Hobby Corner: Relearning How to Paint

Like any long term hobbyist, I've amassed a largely unpainted collection of miniatures over the years. I recently decided enough was enough and it was time to get everything painted. Unfortunately I'm well out of practice and I wasn't very good to begin with. I've always enjoyed kit bashes and conversions but I've found painting to be a hassle.

With my lack of experience in mind, I amassed the improperly built, badly stripped, and other leftovers from my earlier hobby exploits. I decided it'd be better to practice on these sorts of miniatures, rather than the ones I'll be regularly playing with or displaying. I didn't get quite as far as I wanted (I picked a bad time to start painting again, with university wrapping up for me). Oddly enough, my painting techniques were both better and worse than I expected them to be. Here's the half-painted legion of test minis.

As any hobbyist will lament, models never quite photograph properly with all but the best set ups. Honestly, I'm a little thankful for that, as it covers up some of my mistakes. After finally getting the hang of thinning my paints and layering flesh, I was drunk on power and wondering why I had bothered to start with test models.
Screwing up the highlights and some of the later mixed flesh tones brought me back to reality. This is a learning experience and I have to start somewhere.

These were the earliest ones. I mostly focused on painting green because that's so important for Orks. I also mostly own green paint for whatever reason. I swear that these fellows were going well until it came time to highlight them. There was an unfortunate case of using the wrong colors and the wrong approach. I'm going to strip and redo all these test minis at some point but I'm going to keep the Ork on the right in pristine condition. It's not my first mini but it'll serve as a good reminder that I am in fact progressing as I move forward with painting my collection. I also need one screw up those self-congratulatory "look how much I've improved" posts that are a staple of every self-respecting Warhammer painter's social media output.

After botching up the highlights on the previous two Boys, I tried drybrushing on this Ork. I wanted to avoid doing at first, as I even when done properly it looks a little to dusty for my tastes. But it turned out that I was so bad at highlighting I reconsidered this decision. After this test, I decided it'd be for the better if I try to get better at highlighting and save drybrushing for stuff like cloth, fur, etc.

The same mini's backside, to prove that I made some admittedly small progress when it came to highlighting. Almost every mistake I made with these test minis came from carelessness or impatience, so that was a good lesson in itself. The lines are still too thick here and I think the highlight is a little too bright for the "dirty leather" look I want. This was baneblade brown, so I think I'm going to step down to skrag brown, or skrag brown mixed with baneblade brown. I'll figure it out.

Here's the golden child, my relative success story. The facial highlights are roughly at the quality level I want them to be and it has the healthy, firm shade of green I want for my Orks. The other miniatures I painted either had a weird neon tinge (from using moot green) or a little too pallid for my tastes (From using goblin green/warboss green as a layer instead of a highlight).

Here's the somewhat less successful arm, where I screwed up on the highlights. While I have a good sense of what should stand out on the face and hands, I always go a bit overboard when figuring out what should stand out on less obvious stuff like the muscles. One thing I noticed painting is that I'll think I've screwed up a miniature when observing it under a desk lamp, hours into painting. After coming back to it from a break, I'll realize it's close to the tabletop level of quality I want it to be. Or at least not a total disaster. If you're wondering about the other miniatures, they were other "experiments" I'll get to at a later date. Or possibly never.

To finish off, here's was my main source of reference throughout this ordeal. I got this book when I first got into the hobby ten years ago and it's still useful. Especially the guide to painting Orks in the back. I'll admit it's a little vague in some places but the wealth of tutorials online helped fill the gaps. I did have to ask around my local hobby shop a few times too. Despite appearances, this was a fairly encouraging experience. Even painting half properly was a lot more fun than I remember and I'm sure I'll have something to show for it eventually.