Year in Reflection - 2023

 Thanks to holidays, travel, and the usual sort of end-of-year enterprises, this is a few weeks delayed than I originally planned, but still wanted to write out a reflection of the past year in painting.

Originally for 2023 the plan was for it to be the Year of the Dreadnought. That didn't work properly. I only managed about half the number I wanted, but in return I did paint other models so it wasn't a total loss. Actually I'm not at all disappointed in the year, as I never intended to paint too many models to begin with, but it would have been nice to complete the Librarian.

Aside from the original plan failure, a fair number of detailed models were done or started (Jain Zar, Azrakh, Horus Ascended, and more) and some squads of Marines completed. Counted in the squads were quite a few tricky ones to work with or determine colours for, which always increases the time I spend on them, and course there was adapting to the scale of Titanicus and Legions Imperialis. It was a year of learning, and there was a lot of that.

One of the best outcomes of the year was stepping up a notch with the airbrush. The proper thinning of airbrush paints finally clicked, and I have a better feel for using Contrast through one now as well. I'm looking around for something to try that on again, which will likely be another squad that I can practice my new red approach on. Using the airbrush certainly has some drawbacks - there is that "grain" that often shows up, however I'm starting to lean towards not caring about that so much for squads: it's not too noticeable from any sort of distance, and the ease of highlights is worth the trade-off. I will still revert to normal brush highlights for more special models (e.g Horus) but the airbrush can still give a rough outline to start from.

In general I'm starting to be a little less fussy with the models, and this is a good thing. It means I can paint a little bit faster, and get through my backlog. I still want my skills to improve, and there are times to be fussy, but I'm going to be far more selective about that in future. Actually my handling of paint is probably just fine by now, but focusing more on colour and light is what will take me up to the next level.

Next (this) Year

The coming months I'm not really planning anything grand. I want instead to focus on finishing what has grown to a considerable number of works in progress. Terrain, a vehicle, several characters, all deserve to be finished so that I can clean up the painting area properly and start making inroads into the backlog again.

I will collect more Epic (Imperialis) models, but going to try and stick to only buying another box once the previous is painted. It's unlikely I'll be playing games, which will help keep the numbers down, and the Rhino transports taught me quite a lot about how to paint them effectively. I think individual tank models will be no more difficult than 40k scale Astartes, and for me might actually be somewhat easier.

I would like to return to oil paints on miniatures again, but not with oil washes. I want to pick and paint a model entirely using oil paints to blend and work at the colours in a more canvas painterly fashion. It will have to be something without too much detail, the oils will have to be applied as thin as possible, and it will take a month or two to cure probably, but it would be something different and exciting to try.

And with that, time to push fresh paper on the wet palette and get some painting done.

-- silly painter.