A Year of Painting
I almost didn't do this post.
To do it right potentially requires pulling out the camera and taking quality photos of newly painted figures. Honestly, I don't want to stop painting long enough to do that.
The story goes something like this. While we were in Scotland for my brother's wedding I found Sorastro's Painting Guides for Imperial Assault. I had been fooled into buying the Imperial Assault deal on Massdrop, and it had arrived shortly before we left. There was not much literature about IA, and searching for it instead produced a link to Sorastro's guides.
It only took one watch to know that I wanted to try my hand at painting.
The first Stormtroopers were full of mistakes. You can read about those mistakes here.
The first Imperial Assault Stormtroopers. You can see the brown wash used instead of black on them. Having the correct paint helps.
The droids that followed weren't much better, but they were easy to do.
These minor improvements continued. Each miniature introduced a new technique to understand and master.
Then Vader was the next figure I wanted to do. That said, I had zero confidence in my own ability to properly highlight a miniature. An alternative was needed. Queue Zombicide!
Zombicide comes with so many miniatures that it was the perfect tool to help get better. Painting half of the zombies and the survivors helped me understand contrast and color theory better.
The Zombicide survivors are under attack...
Then, "real" miniature games started calling. Infinity was the next game painted, and that phase lasted for a good 8 months and will continue once I have wrapped up Zombicide Black Plague (and possibly RelicBlade as well). There are still hundreds of unpainted Infinity minis. That said, many of my favorite paint jobs have been on the Infinity miniatures.
All of the Infinity miniatures completed in 2015.
Painting the Corvus Belli sculpts is quite different from painting the Imperial Assault or Zombicide minis. Infinity generally has detail to the extreme, including what could best be described as greebling. The poses aren't as dynamic as I would like, but they generally gave character and style.
After dabbling in three different factions, the Steel Phalanx of the ALEPH was the force chosen to be focus on.
The first Infinity list, 150 points of Steel Phalanx.
This was my first alternative color scheme, and it didn't really hit its stride until about 15 miniatures in. There are a few good miniatures in there and they have a similar theme, but the identity and cohesion I was hoping for never matured in a way that looked great on the table.
Infinity has officially occupied most of my painting time. I started painting Caledonians in October and continued until June when I took a break for Zombicide: Black Plague. Over 8 months of painting miniatures for the same game.
And now for a sad statistic. In that 8 months, I only completed 56 figures for my collection. That is nearly 255 days at a rate of a miniature every 4.5 days.
Ouch.
Zombicide: Black Plague has been fun even if the miniatures are a lower quality. I learned how to airbrush while painting it, and it was like being back at the beginning all over again.
The airbrushed Abominatroll next to Scowl and Grin from the Zombicide Black Plague kickstarter.
Man, I am bad at airbrushing right now. But with practice, and I have a ton of miniatures to practice on, I think it can be an amazing tool in the arsenal.
So there it is. My year of painting in review. Honestly, it was all possible because of the magical Sorasto. Please check out his guides and consider sponsoring him on Patreon if you fall in love with the hobby as I have.
Finally, here is a small gallery of how my panting has improved over the year. Thanks for reading and- to quote Sorastro- happy painting!
