Mini painting blues...im a cockaaroach!

[Rigged4Mini]

So I think I’m going to cry. I’m at work right now, so maybe I will hold it back. Why you ask? Well let me share my sadness with you.

2 months ago, I entered the world of mini painting, at an inept level. I did just enough research to get me started in the hobby... paintbrushes, paint, buy a figure and go!

And off, I went. My first attempt led to frustration so I went and bought a book about mini painting (the GW painting guide). I read it at work, I read it at home, and I read it on the crapper (most productive area for reading btw).

Tips, techniques, ideas, etc... flowed into my brain, and improvements to my skills were within reach… or so I thought.

I am starting my 6th figure now, and something very strange is happening. I have read guides, forums, websites, etc and I believe I know more then a lot about the actually art of painting.. But the actual painting...well that’s a different story. Starting on my 6th figure, I’m realizing all the mistakes I’m making and its slowing my painting down…. Every time I put the brush to the figure my mind goes “there’s a streak! That f00kin blend is upside down! Where’s the damn Pine-Sol??!?!”

What I’m trying to say is… I think I’m studying the hobby to much and now it’s affecting my ability to paint. When one knows nothing about painting, one knows not the mistakes he is making, and merrily goes about painting away. Oblivious to the fact his mini is ant artwork of junk proportions.

So my ranting is done..and I’ve set a goal for myself. To paint one mini a week even if it comes out crappy and not worth posting. That’s all I have to say.. oh..I watched Scarface last night.. and I just want to say that some minis are COCKAAAROCHESSS!!

 

[Fizl]

Try painting the shell of a cockroach, then you can say minis are cockroaches lol

shaz

P.S - they tend to wander off if you don\'t hold them firmly!

 

[Arkzein]

I suppose it\'s a bit of coming into the hobby at the wrong end. I\'d wager a lot of us did go in without a clue making our own mistakes, then finding CMON and improving quite quickly having the basics down through experience. At least that would be my thoughts, a few rare souls come in and are brilliant from the get go, but most have to learn a lot by experience. (Brush control would be the big one there, and developing a technique that works for you)

What I would say is you\'re almost certain to improve far, far faster than if you didn\'t know anything beforehand. You\'re not likely to, as I did, put out minis that would rate 4.5-5 for seven solid years. *laughs* The frustration of not getting it *just* as you want it never goes away though.

Anyway, as long as each one is getting better, or failing that you\'re learning what works and what doesn\'t, I would try not to worry overly much. If you can find someone who knows their stuff to sit down with you for a few minutes it\'s invaluable as, good as all the tutorials are, it\'s far easier just to be shown. (For example the basic \"milky consistency\" lark and \"Don\'t overload your brush\", took me a while to figure out first what the tutorials were getting at whereas someone could have shown me in 30 seconds. And then what worked for me personally after that, took more than a few minis.)

Best of luck.

 

[treide]

I think the idea of forcing yourself to finish a mini whether you are ultimately satisfied with it or not is a good one. Otherwise you will never finish a mini, as there is always room for improvement! Each time you move on to a new mini, you can apply the lessons from the last one and feel as though you are moving forward.

 

[uberdark]

honestly go out and buy a box of minis that are rank and file. if you start them out by putting them together, then pick a style and design and do that on each one. red on pants on each 5 then blue on shirt and so on. this will quickly get your abilities up much more quicker if you try that. it worked for me. after painting a 3500 point dwarf army i can effectively paint skin tones quite well. and after my tau i think i will be set on battle damage and such. now you just have to do the same. buy some rank and file guys from warhammer fantasy and try it out. and you should be able to get 5 done in a week.

trust me on this. i really think it will work for you. i was in the same place you were a year ago. you can do it.

 

[Infidel Castro]

Originally posted by treide
I think the idea of forcing yourself to finish a mini whether you are ultimately satisfied with it or not is a good one. Otherwise you will never finish a mini, as there is always room for improvement! Each time you move on to a new mini, you can apply the lessons from the last one and feel as though you are moving forward.

I was a swine for not finishing them. I used to get annoyed or bored. Look, a squirrel!

