Infinity Picture Updates!

Howdy friends,

Here's a few pictures of my ongoing re-entry into Infinity! It shows some progress on my Japanese army forces as well as the game boards I've played on recently. Thanks for looking!

These were the test models for the two main colors in my paint scheme. Learnt a few useful things and relatively pleased with the overall effect! Also happy to see my hand-blends on the cloth getting so consistent now.

I use an airbrush to get strong shading and higlights on the red. This ninja is a good example of the sort of depth I'm aiming for.

With some of the JSA figures the clear armor/cloth division led me to experiment with sectioning off portions of the model for airbrushing. It worked quite well and I was pleased with the result. Here is the initial shadows/highlights on the cloth.

And here is the final result with both colors shaded/higlighted with the airbush. There's a bit of overspill but it was easily fixed and I know how to handle the masking better next time!

This figure (a doctor) has seen me finalize some of the shading/highlights on the cloth, glaze the armor, and generally have things be a bit closer to finishing.

Rear-view. I'm not sure about the glaze on the armor, i'm worried i'm losing some of the contrast I got with the airbrush. I might try changing the glaze paint or just thinning it down even further.

Two boards we set up at the local center.

A space station with some lovely artificial foliage.

My Aleph army getting absolutely destroyed by a Yu Jing force. However he put me into retreat before either of us completed any objects so the game ended up being a tie. That's Infinity baby!

To Infinity and Beyond!

After a six month absence from the miniatures hobby I'm finally getting back to the tabletop with Infinity again. I've been playing consistently with some great fellas at my local store, which just so happens to be the Element Games North West Games Center so I'm a pretty lucky guy. The N3 ruleset seems really really good and i'm enjoying the group i'm playing with a lot. I have some pictures to share!

The guys at the shop were kind enough to let me use their lightbox to finally take a decent picture of the PanOceania troops that I painted almost two years ago. However the lightness of the mint color I chose for them makes it almost impossible to get a decent image with a white background. Next time i'll get a black backdrop, and also not choose a daft color to make my primary.

Tonight was my first game using a TAG and it absolutely murdered 70% of my opponent's Combined Army forces in one turn, only to take three wounds from a Boarding Shotgun with fire ammo in my reactive phase! That same shotgunner proceeded to blast apart four of my order monkeys for a huge equalizing swing. It was a really exciting and swingy game that had both of us laughing with joy/horror throughout.

I had my very first win with the N3 rulset after only five games! That win definitely comes down to this rowdy Nisse that was an absolutely brutal ARO piece. With it's multi-sniper rifle, mimetism, and strong sniping location it dominated my opponent's board from the outset and he simply couldn't kill it. To be fair there was a lot of luck on my side but it really hammered home how potent the ARO mechanic can be on the right trooper.

This was the board we played on. It's a combination of cardboard terrain from the Red Veil and Icestorm starter boxes (which are available separately now for eight quid) and more standard wargaming terrain from around the center. Even though it looks a little mismatched we were pretty happy with the result considering how tricky it can be to build a table for Infinity. 

My new friends and I did end up splitting the cost of two sets of proper infinity-friendly terrain being sold by one of the center-goers. These were in like-new condition and we're excited to use them next time we play. Pictures to follow!

Lastly here is the progress on my JSA color scheme that i'm currently in the process of painting. The scheme ended up looking a bit more "Iron Man" than intended but i'm going to try and break that up a bit. Really really excited to play with these guys, but since i'm painting them off their bases I have to wait! arrrrgh!

As ever, thanks for looking.

-Tom

How to choose a great Color Scheme for your Miniatures

Thinking about color-schemes is one of the hidden gems of the miniature hobby that doesn't require much energy but will make a huge difference in terms of your painting (and maybe even your personal life!). It has gotten to the point where my desire to try out new color schemes is one of the primary reasons i'll go out and buy a miniature. It becomes fun to think about various color combinations and I've often found myself taking pictures of objects, settings, or art I encounter in my day-to-day life that have a color palette I find really appealing.

To that end I thought I'd give you some basic points to think about when you're trying to come up with an original color scheme for your miniatures along with an example of my own practices when figuring out a scheme.

