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Hello,

I’ve been looking at miniatures for about a month and finally bought my first box (GW Putrid Blightkings) a couple of days ago. While Iooking I decided early on that I would not paint them, for several reasons - the cost, the time, my OCD (I would never be satisfied with my work) but mainly because I actually LOVE how they look unpainted. There’s something about the unprimed dark gray that I really like. Is this weird? I got more than one strange look or comment when I told people at my local shops that I wasn’t going to paint them.

That being said, can anyone recommend a paint or maybe even some type of marker to touch up the small white areas sometimes left when clipping the pieces apart? Most of the time I can scrap away the white parts and it’s not a big deal but sometimes I can’t. Obviously I would like something as close to the natural color as possible.

Thanks

If you like them "unpainted", consider something like this:

https://www.testors.com/DigitalEncyclopedia/product-catalog/RustOleumUSA/consumer-brands/american-accents/antique-pewter-kit

You could also go with a basic grey low gloss paint. Just look for something that bonds to plastic. You'd have consistent colour across the whole model, even the base, and it would cover the "whitened" clipped off bits.

Yeah, it's weird to prefer the look of grey plastic to painted minis, but to each their own! I'd expect you're in a 1/100 to 1/10 000 people that hobby and prefer that look.

I know some people like the "green army men" look, and go into great detail to paint minis in green, with highlights and shading and everything to emphasize the effect, but I've never heard of grey.

I've seen minis painted in greyscale. Some for art, some for shading practice, but not plain grey. First I've heard of it.


PS: I mean, you should probably expect some trolling as well here. Don't worry about it if you're being genuine. Your minis, your game. Some people may claim they won't play you if you're not painted blah-blah-blah and you may possibly run into that in real life, but I doubt it. 20 years of gaming, I still have some unpainted minis I play with, and have never been refused a game.

Some tournaments have minimum painting requirements, but that's at tournaments and not "friendly gaming".

Your minis. Do what you like!

Get a grey plastic primer or paint rattle can and give the models a quick spray.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Your minis, your game.

Actually it's more like it's both player's game, and some may not want to play against unpainted models as that would take them out of the experience of fighting a battle in the 41st millennium and instead they're just pushing around plastic models.

Gotta side with Ghaz on this. They're your minis, absolutely, but the game is a social affair. Generally speaking, unless your opponent shares your thoughts on models - you'll be detracting from the experience for the other players involved.

It's obviously your choice to play unpainted outside of a tournament setting, 100%, but just understand you'll encounter some negative feedback on occasion - and that's just a result of how you choose to do your minis.

 Elbows wrote:
Gotta side with Ghaz on this. They're your minis, absolutely, but the game is a social affair. Generally speaking, unless your opponent shares your thoughts on models - you'll be detracting from the experience for the other players involved.

It's obviously your choice to play unpainted outside of a tournament setting, 100%, but just understand you'll encounter some negative feedback on occasion - and that's just a result of how you choose to do your minis.

Let me start off by saying the feedback from everyone is much appreciated - thank you very much. I feel kind of stupid for not putting this in the original post, but the minis are not going to be used for Warhammer. They are going to be more of a collection that I use occasionally for D&D props for me and my friend custom campaigns. Sorry about that.

Nexrus wrote:

That being said, can anyone recommend a paint or maybe even some type of marker to touch up the small white areas sometimes left when clipping the pieces apart? Most of the time I can scrap away the white parts and it’s not a big deal but sometimes I can’t. Obviously I would like something as close to the natural color as possible.

Thanks

Rubbing the tip of your nail on any white stress marks on plastic should at the very least get them close to the original colour if not completely remove the white mark.

@ Ghaz: Love the aggressive agreement you have going there. It's almost like I don't address that later on in my post, but you got the guns out and took your shot anyhow. Good job. Especially in light of the whole using it for gaming aides rather than wholesale wargaming. Just awesome.