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Not quite sure what the problem is....I looked at your gallery and if those are some of the first mini\'s you have done then you are WELL ON YOUR WAY to becoming a great painter. Some of your blends are better than I can pull off.

As to streaking, I think the whole perfectly smooth everywhere thing is overrated. Dont get me wrong, it\'s very cool but it\'s by far not the whole thing. Since I have a hard time doing perfect blends I have begun to think that maybe I wont fight it and try to use the textures.

Take heart!! Your stuff really does look good!!

 

[Dragonsreach]

Treide\'s right.

I\'d suggest that you get a very plain and simple mini such as one of Spyglass or Hasslefree\'s figures and work on the simplicity of the form and shape rather than the complexity of the detail.
That way you can work on finding the balance of how you want to work at painting.
Remember it\'s just like learning to walk, you can\'t expect to run a marathon immediatley after having just taken your first steps.

 

[supervike]

Frustration is a common trait when trying to improve...But try to focus on who you are painting for. Its less frustrating when you are just trying to make YOURSELF happy, and not the rest of the world.


Plus...having a glance at your gallery makes me want to poke at you! I wish I could paint that good NOW, and I\'ve painted hundreds of minis!!

 

[dauber22]

Originally posted by Dragonsreach

Remember it\'s just like learning to walk, you can\'t expect to run a marathon immediatley after having just taken your first steps.

Now, DR, if he follows advice like this, how is he ever to become a frustrated perfectionist with unrealistically lofty goals. Sometimes you\'re just not very considerate

 

[hakoMike]

Yeah, I have to chime in with everyone else. Finish minis and keep practicing. It took me a year and some good advice to go from mid-5\'s to mid-6\'s and my best is only 7.2 ... you\'ve gone from 6.2 to 7.3 in three months!

I wouldn\'t get too discouraged if I were you. Your stuff looks good, and it will only get better with time.

 

[Rigged4Mini]

I think my main frustrations are that I live in an apartment that has no basement so I\'m forced to prime outside. I live in Orlando and the heat and humidity have been really acting funny on my prime coat. .One attempt it looks very powdery..nice it looks so smooth that the paint will just run off.

A few days ago I think I must have stripped like 6 attempts of primer before I got a coat I was satisfied with. My girl is complaining that our apartment smells like Pine-Sol and turpentine :redface:.

 

[hakoMike]

Originally posted by Rigged4Mini
I\'m forced to prime outside. I live in Orlando and the heat and humidity have been really acting funny on my prime coat.

Reaper makes both a white and black brush-on primer. Many people here don\'t use spray primer.

 

[Rigged4Mini]

quote]
Reaper makes both a white and black brush-on primer. Many people here don\'t use spray primer. [/quote]

Hrm.didnt know that..does the primer cover well or does it have to be layered? I\'m guessing its enamel based?

 

[spazzy]

I\'ve had the same issues with spray primer, and so I\'m experimenting with the Reaper brush on primer now myself. I\'m doing my first mini with it. I thinned it, and I had to layer it because it didn\'t seem to coat it so well. I wonder maybe if I thinned it too much. I like it because it gave me the opportunity to scrutinize every detail of the mini one last time before actually putting paint on it.

And I agree, you are doing an awesome job.

 

[lizcam]

Welcome to the plateau. Isn\'t the view nice? The path up here is crap but doesn\'tr that mini over there look wonderful in this light. Too bad the hike over there is such a bit@#.

Actually, this happens in all art forms. I learned this early, what with my father being a music teacher and all. I had to start playing and singing almost as soon as I could talk. I\'ve hit so many plateaus in my life I can\'t count them. The best answer? Resign yourself to the fact that the next 3 things you work on are going to be crap. Then all of the sudden new neural networks are built and, poof!, you\'re at the new level and climbing fast.

Just stick with it. Stop stressing over the little things. Crank out a few using minis that aren\'t you favs and then pick up something new that really excites you. It\'ll all come out ok. Plus, you\'re probably not as bad as you think you are.

