Archive for October, 2008

September’s miniatures have taken a bit longer than I’d anticipated, mostly due to being distracted by both Assassin’s Creed and Tales of Vesperia (my 360 has been a major timesink over the last 30 days), but the detail work is just about done and I should have photos soon.

There have been a few things I’ve been learning over the last couple of weeks. First off, I’ve learned that trying to paint miniatures every night for a week straight is folly, at least for me. My fingers and eyes are shot after about three days, especially considering that I do all my painting between 8pm and 11pm. If I was taking vacation time and was able to paint them during the day, that’d be one thing, but nighttime is the best time to keep brushes, paint bottles, and miniatures out of my daughter’s tiny, curious hands. I need to get together with friends and do another mini building/painting get-together over a weekend.

The second lesson is that I still have a long way to go before I’m anything close to pro-painting quality. Granted, I’m only on the fourth group of minis that I’ve painted in years, so it’s only right that I should have a while to go, but it’s interesting to see how getting one set of details to where I want them makes other missed details pop out. I’ve become comfortable with lenses and edge highlighting (I can improve on both, but I’m happy with my progress so far), but now I notice things like my Fire Warriors’ belt grenades and the edges of their wrist guards and how rough they look. It’s a sign of making progress, so it’s both frustrating and reassuring at the same time. A year down the line, I imagine that I’ll have those details down just to find other things to improve upon. Miniature painting is truly a matter of practice making perfect.

Next week, I’ll be starting on my unit of Pathfinders. I’m considering trying my hand at some camouflage effects on both them and their Devilfish, so they’re a bit experimental. They’re also the first metal figs that I’ve painted in years, so I imagine there will be a different feel to them. This squad should go a lot faster, though – half as many figures, and the base colors on the ‘fish have been done for months and months.