Painting the PP Way

That there, is Matt DiPietro. Someone had just asked him a question about painting, and he immediately put down the Bloody Barnabas studio model he was painting, and started getting into the nitty-gritty. When a guy puts out such ridiculous quality painting, and is more than happy to drop what he's doing and demonstrate things on scrap models for your amusement while the hues he had so carefully mixed dry in their palette wells, you listen to the man.

Here's Matt: "I don't use layering, I always 2-brush wet blend" Say what now? "It's sort of the Privateer style" he explained. I was asking him about how the smooth blends on the red Skorn armor was achieved when the areas were so small and surrounded by gold trim. His answer sounded impossible to my ears.

When I first started painting models, I was surprised by how quickly the paint dried, and found that I couldn't make smoothly shaded areas as easily as I would have with oil paints on a canvas. Then I learned from veteran miniatures hobbyists that people use layering, glazing, and dry brushing to get nice gradations. What Matt was telling me was essentially "just work faster". I was floored.

I also noticed, the man licks his brush like crazy. Every time he washes the brush, he puts it in his mouth. And I swear, sometimes in between strokes, with paint on it. It was weird at the time, but now it makes sense to me. What you're doing is you're using one of the most sensitive areas of skin on your body to make a nice point on your paintbrush. You're also able to feel how wet the brush is.

This is really getting to me. I can't even look at my models anymore. I want to dump them all in a bucket of Simple Green and start all over. But the rational side of me, the one that is thinking about Templecon Hardcore, says "try it on some new models first".

So that's what I'll do. And I'll be bringing it to this blog, step by step documentation of my attempts to paint like a pro. Tears will be shed, oaths will be uttered, and I'll document it all in stark detail for your amusement. Stay tuned.