Complementary Colors: This is some really basic color theory, there are tons of articles out there which explain this better than I could, but suffice to say that a really good starting point when constructing a palette is to look at a color wheel and check complementary colors. These are constructed by drawing a straight (or nearly straight) line across the the wheel between two colors. Complementary colors are a great way to give yourself a really satisfying choice of primary colors (the most prominent/notable colors in your scheme) to build your palette off of.

These work especially well for miniature painting because you often want your figures to really pop on the table and you can go for really intense complimentary colors that you wouldn't typically see. Such as a deep purple against a light green:

A good example of complementary colors between the purple sword and green armor.

Shades of intensity (hues): Obviously you don't always want the brightest possible colors on your miniatures so keep in mind that you can vary up the level of white and black in your chosen primary colors to make them darker or lighter. For example: green and red are a complementary color but tend to make your figures look like Christmas decorations if you go for really pure and bright versions of both colors, but a really dark or muddy red can pair beautifully with a strong green to give you a much more realistic looking earthy tone.

I often find it helpful once I've settled on a set of 2-3 primary colors to look through the hobby paints offered by various companies to give me an idea of the different variations in shade and brightness I have access to. Keep in mind that you will typically want to build a strong contrast from dark to light for every color when you're layering and highlighting your miniatures, so pushing some of the base colors into a darker tone can make it much easier to highlight upwards. This is true even if you want a really bright overall effect.

Warm and Cool: If you don't like the idea of really strong complementary colors there is another way you can think about the color wheel. Namely a broad distinction in color theory between "warm" and "cool" colors that tend to connote certain feelings. This idea comes up in fashion a lot, with "cool" colors being prioritized in most professional attire as they connote a sort distance and logical exterior. That's why you'll see a lot of blues, greys, and light pinks, in the workplace with just a splash of warmer colors here or there. Whereas warm colors tend to be a bit more earthy and insinuate a more naturalistic environment.

Since we don't tend to dress ourselves with really strong or vibrant color combinations in our day-to-day life we often unknowingly use ideas about "warm" and "cool" color combinations that are analogous (similar tones that are next to each other on the color wheel) to help imply a certain attitude in our day to day life.

Neutral colors: These are colors that are not present on the color wheel and consequently can be used to accompany and accent the complementary or analogous schemes you come up with. These can make great tertiary colors to pick out smaller details on the models without clashing or upsetting the balance of your main colors.

Broadly speaking there are only four neutral colors: Black, Brown, Grey, and White. However any sort of color combination you can achieve with these four shades is considered neutral, and consequently you have a huge variety to choose from when finding something that will accompany your main colors.

All of these are very neutral colors

Keep in mind that brown tends to be a warm neutral color whereas grey tends to be a cool one. Most metal paints fall under the neutral umbrella as well, with gold/copper being warm and silver/steel being cool. Pure black and pure white never clash with any color scheme and can be used anywhere, although be aware that they are such strong tones they can easily dominate the overall colors of your model.

You can, of course, also choose to use a neutral color as one of your primary colors, which gives you a lot of leeway when choosing the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th colors on your figure.

Studio color scheme from Infinity.

The above image is a great example of using a neutral primary color (in this case white) while still getting some nice complementary tones out of the 2nd and 3rd colors. Note that the red and green color combination doesn't feel like a Christmas decoration at all, owing to the strong overall presence of the white.

Bases are a color too!: When designing your color scheme make sure you put some thought into how you will base your models, as the colors present in the base can be used to compliment or contrast the scheme of the model. For example you can paint your figure with one primary color and still get a really strong complementary effect by making your base it's opposite on the color wheel.

Teal and orange(ish)

Purple and green.

These guys are based using a darker/warmer tone of a similar color to set off their desaturated look.

You can also base for cohesion, in which the base becomes an extenuation of the colors present on the figure.

A good example of basing for cohesion with similar tones/shades present across the piece to tie it all in.

Finally you can also choose neutral bases that simply aim not to clash with your figure's colors. (A grey urban "rubble" base is a typical example) This is an especially good idea if your miniature has a lot of different strong colors on it. Your base color will make a huge difference in the overall appearance of your figure, so choose carefully! For more information you can check out my roomate's great blog articles on basing for contrast and basing for cohesion.

