Last year, I found that my modeling and painting improved most when I was given a project by someone and it wasn't exactly something I was used to doing.
A perfect example was the Warmachine model I painted for a friend of mine to help him finish his army and get it on the tabletop.
From that model and a few other sources of inspiration, I decided it would be cool to try my hand at something "new" each month designed to help me push my modeling and painting skills. With real life creeping closer and closer to hobby time, I want to make sure I get the most of the time I do have this year. I also thought it would be cool to enlist the help of a good friend to keep me motivated, provide support and challenge me.
Enter John from Santa Cruz Warhammer. Having met him a few years ago at Games Day for the Storm Wardens project, I knew he'd be the perfect fit. Fortuntately for me, he agreed to take part in my silly idea and you all get to see our work each month or at least until he gets tired of my games.
So how's it going to work?
Easy, each month John and I are going to come up with a cool project (nothing big, most likely single model) to work on and share our results. We're going to take turns coming up with ideas each month so we can both torture the other guy with crazy models to build and paint. It won't be limited to just 40k either... the idea is to come up with cool ideas that challenge you in painting or modeling in some way or another.
Something that you don't do often or maybe never at all.
The series will create two posts each month. Somewhere around the middle of the month we'll share the project idea along with our plans. At the end of the month you guys get to see our work and listen to us ramble on about what we tried to accomplish.
I asked John what he though about the whole thing and here's his take on the project:
Looking forward to participate in this with you Ron, lately I have found myself easily distracted from painting, and I seem to work much better with a challenge and some structure.
In my opinion, my best work has been done with a deadline or something out of my comfort zone. I think this is a great way to push yourself to try new colors, techniques, and products while improving yourself as a hobbyist.
It's a great feeling to look at a model when you finish it and think "Wow, I did that!" and I am looking forward to doing some challenging work off of my regular and well beaten path.
Bring it on!
So John's excited and I'm happy to be able to work on something smaller in scale each month that's not the normal stuff I've been doing. My hope is that you all enjoy the new series and can pick up a trick or two from our adventures.
Work has already begun for February. You guys can expect to see our project plans in a couple weeks around the middle of the month.
