Painting: self-discovery

[lederhosen]

Three moments of self-discovery while painting wargaming stuff:

- I always feel guilty about drybrushing. It's a useful Lazy Painter technique (probably my second favourite, after inking, and it looks good) but I can't quite forget that the brush I'm destroying used to be a good one. It's sort of a "the crack-voiced lush begging in the street used to be the leading lady of her day" vibe, only with paintbrushes. Erm.
- As much as I fear trying to draw symbols freehand, I dislike using waterslide decals even more. They wrinkle something awful when applied to a curved surface (which it almost always is), and they fall off at the slightest touch.
- When forced to draw freehand, I'm not actually as awful as I think I am. It's not perfect, but I think the not-quite-flatness of the decals looks worse than the imperfections in my freehand.

And, miracle of miracles, in the last month-ish I've actually painted ten more figures than I've bought. (OK, discounting a bunch I bought to use for parts, since I don't intend to paint them as-is.)

Comments

[supermouse]

Buy paintbrushes purely for drybrushing with, and/or dedicate all spoiled brushes as drybrushes?

I'm not sure why it's a 'lazy' technique. It's just a technique. Done badly, it looks crap, done well it can give effects which can't easily be done any other way.

[lederhosen]

I only use them for drybrushing once they're already spoiled, I just feel guilty about it. It doesn't have to be rational :-)

And 'lazy' in that the results-to-effort ratio is very good (same with inking). This is definitely not a BAD thing, but I probably ought to put a bit more effort into some of the others that I shy away from.