@ Nexrus: You could also take a hobby knife and knick off the white part, or scrape it. Or file it. There are lots of ways you could get back to the natural grey. That said, you'll get better definition from a coat of white primer. The natural shading on the white from shadows will help to define the shape of the model better. A quick wash with grey would then really help the details to pop, as the grey will settle into the recesses and increase the shade / contrast. I'm honestly having a hard time wrapping my head around preferring the grey plastic colour, but they are your models to do as you wish. I don't know if you're looking to create any greater emphasis on the *shape* of the models, but that would be one way to go. Hope it helps.

Think of hobbying as a bell curve. Most people fit near the middle, but there are outliers on both ends of "no effort" to "maximum effort" and it's cool if you like to hang on the "no effort" end of the spectrum. I totally get that. I played with boxes for tanks for years when I was just getting started. My friends and I had great times with it, hanging out and playing a game. The art of it grew on me later, and that's cool too because if the same thing happens for you, you can always paint unpainted minis whenever / if you feel like it. I don't like painting, but I like having a painted army, so I work at it when the spirit moves me, and don't force it if the feeling isn't there. I've been wargaming for 20 years now, and only recently had fully painted armies that I could play at "full points" so-to-speak.

If you and your people are having fun, that's all that really matters. And if you change your mind about painting, you can always get into that when the mood strikes.

Yes, it's weird. I can't imagine why anyone would like ugly gray plastic. IMO unfinished models look like , the kind of embarrassing thing you keep out of sight because you don't want to admit how far behind on painting you've fallen. And TBH I understand it even less for pure display pieces, where looking cool is the entire point.

But hey, it's your money to throw away if it makes you happy. Just don't be surprised if nobody wants to play with your unpainted stuff if you ever decide to take them off the shelf.

I keep some of my collectors pieces in unpainted state just to appreciate the sculpts, though they are metal sculpts.
Cant say i am proud of my mountain of grey plastic

But i feel value in keeping some pieces unpainted for a long time rather then giving them a rushed paintjob.
Just as a want to leave some in shrink wrapped box.
If i were a golden demon painter level painter though, i wouldnt leave anything unpainted.

And with some of the GW board games you get coloured plastic so you can play with them even if you havent painted them.

They also lose value very fast when you paint them of you are not a master painter.

So there are some reasons for wanting them unpainted.

But there is nothing like painting your own and leaving your personal touch, thats when i the mini truly becomes yours and feels like it have a personality and not just something unanimated.

 greatbigtree wrote:
@ Ghaz: Love the aggressive agreement you have going there. It's almost like I don't address that later on in my post, but you got the guns out and took your shot anyhow. Good job. Especially in light of the whole using it for gaming aides rather than wholesale wargaming. Just awesome.

I'm not sure he "took a shot" or was aggressive was he? He just disagreed with you. I don't think there's any reason to feel attacked.

This post isn't an attack either, of course, I'm just trying to reassure you that there's no reason to get upset, as far as I can see.

 greatbigtree wrote:
@ Ghaz: Love the aggressive agreement you have going there. It's almost like I don't address that later on in my post, but you got the guns out and took your shot anyhow. Good job. Especially in light of the whole using it for gaming aides rather than wholesale wargaming. Just awesome.

That's a hyper-sensitive response.

There have been plenty of topics on here re:unpainted vs. painted and it's clear that a lot of people do prefer painted to unpainted, even those who have plenty of the latter. Equally, many simply don't care. Using the OPs words an actual preference for unpainted plastic is 'weird', though I'd say unusual. It certainly stands out as an outlier opinion.

Being RPG game peices, rather than models for a wargaming system, it makes more sense.

@Nexus, my experience of cleaning up models is there's often still some discolouration even after gently scraping/cutting at the 'white bits'. You could alwayys spray the models with a grey primer. Still grey, still uniform.

