I had an epiphany while starting to paint these brutes:
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| Silurid Slaves from the Zoraida box set |
In this moment of clarity I realised that I'm painting so slowly these days because I'm actually interested in getting better at painting and this is getting in the way of getting figures on the table. Take the recent Infinity figures and Xiufang. I've taken a long time to paint those figures to a reasonably high standard when they are actually gaming pieces and not display models. Okay, those particular models are one-offs and they are not in a unit of multiple figures, etc, but when starting the Silurids I felt myself falling into the trap of painting them to a higher standard than was really necessary. So I stopped myself and just blasted through them! They're not the best paint job I've ever done, but they're not exactly crap either. Just a bit rough round the edges. So, if I'm ever going to get through my backlog and fulfill my pledge not to buy anything new, then I have to get my arse in gear. So next up are these two Infinity models:
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| These will be my first airborne troops for Infinity |
I'll try and rattle these out, too, and not spend so much time on them. But...! I also want to keep pushing my skills so I'll paint the odd interesting figure in between cranking out the gaming miniatures. To that effect, I;m actually painting this rather nice sculpt for a friend:
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| Koi Fisherman from Guild of Harmony |
The intention is to use some advanced techniques and see how close I can get to a professional standard. I'll try and post my progress and we can see how it goes!
The Sileruds look fine, the thing about painting is that you constantly evolve the more you paint. I get inspired by various painters all the time so my techniques change over time. Problems mainly occur if there is a long gap between an old project and new additions for that project.
ReplyDeleteThe jump of quality or style can be a bit hard to backtrack or revert to so my advice would be to paint up as much as possible for a game within a single time frame :-)
Good advice, Anatoli! Thanks! My main problems has been sitting gaping at some of the stunning artwork on CMoN and the Reaper galleries. I end up almost as green as the Silurids! :)
ReplyDeleteAh "best" is the enemy of "good enough"! I'm in exactly the same situation: I *know* I can do each model better than I already have - if I just spend more time on it...
ReplyDeleteWhile I can't claim to be a good painter I think I understand the issue. When I first started painting I put the same level of effort and detail into every single figure in the unit. That is definitely a recipe for slow painting. I'm sure that your level of quick and dirty probably far surpasses my best efforts. I think one just has to have a plan and stick with it for the figure or unit. That Koi fisherman is a beautiful sculpt, I look forward to his progress.
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