Hobby Cheating 252 - Tabletop vs Display vs Competition Quality Explanation 

This was a great reminder that as long as I'm improving I'm winning. Sometimes I feel like I'm not getting better or my quality it's plateauing, but then I realize that I'm creating that same quality in half the time I used to, so still improving.

Vince's tabletop quality would be my display quality. Lol. I've got a lot of growing to do.

Vince, you are the first to put this somewhat arbitrary division into categories that are easy to understand and also a huge relief to mini painters of all levels. When tabletop is defined by certain techniques and beginners struggle with those, it could theoretically mean that their minis are not worthy to be put on the table and discourage newcomers. It also explains why "speedpainting" of veterans like yourself will produce minis that surpass the highest efforts of someone painting their first army (even if it should be obvious, but youtube titles like "Y painted in Z hours" create a certain illusion). By anchoring your distinctions in your indivual approach to your project you encourage and include all painters while also giving pointers on how to improve. That is why I think you are such a treasure for this hobby community . Thank you!

As usual, you're spot on! And finally I see someone talking about this and making it so clear.

Thanks for releasing a Saturday morning video! I enjoy watching your video while drinking my morning coffee!

Always helpful Vince. Its interesting that most of us came to painting minis from D&D and other games. In those environments our characters grew by gaining experience points and achieved new levels, easily at first and much harder the higher you go. I'd love to see the community (or those much more experienced and established than I) come up with something more specific to equate certain techniques with a certain level, or allot experience points for attending painting classes at Adepticon or NOVA. Right now, measuring the output as Tabletop, Display or Competition seems broad and opaque. I imagine such a system might supercharge participation in painting classes by the Jedis like you. Cheers.

Vince , you are creating history and pioneering the way for the future of wargaming and miniature artists. You are the Jack Kirby of miniature painting, and every encounter opens new doors and adventures. So I thank you! Never stop educating !

Another great video. Your tutorials have been helping me a lot, but still plenty of painting experience to get to that display level quality. Really enjoyed seeing the difference in the three levels, thatll definitely help in the future. Thank you for the help!

Great to see and hear how you define the levels of painting commitment!

I like your way of framing the distinctions, and in particular I feel like I have a better grasp of the "display painting" concept now. I think some beginners looking for an idea of what most communities would accept as "tabletop" might be a bit intimidated by your handgunners though ;) At any rate, excellent video as always!

I feel like going over tabletop standard stuff has really helped reinforce what I’ve learned over the last couple months painting my first army. My Night Lords really got pushed to the next level when I sucked it up and spent the extra 5 minutes per model to freehand some lightning on them! Thanks for some many great videos. I really appreciate how you focus on why you make the decisions you make helps so much with the artistic side of learning how to paint.

I like how you use auditive analogies for visual effects, like loud colours and cacophonous effects. Bravo Vince, it is a joy to watch and listen to you :)

Thanks Vince for a great video and putting this subject into better perspective.

Great Video once again. Really good tips on how to push your painting quality to that next level based on your current skills.

Interesting video, thanks Vince. Good for framing my mind if I want to go further

I think that the personal feeling of satisfaction is how well we perceive we hit our mark. If I was going for table top because of time and got it done better than I expected I feel like wow I did something good. Conversely If I give myself all the time in the world to make it look nice and the actual doesn't match the "in the head" version I feel like I missed. This can set you up for failure it is reaching and missing that I have felt the most growth from. Another great video and conversation, don't know how you do it, but thank you. Stay safe Vince!

never thought of the concept of looking at the face then the weapon. its very true! Thanks Vince!

Thanks Vince, help’s with a lot of the decision making.

Wow! Think your subs grew Vince? You so deserve it. This is by far the most educational miniature painting channel for many topics. Like a general practitioner not of medicine but paints and it's application 😉👏. So my army was too big in AOS and got burnt out. Sold it and picked up indomitus which is much better for me ATM. So felt bad I'm out of the AOS scene but thought hey I still love it and this is for painting not AOS! Then I see a space marine to reinforce that belief haha. Well I have alot of catching up to do! Thanks again for all this Vince, makes a huge difference for people who don't have a group or friends in the hobby to learn from.

That KoS hair is sick! I'm always amazed when you show it. In my current place in hobby I focus more on quantity over quality. That being said, I know that I can go back to some of my models later and push them further. I have almost finished painting my Ironjawz (long time coming...), but they will only be a tabletop standard. I could go and push contrast on Gordrakks armor, add battle damage to more than just Megaboss and one Warchanter (though it was my 1st time adding battle damage and I'm not too happy about it, less is more, I over did it). Best choice was to get myself an airbrush. Cut lots of time on basecoating, enabled cool undershading (my Space Wolves from now on will get an undershade of VGC Dark Blue glaze, gives nice purplish-blue shade), and of course adding zenithal to my toolbox. Things I would like to focus more on now are better bases. My usual decision to use some earth, some stones and static grass + tuft here and there is mostly because of my magnetic box. Great video! Happy warpainting :D

I didn't know there was a difference 😳 I'm a new painter to miniatures and your videos have been very helpful all month!

