Monday 10 October 2011

'Misdirection' about drybrushing

Over the weekend I worked with Diddy on the colour scheme for his nurgle chaos warriors. He bought the 'Cryx Colors' set of P3 paints from Privateer Press on my recommendation and because they were a very good deal for a small set that matched the scheme he's looking to achieve (they were about £12 for six colours). As I've said before, I've always been impressed with the P3 range, and these colours were no exception.


While we were thinking about the best approach to tackle the fur on the warriors' cloaks, we had a quick look in the old Storm of Chaos book and on the GW website to see what they recommended. In both places drybrushing highlights was suggested. However, as the following picture from SoC shows, the models that they use to illustrate this advice haven't actually been drybrushed:


Take a close look. I'd argue that the 'v' effect on the fur has not been achieved through drybrushing and that actually a careful application of successively lighter shades of brown has been used. Now, here's my problem with this. Although drybrushing is a legitimate time saving technique that can achieve a reasonable finish for tabletop miniatures, this (as far as I can tell) isn't what's represented in the picture, where a different and more time-demanding technique has been used.

Although I could be wrong about this [he says, inserting a caveat in case GW's lawyers see this and feel particularly litigious!], I would've thought that the professional GW painters would never use drybrushing. In fact, there seems to be a very distinct move towards bold and stark highlights that can't ever be achieved through this technique - take a look at the promotional shots of the new ogres for some clear examples on larger models.

I've got the healthy dose of scepticism of a man approaching middle age, so I'm able to see the discrepancy here. Also, although I'm returning to painting after a break of almost 20 years, I do have some previous experience - younger painters might not, and it's they who are most likely to fork out for White Dwarf and follow the advice they find there and on the GW website. Big deal? Maybe not. But I find this kind of subtle misdirection annoying, especially when it's most likely to influence and impact upon those younger gamers who can only afford a very limited number of models. 


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