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I was at my FLGS the other day, watching the typical display of gray armies fight, and a discussion started among the newer players (who range in age from teens to forties). The topic of painting (or lack of) came up as usual, and this time there were points made about how the truly magnificent paint jobs and tutorials etc on the internet have pushed them away from painting. The gist of the conversation was they can't paint that well, can't get the results they want, and so do not wish to paint at all. There were also many comments about criticism of what they have accomplished both online and off (sadly, although there are many here who encourage, Dakka also has it's group of tough, critical people, some bordering on toxic. The difference between constructive help, and self-ego boosting criticism is a fine line often crossed here as well as other places.

Some comments explanations before this goes off the rail.

A: If you don't have the time, interest to paint and don't see a need to, cool, this isn't a discussion aimed at you, so please don't derail it in that direction. If you play with a grey army and love the game, absolutely fine with me, you're welcome at my table.

B: The internet is not going to change in this way and shouldn't (tutorials and sharing great paint etc should continue, this is not any form of an attack that way.) That is not my point.

I guess the bottom line of my discussion; Has anyone else had this type of discussion, been around when it was made, or dealt with it at all? Is this really just an excuse to not paint your stuff? Is the high quality of work prolific on the internet intimidating to new painters, and therefore a detriment?

"I'm no good so I won't try."

Yeah, it's not unfamiliar, but, of course, completely misses the point of how people that are good got good.

 Azreal13 wrote:
"I'm no good so I won't try."

Yeah, it's not unfamiliar, but, of course, completely misses the point of how people that are good got good.

Yeah, gotta agree that this is probably the main mentality a lot of people have when it comes to painting, especially those new to the hobby. Since most people don't have a background or routine where you paint models regularly, especially in today's era of instant gratification, to learn you need to do more on top of building the model often activates our lazy mode into saying "nope". I myself only got over that issue recently since me and my friend have started keeping ourselves accountable on how much we paint every day. More importantly, we started off this pact with the clause of "at least five minutes of painting a day". This helps with procrastination since it is small enough a task that once you get over that initial hurdle of actually starting it, you kind of get into the flow and push how much longer you can actually paint. I've probably painted more in the past month than I have in the entirety of my time in the hobby.

I do think that the internet and the high level of painting skills can make it daunting, especially when you start off and your first figures look nothing like them, but I think being exposed to people's actual paintjobs in person (assuming you don't know masterclass level painters in your group) can make a big difference in making the expectations more grounded and even the more skilled painters can actually help coach the others.

Problem isn't really the high level stuff etc. It's the sorta high level stuff that the posters falsely claim to be a "first" model in a desperate attempt for internet back patting.

"Oh look, this is my first model; but what I neglect to mention is I have a background in art/ I have painted minis before and this is actually my first 40k/Space Marine model!" It's so utterly disingenuous and damaging to those that are picking up a paintbrush for the first time.
Same goes for the people that post complete models and put "WIP" in the title as some kind of deflection against the criticism they don't want to recieve.

So, seems leaning toward it as an excuse...


My group has 2 very long term players (30 years) 1 decade plus player, and 3-4 newer. I suspect indirect peer pressure has been the biggest motivation in our group to paint.(the two long term players (myself included) are really into the hobby side so always have painted armies or armies in progress with conversions etc. I also think my whole group falls into the "encouragement no matter what" side of the equations when it comes to judging and such. We're not super painters, and don't expect it I guess.

I will point out that our FLGS' latest ITC tournament, the four players from my group constituted 4 of the 7 painted armies (and one of the others were in progress, and one of ours was spray and wash (which I am not knocking). I was sad to see this, although I understand and hey, play it your way.

@Grimtuf: Good points there as well. The age of "look at me" and "Validate me" does seem to result in a lot of this.
@Grimskull: Great points. And good for your group with the plan/incentive!
My group has gone a step further than just a promise of time set aside, and for our monthly sessions, offered bare minimum "prizes" for people completing units. Mostly stuff like free sodas, food etc (again, 2 long term players generally means at least 2 players with finances to cover this).

edwardmyst wrote:
So, seems leaning toward it as an excuse...


My group has 2 very long term players (30 years) 1 decade plus player, and 3-4 newer. I suspect indirect peer pressure has been the biggest motivation in our group to paint.(the two long term players (myself included) are really into the hobby side so always have painted armies or armies in progress with conversions etc. I also think my whole group falls into the "encouragement no matter what" side of the equations when it comes to judging and such. We're not super painters, and don't expect it I guess.

