Miniatures for Tabletop can be technically well-painted and still not achieve the effect that one hopes for as an artist. Even a miniature fan from the community is dissatisfied with his otherwise solidly painted soldier. Veterans explain where the problem lies and what simple trick can solve it.
What problem do many miniatures have? There are many miniatures that actually have a quite realistic look, yet their artists are still not satisfied. Something is missing, and it is not clear what it is.
Even the miniature fan kairas718 on Reddit has encountered this problem. His soldier was solidly painted and has strong effects like slight rust, yet he still finds it “boring.”
Here you can see the artist’s soldier:
“I wanted to achieve a realistic look based on tank models from World War II,” explains kairas718, “It looks realistic, but it seems a bit boring, and I want to make it livelier without it looking too unrealistic.”
The community understands what the miniature fan means. Especially veterans of the hobby recognize the problem: The figure lacks contrast despite the realistic approach.
“Your eyes will deceive you”
How can you train your eye for contrast? The short answer is: very difficult. The better one: You don’t have to.
The Reddit user Sparklehammer tells the artist of the soldier that you can’t always trust your eyes when painting:
The natural instinct of many artists whispers like a little devil on their shoulder that you should not overdo it with light and shadow. After all, the figures have little arms, which are perhaps a maximum of 3 millimeters thick. However, the miniature should not look like a tiny figurine in an oversized world but like a soldier, hero, or adventurer who could be around 2 meters or taller in their world.
You should have more courage for light and shadow in miniatures, giving the figure more contrast. When you reach a point where your own eye can no longer help, there is a trick that every artist, whether for miniatures or classical art, should learn.
What is this trick? Oftentimes, the intended realism and an illusion of contrast created by colors will obstruct recognizing the true light-dark contrast. What helps is simply removing the color.
This is demonstrated by the user Arazlam666 using the soldier compared to the greyscale of Master Chief from Halo:
With the soldier, one can see in greyscale that most of the miniature is almost a similar gray tone, whether it’s the armor or the weapon. In contrast, Master Chief shows several shades of black and dark grays up to light gray and almost white highlights. This gives a figure more depth and makes it appear more realistic.
Even MeinMMO editor Caro grabbed one of her current miniatures as a test subject when discovering this tip to check the contrast herself:
With this trick, you do not have to rely on your eyes or your knowledge of color theory and can already find out with a photo if your miniature has enough contrast. You also do not need an expensive image editing program for this. Most smartphones allow you to completely reduce the saturation of an image in the pre-installed camera or photo gallery.
When painting miniatures, it seems that you never really stop learning. Even MeinMMO editor Caro has realized through the community in this example that tips and tricks from painting can also easily be applied to miniatures. What she has already learned in her first year with the hobby is reported here: A look back at my first year as a miniature rookie – These are the 6 things I have learned since I started
