Ask Lemmy

Oh! Ok so I'm totally out of the loop on contrast paints, I paint(ed) with many of the same techniques you do, but less advanced. I would prime usually with a black undercoat and then do my base colors, then I'd do detail work and finish with washes, dry brushing, and mixed color highlights. I didn't realize there was another way to go lol. I never got good enough to try and really work from a light source perspective but I was aware of the technique, but mixing paints was a chore because of how slow I was so my shit would be constantly drying up so I didn't do a huge amount of different shades, just a few, which limited my ability to gradually lighten stuff up. Also I sucked at getting my mixes right/consistent.

Your minis look great, better than mine ever did and I'm sure you're MUCH faster than I was. I really took a long time because I didn't like them looking sloppy and I worked mostly using the games workshop kit I started with, along with one or two other brushes I bought without any real education, and some more paints. At the time I learned techniques from the GW books and some old forums. I was always surprised by the lack of effort people put into painting their minis but I guess people were rushing because they wanted an army and didn't want to get crap for fielding unpainted sets (or bad luck).

I think some of my favorite work was actually the terrain pieces I made. I think I have a really good eye for weird bits and bobs and garbage that looks great as detail for terrain more than I ever was at painting technique.

In general even though my painting was slow I didn't think it was a chore, my struggle was finding folks that I enjoyed playing with. I lived in a small town with a single games shop, they did an open mini game day 2x a month but the people that showed up were just not fun to play with, the worst kinds of stereotypical neckbeardy folks and I don't mind me a good nerd but gross obnoxious assholes suck whether they're nerds or not. I know it's much easier to find folks these days than it was in the 90s but it's a discarded hobby for the time being, life is too busy and I do miss it but it's on the shelf for another phase of life, for now.

Thanks for taking the time to explain. I doubt I'd get into contrast painting either, your description of the downsides sounds like the benefits wouldn't outweigh the pace.

I think I have some (really) old 40k minis I saved somewhere, if I run into them in my garage I'll snap some pictures and reply in another post.

Happy painting!