Some colors are easier to paint: For beginner-to-medium skilled painters there are certain colors that are just difficult to paint on miniatures. This is primarily because it's tough to get a nice level of contrast out of them. Contrast is the movement from dark to light as you go from the deepest details of the miniature to the highest ones in a way that mirrors the way light plays upon different colors in real life. In miniature painting we frequently push contrast to extremes in order to really make a miniature pop out on the table, not only in terms of our color combinations as mentioned above but also in terms of how each color moves from dark to light on the figure.

There are a few colors where it is objectively easier to get this contrast, and a few where it's objectively harder. Typically cool colors like blues and purples are really easy to get a nice contrast out of, whereas warm colors like red, orange, and yellow are more difficult. If you're employing a lot of warm colors but you still want a lot of contrast make sure you plan your shading/layering process carefully so you know how you'll get it.

A great example of this is trying to highlight red, as it tends to gradually turn into either pink or orange tones depending on what paints your using to lighten the color. Careful that you end up with a highlight you're happy with!

To give you some instances of how color schemes can be structured I've included a few palettes bellow...

Example #1: Complementary Color

Primarily a complementary contrast between an olive-green and a deep purple, which would go over armor or the main articles of clothing with a nice cream color as a tertiary option for extraneous clothing or leathers. The yellow would be a metallic gold for metals that compliments the warmth of the olive/cream notes.

A good example of how the scheme fits together.

Example #2: Neutral as a Primary Color

Black is a dominant neutral color here, but allows us to get some really strong complementary colors going on in the background between the teal and the orange. The deep red  can be used for further detailing as it complements the teal and is analogous to the yellow.

The image I based the above scheme on.

Example #3: Analogous Colors

This is the only palette here I didn't design myself, but as you can see it gives an example of a very cohesive palette based on autumnal colors, all of which are very warm, earthy, and close to each other on the color wheel.

A good example of how this sort of color scheme might be translated onto a set of figures. Note that the painter still uses splashes of bright blue to get some strong complementary effects here and there, and uses very light neutral skintones and greys to avoid clashing with the primary red/gold patterns.

Thanks for reading guys! I hope some of you found this article helpful and that my scatter-brained tips will help you see the fun you can have with designing color schemes. See you soon!

The great Hobby lull of 2016-2017

Hello friends,

This blog has not been updated in a long time and that is largely because my hobby time and energies have been almost non-existent since the fall of 2016. Things have been rather unpleasant for the past few months and I've been struggling with a severe a lack of motivation and self-confidence in my thesis work which has negatively impacted every other facet of my life. I seem to spend all of my time failing to do anything productive, work-related or otherwise.

In January of 2017 I sold off a lot of excess miniatures, painted or otherwise. Most significantly I have jettisoned all Warhammer Fantasy and Age of Sigmar figures, and cancelled my Fyreslayers project. This has reduced my collection down to three primary miniatures systems.

• Warhammer 40k - Ork army (2016)
• Infinity - Aleph army (2013-2014), Panoceania Army (2015)
• Warmachine - Cygnar (2012-2013)

It was liberating to reduce down to this level, and I am happy in the knowledge that I no longer need to paint large numbers of the same miniatures within GW systems (having already painted the bulk of my Ork troops). I probably could have sold off my Warmachine army as well since I never play, but I'm rather nostalgic for the game that pulled me back into the hobby and couldn't bring myself to do it.

Since early summer of 2016 I've been deeply involved in Fantasy Flight's Game of Thrones LCG, details of which can be found here. It's a wonderful system, and I find the LCG format very refreshing and far more competitive than Magic: The Gathering, which I've played casually since I was young. The pick-up-and-play nature of the AGOT game has obviated my inclination to pour hours into the hobby, and I've really enjoyed playing a competitive game that does not demand a huge amount of time off the table.

More recently I have finally experienced a rekindled enthusiasm for some miniature gaming, specifically a strong desire to play Infinity again. I've recently begun running a cyberpunk-themed RPG for a group of friends and it led me back to Infinity via the fluff. I recall really enjoying my experiences of it in my first two years in the UK and feeling that it had a very fast-paced and cinematic system. Furthermore the skirmish-level gameplay means that there would be fewer figures to paint and I could really take my time with them.

Of course, I felt compelled to start a new army rather than building off of my former forces because I am a glutton for punishment. So I've begun prepping a Japanese Sectorial force within the Yu-Jing faction. I'm looking forward to getting them on the table and trying to revitalize my local scene a bit.

