I've decided that rather than stick to a fixed schedule, I'm just going to update as-and-when I want to, because trying to stick to a schedule when I know I either won't have the time or content is just going to make me a little stressed, which isn't something you want out of a hobby you are supposed to enjoy. As an old colleague once told me, 'don't sweat the small stuff, and when you look at it, in the grand scheme of the universe everything is small stuff'.
Recently, I've discovered that for whatever reason I tend to be pretty good in the very early mornings, we don't have curtains in our bedroom, so I've found that I've been getting up really early the past few days (around 5am-ish). We do have blinds, but I'm the kind of person who can only sleep in levels of darkness that would give an owl a hard time seeing in. This usually gives me a 90 minutes of time to kill before I get ready for work.
Lately I've been trying to get some hobby time in the evenings once my son has gone to bed, but by that time I'm usually so tired I don't have the concentration or focus needed for something like painting miniatures, so I've decided to make the most of this early rise and try and get an hour or so's hobby time in before I go to work.
I've been having real trouble painting up my Infinity miniatures, the details are really fine and I always end up either messing it up or finding myself unhappy with the colour scheme, so it gets chucked in the dettol and started again. I think that my skills aren't really up to scratch, so I've decided to try and do some practice on a few of the Bones models from Reaper than I own before I tackle Infinity again, so I started small and over the past 2 mornings I painted up the 'Mocking Beast' miniature:
Reaper 'Mocking Beast'
It's only painted to a 'good enough' standard to get me warmed up, but I'm pretty pleased with it. It needs a base, but that can come along next time I have some spare putty. I painted it using a mixture of several generations of GW paints (which revealed to me just how bad a state some of those paints are in) and army painter strong tone quickshade (a.k.a magic in a bottle). There's nothing fancy there, just a basecoat, wash, then a single layer of highlighting.
So getting back to small stuff, I enjoyed painting this miniature as it was a small, simple exercise. The most important thing is that it's 'finished', so it can go and take a proud place on the shelf. For me, it's a little bit of victory that chips away at the larger goal. I think the boost I got from painting a small miniature like this can go a long way spurring you on to tackle bigger and more complex goals.
Anyway, that's it from me this week, so don't go sweatin' the small stuff, and come back soon for the next thrilling installment!
