Why don't mantic painters... paint the model details?

Why don't mantic painters... paint the model details? It makes the models look like shit when they aren't that bad. They have depth and details but the official paintjobs don't show them.

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous
    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Whoever did those not!Tomb Kings needs to go over the KoW catalogue of miniatures. Those look good.

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I have a feeling that they probably don't hire professional painters and instead the big boys at the studio are the ones that do the painting.
    Looking at the Mantic catalogue makes me wonder whether the sculpts are actually good and it is the paintjob that is doing a disservice.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Even GW minis are now clearly better than the paint job suggests and certainly better than the terrible studio photography presented on a dead white background

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    That model is shit and the paintjob it carrying it hard. It had to be painted wth almost neon green and extremely careful highlighting to bring out the details. It was probably designed in a CAD program as a much larger 3D model, with little thought given to utilizing miniatures as a distinct medium and then just scaled down to a smaller size at the end. So the end result is a tiny dude with regular proportions which looks like shit as a miniature, because you basically have to paint it this way in order to be able to tell what you're looking at. Whereas if you look at more 'heroic' scale miniatures you can paint them however you like and it will still be obvious what you're looking at when you're holding them at them at arms length in real life. Which is important when you're using minatures for a wargame since you're going to be looking at most of them from a foot away on the tabletop rather than a blown-up photo.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >muh GW "heroic scale" little action figures look better than your accurately-scaled figure because of reasons!
      lmfao what a fricking moron. Literally everything you said just now is bullshit and scale creep is cancerous garbage for tasteless morons that can't paint and want to buy toys but pay way too much for them to give their meaningless lives some fake importance.

      sincerely, 6mm/15mm wargamer

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Doesn't have to be GW you moron. There's other companies and even other Mantic designers that understand what I'm talking about.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >people thousands of years ago understood how proportions need to change depending on the scale of a work
        >the Parthenon was designed and built using these concepts by people who didn’t even have the technology to machine a bolt
        >anon still doesn’t get it

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Dude look closer at that miniature, the guy who painted it deliberately put the black/blue camo patterns around the details so you'd notice that they exist. The folds on the model are garbage.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        15mm, are you sure you don't mean 18mm++?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This is your brain on Games Workshop.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        This is your brain on contrarianism.
        Why do you think animations mostly use stylized proportions instead of drawing everything perfectly realistically? What wargamers understand as 'heroic scale' is basically just art design, where an artist thoughtfully considers that a full-scale miniature might not look good or readable at 28mm scale and then stylizes the miniature's proportions with that in mind.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Animation is completely different medium, moron. You could as well use comic book speech bubbles as an example, it's a different subject.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            You homosexual. Animators consider their medium and make a strategic decision to draw a nose as a triangle or a dot instead of being fully detailed or accurately-proportioned. Because aside from time- and cost- reasons it's also an artistic and stylistic choice about where to direct the viewers attention and what to emphasize emotionally.
            Miniatures designers have to make the same sorts of decisions when designing miniatures, but specific to their own medium.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              This is a weird attempt at an argument. The two are not the same on any level.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >wanting minis that look like the subject matter is contranianism
          Inoperable.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          So it's a matter of taste, which is fine, but this asshat

          That model is shit and the paintjob it carrying it hard. It had to be painted wth almost neon green and extremely careful highlighting to bring out the details. It was probably designed in a CAD program as a much larger 3D model, with little thought given to utilizing miniatures as a distinct medium and then just scaled down to a smaller size at the end. So the end result is a tiny dude with regular proportions which looks like shit as a miniature, because you basically have to paint it this way in order to be able to tell what you're looking at. Whereas if you look at more 'heroic' scale miniatures you can paint them however you like and it will still be obvious what you're looking at when you're holding them at them at arms length in real life. Which is important when you're using minatures for a wargame since you're going to be looking at most of them from a foot away on the tabletop rather than a blown-up photo.