A quick progress picture. This represents about 2 weeks of slow and careful assembly for an hour a day.

There has also been discussion within my local gaming group about starting up another 40k campaign with someone else heading it up. I'm hoping that between these two systems, and with some fresh figures on the painting block, that i'll start updating this blog more regularly.

Thanks for reading.

Update IX: Age of Sigmar Fyreslayers

Hello friends, its been a while! Things have been very, very, busy for me since my last update in July. I have completed a draft of my thesis, my long-time girlfriend has moved in with me, we have moved flats, and I have entered the submission pending year of my thesis.

With all of this going on, my hobby time has been significantly curtailed, although I am now hoping that things will settle down now and I can return to painting when possible. I will certainly continue to update this site!

In the two months since my last update I have managed to continue progress on my Age of Sigmar army, and I have completed ten Dispossessed Irondrakes and five Fyreslayer Hearthguard to form a shooty elite core for my army.

For my Irondrakes I wanted to tie them into the snow theme of my Fyreslayer army. Given that they are entirely encased within their armor, I thought it would be cool to make them look as if they'd been unearthed from the ground or snow. I will have very few Dispossessed models in my army, so for their backstory I'm saying that it was a unit of long-dead dwarves from the old world who were found by my Fyreslayers frozen into the ground. The rune-priests reanimated them into a zombie-like existence in order to make use of their long-lost dwarven weaponry and allow them to continue to pursue their ancient grudges.

When it came to modelling them, I opted for an extremely simple paint scheme that was essentially only a two-color basecoat: metal for most of the model with some gold accents. I knew I could get away with this as much of the model would be covered with powdered snow and tufts, providing a sharp contrast to the basic/muted colours underneath. To give them an appropriately worn look I gave them several coats of various washes, before applying Army Painter "Poison Ivy" tufts and Vallejo "Powder Snow" over their armor to make them look suitably unearthed. I can't say enough good things about the Vallejo snow, its by far the best snow product I've ever worked with and the miniatures simply would not look the same without it. I'm very pleased with the overall effect, and almost regretted having to paint the actual colors on my Fyreslayer models afterwards!

For the Hearthguard I continued with the color-scheme I'd established for the battlesmith. The only difference being that I toned down the brightness of the orange for his beard. I still feel like the beards are a real weak-spot in my painting, as I can't seem to get any nice contrast on the orange. In hindsight I should have liked to give them white, black, or grey beards, but its a little too late for that now. Otherwise I'm happy with how they turned out, although they are fiddly models to paint and took longer than I would have liked.

For the future I have 20 Vulkite Berserkers who have been prepped for assembly, as well as a Auric Runefather on a Magmadroth and a Grimwraith Berserker. I'm thinking for the Vulkites I might try an extremely simply airbrush-heavy technique so they don't take as much time as the Hearthguard. But I'm really looking forward to working on the heros!

I am hoping that between this army and my 40k Orks I will not be tempted to produce a full GW-system army again in the future. Its just too time consuming and daunting to batch-paint large number of troops, and given my newly-limited time I am longing for a skirmish-scale painting project. I will treasure my AoS and 40k armies and continue to add to them, but I'm hoping I won't need to paint like this again.

Update VIII: Age of Sigmar & Side Projects

It's been a few months since my last update that showcased what I'd been up to lately. So here's some quick and dirty bulletpoints of how I've been spending my hobby time.


1) Completed a Trukk for my Ork 40k forces:
I managed to slam out this model fairly quickly following the completion of the Gorkanaut.

However, despite building and doing the initial airbrush work on a unit of Meganobz and Gretchin I became very burnt out with painting my 40k Orks after nearly five months of focusing on them pretty much unceasingly. So with 1000pts having been fully painted, I have put off finishing my remaining 250 points to move onto different things.

Furthermore the campaign I was running went on a hiatus as I think many of us became frustrated with the clunkiness of the 40k ruleset. I will certainly be holding onto my lovely orks in anticipation of the new 40k edition that will appear in the next 6-9 months. I'm very much hoping for a streamlined AoS-like update that will bring us all back to the table.

2) Create a female Chaos Space Marine  Raptor squad as a painting side-project.

