Saturday 18 November 2017

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…

19 comments:

  1. A bit too mild and reasoned to make it as a rant really though one could perhaps class it as a proto-rant?

    Anyway, I had to develop a rather thick skin when I went from 15mm to wargaming in 54mm and 40mm but it was good for my development as a person. These days when struggling to paint stripes on a 40mm Landsknecht, I try to console myself with the memory that in the 70's I was able to convert H&R figures and paint stripes on my 6mm Spanish pike and shot and Waffenfarbe on my microarmour tank commanders. (Butterfly even back then)

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    1. Stripes on Landsknechts? Impressive. I spent ages wondering how I managed to do stripy sleeves on a 33 mm ECW dismounted officer. I still don't know, but I must have done somehow.

      But a thick skin and a mild manner are useful in the wargaming world

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  2. Painting 6mm is a lot easier than bigger scales. You can be pretty slapdash without spoiling the overall effect, which is great if like me you don't have a steady hand.
    There's a really good painting (and base texturing) guide on the Baccus website. Improved my efforts immeasurably (even on my H&R figures ; ) ).

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    1. Yes, the Baccus guide is useful; my painting has improved but is still rubbish, however....

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  3. Reasonably mild mannered, positively Anglican in its approach.

    Wargaming is a hobby and a passtime and therefore has no survival value. It is a bonus and therefore one of those things that *give* life value. I think I'm paraphrasing Sir Roger Scruton there. But as a result, there are no rules of wargaming other than the taste of the wargamer themselves. Curiously it may be one very rare instance where the central lie of Postmodernism, that there an infinite number of interpretations of any given activity and that *all* of those interpretations are equally valid, may be closer to the truth than otherwise.

    I have wargaming prejudices certainly. Slow games do not engage me and 15mm is a scale fit only for the Devil. But I suppose I try to exercise a little forebearance. I am concerned in wargamers and have no desire to diminish them.

    Perhaps it is a side effect of our dogmatic age?

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    1. well that makes me a devil-worshipper then! But I remember you yourself saying somewhere that one shouldn't tell someone they are 'enjoying themselves wrong'. Let a thousand flowers bloom..

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    2. Great heavens? An Anglican? I'll keep a foot in both camps and defy them to build the fence right over me. As for devil worship, I imagine such would be welcome in the Anglican church, so long as they don't disturb the sleeping congregation, sit of Mrs Blogg's pew, get all enthusiastic at the peace and give people hugs and that they can stand the indistinguishable tea and coffee after the service....

      Wargaming is a hobby. Enjoy it. Let no-one say you are doing it wrong, it should be life giving and affirming.

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  4. Thank you! I would even be so bold to suggest that one needn't attempt to paint eyeballs on 25-30mm figures either. Makes 'em look like strangely dressed, wild-eyed muppets. And I may yet have a go at 6mm myself at some point. I have poor eyes AND and I am beyond the pale at this point age-wise, but I won't let that stop me. But all this talk of postmodernism! And on a Saturday morning too.

    Best Regards,

    Stokes

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    1. 6 mm is well worth a go, even if just for the different perspective. Eyesight and unsteady hands are no excuse. Only a lead pile which is about to topple is viable as a reason for not trying something new out.

      I do apologise about the outbreak of postmodernism. Normal late modern service will be resumed shortly.

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  5. I feel your exasperation. If it's not scale issues, it's terminology, or some other mode of bonding through splitting the hobby into a bunch of tribal sub-cultures with each group defining the others as Other. It seems to be just a reflection of broader trends in the rest of the world, and yet it is all so unnecessary. I hope no one will advocate nailing me to a tree for suggesting that we might actually be most excellent to each other instead.

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    1. I'm sure we could not, in this day and age, nail anyone to a tree; it is hardly eco-friendly. But it is interesting about sub-tribing ourselves. It isn't as if the number of wargamers in the world is massive anyway.

      Maybe we're back to the Anglicans - busy falling out among themselves while the organisation shrinks.

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    2. Is wargaming really shrinking? Answers on the back of a 10 Euro note to the usual address.

      It seems that humans seek identity by placing themselves in opposition to other identities, defining themselves more by what they are not than what they are. I wonder how small a group would have to be for there to be no chance of it fragmenting further.

      Either that, or we are all one tribe, and 6mm gamers are the unpopular kids who are picked on by the rest of the gang, but whose presence is essential to the group's cohesiveness.

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    3. Given some experience in this, I'd say that the smallest group where we can be fairly sure no further fracture will occur, all other things being normal, is one.

      Possibly, hence I am a solo gamer....

      Often within a tribe, differences which seem trivial to outsiders can be the things which cause breakup.

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    4. Having some experience with this myself, I think that even a group of one can have serious fallings out with itself! :)

      On the tribe front, it's almost as if people look for differences to fall out over.

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  6. Thank you, that was the politest 'rant' possible, and should serve as a model to all of us, to think before we type! Having looked at Foy's post and comments again, to be fair I think he only said "I've convinced myself years ago that I do not have the skill to go anywhere near these insect scales. They do look good though when they are well painted". On a later post he showed some pics of superbly-detailed painting of 6mm figures. I commented at that point that I found them fantastic but a little depressing, since I couldn't do that level of detail on a 15mm figure, let alone 6mm! I may not have put it too well but I think I am agreeing with you; I think smaller figures require different methods, and we shouldn't all be tyrannised by the current 28mm 'paint every detail in umpteen shades and highlights' fashion. I'd recommend taking a look at Sidney Roundwood's recent(ish) posts on 2mm-scale Thirty Years War battle re-creations - really interesting!

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    1. I'm not aiming the words at M Foy himself, but there were one or two comments along the lines of 'too small to paint'. But I think we are agreeing, and I am occasionally tempted by 2 mm, but my lead pile is just a bit too big at the moment.

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    2. Cheers - another advantage of smaller scales is presumably that the 'lead mountain' tends to be more of a small lead hillock... :)

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    3. Not necessarily David. You just get more of them ;-)

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  7. I am very late to this post, but am nonetheless a bit perplexed by it. Mention of things like "calming down" and rants and "tribal sub-cultures" does not seem to have any obvious connection with my blog post which you mention. At no point in that post did I ever state any dislike or prejudice against the small scales - nor would I have, since i am something of a fan - I think I observed that I would be terrified of painting 1mm or 2mm figures, and I do have some doubts as to how good a job i could make of these very small figures, but I have samples here of Baccus figures painted by Lee Gramson (for example) which are just marvellous - I keep them just to look at them from time to time.

    I am very positive about the idea of small figures - always have been - i think the MF 5mm blocks were not a successful implementation of the idea, and Peter Gouldesbrough's painting of them was really pretty dreadful (which didn't really help the overall experience), but I am very impressed and pleased by what I've seen more recently.

    So no hostility here - I even checked the comments to my post to see what might have caused problems, but am none the wiser. I am delighted that you are a 6mm devotee. If my post sparked some defensive ire then of course I regret this, but am still totally mystified - you may have hit back at the wrong target!

    Regards - MSF

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