It’s been back to the grim dark future for me this week, in more ways than one, and I’ve managed to keep the painting up for a whole two months. Ok I know that’s not such a great deal and the actual volume is very low but I’m considering it a win. I’ve managed to turn out quite a variety of different minis, I’ve been happy with all of them and most importantly I’ve actually enjoyed working on them. Which at the end of the day is what this is all about, or at least it is for me. Now before I show you what I’ve been working on this week I want to have a little bit of ramble, so are you sitting comfortably.
Now first of all I would like to point out that all of my work this week has been carefully scrutinised at every step. Nothing has escaped the overlord.
With the overlord keeping a careful eye on me all week I’ve really wanted to keep things moving and not get bogged down when things didn’t go quite as planned. I’ll go into more detail about what those things where a little later but what I wanted to spend a bit of time on here was critiquing your work. One of the things that I find when you put images up on the old interweb is that there are generally two types of behaviour. People either say how much they like your work with things like ‘looking great’ or they don’t say anything at all. Both of these are absolutely fine but they don’t necessarily stretch and develop you as a painter. There are sites out there like ‘Cool mini or not’ that are designed to get some good feedback but it can be daunting putting something there as the scoring can be quite harsh. And if you put your best work up and get a 3 then it can be really disheartening. But if the comments are constructive it’s good as it gives you something to work on. I’ve been trying to take a slightly different approach this year and trying to critiquing my own work. You need to be a bit carful doing this as it’s very easy to be too harsh on yourself but it is really worth the effort to be honest with yourself. When you look at mini that didn’t turn our just like you wanted it to don’t beat yourself up, instead spend the time to be clear about why it didn’t do what you wanted. Just saying it looks rubbish isn’t going to help anyone. Saying that the skin tones didn’t work because they are to patchy gives you something work with. Equally as important is taking the time to complement yourself on the things that did work out how you wanted them to. Give yourself a pat on the back and have an extra biscuit, although I’ve eaten that many biscuits of late that might be a bad idea, but you get the idea. Don’t beat yourself up when things don’t turn out just as you want them to, using as stepping stone to get better.
I wanted to bring this up as it’s something I’ve been trying to do this year and so far it has made my painting a lot more enjoyable. I’m trying to stretch myself painting wise by trying to do things that I either haven’t done or haven’t been able to do before. Not all of them work but occasionally something does and it’s a good feeling. But for all of this waffle what I really want to try and get across is that when something doesn’t work just how you want it to don’t get down about it. The Sisters that I’ve been painting this week have lots of things that I’m not that happy about but I’m not painting them for a competition. I’m painting them for the fun of it and if I was to use them in a game I would be more than happy to put them on the table and say I painted them. Yes, they could be better and I could have spent hours and hours trying to get the niggly things right and that would have just spoiled the whole painting experience. And no one other than me would know the difference. So set your goals nice and high as that is how you develop but don’t beat yourself up when you don’t quite get there. Just enjoy the hobby and that way you will do more an improve in the process.
So with all of that waffle over what have I been up to on the painting front this week. As I said at the start of the article it has been all about the grim dark future with me working to finish off the Sisters of Silence Vigilator squad. I’d just about finished off the first one as a test piece last week and I’ve just carried on in the same vain this week, although I have taken note of the lessons I learned with that first lady. But that doesn’t mean I’ve been able to get everything right this time. I’m going to star with the bits I’m not happy with then and then move onto the bits that I do like. So there are two areas where I’m really not happy with the end result. The first is that I’ve still not been able to get the gold on the pauldrons to stand out like I really wanted it to. I’ve managed to give it a little but more of a pop but I’m still not over the moon with it. The second area has been the skin. This is has just been to blotchy and there isn’t enough contrast. I’m more confident that I can resolve the skin issue that I can the gold but they are the things I’m not happy with.
Now the important thing here for me is that I haven’t got to hung up on them. I’ve tried to get them to work but in the end I made the decision that I wanted to enjoy the process of painting them and I’ve moved on. Which is when I look at them as a whole I’m really happy with how they have turned out. The gold has the right feel of being decorative and ornate without being to shiny. The cloaks give them a bit of contrast and the switch from white to red hair give them a nice pop. Looking at them all together they look nice and cohesive and I would be more than happy to put them down on any table and say that I painted them. I like them so much that I’m thinking of getting some Custodes to go along with them, but what do you think of them.
I’m really not sure what I’m going to do for next week but I will have something for you. There won’t be any more painting for me this weekend because I have to jet wash the flags outside our flat which whilst it usually only takes a couple of hours leave my had shaking for a good day afterword’s. I think it’s the fact that you have been gripping the handle for so long that when you pick up a paint brush there are little tremors. So I may just have to have a couple of beers instead. Anyway that has been enough of me waffling on, I hope you all enjoy the weekend and have a good week next week. Keep safe, look out for each other and with a fair wind we will all catch up again next week.
