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Busts - don’t get the attraction  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
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Busts - are they real miniatures or not?
Yes
No
Never thought about it, hmmmm

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Made in nl
Regular Dakkanaut





I just don’t get the attraction of painting fantasy busts (like the ones you see on Squidmar a bit or CoolMiniOrNot). I don’t play games but like the idea that my little miniatures are complete creatures who could wander around a fantasy world. I also like the scale of them. With busts you couldn’t actually play with them even if you wanted to and because they’re bigger they’re easier to paint. Yes it still takes great skill to make them look amazing but the bigger size feels like cheating. I just don’t see them as miniatures, sorry. How does everybody else feel? Can somebody maybe change my mind and win me over to them?
   
Made in au
Regular Dakkanaut



Tallarook, Victoria, Australia

Considering that they're older than Jesus...I'd say there's something to their lasting popularity

No they're not miniatures...they're busts.

I also like the other kind of busts

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/23 06:33:49


 
   
Made in gb
Thane of Dol Guldur





Bodt

Bust painting is great. It allows you to spend more time on the bit that most people look at anyway, eg the head area. There are tons of reasons to like them.. larger scale means more details and (counterintuitively) means they take less time to paint. I've painted 3 busts and they are a fun alternative to regular minis and give a nice break whilst still allowing you to work the painting muscles. Plus, at the end you get something nice to put on your desk or mantelpiece, which (at least for me) you can't really do with regular miniatures. My wife would not be happy with Warhammer on the mantelpiece, but the busts are fine.

As to whether they are miniatures or not, well that depends on what you intend by the word. They aren't gaming miniatures for sure, same as a scale model isn't a gaming miniature, but they are miniature in the purest sense of the term, in that they are a miniature representation of someone/something.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/11/23 07:01:17


Heresy World Eaters/Emperors Children

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Made in nl
Regular Dakkanaut





The busts that were older than Jezus (and not the kind that are as old as Eve which I think you’re also alluding to) were generally life size. This mini- but not quite small enough to be miniatures - sized busts are very new. And they’re made to be painted. Also new. That’s what I don’t get.
   
Made in gb
Thane of Dol Guldur





Bodt

The Romans did actually paint their busts, it's just most of it has been worn away, and that's why the Renaissance sculptors left the pure white marble busts.

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Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut




With bust painting you’re really not doing them a service if you think just because they’re bigger they’re easier to paint. It’s a bigger canvas to practice more techniques and often will feel like they belong in their respective worlds than most “normal” minis because of the greater detail. I think a lot of people get caught in a trap with how they view mini painting and modelling because they come through the GW products.
   
Made in nl
Regular Dakkanaut





To the person who said - the Romans did paint their busts - yes, I know that but they weren’t made FOR painting, for hobbyists at home. And they were of real people. This whole min fantasy bust thing is what I don’t get. And I don’t get it as someone who loves painting proper miniatures.
   
Made in fi
Locked in the Tower of Amareo





Bigger=easier to paint? You need to do lot more blending and layering to make it look natural. If you paint it same way you paint your 28mm models it looks silly.

If you want easier to paint you go SMALLER. There's reason why 6mm armies are wash to paint despite painting up to hundreds times models for army than in 28mm scale...

Busts are good for precisely to stretch our your painting skills to do stunning art pieces rather than game pieces.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/23 07:34:29


2024 painted/bought: 109/109 
   
Made in nl
Regular Dakkanaut





I’m not saying they’re easy to make look good but they’re certainly easier to hit the details.
   
Made in au
Grizzled Space Wolves Great Wolf





I haven't painted a bust, but in general things that are bigger aren't easier to paint, they're harder to paint.

A small model hides a lot of sins, where as a big model any mistake stands out a lot. The bigger a model is, the less shortcuts there are to achieving a look, so you have to be more deliberate and considered in your approach.

As for why you'd buy a bust over a miniature, it lets you try out different techniques and when it's done it looks good from several feet away on your display shelf.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/11/23 08:20:35


 
   
Made in de
Huge Bone Giant






The poll is a bit limited. I went with no strictly on technical terms. If nothing else, busts can be life size. Miniatures can't ever be that.

Life size busts fulfill a similar function to miniatures, capturing a physical feature that is of interest to the viewer while cutting away the rest to decrease the space the bust takes up, thus making it easier to display on shelves and tables compared to an equivalent life sized statue.

When miniaturized, busts tend to do the exact opposite thing, cutting away bits of the miniature to increase the size of what's left without increasing the space requirements of the bust compared to a similar miniature.

There's no reason to be dismissive of busts as an art form or hobby, but I wouldn't thrown them together with miniatures. They are different things even though there may be some overlap in form and function.

