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Wow, kinda gakky to post images of members work to not-so-slyly make fun of them.
Glad I'm not the only one who thought that.
You are not - do NOT post things like this going forward, as they really are against RULE #1 here.
I have no desire to make fun of other painters, nor was I doing so in this thread. The items I highlighted simply illustrate the critique of style and mean nothing more.
As far as the comment about glass houses goes... I never claimed to be a good painter or sell my painting skills as a service. The analogy is invalid.
At one point this fellow Shawn was going to sell the business?
Probably wanted something ridiculous like a hundred grand.
Didn't Shawn list a Patreon award of $10,000 for a few days of painting lessons and guided tours round BTP?
Yes, there was a Patreon award for all that and professional coaching.
Entrepreneurs tend to overestimate the value of their enterprise, it's human nature. That said, had he been able to roll out a clothing line, a tutorial / batrep channel, some kind of starter army product, and maintain a successful Patreon, the calculation may have been different.
Can't help but wonder how those plans were impacted by the business tactics. Transforming a services business into something more requires goodwill and high reputation.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/01/03 14:09:51
Wow, kinda gakky to post images of members work to not-so-slyly make fun of them.
Glad I'm not the only one who thought that.
You are not - do NOT post things like this going forward, as they really are against RULE #1 here.
I have no desire to make fun of other painters, nor was I doing so in this thread. The items I highlighted simply illustrate the critique of style and mean nothing more.
As far as the comment about glass houses goes... I never claimed to be a good painter or sell my painting skills as a service. The analogy is invalid.
That breaks down because BTP does claim to be good painters, and does sell their skills as a painting service.
By calling out the flaws in the work of people that are not doing so, it appeared that you were saying that it was alright that BTP was selling, well, crappy paint jobs.
Yes, the works you linked to are worse - but they are also not the works of people that call themselves professionals.
As such, they should not be held to the same standards as a company that is selling their painting services.
It is okay if Bob The Bad Blobber paints poorly, it is not okay if Robert the Professional Paint Master produces work that is only marginally better than that of Bob the Bad Blobber and charges money for it.
If I burn the pancakes that i am making for breakfast, then, while is a sign that I may not be the greatest of chefs, it really does not matter. If Waffle House burns the pancakes and sells them to you anyway then it is a different matter.
And if you asked for blueberry waffles, and they served you burned pancakes... then they deserve criticism.
The Chaos Dwarfs are a case in point - BTP disregarded what the customer asked for, and then tried to refuse giving a refund for work that was neither as requested nor a good paint job.
Not the same as Bob the Bad Blobber buying a space marine for his own use, and screwing up the paint job.
BTP deserves mockery, Bob the Bad Blobber does not.
The Auld Grump
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/01/04 05:09:51
Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.
The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
at this point i need it to pursue... only need $1000 to continue.
Problem is .. you all get nothing out of it so i feel like a douche for even starting it.
If you (the community) are in support of it i will throw one up today. I just dont want to look like a mooch. The vents of the past 2 years have left me in a financial state that i can not support my hobby let alone lawsuits.
You're not a mooch, and people aren't supporting you entirely out of altruism, there is an element of self interest. Conmen like Shawn are a blight on the industry and the hobby, and someone needs to hold him accountable for the good of everyone.
Keep pushing forward. Your efforts are having... interesting effects.
At Games Workshop, we believe that how you behave does matter. We believe this so strongly that we have written it down in the Games Workshop Book. There is a section in the book where we talk about the values we expect all staff to demonstrate in their working lives. These values are Lawyers, Guns and Money.
Wow, kinda gakky to post images of members work to not-so-slyly make fun of them.
Glad I'm not the only one who thought that.
You are not - do NOT post things like this going forward, as they really are against RULE #1 here.
I have no desire to make fun of other painters, nor was I doing so in this thread. The items I highlighted simply illustrate the critique of style and mean nothing more.
As far as the comment about glass houses goes... I never claimed to be a good painter or sell my painting skills as a service. The analogy is invalid.
Provided the sale is £100 - £30,000 in value, your credit card provider is equally liable for the delivery of the goods or service.
However, it is important to point out a limitation - Section 75 does not work if you paid via PayPal. I'll avoid technical borings, but essentially it breaks the necessary chain.