I can easily relate, as I have a sort of a similair problem - I either like playing with grey plastic on a pure black landscape or with entirely painted and finished models/tables but don't really fancy "mixed bag" state of some minis painted, some primed, some bare, because first is enjoing sculpts (and lately, with addition of LED frame to my table they really stand out nicely) and second is more immersive, but mixed bag just isn't neither and is the worst experience for me (and mixed bag on a "grab whatever terrain lies around in the store" kind of table simply kills even nice paintjobs on singular minis for me - those simply do not make any impression during the game surrounded by such a mess...)

And truth be told, "tournament standard" 3 flat airbrushed colours don't add anything for me either - grey plastic and coloured lights is far, far better than quick and poor airbrush job...

 Ghaz wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
Your minis, your game.

Actually it's more like it's both player's game, and some may not want to play against unpainted models as that would take them out of the experience of fighting a battle in the 41st millennium and instead they're just pushing around plastic models.

I've had this argument applied to my fully painted armies, funnily enough. Because they weren't good enough to show enough effort, faithfulness to the canon and consistency for my opponent's taste.

 feltmonkey wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
@ Ghaz: Love the aggressive agreement you have going there. It's almost like I don't address that later on in my post, but you got the guns out and took your shot anyhow. Good job. Especially in light of the whole using it for gaming aides rather than wholesale wargaming. Just awesome.

I'm not sure he "took a shot" or was aggressive was he? He just disagreed with you. I don't think there's any reason to feel attacked.

This post isn't an attack either, of course, I'm just trying to reassure you that there's no reason to get upset, as far as I can see.

Actually, when someone uses the word actually, they're actually trying to correct you. And Ghaz actually attempted to correct me by using a line of argument I actually used already in my post. So actually, he was agreeing with me. I wasn't upset. Actually, I was simply pointing out that had he actually ready my post, he would realize he was actually not correcting me, but actually agreeing with me.

See? Not feeling attacked. Just pointing out that he actually agreed with me in an aggressive fashion. Easy!

That said, I am hyper sensitive. It's awesome.

EDIT: Dammit! I'm gak posting. Um... yes, totally agree with the above about grey primer as you'll get a smooth even coat on your entire mini, plus the base will be grey too, if it was black to begin with.

Cost, time and skill are all reasons why some people might not want to paint; and aesthetics and gaming experience/immersion are all reasons why most people do paint. I guess at the end of the day, the decision to field (or play against) an unpainted army is a personal one, unless it's a tournament of course.

Nexrus wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Gotta side with Ghaz on this. They're your minis, absolutely, but the game is a social affair. Generally speaking, unless your opponent shares your thoughts on models - you'll be detracting from the experience for the other players involved.

It's obviously your choice to play unpainted outside of a tournament setting, 100%, but just understand you'll encounter some negative feedback on occasion - and that's just a result of how you choose to do your minis.

Let me start off by saying the feedback from everyone is much appreciated - thank you very much. I feel kind of stupid for not putting this in the original post, but the minis are not going to be used for Warhammer. They are going to be more of a collection that I use occasionally for D&D props for me and my friend custom campaigns. Sorry about that.

I think this is the most telling part of the thread. They're being used as D&D props, not Warhammer. D&D players are much more forgiving when it comes to unpainted mini's. That being said I like the grayscale approach and I would look into that. They'd be cool in a RPG setting and even a conversation piece if done in an interesting enough way.

 DanceOfSlaanesh wrote:
I keep some of my collectors pieces in unpainted state just to appreciate the sculpts, though they are metal sculpts.
Cant say i am proud of my mountain of grey plastic

But i feel value in keeping some pieces unpainted for a long time rather then giving them a rushed paintjob.
Just as a want to leave some in shrink wrapped box.
If i were a golden demon painter level painter though, i wouldnt leave anything unpainted.

I think this sums up my situation pretty well. I just really enjoy the clean look of the sculpts. Don't get me wrong, I think the professionally painted ones look amazing but I know I can't do that. I would rather have an unpainted mini and enjoy the detail rather than one that has been poorly painted.

