About this Site

Purpose of this Blog is to become a tool and a place where artist that collect and paint flat figures can find interesting links and news about flats, painting techniques, history and various related articles.English speaking related sites are very few but hopefully this blog will provide the collector and the painter with interesting and valuable information about the Art of the Flat Figure and everything related to it.
During the next days I will post any related info I have collected for a long time about various aspects of Flats. Techniques, photos, links, historic articles, anything that is related. Wherever possible I will including the author of the original article. I apologise if sometimes the author's name is not included. It's not intentional but it is lost through time.

Monday 2 July 2007

Chapter 2 - References

By Panos Charalampakis


CHAPTER 2
References


Not many people realize that half the job in a collection or in any art form is references. References can be nearly everything that is in any way related to our subject. Lists with flats available, information about history of a certain figure, about the history of what this certain figure represents, its place in space and time, all have a value in the mental process of collecting and painting flat figures.


Left: One of author’s bookcases. Good and plenty of references can make our living much easier when we paint flat figures.


One can give several examples of the importance of good and plentiful references for a subject. Through time human civilization evolved from the Stone Age to our present, highly sophisticated day. Accordingly, the everyday items we use were evolved too, both civilian and military. Different colors through ages, with some civilizations even have favorites like for e.g. Egyptians and turquoise, or Greeks with white, red and purple and so on (See later chapters). When we want to accurately depict of a soldier that fought in Waterloo we need to know how he was dressed, what he was wearing, what he was carrying, even what season of the year was because everything has an effect on our tiny figure.
Once someone understand the importance of the reference material then can start thinking where and how he or she can find all these information. Books and magazines are the easiest answer. There are three kinds of books a flat figure painter would need. First, books (and magazines) about the actual historical period that the flat figure depicts. Books about different techniques that can be used to finish the figure and last, general books about art, always useful as a source of inspiration and lessons in painting or sculpting.
Internet can be a very powerful and effective tool to collect such information, most of the times for free. In fact, some people say that it’s nearly infinite, so much information on a particular subject that sometimes becomes a problem of how to filter all this information. There are sites for every subject and with a little patience one can collect everything that is needed even for the most accurate representations of that subject.
My own experience has showed me that a book, a specialized magazine or an article stored, is never a waste of money and time. It’s very probable that you will need it sooner or later. Maybe it is a general story about life in that particular era or maybe a small detail of the armament, which by adding it, will accurately represents what was actually used. Or maybe a facial or somatic feature that was so distinctive about that personality we will start painting that even by looking at it someone will say: “ah yes, this hand into this waistcoat can belong only to one person, Napoleon”. After all no one would want his Egyptians palace slave girls to have nice blond hair! But even if you are not a “detail fanatic”, it’s more than sure that good references will have their use in time. So my small hobby library consists of books, articles and photos exactly of the above three mentioned categories.
I have intentionally left out of counting a fourth category of books and internet sites. This is the one that consists of photographs of the actual painted figures. Please, don’t make the mistake to reject a photographic portfolio from a show simply because it doesn’t contain any photo of flat figures. Every, and I mean every photo of a painted figure can be of tremendous value as a reference. Even if it’s not in our particular period of interest, it can be useful to observe different painting effects, or approaches of a certain subject by different artists. Or simply because we don’t know what subject will intrigue us in the future. It could be useful even as pure inspiration for our next project, even if we don’t know it beforehand. Collect all possible books and magazines with photos of painted figures in it. Round and flat ones. Collect even the bad ones. Even these can be of a value to us of what to avoid or not to do in our own figure.
In the appendix 2 I have listed all those books I collected through time and found useful in one way or another. Most of them will be “technical” books of how to paint, highlight and shade and so on. Some other are listed because I consider them very useful for the history they provide or simply because I got something out of them. Inspiration, entertainment or knowledge. Also, some of the links provided in Appendix 1 can open forums, or homepages of artists that share historical or technical information.

Above:

Collection of painted and unpainted flat figures by the French Quadriconcept.

Chapter 1 - Buying Figures


By Panos Charalampakis


CHAPTER 1
Buying Figures



Above:

Crusaders from Berliner Zinnfiguren, Germany.



