This Army is Mine

So, I've got this little rant I'd like to get off my chest. It's about what some people consider to be actual art. It just... it drives me nuts when people tell me that if it comes out of a box, it can't be considered true art because all the artistic license is lost.

Some modern art fanatics say game miniature painting isn’t an art. Critics say it isn’t truly a creative craft, because it comes out of a box pre-molded; that most of the work has already been done. They couldn’t be more wrong. It is art. It is moderately guided art, but it is still a work of creativity.

It does begin when the modelist takes that first model out of the box, but that’s where the store bought regularity ends. Their heart drops as they realize how little the clumps of plastic attached to sprues resemble the beautifully painted soldiers on said box.

With clippers in hand and a haphazard set of tools including sculpting knives, super glue, and some “Zap” spray, the artist gets to work. The directions they were given are a mess. “This piece goes where?” “Why can’t I find that piece on the sprue?” “Oh great, I glued it on backward.” Like the painter who has to go back and paint base white over his ruined landscape, the model assembler must cut the glue or start over with a new box.

After hours of trial and error, eventually they have a bland grey plastic model barely resembling the tapestry on the box. The tiny cultist scowls lifelessly at the artist, daring them to slap some paint on it. The modelist cracks his knuckles and picks up the paintbrush. Several tiny pots of special paints, glazes, and technical ooze litter the newspaper coated tabletop.

Just to be safe, they do some research online to find out exactly how to do this sort of painting. After frustrating hours of searching through hundreds of sites detailing their own paint jobs, finally the artist finds a few videos on Youtube giving some tips on painting simple models like the tiny cultist they hold in their hand.

First they start with the black spray on primer. This only takes a few seconds to spray on, but takes about five hours to dry fully. By then they’ve scoured all the different paint schemes online one could mimic with the few paints they took home from the store. “But why not create your own? Surely, there’s room to be more original than simply copying what everyone else is doing.”

Finally, they bring tiny dried black model over to their overly neat shrine of paints. The tiny pot of “Loren Forest Green” stands open. The paintbrush rests in their hand, hovering over the model as they try to decide where to start. “Should I start from the bottom and work my way up, or should I start at the top and let gravity do some of the work?”

They hesitate. “What if it sucks? What if it looks horrible when I’m done? What if the others laugh at me and tell me to play another game with the other new artists?” All this runs through their mind until finally they start to paint. The voices inside go silent as nothing else seems to matter but the model. The paint settles easily into the tiny cracks and crevices of tiny plastic trousers as their paint brush glides over the smooth surface. They feel like a pocket clocksmith bent over the tiny gears and bobbles with tiny tools and a monacle.

Without fail, some of the paint gets in places they don’t want it. Painting at this scale takes a steady hand, and they’ve just started. They grumble and consider giving up, but they remember the modelers online telling them not to worry about some of the paint getting away from them. All that will be fixed with touch ups. They picture the writer sneering at his own work as he skims and deletes this or rewrites that.

Next color up. “Rakkarth Flesh,” a sort of pale skin color adorns the brush and they start to apply it to the body and head. More painting ensues as they apply new colors and get little speckles onto parts they’ve already painted. They go back to touch that up before moving to the next color only to make more mistakes.

After hours of toiling over one tiny little model, they feel ready to give up. They’ve spent literally days over one guy and they still have a whole army to paint. How does anyone ever get this done? How does any artist become a master at their skill. They suddenly feel overwhelmed. They feel like just commissioning someone else to paint it for them. But no, they’re determined to do this. This is their army. They are the master.

After spending what seems like an eternity doing cleaning and touch ups and adding technical layers and washes in all the right places, finally they have some semblance of a completed model. It’s no masterpiece, but its their first. The ugly model scowls behind fleshy and bony teeth as it glares with inhuman pupilless eyes. The dagger and gun they tried to portray as rusty looks more like a sloppy orange paint job. The green pants came out well, though slimy and dirty looking. It’s playable as long as nobody looks too close.

But, this is just the beginning. They can remember mom putting their finger painted picture of the house and family on the fridge under a magnet. She was so proud, and they wanted to make more. Now, they’re at the beginning again but with a more 3D approach.

Some months later, they look at their work and notice they have a full army that they painted alone. The models shriek behind their many spikes, skulls, and plates of armor. Many of it has been sculpted from scratch out of “Green Stuff,” a product of soft plastic that one mixes together to form into a hard plastic cement after some hours of drying. Ghouls, demons, and cultists by the dozen glisten in magnificent putrescence.

This is their masterpiece. Every model is perfect. There’s nothing like the feeling of having a complete army at their feet literally crafted to the exact image they had in mind. This is art as pure as any painting, sketch, or sculpture.

Many great works of art are made with constraints or controls in place to direct the artist. Going by the same rationality that great art cannot come from a box, one would leave out many creative works. Would one consider cooking to be a farce since some of the ingredients came out of a box? What about the home mechanic who built a car on his own with parts that were technically prefabricated? Even the Sistine Chapel was a commissioned work of art that restricted Michelangelo’s creative process. He wasn’t free to explore every possibility and create anything he desired. Is it not considered true art?

Model assembly and painting is art. Go to your nearest gaming store and look inside the displays. Those are not toys purchased from Walmart. Those armies of elves, androids, zombies, goblins, space marines, and so forth are all put together piece by piece and painted painstakingly and with great care. Those beautiful sheens on vehicles are done with love by real artists. I challenge any modern artist to try painting an army of game models.