What do We Want to See in a Figure Article?

[Jim Patrick]

Ok, with the responses to my Figure Magazine thread,

http://www.planetfigure.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36591

I had a few more questions. What is it we look for or would like to see/ improved in an article? For both acrylics and oils. A few of the things we have already talked about were:

Information/ reference on uniforms and equipment

How to improve

Information on paint mixes (what EXACTLY are we looking for here?)

Presented the way Steve Zolaga does his articles for Mil. Modeling

Most articles about painting figures are boring (mix your own colors and NOT using a formula)

Sculping articles, too, can be of limited value (show the subtle, but crucial, movements of the sculptor's hands and tools)

Take time (or space) to describe yourself more thourghly

Never ASS/U/ME a reader has read all of your articles before

Consider your target audience (beginner, intermediate or advanced)

A translation into several languages

Don't use acrylics only (regardless what the majority paint with now, consider oils as well)

Most painters are "visual learners". Consider this when creating an article. Either that or THROUGHLY explain your photographs.

Consider a video article. Really not a bad idea (@ Gary )but some experience doing this is a must!

Broadly basing an article instead of gearing towards on medium/ genre

Honestly, I thought all of the feedback was good and liked the ideas of what "we" want to see in an article. What else is it that we want to see?

Jim Patrick

 

[megroot]

Jim,
I think you have the most of what is wanted.
Like show articles to.
And who is behind the painted figure, so let's meet the painter trough a intervieuw.
New releases

Marc

 

[Paul Kernan]

Jim:

All good points. For me, Figurines is my favourite mag and for the most covers your exact points. Too bad my French is so bad

I find Daniel Milosevic articles very helpful. But as far as (oil) painting articles go, I don't think it gets much better than those presented by Phil Kessling. Anders Heintz does something very similar with his sculpting articles. In both cases, clear descriptions accompanied by great photography.

I can only imagine the time and effort it must take them, not only to create the actual figure but also the photography and write-up too.

 

[Jim Patrick]

Good points Marc and Paul.

Marc, I have never understood why there are not more photos of the artist. Not a lot, maybe just one and a short blurb about the artist.

Paul, that is one thing that I'm sure stops so many painters. Having to stop and show what you are doing by taking pics along the way. But, if one wants to do an article justice? It simply MUST be done.

Jim Patrick

 

[Einion]

My two bits on some of your points Jim

How to improve
That's a good topic, definitely agree if something can be included on that it should.

Information on paint mixes (what EXACTLY are we looking for here?)
Good question, think it depends on what level the reader is at.

Peeps with less mixing experience tend to want to have more detail when it comes to mixtures (exact proportions even) but unless you're using completely uniform paints like Humbrol or Vallejo this is actually a nonsense, since oil paints vary hugely. That's something that people should be informed of right up front.

Someone with more mixing experience might be interested to read just out of curiosity, maybe with the idea of picking up one or two things they might like to try. Go beyond that and the person might not even read the colours used at all, or just with a critic's eye.

Most articles about painting figures are boring (mix your own colors and NOT using a formula)
I think this depends on the reader and what's being talked about - something's not boring if you've never seen its like before.

But if the writer uses a small palette and the same techniques all the time then obviously their sixth or seventh article is not going to have much in the way of new information. On the other hand, the pictures of the development of the piece from primer through a couple of stages to completion can still provide inspiration.

Sculping articles, too, can be of limited value (show the subtle, but crucial, movements of the sculptor's hands and tools)
Yep, definitely true. I've often said you could show many things better in just a few moments than a couple of hundred words can get across.

Take time (or space) to describe yourself more thourghly
Hard one this, unless the person is a good writer. Plus articles get wordy fast

Never ASS/U/ME a reader has read all of your articles before
Yeah, but can't cover all the same ground each time either...

Don't use acrylics only (regardless what the majority paint with now, consider oils as well)
Different strokes for different folks. I'm all for generally getting people to try new stuff (very easy to stall if you don't) but part of the value of reading an article from someone is to see how they do something, regardless if it's using your methods or materials.

