Ignorance is bliss?

[Hullebullen]

During a recent look in the old mini\'s stash at my parent\'s house this thought came to me: I had more fun painting back then.

I remember my first efforts. Me and a friend of mine bought the now classic plastic space marine kit. Back then, there weren\'t much sources on how to paint mini\'s, the Internet was largely unheard of and White dwarf was hard to come by.
So we painted them to the best of our abilities. Sure, most of them would not rank higher than 4 here at CMON, the best could probably get a 5 or so. But then, CMON wasn\'t around at the time and we had fun.

Nowadays, with the wealth of \"how-to\"-articles, internet galleries displaying all kinds great paint jobs and other stuff one thinks it would make the hobby more fun. But instead of being inspired I find that painting gives me less joy (although I still enjoy it) because I constantly look at other people\'s stuff and judge my work by their standard.

Is it just me or does it happen to all \"veteran\" painters?

 

[frenchkid]

Well I never experienced the hobby without internet so I wouldn\'t be able to say if I enjoy it less that way. But I do somtimes fell like giving up after some painting sessions just knowing that my pain job will never be as good as I wanted it to be, but that dosn\'t happen really often and I\'m usaly already depressed about something alls. Overall I fin that I\'m usually happy about my paint jobs as long as I see some improvement on the last mini.

 

[LouisCypher]

well... my first efforts date back to pre-web era, but there were some pics on the dungeonbowl and bloodbowl boxes and some more in the rulebooks, os i had some kind of inspiration when i started and i must admit my first mini was really UGLY (and the second, the third and the fourth so on... )
but i enjoyed every mini i painted since then as i learned more tecniques, basing methods, light effects and so on... and i am still learning and i think i\'ll be learning forever, so i don\'t mind about losing interest in painting...

cheers =)
Luca

 

[finn17]

You are quite right...

I am \'put off\' painting as much as I am inspired by resources such as this site. I do know however, that the bar has been raised for everyone and it is nice to have a standard to aspire to. I think???

 

[barkel]

I got into painting minis solely based on a Warhammer/WH40K catalogue my father showed me. My father loves complex games, (Axes and Allies, Shogun, etc.) that take hours, and even days, to play. I, however, was transfixed on the miniatures in the picture. I wanted to have an army of red space marines. Then I saw the orcs and I wanted an army of Warhammer orcs. Then I saw the dwarfs and... well you get the picture.

Anyway, the hobby for me was completely focused on amassing and painting good looking armies. To date I have played 2.5 games, and I\'ve been painting since 1999. I have always found the most joy from trying to paint as well as the models I see in the pictures. So far I have fallen short, but I am not discouraged. Every time I see a better technique or a better quality mini, I want to paint that much more.

When I found this site it only inspried me to paint better so I could produce something I would not be embarrassed to show.

So, for me, ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance would have meant I never would have gotten into this hobby.

barkel

 

[Valander]

Actually, I\'ve found the opposite to be true for myself.

Yeah, I did a lot of painting crappy stuff, and it was fun. But, after seeing some various \"award winning\" pieces in various magazines and such, I always wondered, \"gee...how\'d they do that?\"

As I started surfing around more recently after getting back into painting after a few years hiatus, I was pleased to find technique articles and example photos. This got me excited to try new stuff. Most of the time, I\'d get something done and go, \"Wow! That\'s much better than I used to do. Cool!\" So, seeing my improvement because of these resources made it fun.

I guess the thing is that I\'m happy to continue trying to improve, and not so I can get some nice high rating here on CMoN or have people get all envious of me; I\'m happy because of the accomplishments I make.

That said, what does make it a little less fun is that I don\'t have the time to do as much of it as I\'d like, and seeing all the new, cool stuff out there makes me want to buy it all!

 

[kittykat23uk]

I think there are two ways of looking at this. Either you see someone who paints better than you and you are inspired to try that much harder to get yourself to the next level. Or you see the same thing and wonder \"why bother?\" because you feel that you can never attain that level of skill.

Personally I am the kind of person that is inspired by others and that inspiration pushes me to do the best that I can. Sure I know I\'ve still got a long way to go to be as good as the likes of Cyril, Thomas Barse, Jakob Nielson etc. But at least I am at that level where I can happily have models on display and feel proud that I painted them.

I am glad that I have proved an inspiration to some of the members here as other members are to me. I just wish that people who feel that they are not at a level that they would like to be at could realise that it is not a competition and there is plenty of space for all abilities. I know that my improvement as an artist has stopped at least one person that I known from painting because that person felt that they couldn\'t compete with me. In actual fact I think they were equal to if not better than I am in terms of painting skill but they don\'t want to feel overshadowed by my achievements. This is very distressing to me because I would dearly love to share my hobby with those close to me. Remember it is often the journey thats important, not the destination.