Having finished my extended article on the sexism inherent to miniature wargaming sculptures I decided it only fitting that I create a small squad of female space marines to transgress the sculpting norms.

The conversion process itself was very straightforward, I just switched out the Space Marine heads with the heroic-scale female head sculpts from Statuesque Miniatures found here. Given how androgynous a properly armed combatant looks, I think it ended up being quite convincing.

The above squad leader was a fairly extensive conversion of the Chaos Aspiring Champion. It was one I'd been intending to do for a while and I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

Unfortunately I've yet to get around to painting them as Age of Sigmar swooped in shortly after undercoating them and began to monopolize my hobby time.

3) I have started an Age of Sigmar force: Fyreslayers!

On a whim I ended up participating in a game of Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower which I was surprised to discover I actually enjoyed enormously. It's a really fun, light, and well-designed game and I'm looking forward to picking up a copy in the future.

Shortly on the heels of that, a friend of mine from Element Games decided we should both try out Age of Sigmar and we ended up having an absolute blast. As mentioned above my gaming group has become somewhat disillusioned with the 40k ruleset and AoS is its polar opposite in terms of how quickly and smoothly the fighting goes.

It was admittedly a very one-sided affair, and I was crushed quite convincingly. I played my roomate's Ogre force while he played Stormcast and it became very apparent early on that our wild guesswork for the relative army strengths was off by a wide margin. Yet with the General's Handbook coming out this month we expect that the Pitched Battle point system will alleviate most of our worries in this department. The game itself was still a ton of fun and extremely intuitive.

As a result most of my 40k campaign group are making the leap over to AoS, and I have settled on an Order Alliance to be my starting point. Specifically, I liked the look of the new Fyreslayers models (I wanted to work with as much modern plastics I could) and consequently dove into a test model for some uniquely-colored forces.

Without further ado I present my Fyreslayers color scheme:

Nordic Papa Smurf.

The Verdigras was done with nihilakh oxide, a new GW technical paint that was far easier than the products I worked with on my converted Big Mek, highly recommended!

This guy was very quick and a lot of fun to paint. I've already purchased and assembled about fifteen figures to start a small AoS force, and I'm looking forward to expanding onwards and upwards. Rest assured there will be regular updates to follow!

Are miniature wargaming sculpts sexist?: Part 2

This is continued from part one found here. I would strongly recommend reading part one in its entirety, or at the very least the introductory sections and our thoughts on Infinity, before continuing here. Our evaluations build off of methodologies and initial conclusions we lay out in detail within part one, and which very much require that background information.

Warmachine 8/10

Warmachine ended up with our highest overall score for an entire range. There are very few double standards in terms of clothing and posing between male and female figures; this combined with the prevalence of steampunk power-armor ensures that the majority of the female models here are very practically dressed. Whether they are in flowing robes or hidden beneath slabs of armor they always match the unit they’re a part of and nothing ever feels impractical or needlessly sexualized.

For characters that are not part of a specific unit (warcasters/solos) not only are they also practically dressed, but they're bolstered by some great backstories and narratives that ensure these characters are just as fully realized as their male counterparts.

There are one or two hiccups amongst the cryx sculpts. While the raiders/skarre feel powerful and assertive despite their sexualisation, the deathwalker and coven witches appear gratuitous, with Deneghra being somewhere in the middle. But overall Warmachine is unquestionably one of the best ranges out there for portraying women.

Best: Major Katherine Laddermore

A great female figure that is well-armoured and totally badass/heroic looking.

Worst: Coven Witches

As mentioned above, the poses here seem really needlessly sexualized and submissive.

Hordes 7/10

Hordes continues in the vein of Warmachine by having the vast majority of its female sculpts dressed and posed in quite practical ways. This is helped by the fact almost all of the women portrayed in the range are non-human. However there were one or two disappointments that brought the overall quality down.

Special note: We feel we should mention our approval of the female trolls. It would have been really easy for Privateer Press to copy GW’s depictions/fluff for their orks and totally obviate any female presence amongst the trolls, but they manage to not only include women trolls but make them really interesting characters. While their equipment/armor might leave a little to be desired in comparison to their male counterparts it is great to see a company make this effort with a homebrew fantasy race.

Best: Makeda

Makeda is fully armoured, extremely scary, and looks righteously pissed off. This is a great rendition of a villainous female character that isn't exploitative.