Nexrus wrote:
Hello,

I’ve been looking at miniatures for about a month and finally bought my first box (GW Putrid Blightkings) a couple of days ago. While Iooking I decided early on that I would not paint them, for several reasons - the cost, the time, my OCD (I would never be satisfied with my work) but mainly because I actually LOVE how they look unpainted. There’s something about the unprimed dark gray that I really like. Is this weird? I got more than one strange look or comment when I told people at my local shops that I wasn’t going to paint them.

That being said, can anyone recommend a paint or maybe even some type of marker to touch up the small white areas sometimes left when clipping the pieces apart? Most of the time I can scrap away the white parts and it’s not a big deal but sometimes I can’t. Obviously I would like something as close to the natural color as possible.

Thanks

It's a little strange, but my point of view is someone who enjoys the process of painting, even if I'm not that good at it.

To hide the blemishes, I recommend a can of grey spraypaint. Unfortunately, I can't recall the brand, but I had a grey I was using as my primer that was so close to the GW plastic grey that a friend commented on how he couldn't believe I was painting on the direct plastic, not realizing that it was already sprayed. It might make the plastic a little flatter in sheen though.

 SQRT(-2) wrote:
If you like them "unpainted", consider something like this:

https://www.testors.com/DigitalEncyclopedia/product-catalog/RustOleumUSA/consumer-brands/american-accents/antique-pewter-kit

SQRT has a pretty cool idea, and it reminds me of a project a person did for Warmachine, where he painted his Cryx to look like they were in-world statues and playing pieces rather than miniature representations.

Apparently he had done the same for other factions, like painting his Skorne and Menoth in red and white marble, respectively.

First army? No one will mind unpainted models. It'll only be an issue if you can't attend local events due to the bare minimum painting requirement. Do you have any pictures of models you've attempted to paint? Which tutorials did you use.

You can try priming them white and using citadel washes. There are quite a few armies that look great like this.

You can also look into commission painters as well. I know quite a few people who have families that simply work some overtime and pay an artist to grind out everything in a tabletop standard or better. I don't have a single friend that actually has time to paint unless they work remote/consult/still at university

 Ghaz wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
Your minis, your game.

Actually it's more like it's both player's game, and some may not want to play against unpainted models as that would take them out of the experience of fighting a battle in the 41st millennium and instead they're just pushing around plastic models.

I avoid playing against unpainted armies/count-as. I only get a few games in a month and I don't really want to spend 3 hours playing against a sea of pick a chapter of the week marines that I can't tell apart. Even if the player has fluff, unit names, and knows the history of the army - it's just plastic marines. I also hated Warmachine's lack of terrain and painting requirements.

Nexrus wrote:

Let me start off by saying the feedback from everyone is much appreciated - thank you very much. I feel kind of stupid for not putting this in the original post, but the minis are not going to be used for Warhammer. They are going to be more of a collection that I use occasionally for D&D props for me and my friend custom campaigns. Sorry about that.

(emphasis added)

That's really important to know- thanks for clarifying. AFAIK it is far more acceptable in RPG circles to have 'playing pieces' or 'tokens' rather than an attempt at scale miniatures, and unpainted minis are more appropriate for those.

A significant element of tabletop wargaming is the spectacle and thematic substance of period, fantasy or scifi armies and battlefields, modelled in scale. Wargames take a step away from pure scale modelling, making consessions to playbility/storage/modluarity but how much of a step they take depends on the hobbyist themselves- some are content to play with unpainted miniatures or proxies- others are counting the buttons on period uniforms for historical accuracy. These are extreme opinions however and most lie somehere inbetween- in the rather broad spectrum of opinion you;ve seen represented in this thread.

I hope you will return with photos of your miniatures in use in the campaigns!

Well. I'm on the camp that if I'm going to spend as much money to models as GW is asking I'm going to make sure they at least look as good as I can get them and that means paint work. Bare plastic I can't even spot details as well as painted. It's just grey piece I need to look real close to even appreciate all the details.

Trust me, I have problems not being happy with my "finished" work but painting is really rewarding and is a great learning experience.

