Do you feel your painting skill has plateaued?

[Daeothar]

Aside from being an interesting read, you write very well.
Perhaps you might consider submitting an article to one of the mags re : your painting experiences, you would hold attention.

Cheers, always nice to hear people enjoy my ramblings

And I'd love to, but don't really know the channels...

[Ranthony]

https://www.wargamesillustrated.net/contributions/

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/wss-submissions/

Go on, and let us know when it's published

[stone-cold-lead]

I think I've been pretty much plateaued for a good few years. Looking back on older paint jobs I'd say there are some things that I do a bit better now but there are also some things that are not quite so highly polished. In part that comes from the necessity of all the commission painting I do. I used to have an overly laborious way of painting that whilst it gave a really good finish it wasn't practical when painting against the clock so I had to learn how to speed things up. Also, the commission painting is one reason why I haven't really learned much new and still haven't gotten to grips with all sorts of common advanced techniques. I also suspect my eyes aren't quite as sharp as they were.

On the point of trying to be better and improve all the time I don't think people should feel they have to. If you're happy enough with your ability and can accept your limitations, as long as you enjoy what you're doing then why put yourself under pressure for something that may just be a relaxing hobby, something to enjoy. When I paint for myself I could potentially try and improve to a point where I can create a Golden Demon winner but I just want to enjoy a bit of painting as I wind down at night and hopefully not take 40 hours to paint a space marine.

[Bearwoodman]

https://www.wargamesillustrated.net/contributions/

https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/wss-submissions/

Go on, and let us know when it's published

And add photos of your Golden Demon finalists (and those enamel painted RTB01s) if possible!

[Aerendar Valandil]

With me it seems to get up and down. Ik started paining hinchliffe naps in the early eigties, and they were euphemistically not very good. I concentrated too much on readying the troops for gaming. I decided never to do that again, and a few years later I restarted with some fantasy models that are, I must say, quite impressive. Another few years later I started paining warhammer models, although not with the intention (yet) to build an army. I'm still okay with them, but I do made some progress, somewhat later it was less - too little time, too little concentration - and the last few years I heve become better again. The real addition is the criticism of my girlfriend who is well acquanted with artistic coloring and helps me avoiding quick fixes. Good production, good results. I'm 51 and not on the way down yets, seemingly (at least not in this regard).

[voltan]

Also, my skill always varied even within a single miniature - most effort is spent on the face and chest, which is where a viewer's attention focuses, while other parts of a mini may be simpler or less tight in their application.

That's a very good point, I find myself putting more effort into the flesh of a figure for the same reasons. I think also because it is the first place you look it means you can get away with being a bit sloppier on the rest.

[Vis Bellica]

I paint to get figures on to the table for gaming, but like them to look nice when they do. I'm happy that I've hit the balance of my need for a great paint job with my desire to produce units at an acceptable pace: so yes, I could paint better, but that would take longer; or I could paint worse, but then I wouldn't be happy with the end result.

I therefore improve my painting by using things that improve the look of a figure but don't take more time. GW Contrast Paints, for example, have allowed me to "shade" my figures without painting each one three times (base, highlight, super highlight): I now paint it once with Contrast and it's done to just about the same standard as a three coat job (I only paint 15's btw). Massive time saver and looks good. Using Contrast paints has also made me bolder with mixing colours and using thinners: a limited range means you need to mix to get exactly the colour you want.

I've also invested in a daylight lamp for my painting table. Easier on the eyes and the colours come out better.

Finally, I'm being bolder with my basing: mixing flocks, buying different sorts of tufts etc. A minor change, but makes a difference.

So, no, I haven't plateaued, am improving through technology rather than effort, and am happy with where I am!

[caveadsum1471]

I don't think I've plateaued. Like a number of other posters here, what I want to achieve has changed,  I've been painting on and off since the 1970s, did model making at art college and professionally for a while. I guess now I want to paint to wind down after a stressful day at work, or to while away the hours in a hotel room away from home, I certainly don't hate it,I enjoy it,sure it would be nice if it happened faster but that's life! I suppose I paint within myself and don't spend too long on figures, accepting a lower quality of finish but enabling me to actually finish armies within years rather than decades. Changing from a GW army painter ( which tool so long I  never finished an army as just as I was reaching the last few units, they'd change the codex!) to an historical army painter gave me the impetus to speed up as there were so many more figures to paint. I'm more than happy with the finish I  get now and I keep on trying to speed up without dropping my standard further which contrasts with how long I used to spend on each 40k figure!
Best Iain

[pauld]

I'm getting there



But to be serious - I still see new techniques and tips which I assimilate so not quite yet.  Forums such as LAF are a great incentive to improve and enthuse.

