Paradigm wrote:
Something I've noticed on this site compared to several others I frequent (general hobby, not LotR) is that the prevalent style on here seems to be rather different than elsewhere. There seems to be a general trend towards the following things: (and please note, this is in no way a criticism, just an obervation)
Bright, strong colours, with lots of 'sharp edge' highlighting
Eyes being painted whevever possible
A general lack of 'weathering' on many models
Bright, grass coloured bases.
Looking at the 'hiow long do you take to paint a mini' thread, folks on here seem to spend longer per figure than elsewhere.
Elsewhere, and particularly on forums more dedicated to 40k and WFB, I see a rather different trend, with lots of gritty, dark and heavily weathered models. and darker, more 'natural' basing. I also notice a lot of people don't tend to paint eyes on their minis, rather choosing to use shading to fill them in.
Which brings me to the question, what stylistic directions do you like to see any why? Personally, I'm all for dark, gritty and minimally highlighted schemes over hard edges and bright colours. I also don't generally like eyes on 28mm minis, I find they throw off the scale of the face unless done perfectly, and at the kind of distance you're viewing from, you typically wouldn't see a person's eyes anyway.
So what do you think?
I agree with some of those points completely. A lot of people here are more hobbyists, and less gamers.
I dont like to post how I paint stuff because I make it generally table top ready looking decent from a birds eye view. It decent and my stuff is always weathered pretty much.
The only thing I wont weather are units like Galadhrim and others. Otherwis, Rohan, Isengard, Mordor, Dwarves....they should all be weathered because mine only display on the battlefield.....
My basing is all more realistic looking and rarely has tufts and flowers which to me gets a little bit overboard sometimes. When I see an orc with a flower on his base I lose my mind a little.
Furthermore, yeah....way too many bright colors, eyes, and all that.
Dont get me wrong. A lot of it looks gorgous. DMS for example paints and bases his for a specific reason, and its amazing.
Personally though, I only play so my stuff will usually have dirty armor because to me its the battles, when things are at its worst that define the heroics in middle earth, and show who really are heroes in actual life. Therefore, I want my figures to look like that. I may post a pic or two in the future, but I am not near most of my collection.