A Letter To The Stockholm School Of Painters
There has been a lot of Hoo-hah about the new Contrast Paints by Games Workshop of late, and having looked at the official and freelance reviews and 'how to' guides, I have to say I was underwhelmed.
As many others, I have been in the gaming game for a very long time now, and over the years I have stuck to my guns when it came to painting, because frankly, I learned from the best of my generation. No, seriously - I really did. One of my mentors was approached by Games Workshop (this was when they had 5 stores and the people at the top were true enthusiasts themselves) and basically told them they could not afford him, the other was the late great Pete 'Greblord' Armstrong who wrote the first Citadel painting guide, which is still featured on the website of a well known miniatures company.
So I had a baptism of fire. I paint every working day now, and have done for almost a decade, painting every scale, every subject and always to an exacting standard. I've had my work on the cover and inside of Wargames Illustrated (before it was a White Dwarf for historical wargames) and the late and Wargames Journal, I have won top placings in many of the best competitions, appeared on TV and produced the cover models for products from Mantic and Spartan. I think that this qualifies me to have an opinion.
I think that there is a generation who have been subjected to a creative Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to paints and equipment, often paying a premium for what are often pretty awful products or simply products which are repackaged products which are available from a manufacturer directly for less.
The sheer volume of 'must have' items beggars belief these days, and I wonder just how much is used regularly enough to warrant the outlay involved to run with the latest trend.
The new Contrast Paints are vaunted as a game changer and faster, but watching the demonstrations, I think they are slow, limited in application and frankly they give an awful looking finish to what in the majority of cases, will have been very expensive models to buy in the first place. Having to go and re-apply layers of paint over the CP is going to simply obscure the details, and let's be honest, some of the people who pay £10 for a paintbrush probably shouldn't even be allowed to wield one of those brushes used for a children's paint set.
The hero of many a gamer and painter, John Blanche himself, stated in print that it was about the skill of the painter rather than the equipment, so perhaps those of you who think that a gimmick product is a substitute for knowledge and practical experience.
Several 'old lags' have agreed that the CP effects should they ever desire such an awful look, can be achieved cheaply from what is in their painting area. Once again GW has pulled off an Emperor's New Clothes coup...
For brushes, I have used the Rosemary's brushes for well over a decade now, because they are hand made in the U.K and are used by true professional artists who are R.A members. They are good and have no whistles or bells presentation. They do a job, do it well and consistently.
For paints, I use commercially available undercoats designed for use on metal and steel and normally of a military or industrial grade. I use a selection of Vallejo paints and a few Army Painter because again, after many decades, I know they work. We're I able to get the old Humbrol 'Bobcat' range of what I recall was about a dozen colours, I'd be in like Flynn, because they were wonderful paints but moreover taught colour theory.
Over the years I have used Plakka cassins (a true artists paint which takes a long time to master, I can tell you) the original Citadel Colour which were something else entirely in their day, Armoury and Poly-S which were stunning and in the day could be bought in Games Workshop, Liquitex (not the modern rubbish, but the original stuff which was £7 per tube in the early 80s and my god, was that a learning curve for many because unless you were wise to the subjects of permanence and opacity, you were going to commit suicide by paint ingestion.
Remember that the first inks 'pushed' by the studio staff, were not Citadel, but Rotring, and before that those of us 'in the know' used Winsor & Newton - another abject lesson in permanence.
Oils and Alkyds were, and are, a rare and wondrous alchemical magic when you know the basics, but you do have to learn about about how oil based paints are affected by the various mediums and thinners available. These paints sort out the men from the boys.
But let's not forget the humble enamel paint, because many of us started out with those, and indeed Tony Ackland (blessed may his beard be) wrote a really good article in the first Citadel Compendium which inspired many a future painter of renown.
My friend Roger has always been one of my respected peers in the craft, because he understands his materials as well as having the practical skill. He, like me and others who grew up in the shadow of Greblord experimented, absorbed knowledge gained from practical experience and thereby became a walking encyclopaedia of method and material rather than a slave to a brand.
You could give experienced painters of my vintage a stick, and we could probably turn out a decent model. In fact another colleague of mine, once painted some prett nice looking micro armour in a hotel room, the night before a wargames competition using enamel paints and a cotton bud - yes, he knew how to make the best of what he had to hand.