Almost at the 1 year mark of starting AoS and painting. Put my latest mini next to my first and its SOoooo much worse than I remember! Can’t wait to see how much I improve in year 2!

As per usual you have your professional finger on the painting community’s pulse! 👍

Best explanation in this: "as long as you want to keep working on it, it's for display". Sometimes you start for quality and a mini just doesn't "work" for you, so it ends up as 'tabletop +'. Maybe you go back to it later, maybe not. If you are having fun and improving, then you're winning - even if you never enter a competition (but his advice to enter at least one competition is true for anything you want to get better at)

I'm painting an army, apparently I like to suffer cause I am painting pretty much all of them to the best of my lackluster ability, but with covid time doesn't seem to be an issue, I don't get to play atm anyway, awesome content, and also being so down to earth at this skill level is very refreshing to me

It’s a hobby for many and a profession for a few. Either way, it’s great to be apart of!

First off thank you so much for everything you do for this hobby! How many hours a night do you sleep? Trying to do the math, work full time, hobby full time, RU-vid, and marriage. You are an iron man!

I like batch painting. Helps focus on finishing parts of the whole; one belt piece, slime puss, or weapon at a time.

Awesome, Vince!

Awesome vid, Vince. Just sort of compartmentalizing each standard of paint job as its own beast seems to make tackling projects a lot more doable even if it's just an adjustment to your mentality. My OBR army for example; the pressure was on because of a looming tournament date so I just did a quality job on all the characters and then made the rank and file very simple but gave them a few visual hotspots and did an oil wash to pop them out. Worked perfect for my purposes and now I think with this video kind of cemented that as a tool for my painting tool box. Probably try like a Necromunda gang or something at display quality next. Last thing, I noticed there was quite a few ads in this vid and I'm more than okay with it because you deserve to get paid out as much as possible for the countless hours of work you do just seemed like quite an abrupt jump from zero ads (aside from the starting one) to however many there were there, 6 at least? Just wondering if you're going full on now. If you are, I honestly think you could blow a lot of these new hotshots out of the water (they're great too I'm just being dramatic).

I hope to be able to do achieve a nice display quality in time, but competition painting sounds exhausting! But you make a good point at the end. Maybe someday.

Well this made me feel awful about everything I've ever painted. But I watched it because it had plenty of good lessons and I'm happy to say I recommended it to the other people in my painters club.

Hi Vince, I really love the additional breakdown you did at the end of the video reinforcing that it's primarily intent, time, and effort that really distinguishes between the three categories. It brought up an additional thought and I'm curious what your take would be: I think there's an additional level on the subjectivity scale, and that's individual skill. I think many people would look at that statement and say something like "of course, I can't do perfect blends so I could never hit Competition level, I'm gated by my skill." I don't think that's really an accurate thought though- someone that's new to the hobby, or new to skill growth in painting could be painting at Competition levels relative to themselves. An individual might not win or even enter a local competition let alone a Crystal Brush or Golden Demon, but the effort and time and care they put into pushing themselves, getting those extra layers and mid-tones that they've never hit before, attempting (even failing) a blend on a plate of armor could be just as challenging and rewarding to them as someone like you going for that top prize in a competition and taking 200x hours longer.

I always thought of "tabletop" as basecoat + wash = done, what GW dubs "battle ready". In contrast, "display" has always meant "paint like you give a damn", and anything higher was competition quality, with many, many levels encompassed therein. Interesting to hear a different perspective.

Great advices, thanks. :) I'm painting my first army but it's takes longer than I expected. My goal is the TTQ quality, but I just lost in the details of the models all the time. 😅

Thank you for the video!!!

Newer hobby-ist here. Painting my first army has been a hurdle for me and I'm barely halfway through. The hurdle is that I am trying to do too much to every single model. Also I have no idea what my actual list is because I just got all the coolest stuff the faction has (CSM). At least with covid I am not feeling the pressure to play like I did last year. But man I want a functional fluffy army done soon so I can keep indulging in painting individual models without feeling like it delays my ability to play. My last batch of CSM guys I painted to what I called table top. So that meant dry brushing my dark gray highlights on the black power armor. Doing one layer of gold trim with silver highlights. It felt good to get ten done in 1 week. I can tell what these guys are from 3 feet away. They don't look like a dark black blob like I seen so many other CSM armies look.

What I've never seen is a video which explains 'how you can upgrade your table top level painted minis to display quality ?'. Is it even possible ? which are the viable and non-viable candidate table top painted minis ?. Would it be better to just strip the table top quality piece and then just start again aiming for dispay / competition quality ?

