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I browse the Painting & Modeling Showcase here, the showcase over at "Cool Mini Or Not" and several other places around the Internet and am simply amazed at the skill a lot of these guys have when painting miniatures and I can't help but sit there and wonder if I will ever get good enough to enter any of my miniatures in a contest, with this thought in mind I keep asking myself the following question and cannot really come up with an answer so I pose the question to you, is painting miniatures a talent or a skill to be learned?

Both. As with a lot of things, some people are just naturally good at it. And with those same things if you want to improve you're going to have to practice. For some it takes longer than others and that's just the way it is. The best way I can recommend to improve is to read up on techniques and practice them. Be cognisant of what you, the brush and the paint are doing and how they relate to each other. I know that sounds kinda hippie-esque, but it all matters. For very fine details (like eyes) things like breathing pattern comes in to play. Don't rush. Finally, gather up as much information and techniques and give them all a shot! Perhaps even get a few test models to apply that knowledge practically. Hope some of this helps

I agree. Talent is what you start with, practice builds your skill and lets you improve it. Everyone has their limit though, I think the trick is to keep pushing it to see how far you can go. Never become disheartened if it doesn't come out exact and never become complacent as you won't try as hard to get better and tend to stick at where you are at the time.

Less about having (natural) talent, more about the time and effort you put into actually painting, reading up and trying out new techniques, and never being afraid to actually give it a go.
It also helps if you're able to get someone/some people to comment on the progress of your work, if only to provide encouragement/support but to also provide helpful pointers and advice. But in short, just looking at pictures and wondering if you'll ever be that good won't get you anywhere. Unless of course doing so helps motivates you to paint

Work.
Time.
Will power.

Even "talent" can't beat the combination above.
Some people are "naturally" more talented than others at the beginning. But to improve your painting, you need to try, to make mistakes, to get advices on your models. And this requires time.

I think the 'talent' portion of it is more to do with your natural level of patience / dedication and whether you actually enjoy it. The same can be said of many things. 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration is the phrase I think.

If you've got those two and put in the time / practice, getting good is simply a natural result.

No one picked a pen or pencil for the first time and drew something great.

Same thing with miniatures painting.

Getting good at painting takes a while. I mean, a WHILE. It took me about 6 years to get a decent table top standard. (looks halfway decent from 2 feet away)

Just keep working at it.

I have to agree that talent may play a part but it is more dedication and time. If you browse around and know what to do then it is just a question of patience and dedication. The more you paint the better you become. If you paint always the same it will take more time as well in my opinion.
Also having a large pallet of colours and know how they work together also help loads.

I think painting minatures is more anout practise than "artistic" talent. The basic concept of them is that you color different premade areas with a certain color and then you use various techniques for shading and lighting. This is to be compared to drawing for example where you start with a white sheet of paper. Of course, the demon golden winner's also has "artistic talent" and skill.

I myself am terrible at drawing but I can paint ok miniatures since I'm good at learning different techniques, I'm also very thorough.

Tools, skill, talent. In that order.

And a good camera rig doesn't hurt.

Some people have nature talent, but it IS a skill you can learn with practice. I know thanks to DAKKA, Ive improve my painting skills by a boat load, and am still learning new more difficult skills. The thing with painting is to get your basics down first, and once you are comfortable with the basics, then start pushing yourself to learn the harder stuff. Right now Im messing with wet blends and light effects. Its hard, to be totally honest, and it takes a lot of tries to get it to look right, but once that light starts going off in your head, you feel awesome.

So I guess my "dream" of actually entering one of my mini's isn't an outrageous one, it will take a lot of time and patience to learn the techniques to paint them to a great standard. As far as getting practice models, I think as of right now, with all my little army projects I got going on I have somewhere near 500 models to paint. I think that is good practice right there. Any other advice you guys can pass my way would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 Synister_Intent wrote:
So I guess my "dream" of actually entering one of my mini's isn't an outrageous one, it will take a lot of time and patience to learn the techniques to paint them to a great standard. As far as getting practice models, I think as of right now, with all my little army projects I got going on I have somewhere near 500 models to paint. I think that is good practice right there. Any other advice you guys can pass my way would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Now my only advice, is well, get started

Hell make a P&M Blog but not for an army, but rather for your skill & technique. That should help

Start off with little competitions. As your skills grow you can enter more and more advanced competitions.

You'll be surprised how quickly you improve if you give yourself goals and time sets, like in competitions.

Basically all you need for natural talent is a steady hand but learning proper techniques and practicing is what is going to make you a great painter.

You have to try to improve though, just painting those 500 models and telling yourself you will get better wont improve your skills as much as putting everything you've got into 5 models.

Like most others have said, while talent give you a good starting point its raw skill that will make painting amazing. This is only because skill can be improved via practice and learning new techniques. Talent is more stagnant. If you combine both you'll be running top-tier of the golden demon competition.

Talents are for children.

Skills are for adults.

its a skill

look at your first painted mini and look at you latest painted mini

a couple of my first









some of my latest

Hell make a P&M Blog but not for an army, but rather for your skill & technique. That should help

This is the plan, I just have to finish building my photo booth so that I can take some proper pictures of my work, but in the meantime I am still painting. I also got a hold of the GW dvd that comes with the new book and a dvd released by privateer press. Going to watch both of those and see if I learn anything. I am also looking for some good painting articles, if anyone here has any suggestions please post them. Thank you all again.