I can't paint for #$%t any more.

So tonight I started painting my Black Reach terminators.

Bear in mind that back in the day, Space Hulk was my game. I LOVED painting terminators. I loved the large flat surfaces they had which allowed you to paint designs and logos etc. I was pretty dang good at it.

So far the terminator I'm painting sucks the big one. I can't even paint the details like the wings on the chest, or the skulls or anything. I tried painting the power fist to look like it has power running through it, but my blending technique is so terrible it looks like sandpaper. I tried thinning the paint and everything.

I took the shortcut of using dry brushing for the overall shading and coloring, started with Gore Red, inked with black, then dry brushed with Gore Red, then dry brushed with Blood Red, then dry brushed with Blood red mixed with orange fire.

THAT came out fine... but everything else I try to do on details sucks so bad I'm too embarrassed to show pictures.

Our resident expert Mr JG is a huge help to me and also the community here in general. He told me when I was first starting out to try to paint at least 15-20 min every day. You may use your hands all the time but the coordination it take to paint detail has to be trained by doing repetitive things so the muscle fibers can learn to control what your brain tells them to do. If back in the day you were painting all the time you probably had your hands trained. Since you have just started again it may take a bit to get them back to where they were.

If not, John always says he messes up on stuff but it still looks awesome. So maybe he can give you some tips if your still having problems, and will write a book for all of us titled,

"How I Say I Screw Up Every Mini I Post, But It Still Looks Phenomenal" - By John Gemrich

I know I would read it....love ya John

Maybe this makes you feel better, maybe it makes you feel worse.

I always think whatever I'm working on looks like crap compared to stuff I painted last year, but then if I find those old models and compare them side by side I realize it was just my imagination. My newer stuff is almost always better. I get better and I don't realize it. Moreover, part of getting better is developing a better eye for details (and flaws). You paint a mini that you think is Golden Demon quality and then you paint 100 more minis and look back at it and you find yourself saying "This looks like a piece of shit. What was I thinking?"

Crappy painters think crappy paint jobs look great. Good painters think good paint jobs look like crap. It's the paradox that comes with improving your skill. You learn what bad looks like. You learn what good looks like. You get pickier.

Make sure you have what you're talking about right in front of you. Show it to other people too and see what they say.

Maybe you really did get worse, but I bet you got better and your mind is playing tricks on you.

I second Chad on the "muscle" memory. Those very fine hand muscles take time to develop.

I also think the "standard" of painting we see really makes one critical of one's own work.

10 years ago you didn't see the pics you find today of minis of all types. Now, the art form has really blossomed. So what was top of the heap 10 years ago is mediocre by the standards some painters have taken it too.

I agree with john--maybe it looks better than you really think it does.Post it cant hurt.

The funny thing is, this mini is currently my highest rated mini on CMON.

I can never understand the way some people rate mini's on that site.

The minis I have on there that I think are some of my best are rated less than gaming quality, yet this one, that I don't think I did well on, is a full point higher.