Lol your tabletop is my Display 🤣 Gotta get myself a new airbrush!

So are these terms are less a measure of quality and more about the mindset?

Your Tabletop Standard is better than most people’s display standard. I’d say you have Tabletop + or just high standard as your lowest :D

oh shit, so that's how you look like. Thanks for all the amazing content man.

Thank u Vince :) Can u give me some advice? I want 2 buy an airbrush set and i read too many things and oppinions. now im complete confused what to buy. I started to glaze my minis because of u and Dana Howl, but im doing the undercoating with wrath bone spray and thinned nuln oil. this takes really much time and still then it's not as good as zenital undercoating... i'm in a difficult situation at theese times and i can't afford to buy this twice, so i want to ask u (as an expert) what u would recommend me to buy. I can stretch the money a bit if necassary. I'm sure it's worth it :) But i can't afford to buy it twice at the moment. I hope you can help me a bit! Thank u for all of your videos, you really taught me very much things about this hobby.

Vince, are there any good opalescence or pearl or iridescent products out there? Much of the white or off white power armor of space marines are supposed to have these effects. If so, can we get a hobby cheating on them?

This should include a bold disclaimer "everything covered in this video does not apply to James Wappel who occupies a space outside of this paradigm where models aren't painted to a certain standard, they're Wappeled into existence"

Hey, trying to find that video you mention about the ogres but I can't seem to find it :(

Is there a video about the pink-teal winged creatures?

These Ogors are still mindboggling to me. I couldn't do that stuff with an infinite ammount of time. That being said, I still have massive problems with the air brush. It doesn't seem to click for me and I even need a huge ammount of time to prime with it. Could very well have to do with the fact that it is a very cheap one... All in all my restraining factors are skill and patience. I'm going more for display quality (by your criteria), because I just like looking at them from time to time and don't want to do "only" tabletop level. Of course my "display quality" is probably somewhere between tabletop and display for others, as I still need so many time for going a little above tabletop and am just too "tired" of it at some point and call it a day (like you would for tabletop quality).

Very interesting subject. Sadly I don't enjoy painting at all, so trying to improve from base colours and wash. How do you enjoy painting minis?

I tend to only buy models I will play on the table top. I do my best to get a high table top standard and practice techniques that will be useful for other models. My biggest problem is everything looks like a GW catalogue from the 90s and early 2000s.

If i ever get to your Level of Tabletop quality i would be more then happy 🤣

if i aim for display and competition should i use fast tools like air brush?

How to paint white metal colour with white paint and metal paint? For example shield from the Indomitus warrior or armor from the heroes?

For me, the centerpoint of the lizardman riding the dinosaur was the dinosaurs head. The music i find makes it harder to focus on your words. I would prefer without the music. Thanks,

I like ink over zenithal, however it doesn't look vibrant enough for my eyes. I also don't use an air brush... lol

I ve seen this video several times over the past 18 months and I have a question: Does it bug you sometimes when you look at a table top quality model and think I should really paint this in a better quality?

It's been my experience that competitions wind up coming down to who does the best base.

Hey Vince like always a Really good tuts, i am makeing a blood Bowl team of Chaos but i am trying to make a handy glowing like the beastmen have powers from a some kind of god, can you make a tut that cover cover that topic. That's Will make My Day looooots better

I think of display as best painted level. Table top, im there to play, display, im here to win best painted

Do you face a tutorial on how to do the pink skin on the tzaangor or your Daughters of Khaine?

Not so long ago I listened to long interviews on russian with some of people I admire, Kanaev and Melnikov "Nakatan", and both of them stated the same thing: they don't care about difference between what's on the table and what is display. Partially it may be due to both of them being terribly modest (Nakatan also states he is not an artist, not a painter, just a hobbyist), partially because as they said it, there are armies played out there for thousands of dollars worth paintjobs made to extreme standard (Kanaev has marines army he plays and doesn't show nobody, because it's just his army to play); or maybe the difference in what constitutes "good" once you get fundamentals right is so arbitrary it becomes hard to make any judgement and give any ratings. Also I find it interesting how in traditional painting you can get away with stuff like this ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9TgidtvyupQ.html And it's interesting that at one point, realists did try hyper accurate approach, like painting everything up to eyelashes and little threads on a cloth upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Portrait_of_Georg_Gisze%2C_by_Hans_Holbein_the_Younger.jpg personally I find what is considered to be GD perfection exhaustive, and was happy to see for first time how say Marco Frisoni works. but then I am a terribly lazy person and MUST PRACTICE

SKINKER-DOO

That background music is killing me dude.

Partners? Jobs? Sleep? What so?

first!

this video almost made me depressed.

second : (