Worst: Bloodreaver Night Witch

This figure feels very out of place in the Hordes aesthetic. Note the arched back pose that exposes as much of her midriff as possible. It seems the sculptors tried to mitigate this by having her hoist a sword in a rallying cry, but when combined with the lack of clothing it makes any such pretense seem absurd. If her upraised sword arm was behind her back this would be a textbook "pin-up girl" pose.

Freebooters 6/10

Freebooter’s Fate occupies an interesting position in relation to its depictions of women. On one hand there is certainly a double standard in the depictions of men and women within Werner Klocke’s sculpting, with a strong trend towards sexualized female clothing that sees many women figures showing a fair bit of skin. This is particularly true of the Pirate and Amazon factions. Although there are also instances, particularly among the Armada faction, of women being quite practically dressed.

However the posing on Klocke’s figures is typically excellent, and tends to be closely tied into the character’s persona or fighting style with little by way of gratuitous “pin-up” style posing. While the amazon figures may be scantily clad, they all genuinely look like they’re ready for a fight, and aren’t just thrusting their butts out for no reason like some of the Infinity sculpts.

This is bolstered by Klocke’s ability to sculpt faces so that his male and female characters have actual expressions. Again the range of facial appearances tends to reflect the characters well, from the no-nonsense angry gaze of the amazons, to the confident smirk of the Queen of Shadows.

Through a combination of clothing, poses, facial expression, and detailed fluff write-ups for each of Freebooter’s figures, the game manages to convey a very strong sense of character for each model in the range. Women represent a significant portion of Freebooter’s models, and contain a real mixture of sexualized and non-sexualized figures. Yet each manages to feel like a fully realized character that is dangerous on the battlefield in their own way. Owing to this, we felt that there were only a few instances where Freebooter’s was really gratuitous.

A few points to note:

We really liked the occasionally different female body type being displayed in a manner that wasn’t comedic. Figures like Momma Galina, the Maid, and Big Jenny all look sexy and dangerous in their own way without it being a gag. There are very few miniature ranges that really attempt to portray bigger female bodies in this way.

Much of one's thoughts on Freebooter’s depictions of women will come down to how you feel about the Amazon faction. Given that the idea of an Amazonian matriarchal culture is part of Greco-Roman mythology, we did not feel it was overly culturally appropriative of the designers to use it as a basis for designing their faction. The fluff seems a little generic but is generally well handled, and there are only a few figures that seem in poor taste. Consequently we ultimately decided it didn't have a notably  positive or negative impact on the overall score.

 

Freebooters presents a relatively diverse range owing to its Caribbean-inspired setting. There are a decent number of non-white characters that are subject to the same general mixture of sexualisation as the rest of the range. It is not as large a percentage of the models as you might think considering the setting, but it’s a lot better than most systems.

Best: Queen of Shadows

This is a good example of how to do a "sexy" female figure well. While there is obviously cleavage, her breasts aren't enormous and there is plenty of clothing everywhere else covering her. Yet she still conveys power and lethality alongside that seductiveness.

Worst: Curly Ann

This is just out of line. Not only is the figure absurdly posed and attired, but that she is a black character and a pirate in additional to this heavily sexualized appearance suggests this is an attempt to present an "exotic" sexuality. This implies a "tokenism" towards characters of color that we discussed in our analysis of Malifaux. Thankfully there are few figures that feel this sexist within the Freebooters range.

Guild Ball 7/10

Guild Ball does a solid job of portraying its women characters in a positive and respectful light. It is a game built around sport as much as combat, and we felt the inclusion of women here was a really positive decision given how much society sees athletic ability as inherently gendered. Furthermore, while there are few instances of heavily-armor figures owing to its “medieval ballgame” aesthetic, there is little by way of double standards in terms of clothing. Each team looks cohesive in terms of their appearance, and clothing leans towards things that make sense within the logic of the game world.

With regards to posing, there are one or two instances of women appearing less “combat ready” than their male counterparts. Angel (Fishermen) being an obvious example, while Friday (Brewers) over-the-shoulder butt shot seems out of place relative to the dynamic motion of her teammates. But generally the women here look capable and ready to play/fight.

