Communities and painting
…and a happy little stream right here, some happy clouds up here. Do whatever you want, it’s your world.
Just a short post today.
So how do we improve our painting? I for one have support communities. Digital or real. Clubs are great for this, but in this digital age, having a strong forum group is a great resource too. I came across a painter online. He has great motivation to paint, blog, and game. However, what he lacks is a community to game with and generally chat with about the hobby. I directed him towards a forums I knew of that was actually a gaming group in his area. This made me realize how key it was to have a community. I can’t explain the huge benefit to having a community to it’s fullest, but I will try:
1) Ideas. This is as it seems. You can think of only so much. I can’t count the times that I have said “That’s cool…stealing it!” about models at my FLGS. Or even have someone at my game store suggest an idea. Blogs are great for this as it broadens the suggestion pool.
2) Help. I am not strong at OSL, wet blending, use of a wet palette, and many other things. Friends have explained and shown me how to get a handle on these techniques. Few people learn everything alone through books and research. To those I say kudos. I can’t pull that kind of skill from a video or paragraph alone. But being shown the technique helps immensely.
3) Motivation. Painting can get boring. Period. But seeing other people’s awesome projects makes you want to paint as well as them or better. This leads me to my 4th point.
4) Kudos. People like to have people say “awesome job”. If no one ever acknowledged our painting…well, there would be a lot less painted armies out there in my opinion. People praise work. The caveat to this is this: People praise your stuff, you need to look around and if something is nice, tell the artist. Yes, artist. Gaming is DnD, Heroclix, and X-Wing. When it comes to 40k, I strongly believe that the caliber of many pushes it from hobby to art.
5) Gaming. I love to paint my toy soldiers. But seeing them stomp my enemy makes painting them even more fun. It helps create a personal touch and character about them. It makes it more enjoyable to field them, with them painted. Fielding grey army against grey army, a titanic struggle of bare plastic is in no way impressive. However, on a beautifully built terrain table where two fully painted and based armies face off is simply impressive. If not visually stimulating, then at least the knowledge that hundreds of hours went into making that game happen.
So, to all you gamers out there that don’t think about your community as a boon to your hobby, I beseech you to think about your community as your best tool in your kit-bag.
Thanks for reading,
KI
High Die 40K: battle reports, stories, WIPs 