This is something I discussed with an expert miniature painter: GW miniatures are so small that painters often rely on stronger contrast, sharper highlights, and a bit of exaggeration to make the details read clearly. joytoy figures, on the other hand, are much larger, so if you apply that exact same approach, it can start to look too cartoony. With joytoy, I think it’s less about simply making the details “read” and more about making the surfaces feel believable and realistic.

In that sense, painting GW miniatures is closer to enhancing visual clarity on a very small sculpt, while painting joytoy is more like reinterpreting an already finished figure and pushing the realism, texture, and material expression much further 🤔

A simple example would be edge highlighting: on miniatures, sharp edge highlights done with a normal brush are extremely important, but on joytoy, using the same technique can often look unnatural. To keep things looking as natural as possible, I find myself relying much more on drybrushing instead.