A few points to note:

It is nice to see some diversity in female body types across the range and some unconventional appearances such as Vitriol’s scars. There are short and tall women, skinny and curvy, with a variety of body/facial proportions. There is also the case of Esters (Brewers), who we felt was quite badass, albeit somewhat comedic as well. However there does seem to be a lack of any female figures showing a lot of muscle tone relative to the prevalence of beefy men.

Not exactly rushing into battle. It's a pity the sculptor felt the need to drop that collar-line six inches.

A few of the figures, specifically Siren, Decimate, and Myst appear to be almost gender-neutral in regards to their proportions and clothing, which we felt was a really cool touch. Obviously these characters aren’t intended to be, yet the idea of a player being able to decide on the gender of their figure themselves without being obviously contradicted by the huge muscles and/or breasts of said miniature is a really cool idea.

Decimate actually did change gender if we compare her against her original artwork.

In their most recent round of updates Guild Ball has added a bunch of non-white characters both male and female alike who all seem really well done. It would have been easy for Steamforged Games to excuse this lack of representation by pointing to its “Medieval Europe” setting, but this would have been very flimsy and it’s great to see them add some diversity to the game.

Best: Siren

Siren is one of the only miniatures we saw in this whole project that has relatively small breasts. Despite this, she is still incredibly bad-ass looking. She connotes a mixture of sensuality and power without being overtly sexualized, and there is also a hint of gender-neutrality to her that we thought was really engaging and fits with her "ethereal" presence/fluff.

Worst: Brisquet

While it's nice to see the variation in body types, Brisquet is dressed far too much like a generic fantasy "tavern wench" to be taken seriously. Thankfully she is pretty much the only figure we felt was really gratuitous within the range. But it did stand out.

Conclusions

The general conclusion from this reflection was two-fold. On one hand we were pleasantly surprised by how well a lot of these ranges held up under a critique of their female sculptures. My partner noted the representation of women isn't nearly as bad as she thought it would be, especially in relation to how women are presented in a lot of popular culture like blockbuster films, etc. However on the other hand there are many, many egregious examples of female figures that are demonstrably sexist and pandering to straight male audiences in a way that cannot help but hurt the potential for women to engage with miniature gaming as a hobby. There are also several systems, from Games Workshop in particular, in which women are an extremely small minority of the figures being produced, which is also a significant barrier to entry. Here are some key observations we discussed afterwards:

• There is a clear and demonstrable tendency across several systems for a female sculpt to be "sexy" in a way that male figures are not. As much as combatants on a battlefield are typically physically fit individuals, it is only ever women whose poses and clothing suggest they are being sculpted in a way that panders to the sexual orientation of the consumer. There is nothing wrong with a woman being sexual, but it's important to consider who it is that is representing woman in this way and why they're doing it. There is very little female agency  between both consumers and creators that might influence the depiction of women within miniature gaming. We question whether a female sculpt designer would portray a "sexy" character using the methods seen above with outthrust hips, a lack of armor, and lots of bare skin. This is not to say that men can't represent a sexually empowered women in art/games/books/whatever, but it is important to be critical when these representations are so extreme they make one question the validity or purpose of this apparent sexual empowerment. The solution to this is not, we feel, to make the men equally sexualized, but rather to encourage sculptors and designers to create figures that make sense within the logic of their game world, and have both men and women appear equally combat-ready.

Hark a Vagrant, with a comic on Marvel's Cloak and Dagger.