PayPal of course have their own protections built in, but it tends to be more limited than Section 75.
Do read up and enjoy
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
That breaks down because BTP does claim to be good painters, and does sell their skills as a painting service.
By calling out the flaws in the work of people that are not doing so, it appeared that you were saying that it was alright that BTP was selling, well, crappy paint jobs.
Yes, the works you linked to are worse - but they are also not the works of people that call themselves professionals.
As such, they should not be held to the same standards as a company that is selling their painting services.
It is okay if Bob The Bad Blobber paints poorly, it is not okay if Robert the Professional Paint Master produces work that is only marginally better than that of Bob the Bad Blobber and charges money for it.
If I burn the pancakes that i am making for breakfast, then, while is a sign that I may not be the greatest of chefs, it really does not matter. If Waffle House burns the pancakes and sells them to you anyway then it is a different matter.
And if you asked for blueberry waffles, and they served you burned pancakes... then they deserve criticism.
The Chaos Dwarfs are a case in point - BTP disregarded what the customer asked for, and then tried to refuse giving a refund for work that was neither as requested nor a good paint job.
Not the same as Bob the Bad Blobber buying a space marine for his own use, and screwing up the paint job.
BTP deserves mockery, Bob the Bad Blobber does not.
The Auld Grump
Well, @TheAuldGrump, you and I have gone back and forth on this board enough times over the years, you must know me to be sincere by now. All I can say is everything in your message is consistent with my observations about the style, table bleue les fauves exemplifies the people's art without the elistist penchants of gallery painters. The fact this new and emerging style is not appreciated has more to do with the perspective of the viewer that anything I can control. All I can really do is speak to it's merits.
I don't like quoting myself in posts, but were you to refer to my previous posts on the subject you would find I am making most of the same points in your message. The only thing I don't do is cast judgement on the miniatures cited in this thread, which (as you point out) are not meant to be commission pieces. You are right to point out that Blue Table Painting is a commercial service. The point that's more challenging to grasp is the magic in their work is the way they obscure the lines between professional and hobbyist, such that the viewer can not always discern the difference upon casual observation.
Table bleue les fauves is a radical departure from what we have been instructed to think of as quality and (re)introduces characteristics only seen in the work of the most inexperienced painters and modelers. The fact it's hard to distinguish from the raw, expressive, passionate work of people with introductory skills speaks to the cleverness and insight of the Blue Table Painting process that people seem to have a lot of difficulty with. Their work is a puzzle that challenges the viewer to solve it, instead of a complex representation meant to visualize some fantasy. This faux-fessional approach itself is hard to grasp, as any new style would be.
If comparisons within the community draw such ire, perhaps we should look to the greats to find examples of others reinventing the medium. I have spent a lot of time at Kunsthaus Zürich with the works of Alberto Giacometti, a giant in the field of modern art. When you look at his work, you notice a lot of parallels with modern tabletop wargaming: it's based, it's representative of it's subject, it's often squad based in how it's presented, and it's often presented in diorama. Unlike modern gaming, it's expressive and meant to convey an understanding of something more than the literal object, and does more for the viewer by not trying to be representational. I come away from my encounters with his work having an sense of existential dread, a feeling that the pressures of modern society reduce men to something else in the same way they did in his day.
Giacommeti was revolutionary in the same way Blue Table Painting was with the Chaos Dwarves project. The things said about Giacommettit in his day were similarly polemical and polarizing. He did his work at a time of great technological, social and political change, as the ones we live in now. The popular styles of the day were more classic and representational, with Art Deco leading the way in sculpture and architecture, along with Bauhaus and others. The point is, artists of the day were looking to reinvent what we understand as art, and there were competing visions, and not all of them were very well understood. The volcanic, reductionary figures depicted in his work are similar to what we see from BTP, only without the heroic proportions we see in GW miniatures and without having to work in the constraints of the commission painting model.
The genius of table bleue les fauves is that it can be indistinguishable from the execution of even the most basic, untrained painters, while still being something they get paid for. tenebre made a good case for this in his video, but I will highlight some of the characteristics of the style he described again.
* Overspraying, a technique BTP has championed for years, despite the fact most painters consider it garish and incapable of delivering quality results.
* The conspicuous use of mold lines.
