As with any other demanding effort,
modelling and painting miniatures requires
concentration and the right mood. Even the
best modellers probably do not have this concentration
and mood at each session. Sometimes
they simply aren’t interested in spending
an hour or more painting in facial features
and super detail on a single 25mm figure. If
they were to try this on a bad day, they would
produce a mess just as you or I would. Varying
capabilities and desire affect everyone.
The answer to this problem is pacing your
production to your capability and mood by
developing a “work in process inventory,”
and later offering your help to your friends so
you can specialize in what you do best.

WHAT IS WORK IN PROCESS?
Work in process (WIP) is found in all
standard production industries. It consists of
jobs in various stages of completion. This is
typical of shops that work at individual jobs—
such as an auto repair garage. On a higher
level of complexity, production lines are even
better examples of WIP.

At any given instant in the J. I. Case
Company’s tractor plant (Clausen Works) in
Racine, Wisconsin, for example, there are
motors and vehicles in various stages of assembly,
testing, and completion. Workers
who make the great machines out of prepared
components are specialized in an area
which matches their capabilities. They are
much more familiar with hard work than with
magic, yet by combining their abilities they
can produce a benevolent giant that would
seem magical to those whose only experience
had been with a mule or other draft animal.

The main point is that industry does not
generally start a single job and work it to
completion all at once. Instead, each worker
or work team on the line takes an uncompleted
piece and adds to it This addition
is up to the limit of the worker or team’s
capabilities. Then the still uncompleted piece
is passed on to the next team.

Nobody tries to get the tractor together in
one day. There is always a lot of uncompleted
stuff around. This uncompleted product is
called “Work in Process” or “Work In
Process Inventory,” and is just as essential to
production as food is to you. Each production
process feeds on the partially finished goods
of the previous one until the final product is
complete. Without the accumulation of partially
finished goods, the great factories would
become. silent, the dazzling showrooms
empty.

By making the work in process method
part of your own, substantial benefits might
be yours.

WIP HELPS YOUR PAINTING
Each miniaturist should make the best use
of existing talents. This is simply good
sense—it conserves energy, time, and gives
you the greatest potential for accomplishment
Your talents, though, are not a constant
commodity and can best be described as a
varying range of capability. Only after you
have started working will you know for sure
where in that range you are. Not only does
technique increase or decrease with practice
or the lack of it, there is a daily variation as
your energy fluctuates. By using your best
energy for the most demanding jobs, you will
be most likely to create the most attractive
miniatures.

‘‘WIP” will let you tailor your work load
at any working session to the time, energy,
and control you have at that particular instant.
By breaking down the process into several
steps, you bring modelling into a more manageable 
state. The finished miniature is thus
seen as the culmination of several operations
rather than something that must be finished
completely at any one sitting. Using WIP,
you’ll always have pieces in various stages of
completion, and can work at exactly the level
you feel most capable of. Your WIP inventory
will not only let you tailor your work to the
skill at hand, but also to the time available. If
you have only a short time, and can’t begin
the really heavy stuff, you can just do some of
the easier things.

Levels of difficulty, as defined in a chart
that accompanies this article, are conversational
guides only. They are presented as an
example of how fantasy miniaturists can differentiate
their daily capability as well as their
basic skill. Each modeller must define his own
capabilities personally rather than relying on a
tool such as the guide. But definitions given
here are good for starters. They help give you
an idea of what kind of steps the process of
modelling could be broken into, and what
levels of competence are necessary. This, in
turn, indicates what could comprise a WIP
inventory for a fantasy miniaturist.

Before this WIP thing takes a life of its own
and chokes off your creativity, a last comment
should be made on the concept. WIP is designed
to assist production. If it doesn’t fit
your mood, there is no reason not to finish off
several pieces in a single sitting. Remember—
the object is to use the figures in
gaming or display, not to develop a compli- 
cated inventory of uncompleted miniatures.

HOW TO USE THE PROCESS
An inventory of semifinished figures is not
an end in itself, but a work method. It is a
means to expedite your production of miniatures.
It is a way to begin difficult jobs easily
rather than a reason to procrastinate. By
breaking up miniature modelling into many
small steps, you increase your ability to start a
project that otherwise might seem too forbidding
to begin. That first step is much easier
to take if it’s a small one. This idea is demonstrated
on a page of illustrations that accompany
this article.

