Painting with Jam

A Jam filled Painting journey

Last time I talked about what I was looking forward to in 2014, which included new gremlin models.
With new models there’s always one thing I really look forward too, almost as much as playing with them and that’s painting them.

For me painting has been a bit of a love-hate relationship. When I started painting miniatures around the age of 9 I didn’t take it very seriously and I thought that anything which distracted me from gaming was a waste of time, mainly because all I wanted to do was game, game, game.

Here is a example of my earliest work:

Not great I know, but the rules in my local gaming store was that miniatures had to have at least 2 colours, so like any child I just slapped some paint on, and started gaming.

Looking back at it makes me thankful, because of those rules I was forced to enter a completely different side of the hobby, one which would help add a new depth to my hobby.

As the years went by and the models stacked up I painted more and more, teaching myself skills like line highlighting and being taught other stuff like how much paint you need for that perfect dry brush.

It got to the point when before I knew it, I was painting models and they were looking like the stuff on the boxes and even more surprisingly was that I really enjoyed it!

Over the next 18 years (2/3rds of my life) I have painted a lot of miniatures from Dragons:

To Futuristic alien beasties:


And the more I painted, the more I learnt and hopefully the better I became.

My current feelings when it comes to painting are completely different from when I started.

Sometimes when I come home stressed from work I find nothing more relaxing and therapeutic then grabbing my paints and starting a new project or adding the last layer of paint to that model  I have been painting for half a week and feeling that satisfaction of knowing it has been completed to the best of my ability.

This is why I feel sad for people who pay for or play a crew with no paint on them at all.

Painting vs. Non Painting

Now I understand that people may not be very happy with their level of painting skill or may have more money than sense, but I believe that by doing so you miss out on one of the most satisfying and personal parts of the hobby.
I know for a fact that my painting isn't perfect and I still have a long way till I get to the level I find amazing but as a wise man once said “Success is a journey, not a destination”.

I understand that many different people get a lot of different things from our hobby, but I believe that if you give painting a chance it will grow on you and if I inspire just one person to do it, then it will make this whole blog worth while.

So to finish here’s a more current picture of what I'm painting, the beautiful Lenny himself:



The Black Sun: Warhammmer TO4G

Now while I was talking about painting I will use it as a sneaky segway into something new and exciting that I'll doing for February called the Tale of 4 Gamers, with my old friends from The Black Sun Podcast.

We’re doing the Tale of 4 gamers as a kind of mini painting competition/narrative campaign where each person has to collect and paint small part of their army each month and then play a few narrative games escalating to a point where you will have a fully painted army and have had a deep and rich playing experience.

I am looking forward to painting and playing with a new army as well as posting updates throughout.

Plus for all those Malifaux fans I'm sure you will approve on who I used as my leader.

Thanks again for reading.

Best regards

-Jan (@Clankers86)
(Attempted Edit by Ben @Psientologist)