Alrighty then, it's time to talk about motivation and a slight ramble about quality.

One of the biggest questions I seem to hear in the painting communities, miniature and otherwise, is how do you find the time to paint. It's a bit of a trick question. It may seem hard to find whole days at a time to be able to sit and make big jumps in progress, but the only secret is there is no secret. Make it a habit, like anything else you have to do in your day. If you truly want to paint, then you're going to find the time to paint. If you're unwilling to find the time, maybe you need to look at something else that's holding you back?

I don't yet have a habit, but I am working at one. I'm aiming for roughly a half hour daily, and that's my recommendation to everybody else. If you can't find a half hour in the night, after dinner when most people are just watching tv or browsing facebook, then you're unlikely to find the time ever. Set yourself the time, the same time each night. 9-9:30 or so and just sit and paint for a little. Maybe you'll only get a basecoat of a single colour down, maybe a wash. If you're not inspired, just sit and look over your books or magazines. Just set the time aside each day and it will become a habit.

It's the same advice I've been given for everything else. Writing, exercise, reading. Even if you're not doing the activity, so long as you keep the time set aside and are sitting and thinking about it you're still building that habit.

Another big issue that crops up is quality. I've lost count of the number of painters who collect miniatures and just don't paint not from lack of time, but because "I'm not a very good painter". The thing about quality is, it's subjective. There is no true objective quality with art. Compare a world competition winner from 20 years ago to one from today. They're going to look like night and day when compared side-by-side. So here are a couple of thoughts to keep in mind, that have helped me over the years.

First and most importantly is, most of the time you're painting an army and not a model. The bulk of miniature painters are gamers first and foremost and whilst I'm not in this category myself I still take the occasional commission job. You got the eye wrong on that one guy? You could stress out over it and try a dozen times to get it right and risk ruining the whole face. Or you could put it down and move onto the next model, and see how the whole block looks as a whole. Often times people will forget this, and over think a single model that ends up causing trouble or killing motivation for an entire project.

Hold your model at arms length. Seriously, if you're not sure how a model will look, you're not happy with it close up, you don't think some blending is smooth enough or a colour works. Hold it at arms length. This is the average distance people will see it from, usually from across the table or in a cabinet or any number of other situations. It's rare a model is picked up and inspected unless it's specifically a competition piece and even with the high end it has to look good from a distance to grab that initial attention. Learn to take a step back and observe it from a distance, you'll be better off for it.

Just do it. Seriously, it sucks to have to batch paint a whole army but everyone does it at some point. Set yourself a short time period, 20 minutes or so, and just grind through it. This sucks but sometimes this is the best thing to get past the funk of batch painting. That 20 minutes of work will get you through days of motivation issues if you just push yourself a little.

Finally, remember why you're doing this. For me, I love art. I wrote a post about my love of art already. Remind yourself why you paint, either for a competition or a game or just for the fun of it. Immerse yourself in your inspiration, talk with other painters, interact with what local community you have. If you don't have this, it will just become a job and then you'll give up on it for good when it becomes a chore.

As I sit, I wonder what subjects to write about. Should I look to my bookshelf, and showcase many of the traditional artists that have inspired me in creativity, the people that I look up to? Perhaps I should talk about the music I go to time and time again when working, or the best tutorials and learning aides that I have in my collection.

Or I can can back to the start.

When I was a child, we would visit my grandparents once a fortnight for the weekend. It was only about a 45 minute drive, but when you're young that seems so much longer and I thought they lived so far away. The biggest shopping centre near to them was very magical, without doubt the largest building in the world to my youthful eyes. Perhaps it helped that I was so very small as a child. I was practically a runt. There was a store that we would always walk past and I would run over to stare through the window.

Games Workshop. They're a juggernaut in the community, the equivalent of a McDonald's to anybody interested in model kits. Nearly everybody I know within the community got their start at one of these stores, and whilst they have changed and many would say fallen from grace, I cannot fault them the memories and experiences they gave me during such formative years.

I used to run over and stare through the window, at several glass display shelves of beautiful little miniatures. Elves and orcs, aliens and monsters, soldiers and spaceships. It took more than a few visits before I was finally allowed to step inside and look at the painting and gaming tables, the walls full from floor to roof with stock and every last box with a beautiful picture painted on the front. I was a kid, I actually thought the boxes were hand painted. Kids aren't exactly smart and I was no exception.

I was too young though, at least according to the staff. These days there's been a shift that if they can sell you something they will, no matter what. It was a different time though as they sat me down and spoke to a parent and I at the same time, went over that there was building involved, and a game with some complex mathematics. They were very friendly though, and filled my arms with pamphlets and old magazines nearly every visit. I still have most of them, and it's wonderful to look back at them from time to time and see just how much things have changed.

Maybe next time I can talk about how painting styles have changed over the years, or other experiences with the hobby from my youth. For now, this will suffice for a beginning.

Hello and welcome to my corner of colour, a blog for me to catalogue my thoughts and experiences with miniature painting and tabletop gaming.

I am a nerd, but more importantly I love art. I love to paint, to explore colour. Light and shadow, and objects in the world. From the way a door handle reflects a lamp, to the way a dress clings to a pretty woman. Sometimes I'll even catch myself just staring at plants, or a simple sunbeam peering through the curtain.

I think there is a beauty in the world, that goes unnoticed by most people in the busyness of their lives. There is a beauty that once you start to look for, you will find yourself unable to turn away from.

It is, in a way, intoxicating. It can change your whole perspective and the smallest of things can seem suddenly important.

I think that art is something that everybody should embrace in their lives. Even if all you can do is sit for a half hour daily with a colouring book, and believe me there are some amazing adult colouring books gaining popularity now, you don't need to be a master artist in order to create something and put it out into the world.

I think that last line sums up why I'm doing this blog. It is more for me than for the world, but it's a story I want to look back on and know I've shared it with others.

The love and the joy that you put into the act of art will show through in the finished product. I focus on my miniatures, but as I will come to show you there can be inspiration in anything. It is the act of creating, that is more important than what you create.