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Made in au
Fixture of Dakka





Melbourne

Jandgalf wrote:
With busts you couldn’t actually play with them even if you wanted to
I think you're kinda missing the point of a bust. They are first and foremost display pieces. They're not at all meant for being used in games.

and because they’re bigger they’re easier to paint. Yes it still takes great skill to make them look amazing but the bigger size feels like cheating.
Not even remotely true.
I suppose if you approached a bust from the mindset of painting a miniature, in the sense of basecoast>shade>layers>highlights, then one could make a case for them being "easier" to paint because of them being larger. But most people don't really attack a bust that way though because there's every chance that it would just end up looking rather flat.

I bought my first bust last year. This Greek Hoplite. And honestly, it sat on my desk for months because I didn't know what to do with it. I thought that i'd "just paint it" but once I had it in hand I realised that "just painting it" wasn't going to work for me. It really did need something extra done to it and in truth I bought it in the first place because I was hoping to try some new painting techniques but I just didn't know where to start with it. One thing that really helped me was another painter (who had lots of experience painting busts) telling me that you can't look at painting a bust like a miniature, because it's not. You have to think of it as more of a traditional canvas painting. And by that he meant that because busts are display pieces, they're typically painted to be viewed from one, maybe two specific angles, i.e- photographs or sitting in a cabinet. And maybe that's obvious to people. But to me I was looking at busts as just another thing to paint, rather then a different thing.

I think busts are really good for teaching yourself new techniques and methods of painting. One quite harsh lesson I learnt painting my hoplite was that skin tones (which are not my strong point in the first place on even small miniatures) are incredibly unforgiving on a bust and will quite often make or break it. It's not as simple as whacking on progressive layers of Bugmans, Reikland and Kislev Flesh until you get it nice and smooth. That tends not to work on a bust as I quickly discovered as it, once again, tends to leave things looking too flat. You need to have a good grasp of fleshy undertones and how light plays off skin and other such wanky nonsense. It's why so many of those top tier painters that you see on CMON and the like use crazy amounts of NNM and glazing and other such techniques. Because on busts that's how you get something to "look good".


The aforementioned bust painter said to me that learning to paint a bust might not change the way you paint. But it will change the way you think about painting. And for me it really did. I've only painted one so far, but I'd highly recommend giving a bust a go to everyone. If only to challenge yourself. It's quite rewarding, I found.

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Made in nl
Regular Dakkanaut





I don't think I'm missing the point. I can get the appeal on its own terms. I suppose the thing is that I just don't get why it appeals to miniature painters. I LOVE painting miniatures and I see these busts as something completely different and just not interesting to me (at the moment, maybe I'll change) yet 8/10 of the best "miniatures" on CMON are actually busts. They generally do seem to appeal to the same kind of people and I'm trying to understand why.
   
Made in gb
Thane of Dol Guldur





Bodt

Because they are for painters, not specifically gamers. And as has been mentioned, pound for pound a bust probably gives you the best 3d canvas on which to create a painting masterpiece. It evokes the classics, it gives you a large item to paint with a focused area. You can really focus on creating the piece without having to worry about painting leg armour or bases and stuff like that. If it's not your thing that's cool, but you might find that if you step out of your comfort zone you may enjoy it and learn a thing or 2 in the process.

Heresy World Eaters/Emperors Children

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Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

Busts give a painter a large canvas to work on when painting a model, whilst being practical. Cast models tend to go up to around 75mm in size and then the market tends to shift gear into busts because making bigger and bigger full size models becomes much much more expensive very quickly.

So you do get a "gap" before you hit busts. So for those who want to paint facial features (and the face is often the part of a model most people connect with) with more detail and care and just engage with a different style of painting than on a 28mm model; the bust offers them a good compromise.


Now with 3D printing you can bet more busts will happen; but also I've seen people print and paint bigger and bigger models because now, with some cuts and supports, they can more affordably print bigger things than 75mm scale.

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Made in us
Stone Bonkers Fabricator General






A garden grove on Citadel Station

 Overread wrote:
Busts give a painter a large canvas to work on when painting a model, whilst being practical. Cast models tend to go up to around 75mm in size and then the market tends to shift gear into busts because making bigger and bigger full size models becomes much much more expensive very quickly.

So you do get a "gap" before you hit busts. So for those who want to paint facial features (and the face is often the part of a model most people connect with) with more detail and care and just engage with a different style of painting than on a 28mm model; the bust offers them a good compromise.
Interesting point, yeah I suppose there is a gap between "this is the biggest we can make a full figure" and "ok just the bust, but as big maybe as the previous figure?

Actually I guess I have no idea what scale range busts commonly are if any

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Made in au
Fixture of Dakka





Melbourne

 ph34r wrote:

Actually I guess I have no idea what scale range busts commonly are if any
Most tend to be 1/10 or 1/12 scale.

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Fixture of Dakka





Bust painting isn't for everyone. As has been said above, it's a great way to streach your painting skills, but if you're happy with where you are you might find painting one to be more frustrating than anything else.

It's not miniatures as they are commonly referred to. It's much more art form than game piece, and you can't get away with as many shortcuts.

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