Red, Blue, Yellow.
Not just the primary colors, but for me as a miniature painter, a reminder that I need to keep improving and pushing myself.
You see at this stage, some twenty years into this hobby, I feel like I'm pretty good with Red and Blue. I have painted entire armies in red and blue. I know how to shade them, blend them, highlight them, and work with different tones, shades, and styles to achieve the effect that I'm looking for.
In short, I feel comfortable with red and blue.
Comfortable is rarely conducive to improving your craft.
Over time you develop techniques and habits that allow you to master a certain effect or color scheme. To make something look a certain way. These areas become almost instinctual, you do them almost without knowing how much care and attention it actually takes. It becomes comfortable.
In some ways that is great. It certainly makes you more efficient. You can knock out models, even units, or entire armies, in a certain style, using certain techniques because you have reached that level of comfort.
It doesn't however improve you as a painter.
Personally, I hate the idea of not improving as I put time into a creative endeavor. I want to be learning. I want to get better.
That brings us back to yellow, the other primary color, the one I'm not so good at.
I always struggle with yellow. Just something about it that I find hard to master. Then you find over time that you actually actively avoid having to use it. You're not comfortable with it.
So recently I've been tasking myself with tackling that, and consciously choosing to try things I'm not so good at when I tackle a new color scheme.
This was the most recent result ...
... pretty happy with how he turned out. I deliberately decided to use a yellow and dark brown color scheme for this Broodlord (from the most recent edition of Space Hulk). They are both colors that I have struggled with in the past, so I wanted to push myself and try this one out.
I'm still far from comfortable with this kind of a scheme, but practice will hopefully help up my comfort level with some different color schemes.
It's important to be pushing your own limits and wanting to improve.
So find your own yellow and explore the possibilities!
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