Where & When?

[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!