 

[johnboyjjb]

Perfection is only for competition minis. You\'ll get there a lot faster if you put effort into a mini a week. It\'s hard to do by the way. Different minis take vastly different amounts of time. Sometimes you just have to give up and accept that the blend will not be perfect. Finally, there are several painters in the Orlando area. Hook up with them and see if you can\'t improve that way too. Being able to handle a mini that an expert has painted will teach you a thing or too. (I learned that the one time I met blackfly)

 

[Wren]

Reaper brush-on primer (and Derivan, if you can\'t get Reaper that\'s another option) is a water based primer, not an enamel. I generally do use two slightly thinned coats. Brush on does allow you more of an opportunity to review the prep on the mini, it is not at all unusual for me to whip out the files and touch a spot or three up while I\'m priming something. You won\'t end up with a blinding white spray primer finish, unless you put on a lot more than two coats. But then you don\'t really need it. The primer is just to give some tooth for the paint to hold on to, it\'s not to colour the mini. I\'ve been told you can even spray thinner than most people do. Even if you keep spraying on good weather days, brush on is nice to have to touch up areas of rub-off. Also you can do thicker coats or drops to kind of smooth over rough parts, fill in sculpted dots in eyes or paint chips you have to repair.

As for the rest of it... I hear where you\'re coming from. I picked up the hobby purely for painting, and jumped on CMON and other tutorial sites straight off. I longed to paint as well as some of the folks whose work I really admired. A few months in I tried some SENMM. I understood the concept pretty well, but when it got down to brush, paint and hand, well, it didn\'t go so well and I was terribly frustrated. The thing about painting is that there is a big physical component. It\'s great to train your mind on various techniques, to train your eye about what looks good, and train your imagination about what could be possible, but that only goes so far, and the rest comes down to training your hand. It\'s building up muscle memory, just as in sports or other physical activities. And there\'s also a physical component of getting to know the tools in terms of I need to thin this colour/brand X amount to do the technique I\'m trying and this other one Y amount and so on.

I think you\'ve given yourself a great prescription to try to do that. It\'s fine to strive for greatness and always try to push what you can do, but you need to just sit down and paint to train your hand. Maybe try one a week for that, and aim for one a month where you\'re working on really pushing yourself. Or do a couple of months of the one a week and then sit down and paint another one where you\'re really trying to make it the best possible.

johnboyjjb brings up something I\'ve come to think is pretty important. If you have been looking at minis online only, try to get a look at a mini or three painted by a skilled painter whose work you like. You\'ll be surprised how different they look in person. I painted for a year before I did that, and then was shocked to see that there were spots on minis I loved that didn\'t have perfectly smooth blending, or were in some other way different than they looked in the photos. Also surprising was how vibrant they were and how much more they \'popped\' than anything I did. If you don\'t have any other options, pick up a few minis on ebay or make a few commissions to do this. I cheaped out and didn\'t do that, and even just having a couple of minis painted by other people I could study would have been worth as much or more as any book or DVD I\'ve purchased.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Rigged4Mini & Spazzy: I\'ve recently tried mixing the Vallejo Foundation White with Vallejo Black and got a very good smooth Dark Grey primer which I brushed on very easily and got a good painting surface, Dries quicker than spray on primer as well.

As for the results, well the people who met up at Salute got to look at her (She\'s was the Spyglass miniature with lots of freehand flowers on her.)
Based on this sculpture

And as Wren suggests get in contact with anyone in the area and try to meet up getting together to talk miniatures and share hints & Tips is great fun and a great learning curve equalliser.

 

[Highbulp Billy]

Originally posted by Dragonsreach
Rigged4Mini & Spazzy: I\'ve recently tried mixing the Vallejo Foundation White with Vallejo Black and got a very good smooth Dark Grey primer which I brushed on very easily and got a good painting surface, Dries quicker than spray on primer as well.

As for the results, well the people who met up at Salute got to look at her (She\'s was the Spyglass miniature with lots of freehand flowers on her.)
Based on this sculpture

Well I\'ll vouch for the quality of that one (and everything else I saw that day)

I\'m not able to spray prime as I live in a small third floor flat with an even smaller child running around everywhere and have no suitable outdoor area to use either. Mostly I\'d been using normal GW paints then I got some \"Miniature Paints\" brush-on primers (black & white). Now I\'m experimenting with the GW Foundation paints instead and, for my standard of painting, seem to be doing ok with them.