the 'foundry' style of mini painting

[Medved]

right, i want to know what you guys think of the "foundry" style of painting. i am of course on about the style used by steve dean and kevin dallimore.

http://www.kevindallimore.co.uk

there are lots of people who use this style (mainly for historical minis) as it is methodical and can get minis ready for gaming very effectively. 

i used to dismiss it as being too blocky and unblended ( it uses a 3 tone system of shade, base and highlight)  but i am coming around to the effect it has for gaming minis.  I am interested in getting back into gaming some time and not having to do showpiece paintjobs all the time. 

so what are your feelings?

[gi6ers]

I really like it, I lurk over on Steve's site.

Here are some other masters of the style for you:

Redzed (check out Judge Dredd): http://www.displacedminiatures.com/redzed/images.html?galleryId=1728&from=2000AD

Tom Wiess (sp?) http://www.twfigurines.de/

Alex Bews http://www.witchhunter.net/

I saw a lot of Kevin Dallimore's stuff at Salute last year and it does pop out at you.

[Bungle]

Honest feelings?

It works well on 15mm figures. (well I found it did anyway, my slightly sloppy version which is probably 4 tones with ink wash and a bit of blending)

it looks good on a table on 28's from 3 feet.

Its good if you get figures painted for you as so many people do figures that way, the style blends them together and they don't stand out even if the paint jobs vary in quality.

It is quick.

With some blending or a harmoising ink wash, the figures look less like and escapee from Dr Frankensteins lab.

For photgraphed miniatures... forget it they look terrible.  But thats just my opinion. Steve Dean seems to make it work.. other peoples attempts often look like a patchwork quilt.

[Medved]

yeh i remember the tom Weiss stuff. he changed over (he used to have such a nice smooth style) after he won a slayer sword.

basically i'd like to get into the gaming again and i know that some of the historical minis vary in quality i want a good simple style that will standardise the troops and look good as a group.

[Agentmolar]

Ive got back to trying this for grunt rank and file troops. I want to get my layering better for my display pieces( read miniautres i love that i want to do REALLY well)  but ive even gone back to dry brushing finish my never ending IG army. ugh chalky results, but look table top acceptable.

[Dr.Evil]

It's more what your happy with, if you like it and want to then go for it.
It looks good to me but since i just paint for enjoyment i will be just doing my normal, but i might try it for figures i want to sell on ebay.

[SteveB]

Must admit I'm a fan of the style. It's very much a philosophy of keeping quality up without requiring huge amounts of time. It's generally based around the idea of painting taking in the region of two hours.

I consider Kev to be the master of this style mainly due to his superhuman knack for colour selection.

I do have minor issues such as the heavy shading around knuckles but, all in, I do like it a lot.

[Custom_Hobby]

I was glad to read you are getting back into sculpting and painting Steve. Maybe you can get into the little painting comp we are going to put together here on the forum.

[SteveB]

Possibly. I'm hoping to do a little painting soon. Just waiting on the P3 Iron Kingdoms paint set to finish up my collection (until the new ones come next month). 

[cheddarmonger]

The style looks great on the gaming table, with dozens or hundreds of these guys all painted.  The same can be said of any reasonably neat paint job.  I just don't like the aesthetics of it when looking at individual figures.

[Captain_Jack]

well if you up it from the 3 stage to at least 6 stage you get a nice painterly feel to it.  Then if you get all intellectual about it and use some colour theory and whatnot (ie useing brown as a shading for green espicially with orc skin and deepening the brown with blue and whatnot) then you have a style all on its own happening there.  I find it still works quite well for individual figures so longs as you use 6 or more layers of tone