With me only recently getting into this hobby, I can honestly say I’ve spent more time looking at guides, tutorials, videos, wikis, you name it, more than I’ve spent painting. Whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know (practicing is probably better), but sifting through every thing that is out there can be a hassle. And believe me, there is a lot to sift through in the miniatures hobby online…
And lo, I came across this painting guide along my travels. A tome of great wisdom! The Cool Mini or Not Ultimate Miniature Painting Guide!
At 400 pages, does it pack the goods? Read on to see what I thought about it…
First let me give you the product description straight from the page:
400 pages of full-color, step by step articles Covering everything from basics to advanced techniques like “Non-Metallic Metals” and “Object Source Lighting”, this MASSIVE volume has contributions from award winning artists from all over the world! Chapters include: 1. The basics 2. Advanced techniques 3. Bases 4. Miniatures Step by Step (each step illustrated with detailed photos) 5. Sculpting 6. Terrain building 7. Tools 8. Photography and imaging Many of the authors have pioneered the techniques they are describing, and you’ll surely find something new within these pages. IF you ever wanted to paint, convert or sculpt like a Golden Demon winner… … let them show you how!
Why yes. Yes I do want to paint like a Golden Demon winner. Setting up this blog is my motivation/timeline.
The Good
This book isn’t specific to Warmachine per se, but rather the entire miniature hobby. Of course a lot of the models are from Game Workshop lines, but the ideas and tutorials can easily be applied to just about any mini. I found a great number of these tutorials to actually be quite helpful. There is simply a ton of information here, with lots of pictures and examples to walk you through how it’s done. This is what I loved about it. It’s nice to be able to be curious about how to do a technique and then just flip to the appropriate chapter, as opposed to going online and searching through tons of material (some not always helpful).
The Bad
The price. Many of the information can be found online already. For free. At $9.95 for a pdf download, I find it to be a little expensive. Maybe $5 would be a better price-point.
Also, this is a personal thing, but I hate reading PDFs. They are just so awkward :/.
If you are interested, the CMON Ultimate Miniature Painting Guide be found here.
Cost: $9.95
Miniature armies, huge time sink. 
I did an in depth review of this in the CMON forums not too long after it first came out too. In general, I agree with you. I’m not sure that the reformatting into book format really helps many of the articles. I didn’t think the price was too bad, but its been out for quite a while now and I’m surprised (okay, maybe not) they haven’t dropped the price down.
Speaking of CMON, I wish they’d put their nice hardback painted miniatures annuals in PDF format and drop the price……
If this was in physical book form, it’d be an easy buy. I’m worried it won’t get much use just because it is a PDF…
For something that massive I would want a book so I could have it open while I was painting instead of trying to situate a laptop or monitor somewhere nearby.
My thoughts exactly! Content good, format bad.