This may not answer the question directly but I tend to look at any project be it a figure, a piece of armor, aircraft or ship model as an exercise of imparting a three dimensional appearance to whatever it is. I am primarily interested in figure sculpting and painting so I have always used shading and highlighting as the basis for all finishes. Base coat - dark shade - highlights then go back and blend.. Oil paint and brushes for figures, airbrush and acrylics for hardware. Weathering is usually washes where appropriate and dry brushing. The environment that the original existed in determines the amount of wear and tear weathering such as paint chips, rust, etc.... I personally feel that it is very easy to overdo weathering and subtlety is the key to a convincing finish. I believe it is important to work toward emphasizing a models features by drawing the viewers attention to them in a subtle but effective manner. 

Guys,

This is great---good responses. all, and a wealth of opinion and information to help me flesh out this premise that I'm working on.

I'm currently working on a project that will attempt to show the differences between "accurate" vs "artistic" painting styles.

However, it is necessary to FIRST accurately ascertain what exactly is meant by an "accurate finish". When I asked "Is it necessarily 'old school'", what I am asking is, is an "accurate finish" generally predicated on the old standard of "base coat + washes + drybrushing = finished"? You know, without filters, without panel shading, without "alll that jazz"? Are those techinques "taboo" to a builder who is more drawn to the "accurate" camp?

These questions are important, because I want to avoid any hint or suggestion of a condescending tone when comparing the two. At this point,  these new techniques are very often spoken of as "advanced" techniques, and so it's perilously easy to unintentionally insinuate that an "accurate" builder who intentionally declines to use them is somwhow lacking in skill or initiative. I want to avoid that inference at all costs, and I should state here that I DO NOT hold that view anyway, but I think that soime people could defensively take it that way if I extol what I see as the "virtues" of these techniques.

Thanks for your input, everyone. The more of you that give a comment here, the wiser I become on the subject, and the more representative and accurate the article should be. Thank you for contributing here.

I am an accuracy guy with minimal weathering since i was in a helo squadron in the Navy and washed our birds often.I look for referance photos to see how much any a/c gets dirty that i am going to build and follow the K.I.S.S. method.

My feet are firmly in the realistic camp but with the understanding that i may use artictic licence to achieve what i want. But sticking to a line of procedure is not what realisim is about. By sticking to the same procedure, it seems to me you end up with the same results. Building for a realistic result will require you to acheive differant results depending on the build, so a differant procedure.

A factory fresh finish can be as relistic as a very dirty well worn one. And to achieve the result we want, we may often turn to the same tools as those who wnat an artistic finish. Correct, there are no filters in the motor pool (or MT as we say in English ). But then again, my plastic model has not been driven round a battle field or sat out in the sun and ran, so we need to use aristic licence to replicate this. It no differant to replicating painted on markings with decals.

And rust and chiping should never be a no no, metal does chip and it does rust. But it all depends on how much you apply it. I think there can be a fine line betwen realistic and artistic, and artictic finish seem, at least to me, to be realistic finishes but taken further.

I have no idea what old school is, but i have no issues with useing some of the more recent methods and tools, many of which we have the artistic crowd to thank for, to get the realisim i wish to achieve.

I like to peruse as many photos as I can find. I then take the vehicle as is depicted in said photos, the theatre in which it served and put it all together to create a 3D piece of history.

I use what ever I have available to replicate the look I want. I have no fear of stripping something to bare plastic and starting over if I feel I need to.

I feel wear and tear must look reasonable. Crew activity, normal operation and combat all lend their own unique aspects to the overall appearence. 

I don't think I lean either way, my builds fall under the "artform" catagory. 

disastermaster

Well Karl,

 I do what ever it takes to make my subject look real
as in a "moment of time” -  just like a picture.  Being that I
follow no particular style, I spontaneously go with what I feel is needed (most always “old school”) to get the look I want.

With that being said, I would have to say I'm definitely the old school artistic type.

 It's just a hobby to me - something I do when I feel like it and done the way I want to...... and never in a rush.                                

 

Pretty much describes me. I usually wing it and see how the build develops.

I dunno if I belong here or even where I'd come on the chart. I like to add some pre-shading and colour modulation but I shy away from large amounts of rust and chipped paint. I guess I'd say I see all the techniques as a large buffet, I move back and forth picking out one here and one there trying different stuff out to see how I like it. I suppose in time maybe I'll settle on something or the other but it's too much fun right now trying out everything. 

