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Today I was digging through old pictures and found on old picture of my first painted army. My first painted army was a dark angel army. I was new to the hobby and I'm a bit color deficient. (aka I have bad eyes and see color badly) I thought Dark Angels were black... It made me reminisce of the early days of my miniature war gaming. Ah back in the glory days when everything was new and exciting and you only have a 30% grasp of the rules but love playing anyway and every white dwarf brought monthly inspiration! But enough about that I started getting curious to see how others had evolved or come in the way of painting.

Basically the gist is I would like users to post a THEN picture of an old project or first army or something from years ago and then post a NOW picture something more current to show how your painting has improved of evolved. I'll start with my picture I recently found that made me even start the think about this.



In between the pictures I've now painted around 12 armies. It's been about a six year gap. I've also found a lot of inspiration along the way with personalities like Migsula, Matthew Funtain (sp?), CMDante and greydeath. Along with countless articles I've read over the years. I know paint to this standard.



I'm not the best painter yet but I'm pretty happy from where I came from and I hope in another 5 or 6 years I'll be even better.

So I've showed you mine. Now you show me yours. Simply post an old picture of your paint work and a new one. I'm curious to see how everyone else is doing and also curious to see how 'good painters' started out when they were new to the hobby. Hopefully this can also create some inspiration for new painters or not so good painters to hang in there and keep practicing.

Great idea!

You have really improved over the years. I am making strides but much like you I feel I have room to improve. Out of curiosity with you not being able to differentiate colors how do you paint now? Do you just look at corresponding colors and use values to achieve the contrast like using charcoal?



I have no pictures of my first attempt at painting. It was pretty simple though, 1 color 1 wash done. I happen to have a pic of Snikrot I did in my 1st learning phase and one I did recently though!

My first attempt at dry brushing. (and basing) This pic is about 2 years or so ago...guessing around that time.


Same mini, I paint to around this standard now give or take a bit. I think I did a better job on Zagstruck, but I do not happen to have a comparison pic for him.


Zag painted in May.


edit: I just noticed that the 2nd pic of Snikrot looks washed out. My camera skills need improvement as well!

Funny that I just did a blog about this yesterday! haha

Here is the link so you guys can check it out if you want.

http://an00bisra.blogspot.com/2011/06/effort-and-practice-always-pays-off.html

This was from about sometime early 2009.



And the current WIP I'm working on. Only just started a different way to do white on the last two and like the results so far (the one with the book the most recent), always room for improvement. Still finding white annoying to take photos of, but likely I just need to break up the background a bit more so they don't lose focus to it. Perhaps not dump the Rhino there...


Though these SoB have been stripped a few times so far.