prepainted figgies

I agree that, with practice and researching, you can make figures that look a lot better than the toys. Probably within your first 5 figures. Not intending to dissuade you, merely encourage you :) There is plenty of assistance and encouragemnet offered within this forum, and there are masters at the craft that check in here with loads of advice and links to great tutorials. 

Steve

Hans von Hammer wrote:

trakpin wrote: be nice if they were 148, which is preferred, but 135 something can be done with. i sux0rz at doing up figgies So do I, but I've never let that little detail stop me... I mean, I'm no figure painter like the guys that do them as their primary hobby, but for my dioramas, they work quite well.. After all, I don't paint them to be photographed from 2 inches away and posted or published 6 inches high...  They look ok from a foot away though, and that's all you need for diorama building.. Then, once you start doing them on a regular basis for dios, they'll get easier and done better every time.. So you can't paint eyes and faces to photographic quality, so what...  Soldiers (if that's what you do, are outside 99% of the time, so they squint a lot, making the eyes little black slits, and if you add dirt, moustaches, 5 O'clock shadows or even beards (Look at GIs in the Italian campaigns, where water was too short in supply to permit shaving) camo-paint, blood, whatever, you can get away with a lot... The easiest faces for me to paint are D-Day paratroopers prior to daybreak.. The burnt cork camo is a face-saver, lol....   Add to that, the eyes can't focus on anything closer than 4 inches away, so use that to your advantage...

I'm with Hans.  This time last year, I had NEVER tried a figure, and hadn't touched a model in 20+ years, since high school. 

Fast forward, I started building models again, 1/35 armor for me, and looked with some concern at others here and their amazing figures.  I just figured it was something I could not do.  Then I had a revelation, another new guy here, Schnobs, and I became friends.  He started painting figures a bit before I did, he wasn't some mythical long term member that took 20 years to be able to paint figures, and his are REALLY excellent.  We got to talking, I read a lot on line, I bought Lynn Kessler's How to Build Armor Dioramas, and I jumped in.  I decided I would really give it a try, and also that I would not put a figure on a build unless I felt it contributed to that build in some way, including quality wise.

I bought a bunch of paint, we can go into specifics if you want, and I have now finished 4 figures, and am working on numbers 5 and 6.

Here is figure number 3, I think he came out great, and I only show him to show YOU that YOU could do the same, it's not some black art, it's just practice, and patience:

Come on, you KNOW you want to.  

21's century toys

They are not model figure quality.  The vehicles are bad too with really soft details, tools modled on, ect.  As they say, they are toys. 

Ditto to what AJ says above.

"Toys" Nuff said.

Boba Fett wrote:

toys .

Nuff said.

trakpin wrote:

be nice if they were 148, which is preferred, but 135 something can be done with. i sux0rz at doing up figgies

So do I, but I've never let that little detail stop me... I mean, I'm no figure painter like the guys that do them as their primary hobby, but for my dioramas, they work quite well.. After all, I don't paint them to be photographed from 2 inches away and posted or published 6 inches high...  They look ok from a foot away though, and that's all you need for diorama building.. Then, once you start doing them on a regular basis for dios, they'll get easier and done better every time..

So you can't paint eyes and faces to photographic quality, so what...  Soldiers (if that's what you do, are outside 99% of the time, so they squint a lot, making the eyes little black slits, and if you add dirt, moustaches, 5 O'clock shadows or even beards (Look at GIs in the Italian campaigns, where water was too short in supply to permit shaving) camo-paint, blood, whatever, you can get away with a lot... The easiest faces for me to paint are D-Day paratroopers prior to daybreak.. The burnt cork camo is a face-saver, lol....  

Add to that, the eyes can't focus on anything closer than 4 inches away, so use that to your advantage... 

i sux0rz at doing up figgies

And you will never get better if you don't try building and painting them.  I don't see the point in premade/prepainted figures and models.  If you are a modeler, do them yourself.  It just seems like you are cheating yourself to buy them done already.

stikpusher wrote:

Tamiya and Dragon have some in 1/35.