To begin my new blog about miniatures, games, and role-playing, I thought I'd share some thoughts I had a little while ago about the psychological process of painting large hordes of toy soldiers...
1) Minis are never finished, just abandoned.
This happens to me all the time -- I paint something and I look at it and all I can see are the mistakes and all the things I could do that I haven't done yet. It's hard to finally declare a figure done.
But the funny thing is, if you put that figure away and then come back to it a few months later, you will be surprised by how good it looks. Why? Simple -- you aren't thinking critically about it as a project anymore; It's simply a painted figure, and one you painted at that.
2) Only paint 10 figures at a time.
This is a crucial point for people who paint armies of figures. If you line up all 65 zombie figures from your new Zombicide game in front of you, and then start painting just the flesh on each one of them, you will lose your will to paint long before you finish the flesh on the 65th figure. Painting can be tedious, and doing the same colour on a huge pile of figures is even more tedious – worse, when you finish the flesh, it hardly looks like you’ve done anything, even though you’ve been painting for hours!
Better to have just a handful of figures, (10 at most), in front of you at a time. You can finish those completely in the same amount of time it would take you to paint one colour on 100 figures, and these finished figures will get you excited about painting the next batch. As an added bonus you can play a small game with your painted figures.
3) Use contrasting colours.
Remember, most of the time you will be looking at these figures from several feet away on a tabletop. If you want to actually be able to see all your hard work, use contrasting colours on your figures. A strong contrast is pleasing to the eye, and makes your figures look exciting from a distance. There’s nothing more frustrating than spending two hours painting six shades of red on your space marine, only to plop him on the tabletop and realize you can’t see the difference.
4) Paint for yourself.
When everything is said and done you are painting miniatures for yourself. Don’t get too hung up on what other people think of your figures. When you show up at the Flames of War tournament there will always be someone who wants to tell you that you’ve used the wrong shade of grey for your German army, but if you like the way they look, who cares? Besides, look closely at that guy’s army – is it even painted? Most times it isn’t.
5) Only play games with painted figures.
This is a golden rule for my friends and I. Miniature gaming is about spectacle. The look of the scenery and the splendour of the armies is ultimately always more exciting than who actually won or lost. If you make it a policy amongst your friends to play with only painted figures you will be motivated to paint, and your games will be that much more satisfying as a result.
6) Set a gaming deadline with a friend.
I have found the single best way to ensure I get some painting done is to set a gaming deadline for myself with a friend. My copy of Super Dungeon Explore might sit unpainted on a shelf for a year, but if a friend of mine and I agree that next month we will play the first scenario, and I have to paint all the monsters, I will finally get cracking.
I hope these points are helpful to you in your quest to paint more figures. These are hard-learned lessons that I have gleaned from over 30 years in the hobby. And please don't hesitate to share your opinions and comments -- I'd love to hear them!
Happy painting!
A thing that I learned was that rank and file troops can suck up a lot of painting time, and no one really sees them before they get killed off anyway. When I started painting, I could paint guys pretty quickly, but as my skill improved and I became a better painter, I wanted to paint every guy to the best of my ability, and then was never satisfied with each guy, or never finished a unit. It's important to remember that a unit should look good as a unit, especially in ranked troops, and the individual isn't as important (except maybe front rankers like leader, standard and musician).
ReplyDeleteAnd painting 10 at a time is good advice. I painted 140 Uruk Hai identically this way, and it was a much better process than trying to take on the whole mob at once.