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Post by adjutantgeneral on May 29, 2021 21:17:15 GMT -9
...at least for paper minis, in my humble opinion.
This is probably not news to most of you guys, who are artists in the rather specialized field of flat paper toy soldiers, but I mention it because it is a real pet peeve of mine.
Like most paper army collectors these days, I outline my figures in a heavy strip of black (about half a centimeter wide) which then gets cut down the middle to form a 2-3mm wide exterior border of the piece. This, to an amateur like myself, is pretty close to ideal. Wide enough that I don't end up with lots of throw-aways, but narrow enough that it doesn't obscure the piece on the table.
The only trouble I comes when the figure inside has a lot of dark colors, such as midnight blue, dark brown, or, the great enemy, that destroyer of miniatures: black.
I have found that the best miniature figure artists find ways to minimize this effect, by such tricks as highlighting the edges of the piece with light gray or blue, or avoiding the use of black at all, except when used as an outline, though this can be impossible in such cases as Star Wars death star crew, Zulus, death's head hussars, or weird wraith-like things from the outer dark.
Curious what the experts think.
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Post by cowboyleland on May 30, 2021 5:41:47 GMT -9
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Post by adjutantgeneral on May 30, 2021 10:59:04 GMT -9
Thanks! I'll check out his stuff.
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Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on May 30, 2021 14:16:46 GMT -9
Kev has a good number of pay-what-you-want sets on DriveThruRPG: www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/4540/Kev039s-Lounge?affiliate_id=307969 and plenty of inexpensive sets that help support what he does. I'm a huge fan of his Patreon - the champion series is really neat. He releases the main figure for free there, too, so you can get an idea of what you'd be in for (though, really, the one mini doesn't really do justice to the variety of options he packs into his top tier!)
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Post by ThePaperGolem on May 31, 2021 4:46:10 GMT -9
100%
I provide my minis with the option for both black and white outlines, but you need to design your figures assuming it's black, using as you mentioned, white rim lighting, shades of grey and gradients/highlights and tones/tints that play off a black background/outline.
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Post by mesper on Jun 2, 2021 6:12:22 GMT -9
For the minis with a solid black outline, after a few attempts, I try not to use at all or at least limit the use of big(!) black elements in the outer areas of the figures. It requires a lot of additional precise work with layers and the effects are not always at the expected level. So as it was mentioned earlier, I try to avoid black and use shades or other colours rather. And in general, while accepted the dark outline as a kind of standard (and a helpful thing for the paper modeller), I think that this is a bit bad for many minis, as it darkens and flattens the overall look and in some cases takes a part of the mini expression. But what can you do...
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Post by emergencyoverride on Jul 10, 2021 9:52:29 GMT -9
I really love Kev's stuff as well! However for the longest time I collected, but didn't use his figures as they had that white halo, and my eyes completely fuzz out the minis that have that. But now that he has added in a black outline option for his minis for those of us whose eyes can't focus on the white outline I use them a ton! The best for everybody!
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