Painted vs Unpainted Figures

Nick, in one of the game rules books, perhaps one of the classics, the author encourages people to attempt painting their figures even if it is only dabbing some pink on the face and a few other parts. To that author, partial or imperfect painting is better than no painting. However, that was the old days. Maybe the norms in the hobby have changed, with standards rising. Maybe most people agree with your preference that figures should either be unpainted or painted very well. That would be interesting to learn. Perhaps we need a poll. You might be right. Beautiful painting seems to have become the standard that everyone is expected to reach.

These quotes are from One Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas.
„When taking up the challenge, it is vital to consider that you only have yourself to please–you can derive just as much pleasure from a basic paint job as one involving technically sophisticated work. When producing armies for the first time, simplicity is the key, as Bruce Quarrie pointed out in his classic book, Napoleonic Wargaming: ‘But do, please do, make some effort to paint them. Even if your hand isn’t as steady as you would like, it isn’t too much to ask of anybody a black shako (hat), red or blue jacket, and grey or white trousers, with perhaps a touch of pink for face and hands, and black shoes and musket–is it? If painted in batches of a dozen or so at a time, doing all the hats first, then all the jackets, and so on, it does not take long, and the result in terms of tabletop appearance well justifies the slight effort.’ Quarrie, Bruce, Napoleonic Wargaming (Patrick Stephens, 1974) (p. 6).
„

Three cheers to that. Unpainted is cool. Amateur painting is cool. Skilled painting is cool. Whatever floats your boat. Its a grand hobby.

When I was a child I had large numbers of cereal toy and HK plastic unpainted figures of cowboys and Indians and WW2. They served alongside Timpo (with different coloured over moulding), various British made figures of ACW, Western and WW2 in factory paint jobs and a handful of old lead household troops.

Some of he cereal cowboys and silver plastic Warriors of the World were painted by me with household paint and the odd Humbrol enamel. At first I didn't have flesh colours and used cream coloured paint for some cowboys and WW2 while the Indians got a deep chocolate coloured skin. I was only about ten years old but I treasured my own paint work.

When I was given Airfix 20mm marines and Germans I also did the two or three colours with skin painted and weapons although the marines were painted a fairly bright dark green gloss.

By the time I was in my early teens I was painting 1/32 Airfix kit figures and also the soft plastic sets with increasing skill. My collection of painted figures grew hugely especially in my 20s when I became a member of ACOTS (Australian Collectors of Toy Soldiers). We were playing games with hundreds and sometimes thousands of 54mm figures with generally 24 to an infantry regiment and 12 to a cavalry unit. All the figures were and are painted because we like the look of it all as much as the actual game. The only, occasionally, 'unpainted' already had factory paint jobs. DSG figures are useful here for getting units together quickly. I'm using quite a few DSG remoulds of Herald Indians in my current games with a neighbour, as well as Britains Detail cavalry.

Although I appreciate the detail on unpainted figures the detail is less apparent from a distance unless they are painted.

As for using the same figures for different eras and imagi-armies I tend to have core units then that are especially created for the imagination or actual nation and then fill in the rest of the army with ACW or Napoleonics etc that match a general colour scheme for the nation. However I have got large armies for medieval, ACW and a number of eras anyway.

The best thing, though, about unpainted figures is you can just quickly toss them in a box after the game and there is less trepidation about letting young nephews play in the garden with them. So there are advantages for both preferences. A compromise is the Britains Detail figures that have paint that is very tough on a tough plastic and does not come off even if figures are dropped on a concrete floor.

However, generally, I like to admire my paint work and conversions and they add character to the figures.

We admire them AND play with them! You can see my stuff at my blog, Quantrill's Toy Soldiers. Mind you there are figures I have painted that I have not wargamed with but they are in a minority.

Most of my games are generic rather than historical specific battles but I have based some on historical events. I aim to get the uniforms, equipment and rules right for the period and then just play a game to see who wins. Often it is artificially with equally balanced armies. other times a weaker force is on the defensive or has hidden troops or a smaller force has better weapons. One game based on an event I recall was Gettysburg, not as big as the original but with a thousand or so figures put on by my friend in Adelaide, Bob. I was the Confederates and almost pulled off a victory but, of course, the odds were against the attackers.

