Well, that didn’t go like I expected.

Warning: Long Rambling Post

TLDR: I need to relearn how to paint minis.

Well, that didn’t go like I expected.

I sit here the day after restarting to paint miniatures thinking about what happened last nigh. I fully expected to return and start painting at the level I was at when I stopped. On a scale of 1-10, I would have rated myself a mid-7’s. I had painted hundreds of minis to a 6-7 range and a solid 7.5 – 8.5 for my special characters. I figured I’d do test mini to shake off the cobwebs and knock off some of the rust loose before continuing my expected progression into display level models.

Hahahahhha! That was funny, and a bit crushing, to be honest. I was getting mad because the paint wasn’t doing what I remember it should do. I was getting frustrated that I couldn’t seem to keep the paint where I wanted to put it. I was getting depressed that it seemed so much harder than I remember. Even harder than when I first started! I was also getting worried that I may not have what it takes anymore.

I gave myself some time to ruminate before diving into my this as I knew my initial reactions were not rational and I wanted to figure out why. Turns out it was really about unrealistic expectations set by myself.

Things I learned last night:
I learned that, while I still have the knowledge and experience of painting miniatures up to a high taptetop standard, 10 years is enough time to erode that muscle memory for painting – specifically, brush control. I had a HELL of a time keeping that paint where I wanted it. I struggled with even the most basic application in areas like the large muscle groups on the Bloodbowl orc. The face (my favorite part to paint) was a total disaster!

I remembered why I don’t like satin or semigloss primers, the reflections under bright lights (for painting) are distracting and obscure details (for me). A solid, super flat black seems to work better. Granted, I don’t do zenithal highlighting at the moment and may experiment with that – who knows, maybe that will reduce the shine enough. Now I have to work my way through an entire can of it.

I learned that Army Painter paints STILL don’t work as well or are as heavily pigmented as the old Citadel range used to be. At least when it comes to the greens. Many people I’ve talked to and after reading reviews online have attested that AP paints have gotten better, I’m not quite sold yet.  Admittedly, I am missing a component of my “wash/thin” mix I’m used to; the Slow-Dri, or drying retarder. I was eager to jump back in and started using only water and acrylic medium to get my paints thinned to where I wanted them. Did not work as planned. Also, it finishes semigloss as well. Not a huge fan of shiny finishes. I know I’ll do a final seal with Dullcote and that will knock all that out, but, as I mentioned with the primer, that shine is very distracting to me.

I learned that, while modern phones are amazing at taking shots of landscape vistas, restaurant food, and selfies, they suck (out of the box) for miniatures. I use a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and can take some AMAZING photos with it, but it doesn’t do well on macro focus, and the software wants to autocorrect by make everything more saturated and pushing the lights and shadows too much creating an overblown mess. Here’s a side by side of the uncorrected and color-corrected (by me in Photoshop) image. Huge difference. This means I’ll need to figure out how to take control of my phones RAW mode and create some settings specifically for minis.

There were other things that were more along the lines of “slightly bothersome” and can be corrected in time. I miss not having my white tiles for use as a paint palette. Not only have I not painted in 10 years, that means all of my brushes are at least that old. The best one I had left started to fishtail after about an hour. I’ll need to get better brushes. And the workspace. When I used to model, I had two separate desks; one for production and one for painting. Because we’ve moved and our new house is much smaller, space is at a premium so I’m sharing my work desk until lI can figure something else out.

Expectations Reset
I “expected” to just waltz in and continue my progress where I left off. After having time to think and realize what I needed to address for myself, I think my expectations have been duly corrected. Instead of marching off to NMM, smooth human skin tones, master color blends, I’m going to need to spend time relearning and retraining myself the basics. Brush control, paint consistency for the job, and not rushing things. I now plan to start with working at getting my models up to a high tabletop standard, then think about branding into more specialized techniques. It may take a few months, it may take a year. The beauty of it this time is there’s no deadline and I can take all the time I want.

Later!