Hey guys. I would like to share some of my painting experience with you. I am not trying to brag, please realize that. I am just trying to share, and there is a point to what I am stating.
I have done several types of painting with respect to the realism/cartoonishness (did I just make up a word?) of the minuatures. I painted minatures before I got into MK and even went as far as to build some structures on a relatively large scale (I mean a large building for 25th scale miniatures).
The first miniatures painting competition I entered into, I painted my subject with realism in mind and that got some respect, but didn't win me the prize. I looked at the first, second and third place winners (I got honorable mention) and saw that all of them incorporated a cartoon-like paint scheme. I proceeded to teach myself how to do this and before long my stuff started to resemble the cartoon schemes that seemed to be the "craze".
Needless to say, I played around with checkers and the such and when I finished the first figure, with red and white checkers, (WH 40K Harlequin) I figured I had it down. It took me only 6 hours to finish the leg. It had roughly millimeter squared blocks on the leg alternating from one color to the next.
I have since improved greatly in quality and I have gotten much faster with the painting. I painted another harlequin with a plaid cloak a little after that. On my favorite miniature I painted an alternating checker pattern on his loin cloth that I reversed on the back side. I included veins on one leg, pin-striping on the other and to top it off, I painted the pages of the book with a brush that had 3 hairs on it and in some places (on the pages) I had to use a needle. The page on the left had a gradient of a blue to black (bottom to top respectively) night sky and the siloette of a castle with lights on inside it and on the next page, the same image, except the castle was on fire.
I took a break from painting for a while (several years) after completing a few projects since then, but in 2005, I enter a painting contest at Dragon Con and won a paint set. It was for a (at that time) relatively new Canadian company. I did that one in 2.5 hours with the equipment and paint that they supplied to everyone. I discovered that they were having the contest on the second day of the contest with only 3 hours left.
Chek it out. Mine is the only one with a closeup of the fig in the bottom of the winner picture.
This is the link...all that to say that I like realism, but it seems that the cartoonish paint jobs seem to catch more eyes.
NightCastle