* The liberal use of raw undercoat to create consistency between shadows and the exposed details on the model
* The monohue skin tones applied by airbrush in a manner similar to what you could expect from an exploding bag of flour
* The ethereal lighting techniques that occur independently of the object
* The absence of other techniques more commonly applied by so-called expert painters, or the non-uniform application of them, such as basecoats that cover the model, shading / glazing techniques, drybrushing, highlights, extreme highlights, accents / details, etc.
I look at these qualities and ask myself if it's possible to really call BTP a miniature painting service. They occupy a different space and their stylistic advances must be considered as departures from a tired norm begging to be reinvented. The fact there are so many customers willing to do business with them is evidence of both of the commercial and artistic integrity, and ignoring the impact they have had on the sector is hard to do.
Thanks techsoldaten, that's an excellent second take, there's zero potential for DakkaDakka #1 rule breach and the satyre is really beautiful.
It may be because I was exposed to your first post, but this one seems slightly less believable, although very cleverly resembling true art critique style.
That breaks down because BTP does claim to be good painters, and does sell their skills as a painting service.
By calling out the flaws in the work of people that are not doing so, it appeared that you were saying that it was alright that BTP was selling, well, crappy paint jobs.
Yes, the works you linked to are worse - but they are also not the works of people that call themselves professionals.
As such, they should not be held to the same standards as a company that is selling their painting services.
It is okay if Bob The Bad Blobber paints poorly, it is not okay if Robert the Professional Paint Master produces work that is only marginally better than that of Bob the Bad Blobber and charges money for it.
If I burn the pancakes that i am making for breakfast, then, while is a sign that I may not be the greatest of chefs, it really does not matter. If Waffle House burns the pancakes and sells them to you anyway then it is a different matter.
And if you asked for blueberry waffles, and they served you burned pancakes... then they deserve criticism.
The Chaos Dwarfs are a case in point - BTP disregarded what the customer asked for, and then tried to refuse giving a refund for work that was neither as requested nor a good paint job.
Not the same as Bob the Bad Blobber buying a space marine for his own use, and screwing up the paint job.
BTP deserves mockery, Bob the Bad Blobber does not.
The Auld Grump
Well, @TheAuldGrump, you and I have gone back and forth on this board enough times over the years, you must know me to be sincere by now. All I can say is everything in your message is consistent with my observations about the style, table bleue les fauves exemplifies the people's art without the elistist penchants of gallery painters. The fact this new and emerging style is not appreciated has more to do with the perspective of the viewer that anything I can control. All I can really do is speak to it's merits.
I don't like quoting myself in posts, but were you to refer to my previous posts on the subject you would find I am making most of the same points in your message. The only thing I don't do is cast judgement on the miniatures cited in this thread, which (as you point out) are not meant to be commission pieces. You are right to point out that Blue Table Painting is a commercial service. The point that's more challenging to grasp is the magic in their work is the way they obscure the lines between professional and hobbyist, such that the viewer can not always discern the difference upon casual observation.
Table bleue les fauves is a radical departure from what we have been instructed to think of as quality and (re)introduces characteristics only seen in the work of the most inexperienced painters and modelers. The fact it's hard to distinguish from the raw, expressive, passionate work of people with introductory skills speaks to the cleverness and insight of the Blue Table Painting process that people seem to have a lot of difficulty with. Their work is a puzzle that challenges the viewer to solve it, instead of a complex representation meant to visualize some fantasy. This faux-fessional approach itself is hard to grasp, as any new style would be.
If comparisons within the community draw such ire, perhaps we should look to the greats to find examples of others reinventing the medium. I have spent a lot of time at Kunsthaus Zürich with the works of Alberto Giacometti, a giant in the field of modern art. When you look at his work, you notice a lot of parallels with modern tabletop wargaming: it's based, it's representative of it's subject, it's often squad based in how it's presented, and it's often presented in diorama. Unlike modern gaming, it's expressive and meant to convey an understanding of something more than the literal object, and does more for the viewer by not trying to be representational. I come away from my encounters with his work having an sense of existential dread, a feeling that the pressures of modern society reduce men to something else in the same way they did in his day.
