Painting Purgatory: Speed Painting Is The New 40

So I discovered today that the new blogger editing interface doesn't protect me from my own html editing mistakes and screws up the layout if I don't close tags properly. Lovely. Anyway, now with that mini-rant out of the way, here's my latest update.

A while ago I was planning to start a series of posts about speed painting, but that project sort of burned out quickly. However since that time I've noticed a lot of revitalized interest in the painting community in terms of painting armies quickly but still having good results. Dipping has been around for a while, but to be honest I can't stand the idea of it. For one thing it still requires the longest effort of painting which is getting solid base coats. Another reason is that if you ever want to strip the model, you're out of luck. And finally, I just have a personal revulsion to the methodology (no offense meant to dippers out there).

However, glazing and washing are techniques that get you similar results but can save you time over the dipping method depending on how you go about it. When I was painting many of my Cryx models, I used glazes and washes over straight white primer and found that I got a lot of good results. There is a catch though. These techniques can sometimes leave you with less consistent look to the surfaces, but that may or may not be a benefit given the model and your own style preference. Personally I like the variation in the surface colors because it gives a more natural look. There are times, like when you are trying to simulate enameled metal, that this breaks the visual cues of the material being implied.

In a recent No Quarter article, studio painter Matt DiPietro demonstrated the "underpainting" technique and it seems to be getting more and more attention. My first link to share is Adary's Scrapbook where he's been making attempts at this technique with good success. If you look closely at the last photo you can see how the black undercoat darkens the tone of the color in key places (like knees and fabric folds) where light wouldn't be hitting it as much. My second link is to a tutorial on Hand Cannon Online by Ghoul (who is an amazing painter). He gives a very good description of the process and paints a whole unit. He also gives some very educated history of the technique from well before miniature painting.

Seeing a revitalization of "old master" techniques being used in miniature painting is pretty interesting. As I continue to listen in to various painting communities, I encounter more and more of these sorts of things happening. The past is ripe with knowledge and experience, we just have to tap into it!

From the Desk: Parallel Projects

The poor Blackfrost Shard have been sitting on my desk, primed, for months. Two days ago however, I finally started putting paint to them. These models are quite detailed, and thus make them both interesting and a bit daunting at the same time. I don't think I've had so much motivation to paint something for a long time. First, they are quite nice models. Second, they are badass on the table. And third, completing them brings me back down to a single unpainted squad. These guys will probably take me a while though. I'm still kicking around whether to introduce some red into the color scheme or not.

On an "SPQR" note, I also finished trimming my 3 Nephilim. I like to be getting my next model all trimmed, assembled and primed before I finish my current painting project. It's more than just the smooth transition from one painting project to another. There's time lost waiting for putty and primer to dry and if I'm burning that time in parallel with painting, I'm getting good use from my time. Getting these Nephilim done will bring me down to a single unpainted beast, plus it will give me a whole batch of new options on the battlefield which I'm really looking forward to.

Gun Mages (take 2)

Yikes! To say that I've been in a painting slump would be a gross understatement. I just checked my blog and it's been more than 2 months since I finished a model. So without further ado, here's my second set of Gun Mages, complete with officer.



Ok, so what happened to the SPQR series? Well, a couple things. First is that the posts felt awkward. I do plan to pick up the SPQR posts from time to time, but not quite as the regular installment that I had intended. Instead I'll do them sporadically as tips and techniques come up. Trying to do it with the Gun Mages here felt pretty forced and was holding me back from getting them painted.

Second is that I just needed to get something finished, and these guys were already in progress. I've been working on the War Hog for so long now that I really just wanted to be finishing something. The War Hog is still in progress and will get done this week. However I just needed to feel some sense of accomplishment (however meager) to give me a little juice again.

Anyway, nothing special here. Speed painted and not that great (by my standards), but they are done and just itching to be used in that Ashlynn tier list!

SPQR: Adding That One More Step

Philosophy
Regardless of what your goals are, an essential quality of speed painting is about efficient use of time. I would imagine that most people out there are already working on multiple hobby projects at once. I find generally that gamers tend to have some level of awareness at how to optimize things. However there's some value in exploring the topic in case there are little nuggets of wisdom out there. In terms of efficiency, there are two primary areas that I focus on: workspace and multitasking.

Having a dedicated workspace for hobby projects can make an enormous difference in terms of efficiency. My workspace has evolved over the years that I've been painting. It started as a box of paints and brushes accompanied by whatever mug I grabbed from the shelf. Later it turned into a large portable serving tray. Today I have a dedicate desk, shelf space, paint racks and lamp. There are many articles out there about workspaces, and I've included a couple in the list of references at the end of this article. Focusing specifically on efficiency, it's important to organize your workspace so that the most commonly used items are within arm's reach, and you know exactly where to find them. Having plenty of area also helps so that you aren't shuffling things around frequently to accommodate whatever you shift to work on. The key here is to evaluate your space every so often to ensure you are getting the most of out it.

