Hobby: Finding Zen in painting

 

"You must find Balance Daniel San"- Mr Miyagi

    When it comes to life the greatest struggle is the battle for balance. When it comes to our hobby it is no different. What I have seen online, and experienced myself, is the pull of different desires. On one hand there is the desire to paint miniatures to examples set by commission painters, the 'eavy metal team, and content creators we see online. The other might be the simple desire to get our miniatures table ready. Or even to master a technique we have seen elsewhere. The thing that I think gets lost is that this should first and foremost be a hobby that helps us relax. To find in some small way our 'zen' through painting. At least that is what it is to me. That is at least when I don't find myself falling into the trap of comparison. Remember "comparison is the thief of joy"


I painted this in 30 minute lunchbreaks. Each step just enjoyed for its own practice

    For the purpose of this article consider anytime I say Zen to mean the following 'calm achieved through meditative practice', for the act of focusing on simply painting and in doing so relax our minds. To put other things aside and simply enjoy the act of putting paint to plastic. This is meditation through action. The repeated action designed to allow us to focus, and block outside thoughts. Hippy dippy talk aside this ability to simply focus on, and enjoy the relaxing art of painting miniatures can be illusive for some people. Some find themselves simply wanting to have their works look as good as the ones they see online. They are too focused on picking their work apart and can become overly frustrated. Instead of emptying their mind they are instead filling them with concerns. What may be even worse is that this leads to what I call the 'quick sand' effect. In which a person panics, struggles, and makes things worse. Starting to pick apart their work and 'correct' it, those hurried corrections instead lead to even more mistakes. On and on it goes. So what can we do?


Beauty is the eye...and for once I got the eye just right

    For me the approach became simple I broke things down to half hour blocks like a small exercise this meant I could only really complete one part of the miniature. Painting all the leathers, armour, or even just some base coating. Hell I became addicted to painting lightning bolts on Stormcast minis. Appreciating the smaller aspects of a miniature is an amazing change. Sure we can appreciate the whole picture of some master class painted figure, but these days I find myself equally amazed by some tufts on a base. We need to learn to get excited by the smaller aspects of our painting again. 


Ooooh squiggles!

    It is about simplicity, and the ability to have joy in that simplicity. Sure I look at the long videos on object source lighting, or look at how people achieve nonmetalic metals and cell shaded styles. Yet at the end of the day I am still quite content to paint my lightning bolts on a Stormcast model and call it a day and be quite content in the result. Do not get me wrong, I still aspire to improve my overall skill at painting and expand on my abilities. However, I will not ever reach a point where I do enjoy putting those little squiggles on a purity seal, or book pages, and laughing to myself about how it is just jibberish. I have also managed a number of times to paint clear writing on my larger vehicles and models and I am equally proud of that. As well as trying to pain a snake skin pattern on a rhino tank. Still I am quite able to find my contentment and zen just slapping on some squiggles and calling it a day. 

"Something Something war something something faith" - edgy boi

   
    In the end it is all about being able to let go, switch off, and just relax into the simple joy of painting. After all as we rapidly approach the end of 2021 and another year in the hell scape that has been the age of covid. The ability to switch of for thirty minutes and slap some paint on something to my mind has become of paramount importance. So try it. The best advice I can give is to take advantage if you can of the ongoing monthly miniatures that GW is giving away. Pick up a miniature that is not going to matter too much to you and use it as a tool to help find your zen again. Remember we should be celebrating simplicity. Remember you all get the same ten victory points in 40K regardless of the level of paintjob applied to the miniatures. Reject comparison and embrace the simple zen of painting again. 


    Go forth and find your zen. Remember also as always that hospitality is sacred











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