Giacommeti was revolutionary in the same way Blue Table Painting was with the Chaos Dwarves project. The things said about Giacommettit in his day were similarly polemical and polarizing. He did his work at a time of great technological, social and political change, as the ones we live in now. The popular styles of the day were more classic and representational, with Art Deco leading the way in sculpture and architecture, along with Bauhaus and others. The point is, artists of the day were looking to reinvent what we understand as art, and there were competing visions, and not all of them were very well understood. The volcanic, reductionary figures depicted in his work are similar to what we see from BTP, only without the heroic proportions we see in GW miniatures and without having to work in the constraints of the commission painting model.
The genius of table bleue les fauves is that it can be indistinguishable from the execution of even the most basic, untrained painters, while still being something they get paid for. tenebre made a good case for this in his video, but I will highlight some of the characteristics of the style he described again.
* Overspraying, a technique BTP has championed for years, despite the fact most painters consider it garish and incapable of delivering quality results.
* The conspicuous use of mold lines.
* The liberal use of raw undercoat to create consistency between shadows and the exposed details on the model
* The monohue skin tones applied by airbrush in a manner similar to what you could expect from an exploding bag of flour
* The ethereal lighting techniques that occur independently of the object
* The absence of other techniques more commonly applied by so-called expert painters, or the non-uniform application of them, such as basecoats that cover the model, shading / glazing techniques, drybrushing, highlights, extreme highlights, accents / details, etc.
I look at these qualities and ask myself if it's possible to really call BTP a miniature painting service. They occupy a different space and their stylistic advances must be considered as departures from a tired norm begging to be reinvented. The fact there are so many customers willing to do business with them is evidence of both of the commercial and artistic integrity, and ignoring the impact they have had on the sector is hard to do.
And I feel that Blue Table has found a slightly tarnished white knight in you.
Let me ask you - did you suggest Blue Table to your friend?
Blue Table is indeed a painting service - offering nothing that better painting companies do not do with more reliability.
Pointing out the flaws in the works of folks that are not selling their services does not, in any way, make the practices of Blue Table any more reasonable.
They lie to and cheat their customers.
They ignore customer requests, then try to avoid the repercussions of doing so.
When mandated by a court to pay a refund they still avoid doing so.
Come to think, there are other terms, aside from miniatures painting, that applies - crooks, swindlers, and cheats.
Perhaps they should be listed in the directories under those sobriquets?
The Auld Grump
Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.
The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
And I feel that Blue Table has found a slightly tarnished white knight in you.
Let me ask you - did you suggest Blue Table to your friend?
@TheAuldGrump, speaking to the merits of a painting style and championing it's use are 2 different things. I don't really want to be thought of as someone tied to one school of thought. At the end of the day, everyone needs to make up their own mind.
I did not recommend BTP to my friend. Exactly the opposite, I described to him what I read on this website.
He is legally blind and needs to use painting service. I did not recommend BTP because I assumed the cost to work with them would be high compared with other services, and he might not be able to appreciate what he would receive. I was correct on the first count.
Blue Table is indeed a painting service - offering nothing that better painting companies do not do with more reliability.
From what I understand, BTP delivers painting services at a consistent level. It's not Golden-Daemon, or even Paper-Mache-Daemon, but it's not Crystal-Meth-Fulled-Midnight-Robbery either.
Whether or not a client is receiving what they asked for, or if they can appreciate some cutting-edge creative direction, is the question. Not everyone can appreciate a creative vision expressed as anything other than a bullet point list, resembling the work of others in style and execution. That is their edge.
Pointing out the flaws in the works of folks that are not selling their services does not, in any way, make the practices of Blue Table any more reasonable.
I can't say it enough times, any flaws seen in the items I pointed out are in the eyes of the beholder. I care about the community and it is truly humbling that people choose to share their creative vision. I spend a lot of time in the galleries looking at the work of others and offering feedback / praise.
The fact BTP can profitably produce work so hard to distinguish from that of the more raw, expressive painters and modelers is impressive. I get the sense you agree with that statement.
They ignore customer requests, then try to avoid the repercussions of doing so.
When mandated by a court to pay a refund they still avoid doing so.
Again, the art and the law are not always in alignment. What's legal and what's right are often 2 different things.
Tenebre has been nothing but tenacious and I am sure there is another side to the story. Let's wait for our friends at BTP to share their thoughts before we condemn anyone. There are some fights you can't win, no matter how well-intentioned.
