Like a sky so filled with stars, you can’t find a constellation
SR-71, “Politically Correct”
If I’m going to improve, I’m going to have to target my practice. Right now there are so many ideas and lessons and voices splitting my focus, that its easy to get overwhelmed by how much there is to learn. Paint consistency, brushwork, and neatness are only going to come by attrition; I have to take the time to make all the mistakes. And as much as I rebel against following someone else’s plan, it currently produces the best results and makes it simpler to get rolling. With all of that in mind, I think color is the first order of business – how specific colors relate to the each other, coordinating highlights and shadows, and balancing tones and saturation across the mini.
Thus far I’ve been choosing base coats with only a vague notion of how they’re going to look once they’re highlighted, and choosing highlights based on what I have available, rather than what I’m hoping to achieve. I used to be fairly decent at mixing color matches, and it seems reasonable that, like pitches, shadow, midtone, and highlights can be determined by interval, like working out when to use an augmented 5th and when to use a diminished 7th. The Citadel Painting System guide seems like a good primer for experimenting with how specific pigments work together, and working backwards to a base color that I can test. I also got a serious case of the wants when I found this set at The Army Painter – between the selection of earth tones and the Owlbear, my restraint proved rather limited.
Color is my daylong obsession, joy, and torment.
Claude Monet
As I haven’t decided how to finish the Picts, now seems like as good a time as any to move on to the Saxons. Painting all 4 the same has been useful practice and given me some inkling as to what painting my battalion is going to take. I’m leaning towards a tonally comparable blue, to visually separate them from the Picts, but matching bases to unify all of the mercenaries for gameplay.
