Thursday, October 8, 2009

Too good to be true?

As my recent posts may indicate I think I am falling in love with The Army Painter's Quickshade. This seems to me to be the magic bullet to all of my modeling fine detail woes. Its just too easy. Paint with primary colors, quickshade, base and done. Once I get used to it I should be able to pump out Orks like nobody's business with a pretty high standard of quality.

Its also helping my FLGS. The owner told me that he is seeing more income due to people getting more armies done on time. Why have one army when in half the time as it took you to make your first you can have two? Your fast attack acting a little weedy? Throw together that new squad of jump pack troops, you can have it table top ready by the end of the week. This and other products like it seem to be nothing but helpful to the hobby and the industry.

I wonder, however, if this is all beer and skittles as it appears to be on the surface. In most cases any time that a modernization comes along in the production of a hand made good there is a decrease in overall quality. Will this be the same way for the modern mini? Now that you can get your new army out of the box and on the table relatively quick and easy will you take the time to add that extra detail? I'm not saying that it will be the beginning of the end of the Golden Daemons but I think it will be interesting in the coming years to see how this effects the overall quality of the game. Could this cause a rift between the newbies and the veterans? Will I be looked down upon because I didnt do all of my detailing by hand?

What do you all think? Are products that help the new and untested helpful or hurtful? Should we be willing to sacrifice the artistic quality of the game we play to let more people enjoy our little slice of heaven?

7 comments:

  1. I think anything that helps gamers get their armies painted is great. If it helps you get the results you want, then go for it.
    I think that some gamers/painters will still add those extra details regardless of how long it takes or what products come along.

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  2. Have to agree with Ron; whatever helps get the basic army done. People will then evolve their painting as they go on in the hobby, if they so choose.

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  3. I don't play but it seems that for those who do, half the fun is painting the minis and showing them off. I know when there's some kind of advancement that makes my job easier, I'm grateful and my work is better for it.

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  4. I think if you can get more troops painted to a decent standard using that technique, then it's all good.

    I think the people that spend their time detailing their armies will not stop because of quicker techniques, if anything, it gives you more time to obsess over shading and highlights.

    Plus, even a basic, quickly painted army is better than an unpainted one, in my opinion.

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  5. This is a good way to get the rank and file done and on the table. You can then pick and choose which units that need more detail.

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  6. Does anyone know of any other products out there like Quickshade? I know that there is the home brew wood varnish dip that you can make yourself but that's too time intensive for my setup. I want to be as unbiased as possible.

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  7. Perhaps you could post pics of some of your results?

    Seems to me that products like these are good for everybody. Table-top wargaming is one of the hardest hobbies to break into so anything that can get players with little talent or patience with painting to the table more quickly should be welcome, especially in areas where there isn't a lot of wargaming to begin with.

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