Quote Originally Posted by The Dude View Post
My original statement was meant to be somewhat tongue in cheek sorry if I offended your artistic sensibilities, that makes your initial response more understandable. A miniature is more than a canvas though, don't you think? Isn't that assertion insulting to the skills of the sculptor? Could you do what you do without the sculptors initial effort? Should you be compensated more for your part of the finished product than the sculptor was? I am not ignorant and this discussion is not so cut and dry as you seem to think. But it is interesting, thanks for the conversation.

And Jim, thank you, that is exactly what I meant.
Fair enough, another instance of a statement not translating well in type.

As a whole, yes an unpainted miniature is more than a canvas, but when you isolate the artists and their contributions, it's the blank slate they paint on, just the same as the blob of putty was to the sculptor, or the wall to an artist doing a mural. Assuming one only paints minis, no, they would not be able to do it without the sculptors effort, nor the brushes, but no one's taken up the defense of the arts of kolonok harvesting and brushmaking, in this thread yet.

As to compensation, a sculptor sometimes has the benefit of being constantly compensated for the sales success of their reproductions; I cannot ever mold and mass-produce my paint jobs, each one takes the time it takes, and is potentially unique even in the case of when I paint two identical models (the same sculpt reproduced). It's quite often an apples and oranges result. If a sculptor doesn't get what they feel the work was worth, it's not on me to feel guilty about what I get paid to paint it, though.