Panther

I am not a gamer … I consider myself a ‘pure’ painter and try to paint each and every miniature to the best of my current abilities. As a result I often spent insane numbers of hours trying to ‘perfect’ a 30-40mm tall piece of metal. Besides not having time to play I must admit feeling very uncomfortable with the thought of painting a ‘gaming’ miniature, because I find it very difficult to limit what I do in order to find a compromise between result and time invested. Yet some time ago I asked myself a ‘What if?’ question – what if I actually played the tabletop game BattleTech? How much effort would I invest in my miniatures? Where would be the compromise between time and effort invested?

The result is the Panther you can see below. I needed maybe around 5 hours from start to finish trying not to worry about technique and trying to achieve a result that looks good on the table (but doesn’t necessarily stand up to close inspection …).

I must admit that the painting process was fun and it was very good to finish something (I am working on several time consuming projects at the moment which are a long way from being finished …). But I can’t say I am very happy with the result as the shortcuts I have taken are painfully evident. Besides I am still not a gamer, so this will likely be my only foray into the world of ‘gaming’ miniatures … at least for now
(08/2009)