          claims vehemently that it's objective shit to have realistic proportions and not look like an exaggerated GW cartoon. Also "heroic scale" isn't any sort of new "artistic design" LMFAO it's literally just scale creep, giant ass 35mm figures that look fricking stupid compared to everything else 28/32mm scale because BIG IS COOL LOOK AT THE DETAIL and morons can't paint. Has nothing to do with the look as that's entirely subjective, and in game mechanics terms for wargames, larger scale usually means a worse game as you have less room to maneuver and less space overall which is 40GAY in a nutshell--braindead plastic crack for morons that don't actually like wargames, tactics, or history. GW was the worst thing to happen to wargames since their inception, and the morons ITT are proof of that brain rot.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      They look a lot better when painted properly

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Most companies sculpt miniatures digitally nowdays, including smaller companies. Inb4
      >m-muh perry

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      They got Angel Giraldez to paint some of their models which make them look pretty spiffy.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >They got Angel Giraldez to paint some of their models which make them look pretty spiffy.
        Whether that is true or not it still makes sense that a better painter has made the models look a lot better.
        Do you have any proof that Angel did paint those miniatures and for what armies did Angel paint?

        Makes me wonder how good the Mantic models actually look like if a proper paint job makes them look good.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Angel Giraldez posts all of his commissions on his Facebook page. There is a decent amount of eye candy there. Every release since KOW 3E has had Angel paint at least one piece. He's done a couple of videos on painting the models too like this one on the mutant rat fiend https://youtu.be/BCFWjj1VyAU

          I honestly don't think that Mantic's new stuff is any worse than any most other companies. They get the same freelancers to sculpt their models as other companies and don't manufacture things too differently either. It's more of a symptom of the industry homogenizing than anything. They've come far since their garbo restic models.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >They've come far since their garbo restic models.
            I actually like Mantic's dwarfs and their cartoony looks.
            But besides those what are the stragglers from that age of "restic" models still being sold?
            >It's more of a symptom of the industry homogenizing than anything.
            I don't necessarily think that is a good thing. To me it means that everything is going to be a little bit the same instead of a nice large selection of different design philosophies to choose from. I get that there will always be a market for old school looking miniatures but outside from that the industry homogenizing might mean that everything either looks like it was meant to be proxied with GW models or an asset meant more for a video game being sold as a miniature. STLmakers are particularly guilty of making miniatures look more like they belong in video games than as miniatures. I have a feeling that's because most are 3D artists that take commissions for video game assets and their specialization bleeds into STL making which I guess is a secondary source of income for them.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Their ogres are still PVC. However a few days ago Ronnie showed off hard plastic ones which are ditching the knobby knees. They already stated that they are making new hard plastic Twilight Kin too, leaving just normal elves, orcs, and dwarves alone.

              I still think that Mantic has a bit of their own goofy style. I know what you are talking about when it comes to video game esque models that don't work well in miniature form, but Mantic's figures remain very chunky in heroic scale 28mm and they at least seem to retain the same concept designer as in the early days given the sketches that they share on occasion.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >leaving just normal elves, orcs, and dwarves alone.
                Are the elves and orc sculpts that bad or do they just need better paintjobs?

                GW needs a proper direct rival. A proper rivalry that inspires competitive low pricing, better rules and better public relations for sales. This hobby could use such a rivalry so long as it inspires quality rules with better sculpts at better prices.
                But let a man dream.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                I think that the elves with their super skinny look actually do suffer from the very hard to see on the table video game syndrome. Compare the plastics to the newer sculpts like the Drakon Riders (This guy is also painted by Angel btw) which looks more substantial. The concept of the dwarfs isn't bad, but the plastics have some serious detail bleed in places and just aren't up to the engineering chops of the current stuff. The orcs don't actually look that terrible IMO, and Mantic is keeping around given that they are part of all of the Riftforged Orc bundles that they have been selling as of late.

                I don't think that Mantic can really compete with GW in that regard and that's not why I play their games in the first place. If you look at the other best selling miniatures lines. Reaper Bones and FFG Star Wars Legion, they are fairly different affairs compared to GW. Being much cheaper than GW is only part of it. Most of the whales who play miniatures games don't really care about GW pricing after all.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >everything either looks like it was meant to be proxied with GW models
              God this is the one thing that disappoints me about this STL miniature thing. There are a lot of very skilled people making printable miniatures, but it feels like everything is trapped in the gravitational pull of Games Workshop
              >or an asset meant more for a video game
              Care to elaborate? Is it just a function of aesthetics, or is it more of a technical thing? I do notice when a model feels like it was designed for an entirely different scale, and have gotten pretty good at identifying when someone is "selling the render" (though as 3D printing tech advances this is becoming less and less of an issue)

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                To try and keep it short if you look at enough STLs like a terminally online netizen you'll begin to see a pattern in video game asset design philosophy bleeding into miniature design. Minis first tend to be cartoony while video game assets tend to be better proportioned, but also were most likely designed in a "t-pose" before rigged for different poses and very very highly detailed. 3D clippings can be a dead giveaway.

