6 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

Are you serious? You came here to complain about YouTube comments, insult everyone who commented before you because you didn't provide any context in your first post, and then accuse me of defending bullies?

And you only said YouTube twice AFTER you insulted us.

Tell me, where are the bullies in this thread? People said to either commission a painter or learn to paint like the rest of us.

How, in you mind, do you think that I insulted you?

Reminder: I lamented online bullying of people like the OP who aren’t interested in painting as much as actual gaming by snobby elitists, as demonstrated in many of the comment sections for the Legion demos.

You butted in to insult me for that unremarkable stance, which does suggest you self identify that way. But only you can really explain your odd activities.

14 minutes ago, Derrault said:

How, in you mind, do you think that I insulted you?

Reminder: I lamented online bullying of people like the OP who aren’t interested in painting as much as actual gaming by snobby elitists, as demonstrated in many of the comment sections for the Legion demos.

You butted in to insult me for that unremarkable stance, which does suggest you self identify that way. But only you can really explain your odd activities.

I've never played 40k or jumped into war gaming, mini painting, or terrain building. Yet your initial comment was complaining about 40k snobs, and considering the response you got for that comment, everyone else also felt insulted by your comment because you provided no context as to who the 40k snobs were.

I understand your comment in retrospect because I've also seen people complaining about the simplicity of Legion.

You also implied in the LTP thread that people who disagree with the stacking grenade rule that they have no comprehensive reading skills.

@Undeadguy Fly casual, cause that gamer ain’t worth it.

I am on the fence with Legion, it will depend on the local community. I just started painting, have done about 30 minis, 3/4 of those Black Plague Zombies. I am not good and not artistic like many on this board. I plan to continue and I will get better. I also have never played a war game, and have had no desire, until this. I started painting because I have a ton of ugly grey, blue, yellow etc plastic figures and after playing other games with pre-painted, Heroclix, D&D, I knew I could do a better job. Painting also lets me enjoy my games when I can not actually play.

Name a miniature game that is painted, besides X-Wing and Armada almost all of them look like crap and cost a ton. The D&D board games are $50-70 but the deluxe which are painted are $150 and they do not look very good, not double the price good.

I’m going to be playing legion but I do not agree that money is being saved by it being unpainted. If I buy all of the paints used in sorastro’s videos, I’m going to have to spend like $150 bucks plus brushes, primers etc. I have already bought the materials for a game board and made and painted some terrain. Probably about $70 spent on the board and Terrain so far. It’s going to cost about $250 bucks before even purchasing the actual game or expansions. That’s pretty pricey. Yes some of you hobbyists already own paints and some materials which is great but the game needs new people just like me as well as hobbyists that are already prepared for this type of game in order to be a success. Like I said I’m going to purchase the game and I’m going to learn to paint but I find it hard to believe that it’s saving anyone money. These paints by citadel and Vallejo and army painter are really expensive. I think the people that like the unpainted miniatures love to paint, not to save money and that’s cool. I just don’t see how it is saving anyone money unless you somehow get these expensive paints for free. Even if you already bought the paints for other projects and games, it’s still a cost that needs factored in.

1 hour ago, ninclouse2000 said:

I’m going to be playing legion but I do not agree that money is being saved by it being unpainted. If I buy all of the paints used in sorastro’s videos, I’m going to have to spend like $150 bucks plus brushes, primers etc. I have already bought the materials for a game board and made and painted some terrain. Probably about $70 spent on the board and Terrain so far. It’s going to cost about $250 bucks before even purchasing the actual game or expansions. That’s pretty pricey. Yes some of you hobbyists already own paints and some materials which is great but the game needs new people just like me as well as hobbyists that are already prepared for this type of game in order to be a success. Like I said I’m going to purchase the game and I’m going to learn to paint but I find it hard to believe that it’s saving anyone money. These paints by citadel and Vallejo and army painter are really expensive. I think the people that like the unpainted miniatures love to paint, not to save money and that’s cool. I just don’t see how it is saving anyone money unless you somehow get these expensive paints for free. Even if you already bought the paints for other projects and games, it’s still a cost that needs factored in.

Let's say you spend $300 on the painting investment and terrain stuff.

Compare that to a nice even mark up of 50% on all Legion products. If I remember correctly, buying 1 of everything from the start is $300, with a mark up it's $450. So yea, at the start it will be cheaper if they were painted. But that still only gets you 3 corps of each trooper. And there are more things coming out. By wave 4 or 5, unpainted will be far cheaper and that $300 investment will stretch much farther since you can water down paints.

