Army Painter Quickshade and dipping: A Rebuttal

Recently, SAFG has taken it upon himself to tell the rest of us that we have no reason not to be in possesion of fully painted armies for Warhammer 40,000. That we have committed the greatest of heresies by devoting the bulk of our time to other interests or obligations we may have.To this end, he is now pushing a painting approach known as "quick shade and dipping"While this technique can be done with significant cuts to ones time and effort budget, there are several foreseeable flaws to the adaptation of this system for most players. One thing we have all noticed (of this I am quite certain, as it has come up in conversation more times than one can count.) is the attitude found in a disturbing number of 40K players that dictates that the fluff written by black library is totally immutable, and any army that deviates from this fluff is to forever carry a badge of shame. You may ask "what does this have to do with quickshade and dipping?". This is a valid question and I will answer it in full. First, deviations from the fluff are not merely found on the conversion level. Painting can be just as, if not more so, reflective of the artistic license of the army commander. There are only a handful of armies in 40K which demand the sort of uniformity encouraged by quick shade and dipping, Space Marines, Sisters of Battle, Tau, Necrons and (to a much lesser extent) Mordian and Praetorian Imperial Guard regiments. It is no coincidence that these are the armies that attract the most ire from their gaming fellow travelers. All other forces, most of all Orks and Imperial Guard (interestingly enough, the featured examples provided by SAFG), demand a certain degree of individuality from those in their charge. Quickshade and dipping discourages this and reduces the amount of personal investment one places in their force. I have no personal or professional grievances towards this painting technique but is not applicable to my army, nor those of SAFG, Commissar Crunch and the chairman.
Quickshade and dipping also reinforces the perception that utmost attention to detail must be paid. This is a phenomenon I like to call "1:35th Scale anorexia nervosa". This is another misconception propagated by the canon fascists previously described. The idea that you are obligated to paint the eyebrows on a model that is less than 1.5 inches tall is absurd. The idea that failure to do so means your army "sucks" is even worse. There is a solution. Look to the ways of your ancestors.



2nd edition styled paint jobs not only earn the ire of members of the GW death squad, they also more accurately reflect the reality of the game. That is, that its just a game. Do you wonder why GW uses hand drawn art and not photos? Because a real person in a rubber ork costume looks ridiculous. A fanboy in homemade power armour looks ridiculous. It would stand to reason that something that looks like a real person in a rubber ork costume or homemade power armor would look equally ridiculous and reinforce the perception that the person behind it spent far too much time on this particular project.