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Hey guys,

I saw a thread on Dark Eldar Scourges, which I'd never heard of before, so I hit GW's site and looked them up... and found this:



Now I'm used to 'Eavy Metal being awe-inspiring, so it was surprising to see this... I mean, it looks so average. It feels odd to think to myself that for once I could out-do 'Eavy Metal.
The gold's been applied in what looks like a single coat over a brown basecoat (logical, but it needs more)... The highlights are sloppy; too thick on the hair and the mithril silver is messy on the gun. The black is just utterly underwhelming with no effort to make it 'pop'. It looks like this could have been painted in an hour (and probably was, I guess they have a lot of time constraints)

At any rate, has anyone else in their time on the interwebs found anything painted by 'Eavy Metal that falls short of their usual standard? I'll get the real obvious one out of the way:



Good on skill there, but err, very unaware of what a woman actually is...

Wow, it seems that 'Eavy Metal has hired some part-timers I have never seen them paint anything that bad.

Can't forget this one.

Byte wrote:Can't forget this one.

Roflmao What is that thing?

Human, at least it's supposed to be.

That's a sister Dialogus....

Most everything painted in the 90s looks terrible to todays standard.

... maybe its enslaved Cleopatra... does any race have time travel

Oh wow, those are bad!

I don't think that yelling mini looks SO awful, the face is a tad flat and the mouth just lulzy... more the fault of the sculpter than the painter.

Hardly amazing but I think the guy clearly did his best with a bad model I'd have jazzed up the goggles a bit more though.

Don't make fun of Velma!

In the late 90s, when 3rd ed hit but before 4th ed, there was a policy for 'Eavy Metal to paint to more "attainable" standards. This was supposedly an effort to encourage new painters, as even the 'Eavy Metal stuff didn't look that good. This changed in 4th more to the style we have now.

Anyway, bit of a history lesson for all y'all.

Byte wrote:Can't forget this one.

I feel its painted pretty good. I dare some of you to paint the writing on the scroll a good as its been done here. Is it the miniture that really makes it flawed? That is my problem with the whole thing.

Dig up the old termagant models to see some "good" painting.

Byte wrote:Can't forget this one.

Erotic Estelle or Lusty Linda? :O

That said I agree with the 'attainability' - showing people nerdgasmic minis makes me go *sigh no point as I won't paint it as well* Whereas 'normal' armies I find inspiriing since they are realisitic for people with wife/GF/work/life/friends

I think the guides on the site are perfectly easy to follow... though they clearly don't get you to their standards.

Clthomps wrote:That's a sister Dialogus....

Most everything painted in the 90s looks terrible to todays standard.

That's just not true, some were a lot better than others, the 80s look a bit ropey, the 90s things started to look a lot more like today.

The pictures above are not 90s paintings for a start. The two Dark Eldar slaves are more recent paints, the originals were both in white and on the flier they came with, they only started displaying that painted picture in recent years when they started selling them as bitz. The Witchhunter woman I think is a repaint, when the figure was first released it was a different colour, it probably is a bit late to be 90s anyway.

The DE scourge is crap, it looked crap then and given the quality of the DE range it's no wonder they didn't give a damn. Look at it, black and gold, slavered in gloss varnish. At first I thought that couldn't be the 3rd edition figure because when 3rd ed came out everything was painted with bright green bases and that isn't...

Like here.

http://kofler.dot.at/40k/units/Dark_Eldar_Scourges_Squad.gif

Oh wait, the figure is identical, the photograph is posed exactly the same. I guess they just photoshopped the base.

TBH, all the models posted are horrible, I don't think you can really blame the paint jobs.

Byte wrote:Can't forget this one.

NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Byte wrote:Can't forget this one.

HA!

coolyo294 wrote:Don't make fun of Velma!

My thoughts exactly

balsak_da_mighty wrote: I dare some of you to paint the writing on the scroll a good as its been done here.

Different mini but, ok. Challenge Accepted.




The models have been pretty bad so far tbf to the 'eavy metal team...but that one of velma...I'd have done those as goggles, not glasses...that was NOT a fantastic choice..

Well, to their defence:

Try to paint one of those minis and keep them as good as the example ones posted. Back in the days it was a challenge to get the mini ready to paint let alone paint it so that it looks good. I mean not just the minis the paint were also not that good.

http://demonwinner.free.fr//usa/
I'm not buying the "back in the day" I keep hearing. Here's a history of just the USA Golden Demon winners. Yes, paint quality/technique is higher these days, but fantastic level stuff was still on the street "back when".

Brother SRM wrote:In the late 90s, when 3rd ed hit but before 4th ed, there was a policy for 'Eavy Metal to paint to more "attainable" standards. This was supposedly an effort to encourage new painters, as even the 'Eavy Metal stuff didn't look that good. This changed in 4th more to the style we have now.

This is it in a nutshell. Someone at GW got it into their head that having 'Eavy Metal paintjobs that were too good was discouraging new painters who felt that they could never attain a similar standard.

Thankfully, they eventually woke up to themselves. All fo the complaints about the quality of the paintjobs duyring that period probably helped somewhat.

Byte wrote:

NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Byte wrote:Can't forget this one.

HA!

HAHAHA! I've always hated that model. It's one of the deamon hunter retinue models, but the mouth, it just creeps me out. Couple never figure out why... now I know............

Man, the '90s looks like a more colourful and generally happy time...

anyone who thinks that paints were no good back in the day was not around back in the day...
my GW paints from 1990 are still in use and going strong over 20 years later...
the newer GW Foundation paints are horrible compared to the old themed box sets of paint...
i can't even bring myself to use them...

as has been said, there was an intentional dumbing down or EM's work there in the late 90's...
the stuff done by guys like Mike Mcvey and Tim Prow in the early 90's was phenomenal...

cheers
jah

BrotherOmas wrote:

Hey good on you for painting good scrolls. Although I am not a fan of your model. It is way to busy, you have scrolls on the leg on the tabard and your line highlight is way to thick. I still feel the Eavy Metal stuff that were shown are far better then yours, well except for the scourge, that is pretty bad.

I do applaud what you have shown.

The entire DE range to start was a giant turd sandwich seemingly crafted by interns. The range was one of the low marks for GW IMHO.

mmm... goblin green bases. Good times.

I'm just remembering the ork army in WD 300. God that was bad. Goblin green bases as the last guy said. And they had 3rd ed and 2nd as an example to show how much painting has improved since the really old days.

Battle Brother Ambrosius wrote:Wow, it seems that 'Eavy Metal has hired some part-timers I have never seen them paint anything that bad.

Those are all really old. Not the current 'eavy Metal painters. Additionally, all of those models are turds. The Dialogus is a horrible model that's been painted pretty well. The slave girls are poor models that have been painted technically well but with a somewhat over-extreme shading technique, but blown up to the size of the pic they naturally look awful. The Scourge is a bad paintjob on a bad model.