What is a Good Miniatures Painter

What makes a good painter in my opinion is one that can work to an objective and complete that objective.

Imagine you run a Painting studio. What would you like your team to be like paint wise?
Top standard display painters? Mass army producers? Golem Demon winners? ;) Constantly exploring new ideas? Deadline Hitters? Great teachers and communicators? educated in the finer points of colour theory blah blah etc etc on and on

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Now imagine you are a hobbyist and you want to be a 'great painter'. What skills would you like to have to become 'great'?
Top standard display painting? Mass army producer? Golem Demon winner? ;) Constantly exploring new ideas? Deadline Hitter? Great teacher and communicator? educated in the finer points of colour theory blah blah etc etc on and on

I ask you all again. What Makes a painter great?

Every model i painted over a year and a half

Is good good?

As my career in GW progressed I came to realize something and that something was what it means to be a good painter.

Do you guys know? I'd like to know what you guys think. Before i write more put you ideas in the comments below.

T

Both/And and More

Well I do hope you all decided to GO BIG in at least one way since my last post. Hobby wise that is.

I was having a think this week about my hobby and what my hobby actually is.
I came to the conclusion that miniature painting is not my hobby though it is a massive part of it.
Ever since i started painting I had two objectives. The first objective was and still is to paint to the high standards of the 'Eavy Metal team the second was to paint for a living which i do at Golem Painting Studio.
These two reasons  changed my mind on what my hobby is. My hobby is Professionally painting Miniatures and always has been. I pursued it since first picking up a brush. Now my hobby as you can now imagine goes beyond just putting paint onto a fantastic model because my interests lay in the hows of how a studio is run, how are colour schemes decided, how do you take good photo's etc.  All these things have gripped me since I was a kid and I applied this curiosity regardless of what job I had and I tried to be the best Professional hobbyist i could. That attitude earned me this.

No not the tourney mug! (though that was one of the BEST days working at GW i Ever had and on day I will tell you about is at some point) When I was Given the 'Eavy Metal badge I blubbed a little. I blubbed because It a gesture that said to me I was doing the right things in my job and somebody decided i deserved it. I never knew it existed till it was presented to me, it came to me (myyy precioussss) so yes i blubbed.

Do not wish, do.

Tommie

GO BIG!

I hope you liked my brief space wolf tangent off the history of my hobby last post? If not TUFF.

At Gw Manchester ,and those that have been there will know, is that 'BIG' is the order of the day. Big armies, big tables, big castles, generally big ideas and high aspirations.
Regardless of any perceived obstacle we went for it and the guys at the store still do! and it's this quality that is the next lesson.

The Manchester Warlord - Imperious Obliteratum

I DON'T CARE IF THERE ARE REASONS NOT TO!! - I will focus on the reasons to DO!
I DON'T CARE IF I DON'T HAVE THE SKILLS!! - I will LEARN THE METHODS and DEVELOP THE SKILLS!

Sitting back and making up excuses is just a waste of time and even worse is the term 'I wish I could do ...'
We never wished. instead;

We conceptualized
We Educated
We executed
Through this process we grew our staff, our store, our skills, our reputation,  most importantly our hobby.

The Manchester Imperator

As you can see from the Titans our work was Progressive. By that I mean we tried to better what we had done previously and in the case of the titans it was size what was to be upped. The warlord stands at about 4.5 feet and the Imperator a massive 8 feet!! We wanted the titans to be in the same scale that the epic titans and infantry are to each other and not settling for less. But remember thinking big can be applied to a standard instead of a size e.g a single miniature painted to your greatest abilities and beyond! (The beyond is the important bit btw)

A NMM chrome effect on the nightbringer.

Never had i tried the Chrome thing on a Mini before. I literally copied a picture of the Silver Surfer onto the Nightbringer from a poster I had pinned to the back of helms deep in the store. From this I Had stretched my skill level and skill repertoire  

There were other Projects that made really really fond memories at Gw;
The Lizrdman temple
The Necron board
HELMS DEEP TO SCALE! (this made No.2 in City Life Magazines top 5 things to see in Manchester. The No.1 spot going to Justin Timber lake)

Sadly I do not have pics of all the projects we worked on as a team so if any body else does, either from the store or from a games day event please can you share them below in the comments box?

