Minor Details are Minor

Tonight one of my group's players stopped by for his bi-annual visit. He had just painted his Woldwrath gargantuan (which looks awesome to paint!) and was eager to try it out. While we were waiting for his team game to start we talked about our experiences with painting Circle Orboros. As we talked about our smaller based trooper models, he said something that put in to words a big frustration I've been having lately. He told me he feels like he spends way too much time painting all these small-based models when he could use that time to paint the bigger, more easily seen models.

When he said that I just had to nod my head. Lately I've been struggling to want to paint my own stuff, but I wasn't really sure why. Being swamped with painting projects is a factor, but when I"m "off the clock" I still had no motivation to pick up a brush and finish my Circle army. But it was finally clear!

I spent a lot of time painting my trooper models because I know I need to get the least fun things out of the way or I'll never finish them. So I sat there for hours painting these small details on a tabletop-quality piece because they seemed so necessary to me. However, a week later I don't even see a lot of what I did because I'm not longer holding the piece 6" from my face. I even picked up a couple of my models tonight to see if I could see all the work I'd put in to them, and I realized that I really couldn't.

To clarify, I refuse to paint bad pieces. Small details like eyes and buttons are still important, ut thinking back to how I look at models, I realized how little I realize my own work, let along what someone else sees. I put them in front of my face and rotate them, taking everything in but not focusing on one minor detail like whether a button has shading and highlights to it. On a display piece that's important, but for something that gets bumped around the table and kept in foam trays... not so much. As long as I don't notice any obvious omissions (no eyes, no shadows on bigger areas, etc), I think it's a great job for a tabletop piece.

So I'm going to try getting back to my pieces and see if I can spend less time on the rank and file pieces, instead using that time for the bigger items that are meant to be eye catching. I'm really not sure how it will go because I struggle to remember that what I see while painting isn't what will be seen a week from now. Shadows? Yes. Two or three layers of shadows in a small, innocuous area? Maybe my time can be better spent elsewhere.

So wish me luck, because I really want to get all my stuff painted up. It's just those troopers, they're so soul-sucking and the time spent painting them hardly feels rewarding once I put them on the table. I'll still make my special pieces (warcasters, cool solos) feel special, but otherwise I think it's time to be a bit more realistic and put my efforts toward getting my small pieces done nicely, but quickly. After all, I have a colossal who keeps giving me puppy-dog eyes!


See you tomorrow!


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