Some fifteen years ago, Toby Barrett was in my living room, holding up different makes of 15mm figures, and preaching about the evils of "figure creep." He would put them side by side: Minifigs and Essex, TTG and Jacobites, and he'd say things like: "See, look at this... this one's eyes are what... two, three millimeters higher than that one's..." At the time I thought he was being a bit obsessive. What's a few millimeters between friends? Not all soldiers are the same height and size, after all, so why should miniatures all have to be? Years later, it appears that Toby won his crusade. I notice that virtually every review of miniatures from Australia to the US to Britain pays homage to the "Barrett Scale," which is the practice of measuring a figure's height from its eyeballs to its basestand. Standardization - that most American of cravings - has been achieved! A decade passed, the internet arrived, and God said: "Let there be E-Bay." And behold it was good. At any given moment, thousands of painted miniatures are for sale on e-bay, and they sell for astonishing prices. I've seen old 25mm Minifig infantry going for more than seven dollars per figure. My wife even suggested I might become a fulltime miniatures painter. Like, I suspect, most of you, I've purchased figures on e-bay. And virtually without exception, I've been disappointed. Oh, the joys of Photoshop! The pictures don't bear much resemblance to the actual figures, I'm afraid. Most were described as "Great Looking!" And most were so awful that I ended up re-painting them, rather than putting them on a tabletop and risking somebody thinking that I had actually done that paint job myself. There appear to be only two phrases for describing a paint job: "Museum Quality" and "Wargame Quality." Both of these are patently absurd. First of all, when's the last time you've seen a painted 15mm miniature that was destined for a museum? Nobody paints "museum quality" because the sorts of miniatures we use don't go in museums. Virtually every figure you'll see for sale on e-bay (or indeed, even in Hal's own "Sutler's Wagon") is described by its seller as "wargame quality." This can mean anything at all. And since there's no level beneath it, it often means: Very Poor Quality. I only buy 25mm figures, where a lack of detail can be glaringly obvious, but still I've seen some amazingly sloppy work labeled "wargame quality." I bought some figures which apparently had never been primed. The painter had just left bare metal for places where metal was called for, such as the bayonets. I've seen a blob of flesh paint for a face, blobbing over across chin straps, shako bills, collar, and halfway across a shoulder. I've seen figures where the painter didn't bother putting any paint at all on surfaces that wouldn't be visible from above; the bottom of the cartridge box, for instance, was bare metal. I once asked a seller (from the "Sutler's Wagon") to send me a sample 2-3 figures so I could decide; I would pay his postage. He did indeed send them. For the musket, just a blob of brown (no strap, no metal barrel, no bayonet - not even flesh color where the hands should be holding the musket!) The other parts of the figures were equally poor. I sent them back with a "no thanks" and got a testy reply to the effect that: "I TOLD you they were "wargame quality! If you want museum quality you'll have to pay that kind of price!" As far as I can tell, painted miniatures come in only two levels: the fantastical museum quality," which doesn't actually exist, and the proletarian "wargame quality," which is everything from a good job to a single pass with a can of blue spray paint. So I find myself, like Toby Barrett fifteen years ago, thinking that perhaps we need some more descriptive ways to talk about miniature paint jobs. Mister GAJO has his numerical scale, which supposedly runs from 1-10, but he only ever gives a figure a rating from 5 to 8, which makes me wonder why he starts at five? If the barest "wargame quality" rates a 5, then what's the point of calling it 5, which is supposed to be the average on a 1-10 scale? (Probably because if he called them "1" nobody would touch them!) Numbers are too easy to inflate and fudge. What we need is a more descriptive scale; something that evokes the level of detail as well as the style. It will thus have to be a two-part descriptor. Something like this: Painting Style Parade: This means that the figures have clean clothing. White pants are white, hats trimmed with lace, boots shiny black, and so on. Campaign: This means that the figures are "rough" looking. Trousers might be torn or dirty, boots muddy, etc. Note that this is NOT a measure of painting skill, but rather of style. Some people prefer the campaign look. I've seen ACW figures painted superbly well, even though they are very "rough" looking. Detail Level Full Detail: Faces have full expressions and shading, some kind of ink wash for the larger figures to bring up folds in clothing, shading is used, blacklining separates the colors, gaiter buttons, wrinkles, lace trim - the works. Individual fingers can be seen on hands. No mistakes, no slop. Some Detail: Basic facial features are seen, such as eyes and eyebrows, maybe a line for the mouth. All the color areas are represented; nothing is neglected, although it might not be fully detailed. (White straps over a red British jacket, for instance, but not separated with blacklining or highlighting.) Horses have "socks" and manes, and all the straps. No mistakes, no slop. Basic: Just flesh for the face, but it's within the lines. Some detailing is missing. Maybe the backpack is just a single color area; no straps were painted on it. Maybe there's no definition between a white vest and a white strap. A bit of slop here and there. (This is what I call "wargame quality," by the way.) Rough: This is pretty messy. Obvious glitches, with paint and colors where they shouldn't be. Some areas are completely omitted, such as in the examples I gave earlier of where the gun barrels hadn't been painted. Horses are just one slab of brown, with no definition, maybe even no straps. (This is what is usually for sale on e bay.) Using this scale would be easy. You would describe your figures like this: 25mm SYW Prussian Grenadiers. Figs by Old Glory. Parade / Some Detail. That means that they are painted in the parade style, to the "some detail" level. Obviously, this system could succumb to fudging (and just plain lying) too, but it would go a long way toward setting descriptive standards for painted figures, which are apparently a big, big business right now. Every figure painter I've talked to has a backlog of orders several months long, and e-bay sales are thriving. I'm not trying to become the Ralph Nader of painted miniatures, but perhaps I can be the Toby Barrett. Back to MWAN #114 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2001 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com