Think BIG

Tommie

It's Cold Outside...

He watched the red snow. The red snow both ran and settled, clotted and melted, a duality that Sithric Jarnskeggisson observed in all things.
He stared, breathed deep and ran the portents.
Trees rushed by and futures flitted in between them. Wyrds and malificarum, both hunter and hunted danced eternally in the winter forest and this dance tells a tale, a possible tale or an impossible tale.
Sithric's still form frost-glistened as he read the wood, a pall of vapour rose from his slightly open mouth, while in his head his wolf form stalked and panted in the glades and gorges of possibility. His terminator armor insulating him from the cold allowed the winter elements to blanket him while he hunted his Lords wyrd in the winter wood.
The wood was quiet. The white snow lay untracked, the trees sentinel still. His wolf form stopped and pierced the dark of the wood with it's eyes. Deeper and deeper he gazed. Deeper he inhaled taking in the scents of wyrd and malificarum...... nothing.... no thing.... no things!! Wyrd and malificarum are what make things and in return things make them!

Sithric woke, ice, frost and snow cracked and sloughed of his armor whiting out the running, clotting blood. He turned and Made for the inside where the Wolf Lord was. Something bounced off his hip as he hastened, a doll of some kind, Sithric ignored it but it did not ignore him.
'My Lord!' it began hurriedly.
Sithric turned 'You are Vostroyan!' he exclaimed in his deep drawn accent. 'You know you should not sneek and slithe around when a priest stalks the winter woods?'
'I know Lord, I...'
'It could be the death of you. Lay you on the ground and make red snow' Sithric threatened as he pierced the newcomer with his yellow eyes.
'Lord the fleet is mobilisi...'
'Especially when you wear those funny hats on small bodies' Sithric carried on. He inclined himself lower so the hair of his shock beard intruded on the Vostroyan troopers face, forcing him back.
'Lord I INSIST! The fleet is mobilising and the High Commander is..'
'I know' intoned the Rune Priest
'Y- you know?'
'Yes. I know' Sithric purred. 'To Barabbas we go, the fourth planet'
Sithric turned and marched. The trooper just stood. The red snow seeped and clotted back up through the white out.

Though not Sithric Jarnskeggisson please enjoy my wolf priest intead, Roi Stridbarsson

The GW glory days

I worked for GW on and off since i was 18 (1996) on and off and it did have its ups and downs but mainly ups and great ups at that! I love GW :)

It was at Gw that i discovered the wonder that is chaos black spray. Undercoating in black and then in a coloured spray became the secret to speed painting for me and this all came together on an ultramarines army I painted for Paul Evans at GW Manchester back in 2001/02 and it was under Paul's management that my hobby skills truly began to take shape.
If you're on facebook look em up. It is The best GW there is!!!

The lesson during this project was 'HAVE A SYSTEM AND A RHYTHM'. When painting the first mini for an army I create a 'route' around the model that i stick to for each mini of that type this way i do not have to think about where my next brush stroke will be, it's planned and programmed in.
With the route planned next comes speed, this is where rhythm comes in. *stroke, turn, stroke, stroke, turn, dot dot, stroke etc etc*
With the route and the rhythm programmed in then speeding up is easy because you have less to think about, it's all programmed in!

Till  next time kids :)

And then I consolidated

So i worked on consolidating the skills I brought together on Azrael. These were skills bases on one single high standard mini, not an army. Inspired by the Brilliant 'Eavy Metal work as per usual I set to trying to apply all those skill to an entire army, and Eldar army
First to Old Jes Goodwin mini with a paintjob Inspired by Mr McVey (as was my way)

Then ,after anotherbreak, on this rather awesome sculpt of a howling banshee, the best incarnation for me by Mr Fitzpatrick I believe.
To be honest I failed. Painting this way over an army took too long for my young impatient self. So how to fix??

I needed Quicker ways Ways.

Way 1 - use black undercoat not white
Way 2 - use a massive brush/spray for basecoats
way 3 - use less stages in smarter ways


What lessons did you guys learn?