Post by Gilvan Blight on Oct 3, 2008 11:48:46 GMT -5
Quickly: this is a book written by Kevin Dallimore that looks at his style of painting miniatures. A style that became so popular and synonymous with Wargames Foundry miniatures that it's now known as the Foundry Painting Style.
Kevin's style is a very clean very crisp way to paint that is very effective for small scale miniatures that makes them look amazing at arms length. There are three basic systems in this book looked at all based on how many colours are used for each area of the miniature. The three styles are Single Colour, Two colour and Three Colour Methods.
The Single Colour method involves painting the mini with a black primer coat and then painting each area with only a single colour. A base coat is applied leaving the undercoat showing all the recesses, creases and between different parts of the model.
The Two colour Method just expands on the Single colour method. After adding the base coat, you add a layer of lighter colour to each area adding to the contrast level and creating highlighting.
The Three colour method is of course just the next step with three levels of colour being applied. First a shade coat, then a base coat then a highlight coat.
Overall it's a very quick and effective method of painting miniatures. In addition to these basic techniques the book also spends a lot of time on miniature prep work, different coloured primers, basing, collecting, converting and shield design. In general most of the book deals with Historical Miniatures but there are some examples of Fantasy and Sci-Fi miniatures.
[glow=green,2,300]The Good:[/glow]The methods described in this book will definitely give you the basis to produce good looking minis in record time. There are tons of illustrations, and they really do show every single step one at a time. Kevin is a pretty amusing writer so there are some laughs to be had while reading this. Some of the tips on painting animal skins really helped me (a picture of my D&D character should be coming soon and you can judge for yourself). This would be a great book for a beginning painter.
[glow=yellow,2,300]The Bad:[/glow]Great book for a beginning painter, but not so useful for anyone with xp. Anyone who has been painting for some time can probably skip right to the 2 colour method if not right to the 3 colour method. The style of painting is a lot harder then it looks, the examples are from a master of the style getting the same results is not so easy. All of the examples assume you use Foundry Paints and the "Foundry Paint System" which are paints sold in sets of three colours, Shade, Base and Highlight. I'm sure these are perfect for this method, but reading about them over and over again when you don't plan on replacing your entire range of paints is annoying. Plus there isn't really an equivalency chart to other popular brands, which would have been nice.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly:[/glow]Repetition. Kevin himself notes that he will be repeating himself, but it's a bit much. The book could have been at least half the size and half the price if only it didn't explain how to remove mold lines on every single example. Each example is taken step by step and shows every step, that's not needed. Once you have explained priming and cleaning a mini you don't need to do it every three pages. Once you explain the first coat of colour, you don't have to explain it every three pages, etc. By the end of the book I was skipping over more then I was reading. Now this isn't ugly if you know it's coming: but this entire book shows how to paint like one guy. There are a couple of other contributers but they are all using the same style. When I bought this I thought there would be more techniques in the book and more tips. I expected a section on dry-brushing, a section of layering, a section on feathering, a section on blending etc. Instead I got one colour, two colours and three colours.
[glow=purple,2,300]Overall:[/glow]Overall really not a bad book. It would be great for a beginning painter. It's the ultimate resource if you want that 'Foundry" look to your miniatures. If you are an experienced painter though and/or if you prefer more transition and blending and less contrast on your miniatures you can probably give this book a skip over. I did find some useful tips, but I think overall I could have gotten the same information in a book 1/4 the size.
EDIT: I just noticed the retail price on this one is over $50. There is no way it's worth that much, you can find 90% of this info on the web for free. Thankfully I just bought it off a coolminiornot member for $20 or so, so didn't spend so much on it.