Where & When?

[Old Dwarf]

This morning is Grey & cold(typical NJ Feb.) and as it's Sunday
I can sleep in,so of course I was up at 5:30AM .

I went up to my paint room and painted up the metal parts
on 12 Lannister Inf figs for my Battle of Westros Project
I've been on since late Nov.Later today I'll do the same for
the remaining 12 figs.

I paint up on the 3rd floor in a small tower room which
contains a built in paint table(I was handy in my younger days)
and storage shelves.The room always looks organized at
the start of a project & by the time it's finished resembles
the retreat from Moscow.I try to paint daily when I'm
on a project which can run for months but once I've
finished I'm often just so painted out I don't pick up
a brush for at least several months.

Usually I paint just after dinner on weekdays from 20
minutes to an hour and mostly concentrate on one
area of the group of figs I'm painting(metal,cloth,flesh,leather).
Weekends I try to put in around 3 sessions a day depending
on what I have to deal with in real life.Again a session
is 20-60 minutes depending on how many figs and what
areas of them I'm painting.I usually only do one at a time.

I like to paint all the figs in a Unit at the same time to make
sure I'm giving them the same look.This works for Units
like the Lannister Inf Spear figs but of course breaks
down when I'm doing individual type figs(I think this is
why my AToE figs still remain unpainted).I do individuals
by doing all the flesh & flesh washes for all of them
and then just work them one by one doing one to three
areas a session.

So to Topic, We have some terrific painters here at TZG
and it occured to me where to they find the time &
where do they work the fig magic?

You know who you are fess up.

OD

[samuraitrev]

Great little piece of insight into the painting habits of an old dwarf. Thanks for sharing.

I will try to cast some light into what I get up to. I grab the time whenever I can. I work in a School so the good thing is we get 13 weeks of holidays a year. Plus I snatch time at weekends. I have a 1 year old son (who I intend to train up in the art) and a wife who keeps me busy so I escape when I can. I am looking into an invisibility formula at the moment this project is on-going. I never paint in short bursts i.e an hour or two. When I sit to paint I know I'm there for an afternoon/evening or full day. If I'm painting a group say 5-6 Zombies I can do them in a day. (prepare, undercoat, basic, shade, highlight, base, varnish, photograph, display) Heroes tend to take longer as I like to give them an individual 'look'. I can spend several days on these. I've been painting 23 years and have the same beaten up, old chair I've had as long as I can remember. (It was knackered when I got it). But it's part of the ritual. I've repaired it with wooden planks and all kinds. Anyway I digress. I don't have any unfinished projects once I start on something I'm relentless with it. Even if half way through I become completely jaded with it. I'm an optimist I know every time my brush touches it. The damn thing's closer to being finished. I've still got a back log of unstarted miniatures from games such as LotR, Descent, Space Hulk Terminators and some Blood Bowl Players. But they can wait, I've got Zombies ready and waiting to get into that town and dine on Hero brain tar tare.

Here's where I work infernal devilry. My paints and inks are in the little shelves at the back. Each pigeon hole is individually lablled so I now know where each paint is when I need it. The paint with the white lids is Foundation paints. (Thicker paint with more pigmentation good for base coats). There's a row of washes with black lids just under the lamp shade in the picture. As you can see my lamp has had several repairs with 1st miliput which didn't last long then really big paper clips!
   

That's it really. Right back to work!