Come to think, there are other terms, aside from miniatures painting, that applies - crooks, swindlers, and cheats.
Perhaps they should be listed in the directories under those sobriquets?
The Auld Grump
If you really feel the need to slap labels on people, go ahead, I can't stop you. But realize - that is exactly what you have been accusing me of doing in this exchange, claiming I have been calling other people's works sub-standard.
I am really not into the whole accusations piece within a community of creative people. This is DECADES of Shawn's life invested in getting to the point where his studio can break from convention and deliver work that so mightily challenges our preconceptions of quality, aesthetics, satisfaction, good, and 'painted miniature.'
Those sobriquets don't include the word reinvisioneerican. Think about that before you go throwing bombs, @TheAuldGrump, remember the owner is a re-invisioner (someone who finds another way to do things) and an engineer (who builds processes) and an American (who lives in a Fort, from what I understand.) It takes a lot of work to get those to apply, I wouldn't want to stomp mud all over his good name based on the videos of someone who clearly doesn't understand what BTP has delivered.
There are still a lot of ways to explain all this without taking sides and making accusations in the absence of all the facts. How do you know this was not what tenebre asked for originally, and that he's just not happy with what he got? Have you seen a copy of the settlement, or watched Shawn dodge a court officer trying to service him?
I didn't think so.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/01/09 18:44:40
Well, to be fair, Shaun DID blow off a court mandated repayment. Ignoring the quality of work, he is still breaking the law. And not repaying. So he is a swindler and a crook.
Reality is a nice place to visit, but I'd hate to live there.
Manchu wrote:I'm a Catholic. We eat our God.
Due to work, I can usually only ship any sales or trades out on Saturday morning. Please trade/purchase with this in mind.
curran12 wrote: I think we need to really go out and inform every possible site about this practice. This can't possibly stand.
If it's any consolation, the person mentioned in the original post has decided not to go forward with the project, in large part due to this thread. He decided the money would be better spent on a guitar.
I agree, something needs to be done. Daniel-Mandelbaum-style chicanery and predation should not be tolerated by a worldwide community of enthusiastic hobbyists, nor does it have to be. Shawn has had long enough to correct the problem and we should now be looking at collective action as a means of addressing this injustice.
Maybe a first step it to ask the mods to include a sticky warning in the Swap Shop about dealing with BTP? We could create a poll asking people if they would support such an action. This would get a good deal of exposure and perhaps cause Shawn to come to the table with tenebre.
A second action would be to call for a public boycott of Valhalla. It's an event organized by BTP that is enjoyed by some serious gamers, but it comes at the expense of people like tenebre. Perhaps we go forward with a public awareness campaign to alert people about the relationship between the event and the actions of it's host. While this may not impact who attends, it may affect who publicizes their attendance.
A third action might be to do a comment campaign, where a bunch of people comment on everything Shawn does asking when he's going to pay the judgement laid against him. Shawn is a public figure who uses social media as a means of conducting business, negative comments from a lot of people together would be very hard for him to run away from.
That is not fair, throwing comments at me from years ago. We all say things in the heat of the moment that are not well considered, and our thoughts and ideas change over time.
It feels like I am being blamed for learning and keeping an open mind. Thanks, Obama.
That is not fair, throwing comments at me from years ago. We all say things in the heat of the moment that are not well considered, and our thoughts and ideas change over time.
It feels like I am being blamed for learning and keeping an open mind. Thanks, Obama.
Don't you mean Kairos?
Reality is a nice place to visit, but I'd hate to live there.
Manchu wrote:I'm a Catholic. We eat our God.
Due to work, I can usually only ship any sales or trades out on Saturday morning. Please trade/purchase with this in mind.
Please, I have no knowledge of this sarcasm of which you speak.
The Auld Grump - more worried because of search engines - people reading without context might take the posts seriously, and this is funnier. (Because everything is funnier... with cold medicine.)
Kilkrazy wrote:When I was a young boy all my wargames were narratively based because I played with my toy soldiers and vehicles without the use of any rules.
The reason I bought rules and became a real wargamer was because I wanted a properly thought out structure to govern the action instead of just making things up as I went along.
Chaos Dwarfs ~9000
Slaanesh ~14700
5000pts 
6000pts 
3000pts