Buying flat figures can be an adventure by itself. Traditionally, these figures were flourishing in Germany , so the easiest place to find them is there. There are quite a lot of shops dealing with flat figures, most of them having internet services to facilitate the acquisition of these small jewels. Fewer shops are located in England, France, USA, and to my knowledge, that’s about it.
Before dealing with internet services, I would like to emphasize a special place where someone can purchase flat figures but unfortunately this can only happen for a three day period every two years! Kulmbach! The Mecca of the flat figure business. A three day show-bazaar that takes places in August every two years. The lucky ones that will manage to visit the event will have the chance to admire thousands of flat figures, painted and unpainted, singles, sets, vignettes, dioramas and to meet and chat with the artists, the editors and dealers. Most of them are really friendly people, ready to help with their stock, their historic knowledge, or their artistic expertise. Besides figures, someone can find everything that is related to them, from old and rare books, showcase cabinets, frames and bases to present them, paints, brushes and any kind of artistic material. All in all, a real must for every serious artist and collector who has an affection for flat figures.
Coming back to internet trade, in my opinion this is the easiest, quite safe lately, and fastest way to collect flat figures. Most of the editors and dealers have online services so there are quite a few possibilities. Also, through e-bay, an online auction procedure, we can bid and win/get some really rare flat figures.
How an online transaction is done? Easy. Most of the editors and dealers have online catalogues displayed in their sites, in PDF electronic format for downloading or they can send them for some very small fee by mail. After selecting the figures we want to purchase, we can pay with various credit cards, deposit money in bank accounts or using an online transaction service called paypal. Nowadays, online money transaction is quite secure and personally haven’t heard any friend or foe had any problem.
Now, the only thing that is left is to eagerly wait for the arrival of the precious order. A bitter-sweet suspense. One very important thing someone must have in mind is to either check the quality of the casting when he/she is at the shop or check it immediately after opening the order that just came with the post. If the figure is not good enough, or has many flaws from the casting process, then do yourself a favor and don’t buy the particular figure or if it came with mail simply contact the editor. Most of the times, they will replace it with a new, much better one or compensate in some way. Besides, it’s much cheaper and easier to buy a new one than to attempt to correct the existing one. Some people like to correct these problems or even to convert the original figure into something else but besides pay my admiration to them I wouldn’t recommend such an adventure. At least for the first few years . More specific, figures must be of a “shiny” appearance with no visible corrosion from oxidation, well engraved, with maybe a small amount of flash around the edges.
In the appendix 1, you can find many internet links to various editors and dealers, with a vast selection of flat figures along with some very interesting links for collector’s homepages, Society’s made by flat figure enthusiasts and forums dedicated to discussions about various aspects of the art of flat figures.


Above:

Mohr's set depicting the Funeral of the Swedish King Gustavous Adolfus.

Introduction

By Panos Charalampakis
Introduction



Above:
Landsknechts. A masterpiece showing a camp of landsknechts painted from the collaboration of Franzoia Serge (background) and Gianfranco Speranza (figures).