I will point out that our FLGS' latest ITC tournament, the four players from my group constituted 4 of the 7 painted armies (and one of the others were in progress, and one of ours was spray and wash (which I am not knocking). I was sad to see this, although I understand and hey, play it your way.

@Grimtuf: Good points there as well. The age of "look at me" and "Validate me" does seem to result in a lot of this.
@Grimskull: Great points. And good for your group with the plan/incentive!
My group has gone a step further than just a promise of time set aside, and for our monthly sessions, offered bare minimum "prizes" for people completing units. Mostly stuff like free sodas, food etc (again, 2 long term players generally means at least 2 players with finances to cover this).

It's great to hear that you have such a supportive mindset for your group! Definitely use incentives if that gets the ball rolling, one of the reasons why we started the pact that I mentioned earlier was because my friend needed his new Beastherd army to be painted in time before a tournament. Depending if your group is into kill team or not, having a manageable start and finish goal (i.e. 5 marines), to do armies in small batches is another good way to motivate people to paint.

I've run into it. I've been the one to bring my friends, my wife and my son into the hobby, so I've seen that frustration. Usually I'll isolate the student from seeing all the golden demon stuff and start with minis that can be dry rushed or washed, like spaceships or Bones orcs or something easy. Once they see they can get solid results with simple techniques, they can learn about blending or whatever.

Of course that was a long time ago, and other than Forbidden Fortress and some monsters, we haven't painted much in a decade.

Perfect is the enemy of Good, and some such.

My thoughts haven't changed much in the past several years:

1) Painted models "are" a part of the hobby, despite people saying otherwise. The community should continue to encourage (even with lightly hearted ribbing) players to paint their models. I do not support the "it's my hobby!" race-to-the-bottom mentality. When you share a table with an opponent it becomes "our hobby".

2) However...no one cares how well you paint your miniatures, just that you do. There have never been more shortcuts available to people than there are today. Colour primers, washes, dips, now contrast paints, pre-made grass tufts, texture paints for bases, etc. If you want to spray your models one colour, dip or wash them and paint the bases....that's fine for me. But show some interest in being part of a collaborative effort to produce a good looking game which isn't marred by unpainted (or unassembled!) miniatures. No one is holding you to a specific standard. Even tournaments have minimal standards which are incredibly easy to meet.

3) You're never going to paint models like they are on the front of the box. I'm fine with that, I myself have reached the limit of my interest in learning to paint. I'm not always improving, though I've come a long way since high school. I paint to the following standard: paint something that I'm not terribly ashamed to put on the table. Saying you're intimidated by how good other people paint is an excuse - nothing more. Every single painter in the world can find someone who's putting his work to shame. Even Golden Demon winning level painters likely occasionally run into something and think "feth...that's amazing."

4) I don't have time to paint. Nonsense. All of the above mentioned shortcuts are insanely fast and take little to no time at all. If you have time to play 3-4 hour games a couple times a week, you have time to paint. You're being disingenuous.

Wargaming is a great hobby, but the community shouldn't be ashamed to want to collectively get better. Even if that means poking fun at people who don't paint their miniatures, etc. This includes the community continuing to find and support new ways to make things easier...and we're doing that. There has never been an easier time to get a reasonable colour or two on a model.

Has anyone else had this type of discussion, been around when it was made, or dealt with it at all? Is this really just an excuse to not paint your stuff? Is the high quality of work prolific on the internet intimidating to new painters, and therefore a detriment?

I never got discouraged by my paintjobs being blah. I was okay with it, but mostly I found that I actually didn't enjoy painting that much. I loved assembly and kitbashing, but when time came to actually paint I just found myself bored with the prospect. I guess that could be either laziness or disinterest, or both. Probably part of why I moved away from wargaming models to other kinds of models... That and pricing.

Coming to terms with the fact that I would never paint well, and in fact would ruin lovely grey plastic by attempting to apply paint, coincided for me with the rise of painting tutorials and advice that would help people like me paint well. I mean, I still am terrible, but now painting is a nice part of the hobby rather than an obstacle. I'm currently repainting all my Tyranids.