• How female sculpts relate to their male counterparts is a key measure of how problematic the representation of women is in a particular range. Some of the best and some of the worst representations of women occur when female sculpts are part of a larger combat unit that includes men, since it really highlights the parity or double-standard between them.
• The best female representations often stem from sculpts of individual characters who are developed within the fluff background for the games setting. Women who are important characters within the universe they're depicted as part of seem to be taken more seriously by the sculptors. Our theory is that it introduces a dash of consequence to poor representations of women. For example: if you have a scantily clad female sculpt in a "pin-up girl" pose who is supposed to represent an important and respected military commander then you have effectively undermined the credibility of your game-world.
• There is a lack of diverse body types among female figures in many systems. Obviously this is something that applies to male figures as well, yet male figures typically enjoy a slightly wider range of relative muscle mass. Yet there is a demonstrable lack of muscle tone or bulk of any kind across most female models. This is really noticeable when many of these women are supposed to be highly-trained combatants, and is especially problematic when we consider that these are fantastical depictions where there's no reason for women to not have a bit more muscle than might be realistic in the same manner as their male cohorts.
• Breasts are a problem in miniature gaming sculpts. With very few exceptions, the women presented in 28mm scale have absolutely enormous breasts by any bodily standard and they are almost always presented in a wildly impractical or gratuitous fashion. The prevalence of big boobs as a shorthand for femininity is nothing less than a lazy design-trope at this point. Especially when figures like Guild Ball's "Siren" and Infinity's "Joan of Arc in Mobility Armor" demonstrate that huge bazoongas are in no way a requirement for making a figure distinctly feminine. This is particularly jarring given that female sporting/athletic wear is designed to compress a woman's breasts and keep them out of the way. (Olympic female swimmers are the example being discussed in that video.) Accordingly it seems even more absurd to constantly have all this armor with huge boob cavities, which would technically only help guide projectiles towards your center mass. For a superb examination of the problems with female boob-armor (amongst many others) check out "Bikini Armor Battle Damage", home of the famous female armor bingo card, and its follow-up the female armor defensive rhetoric bingo card, both of which have a lot of application to depictions of women in miniatures systems.
• Miniature wargaming does a poor job of representing characters of color. This point really deserves its own article and shouldn't be tacked on as an afterthought here, which is possibly something I will do in the future. But for now we think it's very obvious that as much as the representation of women in miniature wargaming, both as players and within the models themselves, might be poor, the representation of non-white individuals of any gender across the player/miniature spectrum is even worse. Many ranges have almost no representation of racial individuals, and those that do frequently contain a lot of problematic tokenism. (ex: If it's an Asian lady then she's a ninja with a katana. If it's a black man he's a brawler.) Of course there might be a few figures or even factions that are an exception to this but they are few and far between. The point is that miniature wargaming puts up a significant barrier to entry for any people of color through their poor representation, both in number and quality, on the tabletop in the same manner as its representation of women.

Analyzing all of this led us to the question: what is the cost to the individual gamer if those depictions of women which are problematic or downright offensive were to be altered? And how does that individual cost weight against the prospect of making the hobby more inviting towards women participants?

We were also intrigued by the idea of gender neutrality within miniature figures. Again, the idea of being able to assign your models their own gender without being obviously contradicted by their appearance sounds like a really cool idea to us, another personalized layer of customization for your tabletop forces. Obviously this won't be possible in every instance, but one could definitely argue that androgyny is a hallmark of individuals who are dressed for combat, whether fantastical, historical, modern, or futuristic.

Final Notes

As much as I would like to hear peoples thoughts on this I do have one last thing to state: If you've read through all of this yet still disagree that we, as gamers, need to be performing this analysis in the first place, or insist that there is no issue with the depiction of women in miniature games, then I would strongly encourage you to check out this video series. They are extremely well crafted discussions from a male videogame critic that go over some of the reasons male communities can be so resistant to this sort of criticism owing to the discomfort it produces. The parallel to miniature gaming is striking, and it helps explain why this type of discussion is important. Parts five and six are particularly relevant.

I know that miniature gamers are, by and large, a really decent group of people both in person and online. The recent controversy over the rampant sexism contained within Prodos Miniature's "Space Crusade" line of figures on dakkadakka.net indicates that many gamers already have some level of critical awareness about the depiction of women in miniatures. This article aims only to expand that awareness. Being self-aware and critical about our pastimes does not make them inherently wrong or un-enjoyable. Acknowledging the problems inherent to a form of entertainment does not mean you have to stop enjoying it, nor does it automatically mean those problems apply to you. As much as I take issue with representation of women in miniature gaming I am still painting, playing, and enjoying my time with figures from all of these systems.

I'd also encourage you to remember that I am just as much a member of the community as you. Miniature gaming is something I love, and I have gone through the (extensive) effort of crafting this article because I want more people to have the opportunity to love it too.

edit: I originally posted this article on May 22nd and shared it with only a small circle of friends and acquaintances to get their feedback before promoting it further. In that time I have incorporated comments from over a dozen people that represent a mix of avid wargamers, doctoral students in gender studies, and women both within and outside the miniature gaming community. I think this helps to lend further salience to the criticisms we have presented here.