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Hi everyone!

I heard from the more experienced war-gamers talking about stuff like "tabletop level painting" and "masterclass painting". I am just wondering about what are the levels of painting that they are talking about and how they are classified.

Thanks!

All vary by painter. Usually means how much time and detail is put into a mini. So 'tabletop' might just mean a basecoat and basic shading form a wash. Than maybe a highlight. While Masterclass is pretty much painting for display or competition with advanced techniques and hours into each mini.

Tabletop:


Next grade up:


A grade higher still: (I'm a bit of a messy painter, but the shading/blending is there)



If you want to see masterclass, I advise google searching for vicki lamb. She's incredible.

Above comments are pretty good.

Table Top for me is "your army looks nice from a distance". Maybe arms length or a bit more. You want your army to be painted rather quickly yet neat enough to look good in a group. Clean base coat is all thats really required.

Master Class is when "your mini looks great up close". Lots of shading\highlights\blending and free hand. You dont need this quality with gaming and is more for competitions or decoration around the house.

As others have said. Table top varys person to person. A simple decent base coat of a few colors and your already ahead of prolly 50% of the stuff you will see on the table.

There are a lot of "levels," and has been said, the true quality is really specific the painter. It's really about how hard you're trying, more than the result. It's good to try all of them to keep things interesting and develop your skills.

Tabletop: Basically you're painting models as fast as you can, and still feel proud of them.

HQ: Some models stand out in an army, and you want to give them some extra attention. Same techniques as Tabletop, but more careful execution.

Masterclass: You're going overboard to paint the model to the best standard you're capable of, doing some minor conversions to make it more unique and display more skill and creativity. Beginners might not have the skils to go to this level.

Golden Daemon: The guys that win these things are ridiculous. They're essentially professional painters, doing their thing on models. Lots of customization, lots of banners and open areas for freehand work, etc. etc. Probably a level beyond all but the best painters.

Overall, my taste is that of a style called "block painting" in which you simply "block in" the colors, and depending on what you're going for, shade after that with a varnish/wash such as Army Painter.

Here's a very basic block painting example without even a highlight color from my gallery



This is decent tabletop quality that doesn't take much time at all. I liked the "cartoony" Bretonnian look so much I themed the entire army after that unit there. I really need to take updated photos though...

Masterclass painting is painting that takes into account, chiefly, in my opinion light sources. I've seen tons of great looking mini's that I wouldn't quite call masterclass because, while well done, you had no idea where the light source was. Take a look at this:



There's no doubt where the light is coming from on that mini. That was dozens, if not more layers of highlighting and shading to bring it together. That is a masterclass figure, imho.

Eye of the beholder, almost. I can spend an hour on a normal line trooper that, without a doubt, I won't display or show off - just for a game.

And they look pretty good.

The thing is, do what satisfies you. Maybe look around to see what other people have done, but it's your work.

sA