And so, before you believe the hype for a new product, why not focus on raiding the bargain bins of art shops and experiment on old figures? And think outside of the box, because a material may be designed and promoted to be used in one way, but you'd be amazed the ways that art materials can be applied in ways nobody has thought of.
I think that more importantly, whilst a guide on how to paint is useful, the ability to form your own strong and personal style is what counts. Pete Armstrong, Andy Ritson, Tony Kirk, Roger Smith, Paul Green and Richard Smith are all brilliant miniature painters of my generation and they all have a different signature style which makes seeing their work a pleasure every time. Looking at row after row of figures all painted to some fake corporate ideal is a waste of my fucking time and a waste of the artist's life as it generally means that they are part of a some homogenous beast rather than a small but brilliant light which says who they are and in the future, were...
The hero of many a gamer and painter, John Blanche himself, stated in print that it was about the skill of the painter rather than the equipment, so perhaps those of you who think that a gimmick product is a substitute for knowledge and practical experience.
Several 'old lags' have agreed that the CP effects should they ever desire such an awful look, can be achieved cheaply from what is in their painting area. Once again GW has pulled off an Emperor's New Clothes coup...
For brushes, I have used the Rosemary's brushes for well over a decade now, because they are hand made in the U.K and are used by true professional artists who are R.A members. They are good and have no whistles or bells presentation. They do a job, do it well and consistently.
For paints, I use commercially available undercoats designed for use on metal and steel and normally of a military or industrial grade. I use a selection of Vallejo paints and a few Army Painter because again, after many decades, I know they work. We're I able to get the old Humbrol 'Bobcat' range of what I recall was about a dozen colours, I'd be in like Flynn, because they were wonderful paints but moreover taught colour theory.
Over the years I have used Plakka cassins (a true artists paint which takes a long time to master, I can tell you) the original Citadel Colour which were something else entirely in their day, Armoury and Poly-S which were stunning and in the day could be bought in Games Workshop, Liquitex (not the modern rubbish, but the original stuff which was £7 per tube in the early 80s and my god, was that a learning curve for many because unless you were wise to the subjects of permanence and opacity, you were going to commit suicide by paint ingestion.
Remember that the first inks 'pushed' by the studio staff, were not Citadel, but Rotring, and before that those of us 'in the know' used Winsor & Newton - another abject lesson in permanence.
Oils and Alkyds were, and are, a rare and wondrous alchemical magic when you know the basics, but you do have to learn about about how oil based paints are affected by the various mediums and thinners available. These paints sort out the men from the boys.
But let's not forget the humble enamel paint, because many of us started out with those, and indeed Tony Ackland (blessed may his beard be) wrote a really good article in the first Citadel Compendium which inspired many a future painter of renown.
My friend Roger has always been one of my respected peers in the craft, because he understands his materials as well as having the practical skill. He, like me and others who grew up in the shadow of Greblord experimented, absorbed knowledge gained from practical experience and thereby became a walking encyclopaedia of method and material rather than a slave to a brand.
You could give experienced painters of my vintage a stick, and we could probably turn out a decent model. In fact another colleague of mine, once painted some prett nice looking micro armour in a hotel room, the night before a wargames competition using enamel paints and a cotton bud - yes, he knew how to make the best of what he had to hand.
And so, before you believe the hype for a new product, why not focus on raiding the bargain bins of art shops and experiment on old figures? And think outside of the box, because a material may be designed and promoted to be used in one way, but you'd be amazed the ways that art materials can be applied in ways nobody has thought of.
I think that more importantly, whilst a guide on how to paint is useful, the ability to form your own strong and personal style is what counts. Pete Armstrong, Andy Ritson, Tony Kirk, Roger Smith, Paul Green and Richard Smith are all brilliant miniature painters of my generation and they all have a different signature style which makes seeing their work a pleasure every time. Looking at row after row of figures all painted to some fake corporate ideal is a waste of my fucking time and a waste of the artist's life as it generally means that they are part of a some homogenous beast rather than a small but brilliant light which says who they are and in the future, were...
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