I've spent maybe $100 on stuff. Nearly none of it the high end stuff and it works great. I got a 24 pack of acrylic from A.C.Moore for $10, and 2 paint bush sets for $10 a piece. Got some detailing brushes for another $10. 3 terrain base paints on sale for $3, and they are 200mL. I also search the cheap paint aisle at Michaels and pick up $0.79 paints, and the best part is the 200 or so colors and styles. If you have no idea how to paint like me, it's not that bad. Once you get experience, that's when you buy the good paints.

On 2/18/2018 at 10:59 AM, Jimbo2142 said:

Hello guys

after some posts in the Armada-Subforum a few years ago I think its time to get active again. Star Wars Legion seems to be the miniatures game, I was dreaming about for my whole life - and this dream now becomes true. But, as one of the biggest fools in miniatures painting alive, Im facing a real big problem.... should I desecrate this gorgeous models with my foolish, ****-looking paintings?

Why is Legion unpainted?

Of course I see the point that it would be unaffordable and really difficult to produce detailed and painted miniatures in a necessary quantity.... BUT I'd definitely pay a huge amount of money to have that Legion Game painted and ready2play. And I dont think Im alone with this..

Regards

Jimbo

Umm, long story short, it's a miniatures game--which come unpainted. If they were pre-painted, one could not paint them in the personal manner as one would wish. If you don't paint, then commission a painter.

Cheers

12 minutes ago, dpb1298 said:

Umm, long story short, it's a miniatures game--which come unpainted. If they were pre-painted, one could not paint them in the personal manner as one would wish. If you don't paint, then commission a painter.

Cheers

That's a tad specious; Plenty of people paint their X-wing and Armada ships. It is somewhat more difficult to paint a pre-painted miniature, true, but it's far from impossible.

26 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Let's say you spend $300 on the painting investment and terrain stuff.

Compare that to a nice even mark up of 50% on all Legion products. If I remember correctly, buying 1 of everything from the start is $300, with a mark up it's $450. So yea, at the start it will be cheaper if they were painted. But that still only gets you 3 corps of each trooper. And there are more things coming out. By wave 4 or 5, unpainted will be far cheaper and that $300 investment will stretch much farther since you can water down paints.

I've spent maybe $100 on stuff. Nearly none of it the high end stuff and it works great. I got a 24 pack of acrylic from A.C.Moore for $10, and 2 paint bush sets for $10 a piece. Got some detailing brushes for another $10. 3 terrain base paints on sale for $3, and they are 200mL. I also search the cheap paint aisle at Michaels and pick up $0.79 paints, and the best part is the 200 or so colors and styles. If you have no idea how to paint like me, it's not that bad. Once you get experience, that's when you buy the good paints.

I’ve been watching a lot of videos on YouTube for painting miniatures and they led me to believe that cheap acrylic paint doesn’t work great on miniatures. They mostly always use citadel or Vallejo paints. They also said cheap brushes don’t last long and that you will have to purchase brushes repeatedly so I bought army painter brushes. I wish I would have brought this up prior to buying paints because the michaels paints are far cheaper.

13 minutes ago, ninclouse2000 said:

I’ve been watching a lot of videos on YouTube for painting miniatures and they led me to believe that cheap acrylic paint doesn’t work great on miniatures. They mostly always use citadel or Vallejo paints. They also said cheap brushes don’t last long and that you will have to purchase brushes repeatedly so I bought army painter brushes. I wish I would have brought this up prior to buying paints because the michaels paints are far cheaper.

Well I've been using my paints to repaint Armada ships and squads and they look nice. I do have lead belcher and nuln oil, but I use so little they will last a long time.

Now that I have a few types of acrylic, the cheap Michaels ones are definitely the lowest quality. I've never had it peel or scratch before, but it's noticeable. My favorite acrylics was my first purchase of 24 which came in metal tubes. They have a rich, vibrant color to all the paints and mixes well with water. I use these paints as my base, and the cheaper ones for high lights and detailing because of the variety.

This is my current project. Making some terrain pieces that would fit into a Felucia board. Those are the 3 large base colors I got on sale, and 5 other high lighting colors for under a dollar. The brushes I got in a 20 sum piece brush set, and the pallet is like a dollar as well. I went to a scrap exchange store and got high density card board/poster board stuff that does not bend for a few dollars and use that as the base. The hills are cut from 2x2 high density pink foam from Home Depot, which was $6. The grass was on sale for $8, and the "flowers" are actually hops from a hop vine. Got that on sale for $6. I also bought some wall plaster stuff to spread on the bases to give an uneven feel to it for $4.

So yea, the initial buy in is kinda steep, and I dropped $50 in December to get a bunch of plastic plants. But I'm using the cheapest stuff you can find and I think it looks half way decent. Probably the best item I bought was a hot wire foam cutter on Amazon. So much better than cutting with a knife.

It's fun because I'm making it up as I go. I have no direction, except dirt, green grass, and bright colors.

