Golden Grey-a-thon 2009

Now this will come off as shooting myself in the face... But I have to get it off my chest.

So, this year's Games Day UK has come and gone and with it the mini-painting contest of mini-painting contests: Golden Demon UK.



I just want to say that this year's winning entries and runners-up showed some fantastically inventive and nice conversions (including but not limited to the Slayer Sword winner), great paintjobs (the Forge World World Eater Terminator springs immediately to mind) and the, to me at least, happy sighting of an old favorite character: Heinrich Kemmler! I said Kemmler!

So, what am I bitching about? Well, it could be that the table-top gaming community, or more specifically the painting part of it, has been struck by the same illness that turns all first-person shooters of today into desaturated lumps entirely made up of anti-alialising, HD-graphics and the two colours grey and brown. I have bitched about this before.

Honestly, I can understand that idea behind it. To bring in some more realism to the mini. Some authenticity. To take off some of the inherent brightness of Citadel Colors and Vallejo Game Colors. But, take a look outside people. Is your world entirely consistent of various shades of grey or brown with a wash of red, blue or green over it?
As it is autumn were I live, I advice anyone on the Northern Hemisphere to go outdoors and find a leafy/decidious tree and look at the autumn-shroud of that tree. See all those beautiful colours?
If you live on the Southern Hemisphere, I advice you to take a look on some flowers in bloom during spring.

Just step away from the computer and do it. I'll wait.

Now, did the world look desaturated and dowdy to you? No? Then why try to mimic something that doesn't exist? There's a difference between realism and jumping on a band-wagon, and a bloody stupid band-wagon at that.
If yes: get your eyes checked. You might be severely colour-blind.

The whole washed-out, dusty colours thing most likely started with a diorama-type entry ("Ork? There are no fething Orks for 50 clicks!") in the new Duel category in... urr, 2004? The painter even admitted to the effect coming from a dodgy can of enamel coat. It was an accident, which caught on, sadly enough.
Note please, that the original piece was a lively, vibrant thing still. The colours got dusty, not washed-out.

But just like the regenerating shield of Halo: Combat Evolved got subverted/perverted into regenerating health by games-developers who wanted to rip off a game-mechanic but failed to understand the very logical idea behind the original, the method and original vision of that diorama was lost on the broader mini-painting community.

Thing is, the idea of using your colours mixed with a little grey (dodgy spray-enamel not being that easy to come by, see) is actually not in and of itself a bad one. I do it from time to time with larger scale models. Matter of fact, I did it for my Wolfen Lonewolf. It made the colours less saturated but the mini nevertheless stayed vibrant in the colours. Spot colours did NOT get this treatment, though.

And that's the thing. On a small scale (1:72 scale or 28mm scale) you need to focus on contrast more than on the larger scales, because if you don't, readibility goes down the bog. On larger scales subtle shading can be employed without risking readability in the mini. You can also add more battle damage without giving the mini a "too busy"-feel.

Remember that World Eater Terminator up there? That was the Bronze winner in the Wh40k Single Miniature category. If you check GW UK's website for the Golden Demon winner 2009, you can see which mini won the Gold in that category.
It's not that it isn't a fantastically well-converted mini, it's just that I find that paintwork absolutely horrid! That mini is NOT easy to read. There is no single easily recognisible spot on it to make my attention stay on it after my attention has been drawn to it by the pose (which is the first thing people notice). I guess it is supposed to represent Mortarion of the Death Guard, but the face is so badly-painted or at least lacks any kind of definition for me to make it out.

What in the flying SMEG was the judges thinking when they gave this mini the Gold for Wh40k Single Miniature?

The paintjob is probably well-done, but I wouldn't know. The mini is hard to read, lacks contrast and is just a generally greyish mess. The green is lacking a contrast colour here: red. A single spot of red would have made this mini so much better.

TL;DR Stop this horrible trend before it spawns more retarded off-shoots!