I can’t paint, but I try, and that’s the important part
Always wanted to paint stuff. I don’t mean like, walls or whatever, I figure I can do that if I ever need to do it. I’ve always wanted to paint geeky stuff, and so this year, I started to try and do it.
Why? No real reason. It followed a path though, which I can trace:
- Getting into action figures in late 2017/early 2018
- Checking out cool customized action figures
- Watching videos about how to customize action figures and thinking “Hmmm”
- “Hmmm” leading to haunting Target and buying random painting stuff, like these paint markers
- Leading to much browsing on Amazon and buying stuff like Gundam markers
- Buying cheap, mass-market toys like this Spider-Man (pictured) to practice on, as it were (he needs webs, and they’re easily added with a Gundam marker)
- Buying cheap plastic soldiers like this set of ‘Merry Men’ so I can tell myself if I mess up, at least I didn’t spend a lot (per figure)
- Buying random paints and brushes – including three different types of paints, because I thought ‘all acrylic paints are the same right’ (They’re not)
- Gradually, slowly, painting stuff over months and months (feels like: only from September, really)
- Starting to kitbash, I guess, 1/64 scale (Hot Wheels / Matchbox) cars into post-apocalypse junkers for games like Gaslands, even though I won’t likely play it
It makes sense to me. This is why I have a second table in my office covered in this stuff, with drilled holes in the plastic (over-enthusiastic attempt to deconstruct a car) and paint marks everywhere.
And, I suck at it. I do. Which actually, if I’m being honest, is good.
Why?
Because it teaches me (gradually, slowly, with great reluctance) that you can suck and still have fun and it doesn’t matter – because as long as you finish, you can then get better.
Guess what this relates to. Go on, guess.
Yeah, painting (badly) helps me realize that I can write (badly) and it’s still worthwhile as long as I finish.
In an eerie but not unexpected parallel, I haven’t really managed to finish painting a single miniature in 2018. So I’ve got two weeks to get that done.
Next time, pictures, I promise.