Oh. My. God. You people need to stop whining. All these topics have been done to death. You guys are just as bad and as the X-Wing and Pdx int. forums. You guys are just as bad as @1 . Even those of you who argued against trolls and the like are now acting like them. You all became the very thing you swore to destroy. Can the mods please shut this down.

6 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

I've never played 40k or jumped into war gaming, mini painting, or terrain building. Yet your initial comment was complaining about 40k snobs, and considering the response you got for that comment, everyone else also felt insulted by your comment because you provided no context as to who the 40k snobs were.

I understand your comment in retrospect because I've also seen people complaining about the simplicity of Legion.

You also implied in the LTP thread that people who disagree with the stacking grenade rule that they have no comprehensive reading skills.

Right, the initial comment was on those who, in another venue, had talked down on the non-40k people for whom Legion was their first miniatures game.

Although I don’t mind painting, my time (not spent painting) would be worth far more than the cost difference of prepainted minis.

For my money the prepainted X-wing minis are more than worth the more valuable tome sink of painting, especially as that is time that carries a significant opportunity cost (gaming for example).

For people who love painting for its own sake, sure that cost is lesser, but that’s also a clear personal preference.

The prices on hobby paints are quite ridiculous these days.

The best you could ever get would be for FFG to make a premium line of pre painted figures. Like dust tactics premium or their in house and rather poor looking horror line.

They obviously have good reasons to offer the product as is.

Maybe preprinted human figures are not covered by the license. I know that feels like a weird carve out but the Star Wars license in America is pretty prickly. For example Ban-dai ships can be sold in America but not the ban-dai character figures.

1 hour ago, Undeadguy said:

Well I've been using my paints to repaint Armada ships and squads and they look nice. I do have lead belcher and nuln oil, but I use so little they will last a long time.

Now that I have a few types of acrylic, the cheap Michaels ones are definitely the lowest quality. I've never had it peel or scratch before, but it's noticeable. My favorite acrylics was my first purchase of 24 which came in metal tubes. They have a rich, vibrant color to all the paints and mixes well with water. I use these paints as my base, and the cheaper ones for high lights and detailing because of the variety.

This is my current project. Making some terrain pieces that would fit into a Felucia board. Those are the 3 large base colors I got on sale, and 5 other high lighting colors for under a dollar. The brushes I got in a 20 sum piece brush set, and the pallet is like a dollar as well. I went to a scrap exchange store and got high density card board/poster board stuff that does not bend for a few dollars and use that as the base. The hills are cut from 2x2 high density pink foam from Home Depot, which was $6. The grass was on sale for $8, and the "flowers" are actually hops from a hop vine. Got that on sale for $6. I also bought some wall plaster stuff to spread on the bases to give an uneven feel to it for $4.

So yea, the initial buy in is kinda steep, and I dropped $50 in December to get a bunch of plastic plants. But I'm using the cheapest stuff you can find and I think it looks half way decent. Probably the best item I bought was a hot wire foam cutter on Amazon. So much better than cutting with a knife.

It's fun because I'm making it up as I go. I have no direction, except dirt, green grass, and bright colors.

I bought a bunch of fake plants at Michaels for my endor board. I also got a few trees made out of paper towel rolls. I have enjoyed the terrain and gameboard building.

@Undeadguy The DUST game has models that are unpainted at $50 and for a painted and assembled model $115, at a 230% markup the core set pretty much covers the costs of your kit.

Beyond that the idea of having multiple shades of green is a convenience, you can make green by mixing blue and yellow, more blue makes a dark green and less makes the green lighter. Assuming you are going to use an ink for shading, buying a medium and light green and ink gives you the base coat, shade and highlight without mixing or worrying.

In general you have 4 steps of painting:

Preparation and Prime: You'll need a hobby knife or blade, to remove mold lines. A rattle can of paint suitable for priming the model and preparing it for paint. For starters get a white spray as you can easily brush on a coat of black.

Base coat: Which is just blocking out the various areas of colour, flesh for the face, brown for the hat, tan for the shirt and green for the pants say. When painting this don't worry about being accurate, a lot of little mistakes will be hidden in the shading.

Shade: This is applying a darker colour to the creases and crevices, if you see a painting tutorial most painters use an ink or several. GW do two that are your main heavy lifters, Agrax Earthshade and Nuln Oil. A lot of beginners will just splash this on, don't dab it on where you want it, and if it gets where you don't want it wet your brush and remove it. Now this step will hide many little errors in the base coat.

Now, at this point you have a perfectly fine miniature that from 4' away (across the table) will look fine. Also, if you have been paying attention you only need the base colours and inks, maybe 12 pots of paint in total. Less if you are painting Stormtroopers.

