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Hi Guys

I've been back in the hobby for a solid 8 months.
Painting is a lot like riding a bike. Once you learn it its easy to do again, as memory came back so has the paint quality increased.
I believe getting good results is primarily down to practice and experience and there is no substitute for those. Secondly, good equipment and tools also play a role, but we all know buying a fancy brush will not make you an award winning painter!! YMMV. However I feel like I've hit a bit of a skill wall currently. Not sure if this is purely due to not enough practice or not being brave enough to try new things as the minins I have are all for my army so I'm trying to get them to a high standard..

So anyway, I am toying with the idea of attending a 2 day workshop run by some pro-painters, to see if I can pick up some extra skills and level up some existing techniques as well as learn all the basics from scratch. Everything I do is self taught from reading and online tutorials and although its slowly coming along I think this only gets you so far. As I'm a very hands on person and benefit greatly from learning while doing, and having someone point out flaws in my process as well as reaffirm I am doing things correctly. I would call myself an intermediary painter, maybe I'm overreaching. I am currently painting all Eldar as that's is my army, so perhaps that's the reason I feel I don't quite extend the painting wings like I would like..

So my question to you lot is, has anyone attended one of these workshops or have ideas for alternatives? Are they worth it? The one I am aware of in relative proximity is run by Siege Studios and its a 2 day thing an hour or so away and is around £120. Could get a lot of Eldar for that !!!

Does anyone know if GW stores in the UK do painting days or something? Pretty sure they used to. I am reluctant to go in and paint there, or ask for advice because from anecdotal experience they will try to sell me a £38 brush set I do not need. However the guy I spoke to at one time did recommend some non GW stuff for brush cleaning which blew my mind

Or does anyone run any painting get togethers and such people can benefit from?

Thanks in advance!

With painting classes I'd take a careful look at class sizes. If it's small enough for you to get individual attention then there's a lot of value in having hands-on time with someone who can look at how you're doing and suggest refinements (something true of art in general). If it's a large class where all you get to do is watch the lesson and try to follow along then that's pretty much zero value over free tutorial videos and someone is trying to milk the cash cow of internet fame.

Re: GW stores: I wouldn't bother. GW's store employees are just minimum-wage retail workers following a sales script, talent is not at all a requirement for the job. They can probably read you the script on which paints to buy to follow the Official™ Citadel™ Method™ and maybe even show you a basic newbie lesson but I wouldn't expect anything more than that unless you have reason to believe that a specific employee is an excellent painter and has something of value to offer.

I wouldn't bother with classes at this stage. You can find millions of videos covering every aspect of painting and modelling online, so your first port of call should be these. They are free and you can watch them over and over, pause them etc. Obviously I don't know your painting skill level, but I'd just work on it yourself for a while. You'll know once you've hit that level where your painting is good. I wouldn't say classes are worthless though... I've considered attending some for areas that I'm weaker at, like NMM, but have yet to do it because they are very pricey.

Another one I'd avoid is patreon. Everyone seems to have one these days, and people must be paying for them. It blows my mind. You're just paying someone to do what they enjoy doing, and getting no physical product in return. And sure you could say they give you knowledge in tutorials etc, but as I mentioned before, you can find it all for free with a little search online.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I wouldn't bother with classes at this stage. You can find millions of videos covering every aspect of painting and modelling online, so your first port of call should be these. They are free and you can watch them over and over, pause them etc. Obviously I don't know your painting skill level, but I'd just work on it yourself for a while. You'll know once you've hit that level where your painting is good. I wouldn't say classes are worthless though... I've considered attending some for areas that I'm weaker at, like NMM, but have yet to do it because they are very pricey.

Another one I'd avoid is patreon. Everyone seems to have one these days, and people must be paying for them. It blows my mind. You're just paying someone to do what they enjoy doing, and getting no physical product in return. And sure you could say they give you knowledge in tutorials etc, but as I mentioned before, you can find it all for free with a little search online.

Hi QAR

Yeah i totaly agree with the wealth of free resource available, its pretty mind boggling. Its definitetly useful and i have been using tutorials all the time for everything. Fyi - I got some work in my sig.

Although there is a tutorial for pretty much everything, i think these only get you so far. Unless you look with naked eye close up and touch there is an element youre not getting..at least in my opinion. Camera and photo shots can be a bit hit and miss. Also i think no matter how many tutorials i watch my greenstuff scultping skills are like a 5 year olds lol.

A few thoughts:

1) Don't overlook the value of a single cohesive series of articles and random articles. Often one big difference between "free random articles" and a "patreon/paid for selection" is that the single selection of articles can link one into the next. Furthermore they will build on each other and use a similar approach to painting.
Plucking random articles can lead to confusion, esp in early to intermediate stages ,because different artists will approach things in slightly different ways. They might layer differently, one might use wet blending and another something else; they might use different materials, processes, approaches. Even things like lighting angles might vary etc... This can confuse a newer or intermediate because one article might contradict the other, or one approach to layering a selection of base paints might not work well when combined with a latter one on how to highlight for specific lighting.

2) I second Perigrines viewpoint that class size is critical. There's nothing wrong in paying for and watching a lecture type lesson; but often the greatest help is when someone watches you work; can see your method and can advise you as you go. Small class sizes are the only way to get this.
Often the difference between basic and good skills isn't so much in a raw understanding of theory; but its application and method. Sometimes its lots of little things. Small mistakes, paying attention to details; an order of approach; getting you to pay attention to something, a subtle shift in how you hold a model etc... Lots of little things and little mistakes, many of hwich never get written down or mentioned in articles or even videos.

3) I agree that video and photo quality can vary greatly; there are some good articles out there with terrible photos that don't really convey information all that well. One big example is highlighting and shading - many photos and videos don't really "show" the paint regions all that clearly so it can be darn hard to see what is going on.
Nick Bayton actually did a fantastic method for showing this on a warhammer article ofr painting horses.
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/11/22/diary-of-a-horse-lord-part-3fw-homepage-post-3/
If you scroll down you'll see one horse painted in random colours - the trick is that it actually shows all the various light based layers and highlights as they layer up one atop the other perfectly clear. All those subtle lines and small areas that would get missed in a photo or video painting the actual colours are clearly shown. It's something I wish more tutorials on highlighting would do!
If you click the image it even shows you all the stages!
https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/MiddleEarthRohanPaint-Nov22-TheoryGuide4xh.jpg