Just Getting It Done

People often forget that you are never stuck at your current skill level. When I was in school I found math hard, so I aovided it and never got any better. Now I realize that if I’d applied myself I would have improved through practice and had an easier time.

The same is true for painting. It’s easy to get discouraged because you aren’t able to paint very fast. I’ve just reached the end of the beginning of my plan to start painting more. There was a time long ago where I painted every day of the week, plus snuck a little time on the weekend. I was painting nearly 10 miniatures a week. A variety of circumstances changed that. I’ve gone over them in the past so I won’t repeat them all. It comes down to a very basic fact: I wasn’t painting.

When I started to seriously paint again I was discouraged that I wasn’t painting as fast as I had at the height of my previous painting regimen. Now I realize that this was simply because I was out of practice. I even think that I can eclipse my previous best because I plan to be more focused on painting than ever before.

The fifth batch.

The last day I was sick I spent a few hours painting and managed to finish the flesh, helmets and battledress. Tonight I just finished everything else except the unit insignia and final basing. Oh, and the soldier with the PIAT needs his helmet netting painted and I’d planned to add weathering and chips to the helmets, but forgot. Minor, minor things that I’ll do while I’m waiting for steps in the basing to dry.

I think that this batch will end up taking about five to six hours. This is the best speed I’d managed previously and I feel like I could go even faster. Considering that it’s still hockey season and I’m not counting basing, varnishing and clean-up if I could finish a batch of six a week I’d be very happy. That’d be a 32 musket 1812 battalion every month and a half. At that speed my 1812 project could be finished far sooner than I’d ever dreamed, as long as I keep this up.

That’s always been my problem, of course. Even when I was painting 10 figures a week I wasn’t painting every week and sometimes would go for months without painting. This was a result of spreading myself too thinly over too many interests and it is something I really hope to avoid. We’ll just have to see.

At least it means I can look at ordering my next batch of miniatures. Ahh, consumerism.

Tyler