Month: January 2021

Club member Steve conducted a series series of polls on the club’s modelling and painting habits over the Christmas/New Year 2020.

QUESTION 1
What paints do you use?
100% said they used acrylics. No real big surprise there. Although one person did say he uses both acrylic and enamel (Dave – you crazy kid, you!).

QUESTION 2
What make of paints do you use?
A lot more variety here. The most popular were Vallejo with 24.4%. I was surprised by what came second – Tamiya, with 14.6%. I think Tamiya use some kind of oil medium, which is why they curdle and can be a challenge to paint miniatures with, though probably not so bad when it comes to vehicles and buildings and things with other large surfaces. GW came in third with 12.2%. Then Army Painter, Humbrol, and ‘artist’s acrylics’ with 9.8% each (I cannot believe Coat d’Arms wasn’t even on the list! JC).

QUESTION 3
Which colour do you find the hardest to shade and highlight?
I expected red to romp home with this. It didn’t though. The most popular answer was yellow, with 53.8%. I was surprised at that, because I find yellow one of the easiest. Second was a tie between red and black with 15.4% each, and then both white and metallic with 7.7% each.

QUESTION 4
Do you brush or spray varnish?
Spray on got 53.3% and brush on got 46.7%. Fairly even (some of us use both JC).

QUESTION 5
Which brushes do you use?
Mid-range brushes (Daler Rowney, etc) were most popular with 10.4%. A surprising 7.8% went with those dreadful cheap brushes from The Works – I’ve tried them and they lasted all of one painting session. 2.6% went with decent sable brushes (I recently bought a kaplinsky sable brush and it is an absolute gem). 3.9% treated themselves to a proper miniatures painting brush (not sure what that is, to be honest).

Brush care also came into it. 2.6% take proper care of our brushes, giving them a clean after each session. 5.2% give them a clean once in a blue moon. 3.9% are heartless and cold and take no care of their brushes and just throw them away when they’re no good.

11.7% said they use size 0 and 1 brushes for miniatures painting. 2.6% said they go up to size 2 or 3 (must be painting giants with brushes that size!).

9.1% confessed to putting their brushes in their mouths (come on, must be more than that, surely!). And 7.8% admitted to having put their brushes in a cup of tea accidentally.

QUESTION 6
What colour Undercoat?
Both black and white came out jointly on top – with 33.3% each. Grey was next, with 20%, then both brown and ‘other’ with 6.7% each.

QUESTION 7
Metal or plastic miniatures?
40% of us prefer the heft of metal on the battlefield. 26.7% use metal but have the odd plastic figure, and 26.7% don’t care whether it’s metal or plastic just so long as it’s cheap! This left 6.7% who use the Devil’s cocktail – plastic!

QUESTION 8
Do you make or buy terrain?
I get the feeling that MWS is quite a modelling-strong club so it would be interesting to see what our modelling habits were.

22.6% took the middle road – making what they can and buying what they can’t. Which is fair enough. 16.1% confessed to buying the horror that is MDF terrain – shame on them! Another 16.1% said they preferred resin terrain pieces. 12.9% said they buy terrain, whilst 9.7% said they always make and never buy. 3.2% decadent souls said they have more money than sense and pay others to make it for them! 6.5% of us said that making terrain was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the hobby. Which it is. And a disappointing 9.7% admitted to being so bad at terrain making that even MW’s Wargames Widow was inspiring. Can things be that bad? (In Steve’s opinion JC).

So there we go – a review of the club’s modelling and painting habits. I’ll leave you to draw whatever conclusions you want from the results. Let us know how your habits agree or differ with those of the club because it’ll be interesting to see how representative we are with the hobby as a whole.

Maybe someone else can run a series of polls on our gaming habits