I started into the hobby only some month ago and while I had a little bit of background in model painting from my teenage years some 15 years ago, I can really sympathize with the odd feeling of seeing great paintjobs and being intimidated by that. Thankfully my local GW store had a quite great attitude towards that by at least sometimes displaying not only what you would call an objective 10/10 but also some personal 10/10s. So like a bunch of models of someone who really made some great personal progress and is proud of his models, even though they might not be free handed masterworks and would hardly reach a 5 in the votes in the dakka galery.

In addition they are (or at least convincingly seem to be) interested in pictures of your models and your personal progress and modify comments and critics regarding this field of view. So not like "Yeah, looks better than the last one but still miles away from the stuff on the shelf" but more "Yeah, this time your plasmagun looks much better. Great progress.". Additionally when I first went there the employer I talked to a bit longer about starting the hobby offered to show me some of his personal Vostroyan Minis, he did not get his last greatest looking Company Commander but one of his first Guardsmen. Of course you can say that was a bit cheesy and trying to motivate me to really go for it, since I thought "OK, I can do that, hell yeah, I can top that!" but I think that is exactly the kind of encouraging aura that is best to tackle this "problem"

Seeing other people's painted models in real life is a huge motivator... my guys are a solid meh on the internet, but they look damn good on the tabletop, and compared to some paintjobs I've seen in person they look amazing

 Horst wrote:
Seeing other people's painted models in real life is a huge motivator... my guys are a solid meh on the internet, but they look damn good on the tabletop, and compared to some paintjobs I've seen in person they look amazing

If someone is new to the hobby, tell them to look at other people's ACTUAL, on the table armies, not some random internet artist's tutorial. Your average hobbyist's army isn't fantastically painted, it's generally pretty basic.

Hell, that's assuming it's painted to start with

The internet does skew people's perceptions. For me, this has been most evident in how much the perception of 'tabletop standard' has changed since internet forums became a thing, and this has certainly lead to many people thinking that the expected level of painting is much higher than it is in reality.

 insaniak wrote:
The internet does skew people's perceptions. For me, this has been most evident in how much the perception of 'tabletop standard' has changed since internet forums became a thing, and this has certainly lead to many people thinking that the expected level of painting is much higher than it is in reality.

Remember the sloppy paint jobs from the 3rd Ed Marine codex though, presumably to illustrate a lower expectation for beginners? That mentality was only published in one book. Hahah

 Insectum7 wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
The internet does skew people's perceptions. For me, this has been most evident in how much the perception of 'tabletop standard' has changed since internet forums became a thing, and this has certainly lead to many people thinking that the expected level of painting is much higher than it is in reality.

Remember the sloppy paint jobs from the 3rd Ed Marine codex though, presumably to illustrate a lower expectation for beginners? That mentality was only published in one book. Hahah

It wasn't just one book. There was a period of at least 5-6 years where the 'Eavy Metal painters were supposedly instructed to lower their standards to show less daunting paintjobs. It resulted in no end of complaints on the internet about how 'bad' the 'Eavy Metal painting had become.

For promotional models, people definitely prefer to see inspirational paintjobs. And that's not a problem... it's the fact that the majority of paintjobs that get widely shared on the internet also tend towards a standard that is simply unattainable by beginners that leads to that skewing of expectations. When everyone but you seems to be painting to a fantastic standard, it's off-putting to have your own results not compare favourably.

If it was in the 3rd edition Codexes, then it lasted for a decade. It began with the studio Ork armies (shown in the 1st edition Freebooterz and 'Ere We Go! books) as well as their Blood Angels and Eldar forces. You had Tactical squads that were basecoated and black-lined next to a Devastator squad that was "properly" painted with shading and highlighting and detail work.

It bears reminding that GW has painting tutorial videos that have accessible paint jobs.

In the 90's in White Dwarf they were not averse from showing off sub-par studio armies, owned by employees. Needless to say most of the designers were only competent painting, but nothing special. The 'eavy metal employees of course had gorgeous armies.

They have gone back and forth on how willing they are to show their games in their "natural" state vs. "every single picture must be a positive advertisement!". Kinda ebbs and flows.

Duncan's tutorials are what made me start painting. And Contrast paints make me finally want to actually paint the things I wouldn't dare try before (like 'Nids).

I started painting using the early 90s painting guide (the ones with the five-step process - undercoat, base coat, shade, highlight and the final, magic step where it went instgantly from something I could follow to an 'Eavy Metal paint job. I just assumed that was the difference between me as an 11-year-old and Mike McVey who's job it was. I don't ever remember looking at the models in White Dwarf and being disheartened.