement; I didn't notice anyone calling anyone else rubbish.

me personally i like the dry brush style. I enjoy the grainier look to my minis. I think that hardedge look is cool when done correctly but personally it looks to bright. Ive always tried to tell new painters that drybrushing is really the bees knees when your starting out. because its REALLY simple to learn and get down and the minis look pretty good. Ive been doing it since i was 16 and ive learned some really cool techniques with drybrushing

As far as hardlining goes (I always called it edge lighting, but what do I know), I use a modified technique that just does the brightest highlights on the corners of hard edges, and even then not very bright. You can see it on my dreads there. Basically I wind up highlighting all my highlights, usually about 3 passes, each pass getting lighter and EACH lighter pigment only hitting the corners most often. It's kind of subtle, but maybe I forget that these are for looking good at arms reach on the table and not for looking good up close...





I like some edge lighting, it just makes it easier to tell what's going on with a miniature. But too much can make a mini look outlined, and not just highlighted.