Nexrus wrote:

 DanceOfSlaanesh wrote:
I keep some of my collectors pieces in unpainted state just to appreciate the sculpts, though they are metal sculpts.
Cant say i am proud of my mountain of grey plastic

But i feel value in keeping some pieces unpainted for a long time rather then giving them a rushed paintjob.
Just as a want to leave some in shrink wrapped box.
If i were a golden demon painter level painter though, i wouldnt leave anything unpainted.

I think this sums up my situation pretty well. I just really enjoy the clean look of the sculpts. Don't get me wrong, I think the professionally painted ones look amazing but I know I can't do that. I would rather have an unpainted mini and enjoy the detail rather than one that has been poorly painted.

I hear ya. I can tell you that my DnD DM and his wife initially thought they'd suck at painting...And are super happy they gave it a try. It gives them even more ownership with the game, and the DM (who for months was adamant he would be terrible) has turned out some really awesome stuff. His first stuff, though a little rough, was plenty good and brought him joy too. All up to you of course, especially with DnD it works, but I'd highly recommend giving it a shot if you like the thought of personalized miniatures.

 troa wrote:

Nexrus wrote:

 DanceOfSlaanesh wrote:
I keep some of my collectors pieces in unpainted state just to appreciate the sculpts, though they are metal sculpts.
Cant say i am proud of my mountain of grey plastic

But i feel value in keeping some pieces unpainted for a long time rather then giving them a rushed paintjob.
Just as a want to leave some in shrink wrapped box.
If i were a golden demon painter level painter though, i wouldnt leave anything unpainted.

I think this sums up my situation pretty well. I just really enjoy the clean look of the sculpts. Don't get me wrong, I think the professionally painted ones look amazing but I know I can't do that. I would rather have an unpainted mini and enjoy the detail rather than one that has been poorly painted.

I hear ya. I can tell you that my DnD DM and his wife initially thought they'd suck at painting...And are super happy they gave it a try. It gives them even more ownership with the game, and the DM (who for months was adamant he would be terrible) has turned out some really awesome stuff. His first stuff, though a little rough, was plenty good and brought him joy too. All up to you of course, especially with DnD it works, but I'd highly recommend giving it a shot if you like the thought of personalized miniatures.

Again, appreciate the feedback from everyone. I think I may give it a try. I have a couple of minis out of this box to practice on. If they turn out atrocious then I'll stop painting but if I see potential maybe I'll keep trying.

Just remember, everyone sucks at their first miniature. It's clichee, but thin your paint!

Wet paint on a white primer creates natural highlights (the raised edges have some white show through, that gives easy highlights) and then a wash (technical term - you can buy "washes" as opposed to "layer" GW paint) with a darker version of the same colour over top really makes the details pop. The wash also helps to blend the "whiteness" that shows through towards a pale version of the main colour. Super clichee, but two thin coats will always look better than one thick coat. If you find you get too much white showing through, put a second layer of thin paint on, but for your first mini, a little bit of white showing through will look better than going too thick, especially after the wash. It will look weird, until you put the wash on!

Oh, wash silvers with black (nuln oil) and golds with Reikland Flesh Shade. Reikland, in particular, shades well and keeps the warm tone of the gold. Metals can go on a little thicker, you don't necessarily want the white to show through as the metal itself is reflective and helps with the edge highlights.

When washing flesh, you might want to blend a bit of the flesh tone into your flesh shade, as I find Reikland is a bit strong to put directly onto flesh. That said, you could just paint 2 or 3 layers of Reikland onto white primer, to get palid flesh. In the photo here, I did just that for the human head on the side of the Orc's belt. I used the same Reikland wash over... sunset yellow? for the blonde hair.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/932937-Ork%20Front.html


Skill comes with time and patience. I find the result is worth it, even if I don't enjoy the process. If you don't like it, you can always strip the models back to unpainted.

Primer them grey, give them a nuln oil wash, paint the base.

You might end up looking like a wise-ass but this fulfills the basic ITC 3-color minimum painting requirements.