Lightbulb moments in a painters life.

[Joek]

The wonderful thing about the painting hobby for me is that I\'m always, always learning and improving. It\'s one of the most satisfying things I do.

With this in mind, I\'d be very interested to hear what fellow painters thing have been their \'lightbulb\' moments - what techniques they finally \'got\' which they really believe changed the way they paint for the better.

There are two for me which spring to mind. The first goes back a long, long way when I was much younger. The first time I got dry-brushing mastered was a really special moment in my painting career. After looking at figures which were just solid colours with no highlighting at all, the moment I saw the instant highlights offered by dry-brushing there was no stopping me!

Admittedly, I knew the time had come to move onto other techniques when I was dry-brushing everything with white...getting much too lazy

More recently I have to say that whilst I\'ve always been one to dilute my paints, I now dilute them a lot and add some fluid retarder in the mix along with water. It\'s something which works nicely for me, and allows me much more time to..erm...slosh the paint around before going back and doing detailed work on the mini. It\'s certainly helped the way paint enormously!

So, what have been yours?

 

[freakinacage]

aye thinning paints and getting the consistency right was a big one for me. also brush licking, as much as i hate to admit it, helps with that

using foam as a palette helps me a lot too

 

[alextheartist]

When I read Vincent HUdons painting red tutorial, that really helped with juicing glazing, wtver u want to call it.

Alex

 

[hestan101]

Originally posted by alextheartist
When I read Vincent HUdons painting red tutorial, that really helped with juicing glazing, wtver u want to call it.

Alex

me too, but mainly after my forth time reading it, where the whole thing finaly clicked, and i tryd it on a model where it SORTA worked, then ruining it:evil:

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Originally posted by Joek
The wonderful thing about the painting hobby for me is that I\'m always, always learning and improving. It\'s one of the most satisfying things I do.

The heart of what keeps me going with art....couldn\'t agree with you more.

When the CONCEPT of perspective finally \'clicked\'. Same with OSL.

Learning to paint in my own style and being OK with that.

Compostition

There is a real beauty in very subtle color changes.

 

[Radio]

I have had a few eureka moments in my painting career...
1. Finding these forums, amoung others has improved alot of my painting techniques.
2. Thinning paint and using a palette. This took alot of trial and error, but once you know your paint its amazing how one ever functioned without it.
3. Blending. Wow.
4. Decent lighting and a magnifying lens. It takes a bit to learn painting under glass, but once you got it, the detail level goes way up.

 

[E.y]

Mine is more of a defiance moment than a light bulb moment but it had the same effect.

A long time ago, I was invited down to my local games workshops Thursday night games night for the first time by the then store manager. I was excited and very nervous and didn\'t want to look a complete Pratt in front of everyone else. So I rounded up my best painted army at the time which was my Orks (looking back at them, they were pretty bloody bad)
Anyway got to the shop and after wandering around for a bit not knowing what to do, I finally got a game against one of the staff. Pulled all my Orks out and proceeded to get my butt royally whooped, to make matters worse the staff member (very nicely) told me that my army was rather badly painted and that they had some beginner classes that would help me. This is NOT what an 18 year old gamer wants to hear.
So I went home feeling a little disheartened but mainly determined to prove that staff member wrong and for the next two weeks (pretty much solidly) I painted my heart out on an imperial guard army, it was the best thing I had ever done and it was the first time that I managed to control and get the paint to do what I wanted it to do, which only spurred me on to achieve more.
I took the army in to the shop when finished and had half the gaming group gathered round starring at it some in amazement that I painted it at all, others in the speed I had done it and some because of the fact that it was a guard army that was painted in jade green and hawk turquoise.
After that there was no stopping me and I churned out army after army each one better than the last and my painting has only got better since.

 

[droogie77]

My lightbulb moments are.

1- Learning how to highlight properly
2- using black ink for lining without ever messing up.
3- Paying attention to every detail on the model
4- Bases. In the past couple of years I have been putting as much effort into the base as I do in the model. This has taken me to a new level in painting.

 

[boristfrog]

1. After starting with a 3/0 brush(!) using a standard (1) brush and finding it wasn\'t too big
2. Realising I really enjoyed the painting part.
3. VMC glaze
4. Miniature Mentor video should me exactly how the paint should move.
5. Reading a really good explanation of zenithal lighting my Matty1001 -it finally made sense, no I just need to apply it.
6. Reading a note from Mat Cexwish about contrast and it finally clicking that I needed to change my approach entirely.

I expect there will be many more to come.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

My lightbulb moments were probably:

- learning to thin my paints so that I was getting a smooth base coat
- painting thin transparent layers over my basecoat when highlighting and shading.

Doing this has allowed me more control over my painting and my layering for highlighting and shading looks a lot more blended.

Previously I was thinning my paints down to a good level but then just building up the layers so that the transparency was gone. That meant the transition between shades was a bit jarring. Now things look a lot smoother. There\'s still a lot of improvement to go but I\'m a lot happier with my painting standard now compared to a few months ago.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Jericho]

1) Finding painted minis on the Internet! For a long time I thought that the only way to get good looking models was to copy the ones on the box cover. All the ones I saw in person looked nothing like the box covers, and they all looked bad. My logic seemed strong at the time (I was 12!!).

2) Wow, maybe I should have bought BLACK PRIMER to paint this Ulthwe Falcon Grav Tank, instead of WHITE PRIMER. That would\'ve been much easier...

3) Discovering the joy of being scatter-brained and easily distracted! In other words, buying cool Dogs of War minis for WHFB instead of working on my Ultramarines. DOW are still my favorite army, to this very day

4) Painting with friends instead of alone in my bedroom. So cool to have communal paint sessions, much more fun and you can sort of keep each other honest by mocking each other relentlessly when someone fails to make any progress after a while.

Hrm, starting to run out of big light bulb moments!

5) Realizing that I would be a lot less stressed out and a lot more personally fulfilled if I started thinking of painting contests etc. as being a nice bonus, instead of being the primary motivator for my painting. When I caught myself painting models I didn\'t like because they would be easier to win a contest with... it really made me realize how stupid I was being.

Now I win contests with incredibly underwhelming/minimalist sculpts! Example: plastic SM Scout with shotgun being entered in 40k Single category of GD Canada, when every instinct I had was saying that something like a Crisis Suit or other HQ model would make a lot more sense lol

 

[Amazon warrior]

I think my biggest was realising that I could shade with colours other than black and highlight with colours other than white. That made a big difference!

Thin, gradual build-up of colour was another one - and I\'m still trying to master it!

 

[Thomgirl]

Well, not much yet in painting (haven\'t done enough yet to \"ah HA!\" yet... but with sculpting/converting it was working for hours on one little detail on the overall model, being happy with it, posting it, and realizing that all I did was half-ass it because I thought I could get away with it. So... I destroyed it and re-did it. ah HA! The do-over was 200% better than the previous one. So lessoned learned: it\'s ok to spend ours on something and then trash it to push yourself further.

 

[Crackpot]

Lightbulb moment?
Definitely Blacklining!