Vive La Difference!

In all my dealings on the internet, on blogs, on Twitter when I was a twit (a very brief sojourn, in my case, forced upon my by a course), via email and across the whole gamut of media, I try not to act with annoyance, irritation and certainly not in anger. The destructive effects of anger, trolling and so on are displayed on your screens every day, and I, for one, wish to have not part in that.

So I have thought very carefully about posting this article, and let the fires of, well, not anger or even mild irritation die down. As the residue is a mix of slight frustration and very modest exasperation is sufficient to motivate a blog post, but not, I hope, to cause any flame wars to erupt across the wargaming blogo-sphere, I will, cautiously, attempt to explain.

One of the blogs I keep an eye on (‘follow’ seems altogether too much like fan-dom for comfort) is MS Foy’s ‘Prometheus in Aspic’. It is, I find, interesting, both in the wargaming aspects and in the trips down memory lane. I am not, never have been, and never will be, a Napoleonic wargamer, but M. Foy’s occasional forays into English Civil War, attempts at campaigns and so on make for an interesting read.  

A recent post (as I write this) was on the very old Minifigs 5 mm blocks. I am, bless my little cotton socks, far too young to remember these, although I have heard of them. M. Foy, in the course of a trip down memory lane recalling a Scottish wargamer, remarks on the philosophy of using small figures, comments I will try to return to later.

The problem I have, which is the cause of my slight feelings of exasperation, at least sufficient to promote an outbreak of a sight as I read the comments, were notes along the line of ‘I could not possible paint anything that small’. Now, in some cases, including from the blog owner himself, this was dressed up as ‘I know it can be done but I couldn’t do it’, or words to that effect. Often these sorts of comments are wrapped up in self-deprecatory humour, along the lines of ‘I’m too old for this’.

Now, I am a 6 mm wargamer. This is a choice I have made, and I have been wargaming in the scale for about 25 years. My eyesight was never very good to start with, and recently I have, on my optician’s advice, started to swap between two pairs of spectacles. The alternative was ‘varifocals’, but I do not fancy reading (something which, some of you may have noticed, I do quite a lot of) with my head turned back at a funny angle. Can I assure all the doubters that it is perfectly possible to paint 6 mm figures very nicely (or, in my case, adequately) whatever the state of you eyesight.

The problem is that this comes round again and again in wargame circles. ‘I can’t paint that size’. What size brush do you need for that?’ and so on. I have seen and heard enough of it to be thoroughly bored by the whole thing (so why write about it? Catharsis, probably; I doubt I will change anyone’s mind). The point is that painting 6 mm figures is easy; it just requires a rather different technique from bigger figures.

If you think about logically (and I realise logic has little to do with the “normal” scale prejudice I have referred to recently) then painting a belt on a 25 mm figure is no easier, and might be rather a lot more difficult, than painting a face and hands on a 6 mm figure. I trust that those who claim they could not paint a 6 mm figure have left the belts and gaiters unpainted on their own larger figures. Consistency is important, after all.

‘Ah,’ the reply might come, ‘but what about the eyeballs!’ This is often pronounced as if the 6 mm figure painter has never thought of it before. It is rather easy. You do not even attempt to paint them. You cannot see them; you cannot see them even in a real sized human at a few paces, so why try on a wargame figure?

Bizarre objection upon bizarre objection tends to follow. It becomes perfectly clear that the wargamer making these objections has no intention of being persuaded out of their point of view. It is not even as if the 6 mm wargame figure painter is attempting to convert them. There is no acknowledgement that an alternative way can be found. And that is very sad, for in my very limited experience of switching from 6 mm figure painting to bigger figures, painting the smaller ones is very useful in making better progress with the big ones. Learning a new technique is often a useful activity. Conversely, being closed to the very idea of a new technique seems to me to diminish the humanity of person closing the idea down.

Now, I do not wish anyone to get upset, throw teddies around, and denounce me to the wargame authorities or anything of the sort as a result of my comments. Hopefully, readers of the blog (which may include M. Foy himself, I’m not sure) will know that I am of the opinion that each wargamer can wargame how they wish, in whatever scale they choose. But I also think that there is a tremendous amount that we can learn from each other about wargaming – rules, ideas, scenarios and, yes, techniques of painting. Simply dismissing the experience of a set of wargamers through some sort of scotoma is unfortunate, to say the least.

Now, I hope I have not ranted. This post is meant as a mild reproof for those whose ideas of painting are perhaps a little stale, made more in sorrow than in anger. Wargaming is, after all, a hobby. If I get angry about it, the whole point is rather dented, after all.

And, finally, I have run out of words, so a discussion of the ‘philosophy’ of 6 mm wargaming will have to wait for another opportunity…