Modeling is a love at first sight. As most of the people involved in one way or another in this hobby, I started assembling and painting plastic kits of any kind. It didn’t’ matter if it was a plane, a ship or a tank. At the beginning at least. Soon after my first plastic kits, I discovered the world of figures in a form of a 90mm Samurai, a Hussard du Marais old metal kit. Assembling and painting took me 2 days and the result was monstrous. Still, the figure was so good to my eyes that I bought my second one and then everything begun. Every figure had something new for me. Different historical periods, different techniques, different painting mediums, each figure was a new experiment and a new excitement. Meanwhile, collection of modeling and historic books became a must since I wanted to accurately reproduce each figure as a personality or a human being that lived, breathed and fought a long time ago.
While browsing the books and web for new products or various references, I kept catching myself being fascinated more and more from a peculiar form of a figure, nearly flat with a slightly engraved detail on it. Buying something like this in my country was out of the question, but with the help of internet services, I bought my first series of 30mm flats. The famous “ Napoleon at the Pyramids” by Mohr. It was then that I realized that flat figures was a passion that overshadowed all other kinds of modeling art.
Since then, I have bought quite a few series of flats, not all are painted of course but they are on queue. The real beauty of these figures is the amount of detail that is engraved on them, even in the tiny ones of 28mm. You can actually see eyeballs, facial expressions, decorations on swords, embroidery on cloths, anything that their much bigger and rounded cousins have sculpted upon them. A second advantage is the amount of space needed for displaying or storing them. Even the larger scale flats need minimum amount of display space either as singles, or in groups mounted onto simple or elaborate frames, or even in boxed dioramas and vignettes. Storing them is equally easy since hundreds or thousands of them can be carefully placed into cardboard boxes protected by foam. Small paper labels and an index is all that is needed to keep tracking them
But the most attractive feature of the flat figure collection is the variety of subjects. We want prehistoric hunters hunting down a bear? Here it is. Biblical themes? Sure. Ancient Greeks, Assyrians, Sumerians fighting? Of course. There is no end in the variety that flat figures cover the human history. Prehistoric times, Ancient, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Napoleonic, until modern times of today, all are represented from various designers, engravers and editors. And not only themes from military history, but thousands of civilian figures accurately representing nearly every aspect of everyday life through the ages.
So what choices someone has when the time to buy a flat figure comes? Answer is: Plenty of choices! Flat figures come in scales from 10mm to 150mm with various steps between these 2 numbers. Traditionally, most of flat figures are 30mm (or 28mm if we want to be accurate) but lately 54mm and 90mm have also a quite large variety of subjects depicted. For starters, I would recommend a small sample of these 3 scales so everyone can see if the scale suits his taste and/or his craftsmanship. Personally I tried different scales, before I settled for the 30mm one. Of course I won’t reject a beautiful figure simply because it’s larger. Some figures are excellent in any scale and you just have to paint them.
One other choice someone has to make before buys a flat figure is what this shall represent. Will it be some ancient people taking a bath? A party of medieval people having a good time in a tavern? A phalanx of Macedonians advancing? Or maybe an elephant tries to squeeze some poor fellow bellow its ferocious sole? Again choices here are limitless. One approach would be just to pick any figure or set of figures that look nice to our eyes and taste. Nothing wrong with this. In fact many people buy goods this way. I know, sometimes I do it. Another approach, a little more sophisticated, is to decide if we want civilian or military subject. After this, decide which time period we are interested in, which nationality we would like our figure to be part of, foot figure or mounted? And so on. Step by step we can easily narrow our choices and decide exactly what we want to collect, buy and paint. Most probably it will be depicted in one way or another in flat figure form anyway.
Let’s start our journey through the wonderful world of flat figures from the very beginning. Where to buy these figures?



Above:
Magnificent French Carabinier from the Danish artist Kjeld Buchholtz.

Upcoming articles

By Panos Charalampakis

During the next few weeks, I will post some articles in the forms of chapters of a book about flat figures. These articles gonna cover everything from how and where to buy these small fellows, how to choose among what is available, different techinques of painting them untill the time of dispalying them. In addition, every chapter is gonna contain a selection of photos from well known or not so well know artists, demonstrating different techinqures or simply dispalying amazingly painted flats.



Here is a sample of what is coming up.


Index/Chapters

30mm figure from the Landshuter Hochzeit (1400 - 1500) range by Golberg.

  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1 : Buying Figures
  • Chapter 2 : References
  • Chapter 3 : Materials
  • Chapter 4 : Preparation
  • Chapter 5 : General Thoughts about Painting
  • Chapter 6 : Enamels / Gouaches / Acrylics
  • Chapter 7 : Artist’ Oils
  • Chapter 8 : Painting Flesh
  • Chapter 9 : The Dreadful Black & White
  • Chapter 10 : The Reds & Purples
  • Chapter 11 : The Blues & Greens
  • Chapter 12 : The Yellows & Oranges
  • Chapter 13 : Replicating Metal
  • Chapter 14 : Special Materials
  • Chapter 15 : Embroideries & Details
  • Chapter 16 : Painting Animals
  • Chapter 17 : Finishes & Varnishes
  • Chapter 18 : Displaying
  • Epilogue
  • Gallery
  • Appendix 1
  • Appendix 2
  • Appendix 3



Star Wars

By Panos Charalampakis


Here is a finished set of Karl Rieger's "Star Wars" a set of 31 flats at 40mm. Although the photo and the lighting is bad and not many details can be seen, the figures are of excellent quality. The engravings are clear and well defined and the figures come clean without flash or pitting onto their surface. Mr Rieger's service is of first rate and can be contacted through his web site http://www.zinnfiguren-rieger.de/