Do projects in multiple genres help your painitng skills?

[Too Bo Coo]

I was thinking about this on my flight back home, I have projects that range from Gladiators, WWII, Post Apoc Zeds and Fantasy as well as a few others.  I've stayed away from certain colors due to their 'complexity', so lets say for a long time white, red and black were fairly nonexistent on my minis save for small artifacts.  But then I recently learned more about red while painting fantasy, more about yellow from SAGA, and more about black from WWII minis.  By jumping around and painting radically different things, I think this has really helped my skills out.  So I'm very proud to say I think I've graduated from 'Fairly Mediocre' to 'Ok, That's Solidly Mediocre!', which I think is great! (Yes, a bit of self deprecation, but lets be honest how great could I paint if I avoided red, black and white???)

So what about y'all?  Do you think that painting in multiple genres helps or it's all bollocks and I had a couple too many scotch's.....

[weismonsters]

I think you are right. It is so easy to end up relying on experience and repeating the same patterns, that doing something which obliges us to try something new is a good way to learn. Or rather, it is one of the ingredients for learning. So yes I agree.

[Cubs]

Darn tootin'.