Recently better prescription glasses rather than painting by touch have helped and Sakura 0.05 pigment pens are a revelation.  Terrific for eyes and black lining.

I have also realised it's quite OK to be an OK painter.

[Hammers]

Well, failing eyesight is not helping. In my case it is just the normal worsening which comes with age, and over the counter +1,5s amends mot problems. But I think my results are not as good asthey used to be.

On the other hand I have come to realize I do not care as much any longer to strive for perfection. I have mellowed with age and I am fairly content with the level I am at now.

[Donpimpom]

Well, failing eyesight is not helping. In my case it is just the normal worsening which comes with age, and over the counter +1,5s amends mot problems. But I think my results are not as good asthey used to be.

On the other hand I have come to realize I do not care as much any longer to strive for perfection. I have mellowed with age and I am fairly content with the level I am at now.

exactly same case here.
The lose of eyesight I had in the last 10 years made me obvious in maybe 15 years I will have to stop painting, so I start prioritizing the painting list by the models I like the most over play purposes

[Mindenbrush]

Not really, I have improved a little and that is through looking at other people's work and trying to figure out how they achieved a certain effect.
I retired December 2018 and painted solidly until the end of November 2019 when I was offered a mutually beneficial job south of the border which unfortunately was cut short by Covid.
Back in the basement, I picked up where I had left off, I am currently painting some Essex 15mm SYW Austrian Hussars, I had forgotten how small Essex figures are but they are still getting the 4 or 5 layers of paint that I use on my 28's.
Biggest plus is that I am enjoying my painting.

[syrinx0]

Plateaued at best I suppose.  30 years ago when I started painting figures again, I was going for speed & block painting but I actually painted the eyes on my army units.  I can't conceive of painting eyes on mass units at this point. I may have a few more techniques available but my control (and eyesight) is nowhere near as good as back then.  Plus I have had a few multi year layoffs from painting which always set me back.  I have been unemployed for awhile now and was fairly productive in 2020 but have not painted anything this year.

[Antonio J Carrasco]

Rather than plateaued it is going backwards. It is like I am unlearning and becoming less and less skilled.

Well, at least I am actually painting, which is an improvement.

[Major_Gilbear]

Hmm, it's funny; I've been painting for about 30 years now, and I still see regular improvement... But my productivity has dropped off a cliff! 

I started out painting 6mm Epic minis for a friend (I didn't really know what they were back then), and then gradually got more interested in wargames and miniatures until I decided to buy some for myself to paint and play some games with. It was a short downward spiral from there into having two large (and fully painted!) armies by my early-mid teens, and I learned a lot about painting as I went. Not much in the way of tutorials or instruction back then either (I don't count the four-step "tutorials" that sometimes turned up in mags, because the jump between step #3 and step #4 was so obviously huge that following steps #1-3 clearly wasn't going to lead to #4 any time soon...). I therefore learned by generally making a mess of things and gradually refining through trial and error how to do better.

The biggest jump in the quality of my paintjobs has been in the last ~10 years though, especially since the advent of good quality video tutorials available online for free. I'm very much what you might call a "visual learner", and am able to replicate quite well things that I watch being done, so seeing properly how more talented painters work was of enormous help to me.

Unfortunately, as each miniature is a chance to do better than last time, the amount of time it takes me to finish projects just gets longer.

I have recently therefore been trying to learn a new set of related painting skills, which is how to cut corners and speed things up, without sacrificing too much of the final result. This has been most interesting, in its own way, as I discovered a lot of things that were never very obvious to me before. I moved to batch painting, and realised that anything more than about 20 smallish separate items (either 20 1-part figs, or 10 2-part figs, etc) is just totally beyond me. I also found that painting 5-10 models didn't take too much longer than painting 1 or 2. And that if I split a squad into two, and do one half and then the other, it takes much more mental will and time to finish them all than just doing them all at once.

I'm still trying to learn and improve, whilst at the same time trying to speed up my output. I'm getting there bit by bit, and I have realised something new; the satisfaction of a nicely-painted and finished squad of models far outweighs any small niggles I might have about areas of the paintjob that could be better. I therefore remind myself of that whilst I paint, and try avoid letting my perfectionism get in the way of finishing the bloody things!