Finally (Almost) Getting It...

The Arrow was a sign of the next level.

Man, there should be something really clever to say about an Arrow and feeling like I am getting better at painting. The Arrow is pointing at improvement? Too obvious.  

Evidence that eyes are still hard. 

Oliver Queen is one of the first minis where I feel like I got it. Which is strange, because he is one color. 

What I finally grok is contrast. The value of shading. The importance of pushing your highlights those extra shades brighter. It finally paid off with Ollie.

An angry hood watches over his paper towel. 

The paints here range from Reaper Brown Liner, through the Reaper camo green triad, up to Vallejo Ice Yellow. Near black to a white yellow. Contrast. 

His other side is also an angry side. 

The lessons learned from Oliver have carried over into other models. The Gotham Police Department Officers were done faster, but with the same approach. Blue liner to shade, up through a white-blue. 

Not quite Gotham's finest. A few too many donuts. 

Liam Neeson was a blast to paint, and I intentionally left his skin a darker tone, focusing on bringing out the contrast of his skin.   

Ra's Al Ghul - somewhere between the Batman Begins Ra's and Arrow Ra's. 

Most recent was Bane and a few lackeys for 150 point Batman Miniature Game demo games. He was an interesting challenge as he is supposed to be in all black. Instead, I chose to have contrasting armor pieces and a leather jacket to make the model more interesting. 

Clover, Bane, and McGregor. Mercenaries to murder the Bat with.  The shadows on Bane are actually painted there. It still surprises me.

Nearly two years after starting to paint miniatures, probably close to 1000 hours of painting, I finally feel like I get it. 

The feels are good.

A Painting Manifesto

Vacant blog is sad blog.

The origin of this despair has been abundant productivity. Not the painting kind of productivity, but producing a software product productivity. Hopefully I will get the go ahead from the copyright holder to post said product, but until then, peaceful silence for all...

But painting! In the highly occupied month of April, I only completed two models. I believe that is the worst month in the past year, maybe since I started painting. However, I think there was a hidden benefit to having put down the brush for 4 weeks.

Perspective. 

Specifically the rejuvenation of my perspective on painting.

Slipknot and Killer Croc from Knight Models's Suicide Starter Box. I did a bunch of experimenting with these models, and none of those experiments turned out great...

The reality is that my painting queue is 624 long. 624. And I truly do want to paint about 90% of  it. That is a lifetime of painting unless something changes... Or about three years at 15 models a month.

So something changed. 

I had two Batman models from the previous order to complete, and decided that I would power through them. The result was actually quite excellent:

Completing the Quick Response Force.  Really pleased with how they turned out in a short amount of time.

Completing the Quick Response Force.  Really pleased with how they turned out in a short amount of time.

In my post-mortem for the two, I reached nirvana, or at least a state of greater understanding, and wrote down a series of guiding statements in the form of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development:

As a painter, I favor:

Contrast over blending
Dark lining over washing
Faces over outfit
Getting it done over getting it right

As with the earlier Manifesto, the stuff on the right is important and should/can be done. However, the stuff on the left is more important and is where more emphasis should be placed.

These statements form my style. They give me the freedom to work on contrast instead of making sure my blends are prefectly smooth. They also let me put more time into the face than the clothes, guns, swords, or backpacks.

Style is good. For now, this is mine.