Broadly basing an article instead of gearing towards on medium/ genre
Disagree - both can have their value, just not the same value. But basically, too general = boring I think; it's the details that are often the most interesting and useful.

Einion

 

[Tecumsea]

Most articles about painting figures are boring (mix your own colors and NOT using a formula)

Hi Jim,

Not sure about this, the colour wheel and colour theory is really a mystery for so many in the hobby...at a recent presentation 90 % of the audience said that they found this area the most confusing, so much so that we are looking to have a guest speaker explain "colour" to our group.
To those who haven't studied art what may seem simple just isn't so.
Personally I download mixes from planet and file them from magazines so that I can try new things...........so magazines for me have been a very important part of my learning over the last couple of years............one annoyance is that so many articles don't include the colours of primer and/or base coats which as you know have a huge bearing on the finish.
I'm a confirmed magazine fan with complete sets of MM,HM.FI and Figurines which I have now indexed in a database so that I can find infromation on individual figures, uniforms, How to articles etc, for me it is not the same looking at a screen.
The attempt by HM to use PDF as a format was interesting but for me the cost of printing out 60 pages of colour text was prohibitive.
Keith

 

[housecarl]

I have to agree with Kieth, you can't beat having the article in your hands. But Mil Mod is now leaning more towards the armour area of the hobby, with figures coming a close second.
Carl.

 

[Tecumsea]

I agree Carl, to be honest for the past 3 years I have only bought the Figure and Euro specials and the odd mag with a decent figure article. The first 20 years have been torn up and put into binders where I can access the figure and Uniform info...all the tank stuff has been dumped....ugh.
Pity QTM is finished as the first 2 issues were promising.
Keith

 

[megroot]

Pity QTM is finished as the first 2 issues were promising.
Keith

Is that true??????

 

[Einion]

Not sure about this, the colour wheel and colour theory is really a mystery for so many in the hobby...at a recent presentation 90 % of the audience said that they found this area the most confusing, so much so that we are looking to have a guest speaker explain "colour" to our group.

This is a problem in art generally, not just among modellers and other hobby painters.

Broadly speaking colour theory is usually taught badly (I can go into lots of detail as you might imagine) and partly as a result of this many elements of it are widely misunderstood.

Plus, theory covers a huge amount of ground and certain aspects of it are really subjects in their own right so it's really difficult to touch on some of them in passing and have it be useful - for example, it's easy to state that cyan is the complement of red and leave it at that but explaining it fully would take a good couple of pages...

Einion

 

[Jim Patrick]

All good points. Maybe an article should be geared towards a target audience? I think determining your target audience will go a LONG way to your writing style and exactly what you are trying to get across to the reader. An article for the beginner/intermediate painters/sculptors will have to describe basics far more than an article geared towards advanced painters/sculptors. Far too many times I feel an article is written just for the sake of being written. We "authors" spend hours researching/sculpting/posing and painting but the actual writing seems more of an after thought. The better articles we all know and remember (Mario Fuentes' article on painting with acrylics comes to mind) are always geared towards their target audience. Sometimes we look back on an article and say why didn't he/she talk about this or that? Well? Maybe that's for you to discover on your own? Maybe if we just took the basics, and practised that until we had that down, the rest would come? Far too often we miniaturists (ME INCLUDED!!!!) forget the basics to modeling and wonder why our results are what they are . LOL!

Color Theory..... LOL! It's not really that boring. What 90% of most painters do not understand about color theory is the difference between Primary colors and Secondary colors. Most paint manufactures offer paints that are clearly secondary colors. You simply can't start mixing paints and expect results based off of primary colors. For instance, a base of Prussian Blue highlighted with a Blue-Grey. While it may work for you, the grey will kill the intensity of the blue.

Ok, that was close.....let's not get off on a tangent and try to stick to the purpose of the post......

Is this all we look for in an article? Or is there more?

Jim Patrick