Hello! It is finally done! The last Tau XV15 stealth suit. This project shows well, I think, how hard it is comparing time spent on miniatures. Every one of us will paint differently and we get to spend our time very differently. I started a new job between this project and the new job really took my energy away from painting. This last one will be a little different post. I will not give you exact ways and recipes. I don’t even know them myself. I made many many many glazes and layers to get these effects. So, I could not replicate the process to you in writing. It’s a lot of going back and forth.

But I can talk about the mentality. I wanted to push colour, clear definitions, refinement and volumetry. So, edge highlight and dark lines. Panel shadings to create interest and volumetric highlights to define shapes from afar.  These are the main points of this paintjob. There is not much of any clever colour usage or creative texture/light usage. Main things are punch of colour and clear readability. You have to think every brush stroke and be in control of your hands. Making mistakes at the later steps will create a huge time sink. If the glaze layer is too dark or too opaque, it will ruin the effect! And if highlights are ruined, then you have to redo them and all the glazing.

When I paint with the “try hard” mode on, I cannot focus for too long. I need to take brakes for every two hours. Eat snacks, drink water, go for a little walk. And most importantly I cannot watch any shows or movies, listen to podcast or anything with information being thrown at me. So no music with lyrics I can understand. I typically prefer classical music and its subgenre of movie music and game music. They are designed to help you focus on the task at hand. Especially the game music. I usually also need to have my phone away and on silent so I dont get distracted. I have to lock myself into a room so my dog or partner can´t suprise me midfocus. I also carve out time for these sessions. I cannot get into the mood if I cant paint for atleast 2 hours at the time. Painting on your best possible level needs sacrifices and its really hard to document and write into words.

I painted the first one in 1h 20 minutes, The second in 5h and now this last one in about 15h. That’s about 12 times more than the first miniature got.  Do you think the last one is twelve times better than the first? I don’t think so.

These really do show the diminishing return of invested time. If you would be painting an army the fastest paintjob would be a very good standard! The middle one could be used for extra pop on character models. The last one is painted just for the joy of painting. It shows passion in painting progress and giving attention to every surface. I am at the opinion that the biggest jump in quality is between the first two. The middle one and the newest show many same aspects and they have the same ish impact.

When painting armies you don´t have to give your best on every surface of every model. The army as a whole will be an effect on its own and elevate every model. Nobody looks through a horde of 20 goblins or skeletons really looking through every surface. Most glanse models less than 10 seconds. Bases and faces make cases.

I´ll be using this as an example, in the future, when I teach people to paint. They will show different aspects of this hobby and a variety of different levels of time investment. You can spend extra time on your models for skirmish games. You can push your every fiber on a competition piece and you can get armies done quickly with a decent paintjobs.

What did you lear about this exercise? I hope this gives you motivation on your ongoing projects and helps to clear blockages that stop you from painting. Happy paintings! Join the Lazy painter discord and please check back in two weeks for my next update on the “Journey to Cold North Open” project or maybe it will be “How to take critisism and improve with it”? I dont know either, bye!

Paints used:

Kimera kolor satin medium. Windsor and Newton flow improver, Burnt Umber Scalecolor artist, The Red Kimera Kolor, The Violet Kimera Kolor, Resplendent Red*, Angelic Red*, Inner light*, Matt White*, Matt Black*, Hydra Turquoise*, Ice Yellow*, Deep Ocean Blue*, Phalanx blue* and Marine Mist*.

*From Army Painter Fanatic line

Basing texture: Any Gloss acrylic gesso and some Cork pieces+ PVA glue.

Snow textures: Citadel Valhallan Blizzard and Green stuff world snow texture 2795-Snow. But any two different snow textures will do.

And here is a punch of pictures of the ready model!