I also play fantasy and mixed period games. I played a fantasy medieval campaign game (with 54mm of course) over a few years. My friend mat and I used secret map moves facilitated by screw draws numbered to correspond to hexes and when my piece of paper met his a battle happened or one tried to extract one' undersized forces. Whoever won was able to bring back half his casualties whilst whoever lost (unless wiped out or captured) could bring back one quarter.

Each hex in our countries of Bogavania and Beerstein generated credits depending on resources. Every four map moves we could buy more troops, build castles or boats and roads etc (It took time to build things). Mat's Bogavania began to lose land and credits and finally he was reduced to a handful of credits when we stopped the campaign. He has been saved by a neighbouring country (Fez) which wants Bogavania as a buffer state. Fez had already entered the conflict a couple of times but been driven back by Beerstein.

When we renew the war Mat will be Fez and rump Bogavania in a medieval-Renaissance- horse and musket combination so we will be using both medieval and ECW figures among others. There are other nations that can get involved in raiding our borders; we roll for those every four turns. We can also use ancient Romans, Vikings and Aztecs.

As for space I use my double garage and connected rumpus room. I have table tennis tables that have been extended with smaller tables and are permanently set up (with a lot of boxes of toy soldiers underneath and surrounded by kitchen glass cabinets full of painted toy soldiers.

That's right. The Tony Bath book influenced me as did Fantasy Wargaming by Hackett. Games Worksop also has some good campaign ideas in their Fantasy old rules books. Tomorrow I'll be playing another American Indian Wars game. It is a lot of organisation if done in detail so I have put off the next campaign! I hope to get it up and running again over the next few months.

First of all, Auty, welcome to the group! And no apologies need be made regarding your painting skills - they look marvelous, really.

Also, I have to thank you for bumping this topic. Somehow I missed it, and that's a shame, because for the last two years or so I've acquired several collections I intend to keep unpainted, and so this is a subject quite close to my heart just now. Honestly, if you would have told me ten years ago that I would be deriving just as much joy from my unpainted fellows as from their more colourful brethren, I would have choked on my drink, smiled suspiciously, and walked off to another table. In short, I never would have believed it. But as I've mentioned on a few other threads hereabouts, a few years ago I discovered a number of plastic manufacturers (largely Russian, interestingly enough) whose figures are so eye-catching, such beautiful sculpts, that I find - at least for me - they don't need any paint at all.

Currently I have two main projects in this new, paintless world: a fantasy Conan-themed project, and another set in a make-believe El Dorado, much inspired by a Chris Peers article years ago in Wargames Illustrated. What has struck me about both these endeavours is that once the table is set up with felt mat, block hills, Bully and Marx trees, and bits of plastic foliage picked up from Michael's, the masses of brave UNPAINTED men look just splendid. Again, maybe it's only me or a sign of degrading grey matter, I don't know. But I'm having a tremendous amount of fun, and that's all that matters, surely. You mentioned the toy look, and this is something that greatly appeals to me. Nostalgic memories of youthful battles with Marx WWII sets come flooding back whenever I game with these chaps. And I must respectfully disagree with the poster above who said that detail can't be seen in unpainted figures on a table. On the contrary, I find I can see it quite well, though unquestionably some colours of plastic work better than others: I find darker colours, black especially, tend to blur more than lighter when viewed from a distance. Finally there is the delight felt, once battle battle is over, the smoke is clearing and the vanquished have fled the field to lick their wounds until the next time, that one can scoop up all his proud heroes, toss them unceremoniously into their respective bags, hurl the lot in a box and be done. It's a liberating experience.

Having said all this, I still love my painted collections and have no intent of getting rid of them. It's simply that there are delights to be found with unpainted figures I never would have expected during most of my time in the hobby. Thank you again for resurrecting the topic, and I hope we get to see more of your collections in the future!

Daryl