Marvel: Crisis Protocol

Finished up Sam Wilson this week. It’s funny, I’m noticing a few things as I paint minis:

1. My standards for myself are getting higher and higher
2. “Higher quality” paint jobs are getting easier and I’m accomplishing them quicker.
3. My criticisms of my work are getting more and more harsh.
4. My opinion on “quality” of paint jobs is getting more and more subjective and vague, to the point to where I might have to abandon using it as a term.

I knocked Sam out in a much quicker time than it would’ve taken me to do half as good a job on two years ago. I would never have believed I could’ve painted something this well two years ago and yet when I look at Sam all I see is all the things I could’ve done more work on and chose not to. I see all the sloppiness in the transitions of the OSL from the explosion on his wing. I see the lack of definition in his face. I see the lazy pseudo NMM I did for his metallics, where it’s kind of black and kind of NMM, but not really. There are many others, I could go on all day about it.

And yet, I put the model down on the table and think: “Man that looks cool” and kind of sit back and be not at all humble for a bit thinking about how good of a painter I’ve become. It makes me realize yet again, along with the last several minis I’ve painted, that it’s all subjective in the end. Does the paint job serve your purpose? In Sam’s case, I wanted a model that “pops” on the table top that I can play games with and generally feel good about the paint job. So despite there being a million little things I think could use a lot of work on, his paint job serves my purposes and serves them very well. Thus, he is a great paint job. He just also happens to be a testament to how far I still have to go as a painter. And that’s okay.

I was especially blown away when I compared his shield to Steve’s shield that I painted when the game first released. I’ve been holding up that shield as a source of pride for the past two years as it looks hands down better than anything I had painted previously, but I can now say I think my work on Sam’s shield just puts it to shame. It honestly makes me cringe a little when I compare them (and makes me want to do my Steve Rogers Cap repaint). I have to be careful about that, because it still looks good and I don’t want people to read my comments as critiques on their skill level by comparison. Painting is such a personal journey that I would hate for people to see how critical I am of my own work and then be ashamed of theirs in response. I would never want to put someone off the hobby like that.