Karl, art and beauty is definately in the eye of the beyholder. One person will see a wrong mantlet while another would say a figure posing a certain way would really help. First I think that anything that's thought provoking in a model or diorama is artistic, its just a matter of degrees. I've always thought of what we do "is" art because ten people can take the same kit and there will be 10 different outcomes, and great art is when you take any part of a model and if it stands on its own, thats really "good" art. The accurate guys are going after a different look, I think they want everything historically correct, who can fault them for that. So maybe these two words are inter-related because theres room here for everybody.  

Great subject.

Terry

Guys, thanks for your responses! Nice to hear from you---please, keep the responses coming in!

Hello!

That's a nice discussion topic - like a one that can't be defitely concluded, so you can talk about it for generations...

I'd say I'm about accurracy - for me that's what modelling is about. Of course you have your Fantasy, Sci-Fi and the likes, but whatever is being done as a model, my requirement is that it should be internally consistent. Let's say it's a "paper panzer" - we'd probably all agree that it would be "wrong" to model the top of it very dirty while the tracks were squeaky clean.

Now there are those filters, pre-made washes, oils, pigments - and ads that try to tell you you just have to use 'em. I personally don't use those products - almost. Instead I try to get a period photo or two of the subject I'm modelling and duplicate the look using whatever works. For me accuracy means stay in touch with the real thing. Surprisingly it's very hard to find good colour photo showing the way the tracks of tanks in Vietnam really weathered - and if you do it turns out it depends very much on the type of soil that was present where that tank operated. It will look different in an Army tank operating on red clay, and different on a Marine tank operating along the beaches of Chu Lai.

Sometimes I also see people wanting to model something very much, but having no references to back it. That's when it's easy to make a mistake, lose the consistency, losing accuracy. It really pays to wait for those references, the models get better that way.

In the end an accurate model can be also pretty in it's own way anyhow, so that "artistic vs. accuracy" thing isn't a real conflict. So it's all about what you want to model - do you want to use Kit A or try Technique B? Or do you have a nice period photo and try to reproduce it as a dio? I think that's the difference we're talking about here.

Let me post two photos here, of my Duster, made almost "to specs" of a Vietnam Veteran who was it's TC in Khe Sanh and also supplied me with photos of the machine. Please decide for yourselves if that model is "accurate" or "artistic":

Thanks for reading and good luck with your modelling projects, have a nice day

Paweł

Well Karl,

 I do what ever it takes to make my subject look real
as in a "moment of time” -  just like a picture.  Being that I
follow no particular style, I spontaneously go with what I feel is needed (most always “old school”) to get the look I want.

With that being said, I would have to say I'm definitely the old school artistic type.

 It's just a hobby to me - something I do when I feel like it and done the way I want to...... and never in a rush.
                                   

 I'll soon be putting up a project that will again clearly demonstrate how I do things and the results that I get with being impulsive. Most of you here are familiar with how I do things and know I try to make it entertaining for all.

  I hope ya'll find it interesting when it's completed in it's entirety.

I would consider myself more as an "Artistic" type.  I'm thinking about my last three builds.  They were each stand-alone models without any kind of diorama base or figures.  They are built to represent subjects on my shelf, so they should look good on my shelf.  However, I don't want them looking plain or fake on my shelf.  They each recieved some weathering, but only what I thought was appropriate for the subject and my shelf.  I took more artistic license with model weathering, than I concerned myself with realism in weathering.  

This is how I've been for the last three builds, but I am always trying to improve, change, evolve, switch-things-up.  I think most modelers do that, and I'm sure each modelers' view of artistic vs realism evolves as well.  

Chris 

I usually don't pay attention to these type of arguments, but I always thought a good artist was one who is good at bringing out "realism, or in other word, making the subject look real, which would in turn make it look more accurate, right? In other words, I never understood why a "clean" looking model is viewed as more accurate than a nicely weathered one. To answer your survey, I always weather my models to some degree; exhaust stains on a piston WW 2 fighter are almost a must. I use oil washes, some more stark than others, and fade and vary the cammo to some degree. Whatever method I use, try to keep it looking in scale with the model; i.e. No black washes on a light gray airplane, and no patch work of perfectly parallel pershade or postshade lines.