Let's make things clear: I failed art at school. When I tried then to paint miniatures I hated the results and couldn't understand why my models looked so bad. I might post a picture of some but for now just imagine the worst painted miniatures you can. My combination of a lack of patience and poor artistic skills resulted in some truly horrific paint jobs.

20 years later with the new edition and with some time on my hands I decided to give it another go. I had low expectations but contacted spubbba and he was kind enough to give me some advice. The other thing that has really changed is that with the advent of youtube I could watch videos of others painting the miniatures and try and copy what they did (it is so much easier to copy than to read in a book what you're supposed to do but never be sure if you are doing it right).

It's taken me a long time and obviously the results are still a long way short of what someone good would achieve but I'm very pleased with the progress and also with how it's gone compared to those expectations.



When new coaches write about the game they make observations like 'block is really important' and other things that are so obvious to those with more experience that they can be annoying so I apologise to those of you that are more experienced with painting but here were my main noob observations:

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• Undercoating black is better for me. It hides more sins and adds some natural shading.
  
  
• Multiple layers are huge. They greatly improve the colour quality and gave me a chance to improve on mistakes.
  
  
• Washing the brush a lot, almost every time I needed to put it back in the paint, really helped keep things tidier as the quantity of paint was better controlled and the tip was better.
  
  
• Washes are huge. They add real depth to the miniature and hide some of my more egregious mistakes.
  
  
• Highlighting is hard and probably my weakest point. I improved by using less and less paint but I found it difficult for it not to simply look like a brighter colour painted next to a darker colour. I almost felt the miniatures looked best just after the washes and everything I did from there just made them worse!
  
  
• Painting takes time. It has taken me about two weeks doing some every day to just do these 12.
  
  

I still have to base this lot and add transfers but it has really encouraged me to try some more. I'm going to do the orcs and have also dug out my old miniatures (do I just spray paint over them or do I try and strip paint first?). If anyone has any advice on the painting I'm very much open to suggestions.

My main reason for sharing this is that I've been surprised by how enjoyable the process has been and if it encourages someone else to get back into it, then that's great. (p.s. should I have taken the picture differently to avoid people having to scroll to see all of it?)