Getting started on figures may not be the
hardest step, but it’s the most important. For
once a figure starts to be painted, it will seldom
fall into the dustbin of forgetfulness.
Every figure doesn’t have to be painted to
perfection. It can be pressed into gaming as
soon as you’re sure that you don’t want to
enter this particular piece into a contest By
preparing a lot of gaming figures and leaving
them partially done, you will be less likely to
forget them and more likely to be able to
finish some off fast if you need them for a
game next weekend. By turning unpainted
miniatures into partially finished ones, you
vastly increase their chances of being used as
finished pieces in gaming.

Let’s take an example of WIP as a tool for
production. Most longtime fantasy gamers
have up to 10 times more unpainted miniatures
than painted ones. This is because of an
almost universal tendency to say “I sure
would like to have that one in my set” You
then buy the casting, but due to other pressures
of daily life, it’s set aside and not
touched. Eventually the figure may be forgotten,
mislaid, or suffer some other indignity.
If you find yourself with many unpainted
miniatures, WIP will be especially helpful.

Besides making it easier to start figures,
and promising greater possibility of finishing
them, WIP will be able to speed your production
and enable you to get more pieces done.
Use this method to help you organize your set
of unpainted miniatures after they start to pile
up. If you add specialization to WIP, you will
be able to eliminate any backlog of unpainted
miniatures much more rapidly and have
more fun doing it by making it into a shared
effort.

TOGETHERNESS PAYS
The greatest benefits of WIP are due to
the breaking down of the total job into smaller
pieces. Once you become familiar with the
various steps that go into finishing a <mini>,
you’ll find that your natural abilities lead
you to favor 1 or more of the steps. It is the
rare person who is equally fond of all aspects
of any job. You will begin to specialize. This is
the keystone of the greatest benefit that WIP
can offer: cooperation.

Americans have often joined together for 
jobs that were too difficult for one individual
to do. Barn raisings and yearly harvests are
2 examples of cooperation during more
rustic times. Other jobs were also turned into
social gatherings. Quilting bees and preparations
for social feasts made labor into Fun.

This idea is alive and well today. “Block
parties” provide fun and neighborliness in
areas where suspicion once prevailed. Cooperative
apartments and supermarkets are a
well established reality. In rural areas, the
state fair and other activities are occasions
when citizens join together for Fun, and incidentally
for profit.

Using the manufacturing steps and
specialization explained above in combination
with standard traditions of cooperation,
you may be able to increase the quantity of
production at the same time you improve the
quality. A lot of thought should be taken
before plunging into cooperation, since it is
one of the hardest things to do effectively. But
it is also one of the most powerful methods of
organizing that is known to man, and is the
basis of the democracy which cements
America into “A Nation of Nations.”

Don’t expect too much of it at first, and let
your confidence in each other grow before
weighing friendship down too heavily with
responsibility. If it all works out right, you’ll
create a team of miniaturists capable of producing
marvels that no one individual would
dream of. If you expect too much too soon,
you’ll create only arguments, friction, and
apathy.

Preparation, painting, and preservation of
more than a few figures is a chore. It can get
boring and extremely tedious. Furthermore, it
is very likely that any one individual will have
trouble getting all the tools and materials that
may be needed to produce large numbers of
figures. Power tools are a prime example of
this, and some types of paints that are not
often used, as well as specific preservatives,
could also be considered luxuries by many
miniaturists. By banding together into groups
of three or more, the fantasy miniaturist can
specialize in those areas that are most interesting,
and the group can pool resources for
production of finished figures.

Every miniaturist is not necessarily an
artist. But all who enjoy miniatures sooner or
later finish several good figures—or give up.
There is no need to become frustrated,
though. If you enjoy modelling and painting,
you can suit the type of work you do to your
capabilities, and get best results. By developing
your own “Work in Process inventory,”
you can pace your efforts to your capability
and never have to face the frustration of
having to try something you’re not capable of
right now, but should be able to do more
easily later. And by specializing a bit, you can
increase both the speed and the fun of producing
game figures by pooling your tools
and capabilities into a miniature production
line. Producing finished figures will always
take some effort, but the ideas presented here
will make it more rewarding at the same time
it becomes more Fun.

Now the wizard must start throwing Walls of Force out to form the
construction base of the castle; this could be a long and involved
process, depending on the size castle the mage has in mind. Obviously,
the higher the level of the mage, the bigger the Walls of Force, which are
laid in a tile-like pattern upon the flattened area of the cloud. Immediately
after each force wall is created, a Permanency spell must be thrown
upon it so that it doesn’t fade. When finished, another Wish is cast over
the whole to ensure the surface is level, interlocking, and cannot be
dispelled except by acts of the gods. This entire process may take days
or weeks and the mage will usually be fully absorbed in the project.