Highlights (OPTIONAL): Here you are painting the tops of the shirts, face or whatnot that would be lighter in colour because of the sun or lighting hitting the model. This step can be simple, just pick up the edges in a lighter colour, or you could layer up many progressively lighter layers that also get progressively finer. Now here I find you want a few areas that stand out, perhaps the face, shirt and backpack. So take a little more time and effort on these and just do a rough highlight to the other areas.

Here you will add a lot more variety to the paints and colours you pick for the ease of not having to mix too much, and also will depend on how many colour variations you use while layering.

Final step is to spray or brush on a matt varnish. If you want gloss just buy a pot of gloss and hand paint the area you want to gloss up, say the white armour of the stormtroopers.

For brushes a good size 1 or 2 and 00 would be a good start, go to a hobby shop and chose them. They should provide a pot of water - so use the brush and dip it in and make sure it forms a point with no loose hairs. Also make sure you keep the plastic ends to store the brush. If you use GW or pot style paints get a cheap brush for removing paint from the pot and don't use your good brushes.

A good wet pallet may also be of use, I use a small storage box with a single compartment, line this with kitchen towel and run some tap water over it and then squeeze out the excess. Over this I put a piece of baking paper (wax paper) and the paint you put on that will stay good for a long time.

A quick and "dirty" way of highlighting is to drybrush the miniature. Basically, with very little paint on a flat brush, you gently apply paint the the miniature. This deposits a little bit of paint on the raised areas fairly quickly and easily. The effect is not as stunning as careful highlighting, but it has served me well.

EDIT: I also just remembered a VERY important part of Preparation that is often overlooked and can cause issues if not completed: Washing your miniatures. The plastic has a mold release on it to help get them out of the molds at the factory, if not removed this can cause issues with your primer/paint falling off because of the trace amounts of mold release agent on the miniatures. A quick wash with some hand dish soap in lukewarm water using an old/cheap soft toothbrush, rinse, and dry and you're good to go.

Oh good, the zombie discussion topic returns.

4 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

Probably the best item I bought was a hot wire foam cutter on Amazon.

Wait until you discover Sculptamold.

I have been wanting to try out sculptamold.

but first I’m going to make a play mat by shaving and painting some faux fur.

38 minutes ago, TylerTT said:

I have been wanting to try out sculptamold.

but first I’m going to make a play mat by shaving and painting some faux fur.

1000 teadybears gave their skins for you.

41 minutes ago, Amanal said:

1000 teadybears gave their skins for you.

shhhhhhh! you'll bring down the wrath of peta and the spirits of ewoks past!!

11 hours ago, ninclouse2000 said:

I’ve been watching a lot of videos on YouTube for painting miniatures and they led me to believe that cheap acrylic paint doesn’t work great on miniatures. They mostly always use citadel or Vallejo paints. They also said cheap brushes don’t last long and that you will have to purchase brushes repeatedly so I bought army painter brushes. I wish I would have brought this up prior to buying paints because the michaels paints are far cheaper.

You won't regret those Army Painter brushes, they are excellent. Take care of them, only use them for what they're intended, and they will last a long time. They're my brush of choice in almost all cases. But do buy some cheap brushes for mixing paints etc.

Hobby lobby carries vallejo paints. Many colors are 2 dollars us per bottle. Others are 4 but hobby lobby has a perpetual 40 percent off coupon. As long as you don't mind stopping in several times you can build your paint collection very inexpensively.

Thank you for all of that benevolent recommendations and all that "paint them, or leave it and s*** up" statements - of course youre right. Lets comment on that things I could do with Legion:

Paint it by myself: So Im not new in modelling at all. I've been playing, building and modelling my own tabletop projects since I was 14 years old (Im 24 now). In that years I played 40k, FoW and some other tabletop systems. There are many paintings and assembly I've done in this time so im not a "noob" in that.... but I have 0 talent in painting. According to that for me its not an option to punish that Star Wars minis with my retardation.

Send it to a professional painter: Seems to be a way to get hands at well painted Legion minis. But its connected with many work like searching for a suitable painter, paying the money or getting the minis shipped. So.. this really is an option but not the best way for me.

Why dont they bring a premium Version like in DUST tactics ? It would be soooooo easy. Order it - pay more money then standard - play. All the ppl who wants do paint and assemble on their own can still buy the standard and waaay cheaper version. Why not? I think it would be a win-win situation on that.

And I think there are no real counter-arguments except higher production costs by lower production outcome for FFG (which can be compensated by a horrendously higher price). So, to bring it all togehter, for me it seems just like a simple decision by FFG made here to not bringing pre-painted Legion minis

For Xmas I received the Reaper Bones Learn to Paint kit. This is a great setup and walks you through the steps for the 3 minis that come in the kit. You can buy this and a red, only primary color not in the box and some primer and sealer and start painting for about $40-60.