As a visual aid to my philosophy on multitasking, I've included a photo of my desk. Since I wasn't able to put labels on the items, consider this a bit of a scavenger hunt. I've got a can of primer because I'm waiting for a model I just primed to dry. I'm working on basing the Spell Martyrs. My Gun Mages patiently await their next SPQR step. My War Hog relaxes on the styrofoam where he awaits the next step in his progress. And on my tool rack, a piece of clay experiment is drying (more on that another time). As you can see, I've got 5 different things going on at once. The value in doing this is that while one thing dries or cures, I can be working on another thing. In some cases, I'm waiting for inspiration to strike and having them within visual range helps. This is more ambitious that my typical, but the point still applies. If you're able to keep juggling back and forth between assembly and painting, you'll make good use of time when something needs to sit and dry/cure.

Practice
So back to my Gun Mages. As a part of my goal of speed painting in order to get better, I'm taking one more step on the coats. I'm going to two brush blend (2BB) to deepen the shading.

For reference, here's the UA model from the unit as of the end of the previous post.

And here he is after 2BB some P3 Coal Black into the deeper areas. As you can see, this definitely deepens the shading as the recesses have much more coverage at this point. The 2BB technique can yield pretty good results in a short amount of time once you get good at it, but it takes a fair amount of practice. I forced myself to practice it on models that I was speed painting in order to get that practice in. Combining washes and 2BB techniques like this can work well to step a model above just basic tabletop quality.

Total painting time: 30 minutes. This time it literally is 30 minutes to paint this step for all 7 in the unit. Although the 2BB technique is relatively fast for the results, it isn't as fast as wash techniques.

References:
* Matt DiPietro's PP painting desk
* CMON Article about basic tools, including workspace
* YouTube video of Ron Kruzie using the 2BB technique at Gencon (terrible video quality, but you can get the general idea)

SPQR: Speed Painting and Quality Results

Goal #3 for 2011: Do a series of posts on "speed painting".

It's high time I got started on this goal! This is the kick-off post for the SPQR series I'll be doing on an ongoing basis to tackle the large topic of speed painting. My goal is to give a balance between the "philosophy" of speed painting, and concrete examples of speed painting in practice.

Philosophy
The term "speed painting" has a pretty wide spectrum of definition for time, technique and quality. Those definitions vary primarily due to different goals, which each painter needs to define for themselves. Are you looking to get a painted army on the table? Are you looking to improve your brush handling techniques? Is your available painting time limited and you're looking to balance quality and completion? The goal is what will drive what type speed painting you undertake.

In my case, I have 2 goals. The secondary goal is to get stuff painted for playing with. But my primary goal is really to improve my skills. My underlying theory is that I can always buy another copy of a model rather than strip and start over if it isn't perfect. I've been doing this sort of balance between speed and quality for the last couple years and I've seen a noticeable improvement in both brush accuracy and blending quality. One key factor to this improvement is that I always take time after I seal a model to review what I liked and what I didn't like, even if I don't blog about it. Occasionally I will set aside the speed painting mentality and go all-out on a model just to test where my upper limit is, but I can honestly say that taking this specific speed painting philosophy has indeed improved my skills.

Ok, enough of the philosophy, let's start a real example...

Practice

For the practice portion of these posts, I'm going to start with this unit of Gun Mages. They've been sitting in my paint queue for quite a while now, and although I don't expect to be playing them in the very near future I do want to get them painted. I should note that this is my second unit of Gun Mages to have painted (the first unit being here), so I've got the upper hand on these so to speak.

	Here's my starting point... a white primed model. I'm actually painting the whole unit at once, but I'm only going to show one model for the purposes of demonstrating the progress. I'm using a "wash over white" technique to help speed up the process of the major areas. The idea is that the washes over white do a lot of the hard work in terms of highlighting and shading. It's certainly not competition quality, but for tabletop standards it gets good results. Note that I'm not going to discuss other primer color options here. This technique is specifically for white primer.
	First painting step, base wash with Trollblood Highlight 1:1 (paint:water ratio). You'll notice that the coverage here is pretty good. Some white shows through, but not a whole lot. I'm starting with a more gray base before going to blues just to give it a more military feel.
	Step 2, wash with Cygnar Blue Base 1:2:1 (paint:water:matte medium). The coverage here is significantly less, but it does create a translucent glaze over the entire thing. The reason reason I include matte medium rather than glaze medium is that it 1) helps glaze even the top surfaces, and 2) helps reduce reflectivity in the recesses.
	Step 3, wash with VMC Dark Sea Blue 1:3:1 (paint:water:matte medium). Similar goal as the previous step, just darkening things. Now normally there's a lot of advice about painting the recessed areas first, and moving to the higher areas to avoid making mistakes on completed areas. The reason I'm doing the washes first is simply that washes tend to be messy, especially when working fast. Doing the washes first means I won't slop on other areas later and cause more damage.

And there you go, about 1/3 of the model's entire surface has already been covered using this technique. It's not outstanding, but it gets the job done.

Total painting time: 30 minutes. Ok, let me add a caveat there. I did paint 7 of these guys at the same time ("assembly line" style), but it was about 30 minutes of actual time spent mixing paint and applying it. There was drying time in between, but I'm not going to count that. The reason being that I spent drying time working on other projects at the same time.


Feedback!

If you've made it this far, thanks! I'm planning to keep these relatively short and work my way through my backlog of unpainted models, so expect more in the near future. This being the first post in what I hope will be a continuing series, I'd love to get feedback on what would be useful in future posts.