                >Care to elaborate?
                I'll try my best.
                The first sign is that the models are designed with incredible detailing as if they were meant to be a much larger display piece to be professionally painted rather than tiny dudes meant to be painted quickly in batch painting. Realistic proportions are also a dead giveaway as miniatures often have chunkier designs to them so that the shapes of them can be more easily "visually read" at a far distance across the tabletop.
                Generally if the model doesn't look very cartoony then it probably suffers from a kind of syndrome that the designer has a portfolio for video game assets and does STL making as a side gig.
                Another way to tell is if the models are hyper detailed even at the 28mm scale so a beginner painter might look somewhere else
                Now "realistic proportions" or "more reasonable proportions" in that they aren't very cartoony might be something someone likes, but it is not my thing.

                I'll admit it is a weird paradox because some miniatures like Perry Miniatures are realistically proportioned, but don't look like video game assets.
                Stare at enough professional STLs behind paywalls and a good chunk of them that look intimidating to paint at 28mm scale might suffer from vidya asset design bleeding into miniature STL designs. Not that I wish to discredit the sublime work of the creators. It is all a matter of taste.

                I hope this word salad helped, anon.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >God this is the one thing that disappoints me about this STL miniature thing. There are a lot of very skilled people making printable miniatures, but it feels like everything is trapped in the gravitational pull of Games Workshop
                I think Mantic is well aware that while they try to do their own thing people treat them as an alternative Warhammer fantasy and proxy miniature provider.
                Say what you will about their dwarfs as I think they definitely look like Mantic tried to have a design that would make them different from GW dwarfs.

                Whether they did a good or not is up to you.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                They look good enough for rank-and-file. I definitely wouldn’t pay GW prices for them, though

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Most of the details are just random geometric shapes

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      On the chest there's clearly pouches with straps and buckles unpainted.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I don't know how much it's changed but Mantic used to hire commission painters rather than having their own Eavy Metal style team.

    Some things are a bit better, the recent Deadzone and Firefight releases broadly look well painted for advertising.

    But yeah, they should take a leaf out of GW's book. Also the pictures on the website are tiny.

    And let's not get on to how the sci-fi miniatures are split between the three sections for Warpath, Firefight and Deadzone. It would be better if they sorted by faction, then had some kind of key so you knew which units are for which games.

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >paint tards arguing again
    Lmao ok. 99.9% of painted miniatures look like absolute dog shit. I don’t know how anyone could not be completely embarrassed putting down irrefutable proof that they sat quietly like a moron and painted for 60+ hours only to produce something that objectively looks worse than a heroclix model even at the highest levels.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >sat quietly like a moron
      ADHD?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >heroclix model
      Ahhh, it's a Mousecuck. No wonder it's ashamed of focus, unable to comprehend creativity and hateful of effort.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Come here so I can shit into your empty skull cavity

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Much of the lack of appeal from mantic comes from the paintjob in my opinion. The later new minis look quite good.

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    …I don’t know what you’re talking about, the model in OP looks good. Well above tabletop standard.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      The thing is, display models you take pictures from to sell your product need to be way above tabletop standardso your product looks its absolute best. A good model with a lackluster paintjob usually looks worse than a poor model with a stellar paintjob.

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    They tend to paint them in military styles, semi camo, blending in etc. Only 40k children insist on contrasting dayglow colours on everything that make the model 'pop' like they are at a gay nightclub, not a battlefield.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >I'll paint my minis in realistic camo
      >uhhhh what is it
      >REEEEEEEEE MUH REALISM

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I never reeeed. That is you being delusional whenever you find someone who disagrees with you. Sort yourself and your shit painting techniques out.

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Looks fine.

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Because they're lazy

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Because they're lazy
      Like you don't have a shelf full of grey minis

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I do, but I don't make a living by selling them.

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