greetings readers!!

i just wanted to throw together this short lil presentation/read abt some personal thoughts of mine regarding our hobby of modelling.

i dont really know where to begin but i guess that this is in a way just a little post regarding my thoughts and maybe some tips and tricks that can get you a long way in regards to painting.

First off, here are a couple of really important things you need to remember. YOU ARE NEVER THE BEST PAINTER. This is something that is fairly important to me. I hear and see alot of people that are incredibly arrogant because of their painting skills. this pisses me off alot. Our hobby is something that takes years to develope and some people might not have as much time to practice, or money to fund our hobby or whatever the reason is, but they may not be at your level. DO NOT BE AN A$$HOLE because of that. If somebody compliments your work. TRY to be modest. Say what you think you could improve on or explain what you might have done differently next time and also try and maybe share the techniques used to paint your model. nobody likes to get a reply like "yeah i know its nice." If you say that to me i promise you will be on my shit list for good and it doesnt matter what you say you will always remain there.

also remember, YOU CAN NEVER LEARN TO MUCH. Dont be shy, ask questions. from both experienced painters and new painters alike. This will always help you increase your knowledge base and you can learn thigns from the wierdest and most unsuspecting places. So if you are wondering something, ask. Also feel free to let that person know that you will try to replicate their techniques or make your own version of it. This is vital because at the end of the day the skillz that you have are all learnt from somewhere, and its always nice to know where you learnt it from. your painting tool box of techniques will take years to develope from many different places and some jsut out of pure luck will come from your own creativity(bear in mind that for it to be a succesful outcome, these types of ideas dont come along TOO often so make the msot of them.) Also if you have the time, look up tutorial videos on how to paint certain ways and how to do certain things. Just by watching this i can say that i feel that  have personalyl improved alot over the years simply by trying to be perceptive and practicing thigns that i know how to do. My old martial arts instructor once told me that you will never learn the beauty of a simple punch until you become a black belt, because once you reach that stage you will start from scratch and completely understanding what a punch is. This really applies to modelling.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT. I think this is kinda self explanatory. But it is SOOOO VITAL. once you reach a stage where you feel that you might not know what to practice on next pick the thing you hate the most and work on that. I had this problem with Flesh earlier on in my painting career. It was the bane of my existence and i hated it. I did everything i could to avoid painting flesh. simply because i felt that when i did it i was not happy with the outcome. So one fine day i sat down in front of a model that was almost all flesh and thought "im not gonna paint anything else till i am happy with you. " and that is exactly what i did. I painted and repainted the model a ridiculous number of times till i was somewhat satisfied with the outcome. Then i started to apply what i had learnt here to other models that had flesh parts to it, and at the end of the day i this was a great learning curve for me. I now really enjoy painting flesh and i love experimenting with different tones and seeing different results and so on by trying new things. I even try to put as much flesh as i can in any models i assemble simply because i look forward to painting the flesh tones later on. Now my next goal is to learn how to paint black in a way that i am happy with.

the next important point is STEP OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE. the comfort zone is always a comfrotable place to be in (DUUUUUHHHH) but what really makes us progress is moving out from our little shell that we live in and try something new. Through my 10 years of on and off painting warhammer and 40K i have painted almost every single race. Simply to learn and try soemthing new. What might work for one type of model, will possibly not work for another, and this is where you really learn how to adapt. After you get the hang of adapating you can look at a model and already see and figure out what you want to paint and how you want to paint it. So never try to limit yourself!!! However if you are working on personal projects, make sure it is something that you enjoy doing because if not its just gonna become a chore and the beauty of the hobby will be lost.

And last one for today is DONT EVER RUSH. To get into this hobby seriously you have to understand that you have time on your hands already. As a result use the time and make the most of it while you paint. Rushing will lead to unfinished details and your happiness with the outcome will not be as high as if you really put in effort into it. there are certain things you can do to make things easier like painting in a Production line manner where you paint everything at one go such as a base color for a batch of models. This helps you psychologically as you wont be so disheartened when you finish one model and realize that yippee i have another 47 models to paint exactly the same way. Taking your time however wil llet you achieve results that you are happy with. I honestly find that working with deadlines is a dangerous thing. For me for example as a commission painter i paint almost all hours of the day. During the day time when i am working on projects for clients i will do my best to make sure that my levels are maintained high. But that is only because i want to be professional when it comes to work. ALOT of people hate their job, but they do it will anyway because they have to be professional. By no means am i saying that i hate my job. i LOVE it. but i have very little time to work on my own personal projects because all my time is spent on painting for clients. bottom line is though, take your time and you will be much happier with yourself at the end of the day.

Hope this helped you guys out a bit!!! I dont know how much but maybe it was just something useful to read or whatever. But ya. I dunno. LOL

Take care and stay tuned for more!!!