I've had these minis for a couple of years but never really did anything with them. I decided to give them a lick of paint as part of my foray into 3d sculpting and printing to see how I felt about the style and size of them.
There's no denying that Infinity minis are very cool and stylish, and most importantly for me they're internally consistent as a range when it comes to style and size (mostly).
Heroic style has really bugged me for years. I always drift back to it as a fun and familiar style, but 3d sculpting offers up the opportunity for me to produce different version of my minis - heroic style, or even Infinity style. I'm under no illusions you can simply shrink or inflate a sculpt, features will need to be tweaked accordingly in every case when you switch size and style.
As a mini designer Infinity stuff really falls down in one key area for me - too many parts to glue together when the mini could easily be a single cast. Total pain.
That said, infinity stuff is seriously easy to paint! Way more easier than some of the recent GW plastics. The small size of infinity means less surface area. No big areas to blend, so less need for washes. A fine detail brush and a steady hand are a must, but layering of paint is very effective.
The mantic games Star Saga plastics are essentially cheap and nasty casts, the sculpts are pretty decent but I'd say slightly over engineered... too much detail and gubbins that really aren't necessary. Still, quick table quality paintjobs on them using my Inifinity approach seems to have come out OK.
And yes, they scale really well with Infinity.
Going off on a tangent now, this little collection I have will be perfect for Stargrave!
Too much detail & gubbins.... GW's bad influence :-)
ReplyDeleteI agree it's not a good thing. Maybe easy for drybushing, but it all makes the sculpt less readable from a distance, and sometimes way too busy when painted.
Yep that's it - crammed with minutia the mini loses it's readability from afar/quick glance, and you lose a bit of punch visually.
DeleteI honestly think it's a symptom of 3d sculpting, it's relatively easy to create a figure without any visual design savvy. Coming up with and sticking to an appropriate motif can be skipped over by adding panels, pouches and straps.
Could be, though I believe with GW, who have been doing it for a long time, it would be a conscious design decision and very much part of their miniature esthetic. And I also have the impression a lot of indie 3D sculpting doesn't really go for this approach (which doesn't mean those designers are never lazy, but they are so in other ways).
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