Is digital painting in online stores okay

[Dihenydd]

I had to say I was confused when I saw the digitally painted figs. IMHO they were so obviously digitalized that I completely missed the point that they were available and for sale. I just thought they were some renderings of future releases so you could get an example. So rather than encouraging me to buy, they did the exact opposite, suggesting they were not available so I should check back in a few months if they were available. A disclaimer would have rectified that right away.

As far as painting digitally goes, I did not really like them, although the bright shiny colours did stand out for me. The greebo ones made me think more of Manga than mini's and the cheerleader at Impact just really seemed 'off' to me. Good idea I guess, but perhaps didn't quite nail the execution. None of these looked like actual minatures.

[Steam Ball]

Some brands have a big queue of products, so they can get them painted for real, but if other has very tight schedules, well, so be it... for some years photos have been digitally processed to fix flaws, etc. A bit more is not going to hurt, if you do it wrong, you get the backfire (Greebo should read other forums over a month ago people already said it was a weird painting at least, and the rants about too much retouch went for long). Cheaters get cuaght sooner or later. OTOH, being transparent about what is going one should be a must, like Hasselfree openly saying they "blacken" the miniatures, and even how they do it.

Personally, for products like miniatures, I would like to see photos of bare metal part(s) (to know what you get "raw", with the sprues, etc), the bare metal assembled and with a ruler and other shape improving tricks like inks (for scale, to know where every part goes and how the volumes work out), and then a painted version (optional, and at least make it average for the target market, so rank&file can be painted with quick methods to show they look great that way too). Multiple photos to get a full view from all angles would be best. Lot's of work, but also only way to show everything, and after all, you are trying to convince me about the product.

SilvaniaLineman1-colour.jpg

In any case, you can colour a photo and make it look like a painting (Greebo ones remind me of some semi-flat miniatures, like 2.5D), or like a photo, it depends on technique applied (and also the photo, bad lighting can make it a nightmare, in this case a higher resolution original would had been enough... it was fun for a quicky job anyway). OK, enough show off.

[Urb]

So a very fast test to see what a wash of ink would do. Left is no ink. Right of course with the wash. A whole 2 minutes to do.



There's definitely a difference but I think I would have to repeat the process atleast once more and with black ink and not brown. There's no burnishing but I wiped the model of excess ink. I believe this is how people paint by dipping in furniture varnish. I'm intrigue by the shoe polish idea other than some models with deep features would get clogged.

Anyways.... bed time for me.

[asperon]

Okay ... somebody figure out how Hasslefree is doing their washed figures and let me know ... I'll work on it.

Tom

I guess a simple mail to them would grant you that knowledge, they always seem real friendly to me.

[Piousman]

So far to me the inking attempts did not yield anything even close to what Hasslefree can do.

I continue to support Tom's original idea of a digitally painted original next to bare metal. Probably with shoe polish.

- Piousman
[Edit: clarified I mean digitally painted, not manual painted]

[Axtklinge]

(...) a painted original next to bare metal. (...)
- Piousman

+1 on that.

[Steam Ball]

So far to me the inking attempts did not yield anything even close to what Hasslefree can do.

And never will do, because as it has been said, they use shoe polish instead of ink, they are different substances with different behaviours, and the devil is in the details (proper cleaning for the polish, white primer for the ink as demoed by the washes page).

[GalakStarscraper]

Now that we are using Laughing Ferret Studio to work on our figures I just wanted to update to this thread. David's work is great. At the end of the day ... I don't agree with Ramsay's comment that a brush cannot achieve the effects of digital. I know I personally would never be able to obtain the level of painting of either of these images and personally I think David's looks better to my eye.

Bottom line .. I do agree that if something is digitally painted it should be clearly stated as such on the company site where the image is shown ... but the speed of gettting the images are a month faster for digitial.

Just wanted to update the thread ... my preference is still to get real brush work ... but I think that as long as its documented that digitial is fine as long as you don't paint what is not there.

Tom

[Urb]

At the end of the day ... I don't agree with Ramsay's comment that a brush cannot achieve the effects of digital.

I have to agree with both you and Norse. Most will never be able to come close with paint and brush what a average digital artist can achieve however there are a few, Jen Haley comes to mind, that can product work that far exceeds what most can do digitally.

my preference is still to get real brush work ... but I think that as long as its documented that digitial is fine as long as you don't paint what is not there.

I think that's fair and the ones that don't agree are far and few. It's a matter of ethics and Impact has always been a leader in this aspect.

btw I love how Laughing Ferret kept the same scheme. Great comparison.