Painting Figures and the 3ft Rule

One of the largest parts of wargaming is actually painting the miniatures that you will be using to battle with on the tabletop. I estimate that at least 70% of my wargaming time is taken up with just painting figures, the other 30% is actually playing games, reading rules, organising scenarios/campaigns, researching uniforms, and all the other parts that the hobby entails. I am sure I am not alone in this balance of time. It's a huge part of the hobby and can be quite daunting for the newcomer when faced with hundreds of unpainted miniatures. This feeling can be added to when the vast majority of miniature painting guides on Youtube are produced by professional painters, who seem to be painting the next Golden Demon Winner. There seems to be very few aimed at the fresh starter who may only have a handful of paints and a couple of brushes. Painting techniques take time to learn and I have seen many social media posts by people who are put off by the seemingly insurmountable goals that some others set in standards. That said, there are plenty that do great work, Sonic Sledgehammer (on Twitter and Youtube) does great work in using everyday paints and techniques that are a step above the norm. Troy's approach is very achievable and I have used many of his techniques myself. 

But in this article, I want to talk about the 3ft rule, a rule by which I live my life when it comes to painting miniatures. The 3ft rule (or 1m rule if you are using metric...) takes account of the distance that you would stand when playing a game and looking at the board. After a certain distance all detail is lost to the eye, even on larger 28mm figures and is something that increases as the figure scale decreases. When you are actually painting the figures it is most likely the only time that you will see that amount of detail at all, unless you spend your time pouring closely over your collection after it is painted. Think of the last game you played, were you able to pick out the individual buttons on the tunic of that Austrian Infantryman? Did you even notice they were there? No? Me neither. 

This is where the 3ft rule enters. When you are painting figures to play with there are certain corners that you can cut. This is especially true with the rank and file as they will form the bulk of your force and generally are lumped together in a game anyway, losing even more detail on individual figures. One of the basic tenets of figure painting is the three tiered system of dark base coat, mid tone and highlights. I propose dropping this to a two tiered system (with a little bit of an extra tier), so for 15mm figures I block paint the base coat of the miniature, painting the uniform and webbing and/or equipment in a basic mid range colour. If some details are very small, such as unit patches, helmet decals, etc, I just ignore them. Look at photographs of groups of people standing far away from the camera and see how much detail you can actually pick out on individuals. It really isn't a large amount, for the most part it is a sense of colours and shapes rather than pinprick stuff. 

Then, I apply a wash, this is usually Agrax Earthshade from Games Workshop as it has a good inkwash quality that emphasises the darker areas and runs off the naturally higher and therefore lighter areas of the sculpt. There are others out there that do the same, just experiment and find one you like and that suits your needs. For my First and Second World War figures, I will just go back and highlight the flesh, usually with the same base colour I used previously. The reason that I only highlight flesh is because we are naturally drawn to human faces and picking them out with highlights allows them to stand out against the uniform. For other figures, such as Napoleonic figures, I may go and highlight some of the colours such as white on cross belts and trousers, again just to make them stand out slightly. But generally that is as far as I will go when it comes to painting rank and file for the tabletop. 

28mm figures obviously need a little more work, here I would go back and do some highlighting, but this depends on how light in colour the base colour is. So a white cape, for example would look muddy with no highlights, so I would either quickly drybrush or block paint the highlights on. The rule of thumb is that the larger the figure, the more you should highlight after the inkwash. But even this doesn't need to be a large number of layers, just one will do most of the time. With 6mm figures, I just paint the figure black and then apply block colours leaving some of the black to 'blackline' the details. I apply no washes or no other highlights at all. Here is a video I made about this exact process: https://youtu.be/AhpXJ6eK9Yc 

This is obviously a simplistic way of looking at things, and if you are more than happy to spend your time painting getting every single detail correct and shaded umpteen times, then carry on. For rank and file this works very well, but I would suggest spending a little more time on officers and commander figures, simply because wargamers tend to be drawn into these figures when they are inspecting your forces. But the 3ft rule is a quick and easy way for gamers to get a useable force on the tabletop without the prospect of getting overwhelmed in detail immediately. Don't forget, as you improve your painting, and you will, you can always go back to these figures and add detail in where you want to. A painted figures doesn't necessarily mean it is finished. I have on occasion gone back to figures I painted 20 years ago and retouched them when I thought they needed a bit more work. 

Painting figures shouldn't be an insurmountable obstacle to the newcomer and abiding by the 3ft rule should give you the confidence to work your way through the figures without worrying about hitting every detail and judging your output against the professional painters out there. Painting is a thoroughly fun part of wargaming and the more you do it, the better you will get. Grab your brushes and splash some paint around!