Layers

I’ve taken up another hobby.

As if Magic wasn’t expensive or all-consuming enough, I finally bit the bullet and started exploring Warhammer 40K. It’s a rabbit hole of dark lore, with hundreds of books, videos and products to explore and dig deeper and deeper into. Great writing, awesome setting, and a technically deep game to stimulate neural connections on how to pew pew your enemies the best.

But the most appealing part was the models themselves. You carefully prune them away from their plastic mesh, then scrub them clean, assemble, prime, obsess over color schemes, then paint. Horribly. And then you paint over them again and like all great written works, abandon them and hope they’re ‘good enough’.

The thing I wanted to share here is: Layers.

Some paints don’t just go on and look amazing. You have to meticulously layer the paint, making sure it’s just thick enough, but not too thin, exercising good brush control and precision, making it go where you want it (even though it sometimes has a mind of its own). And then you let it dry, and add some more. And you add a wash. And you do highlights and contrast paints. And maybe even a varnish at the end.

It’s not any one paint that particularly wows the viewer or gives a sense of complete satisfaction, it’s the layers. Like the onion, player. Like tiramisu. The combined efforts and effects finish the piece, and if done right, it can be satisfying, and perhaps something special.

It’s a good practice to soothe your mind, and dive in with complete focus on the tiny piece of plastic, and getting that perfect dot on that tiny sensor and making it sizzle. It calms and centers you. It’s the same thing in practice when you let full-grown adults play with lego’s, or clay, or ceramics. They remember how fun Art Class was (when there was such a thing), and how simple and enjoyable things in life can be.

For me, it’s that, but it’s also about the layers. Like writing, you layer things. In preparation you add layers of notes, details, characters, events, places. In practice, you throw a sloppy, goopy nasty mess on the screen, then start to wipe away the gunk and reveal the beauty beneath. It’s similar enough that the more I painted, the more I saw the connection in plain sight.

I’ll keep painting little teeny tiny models, and I’ll keep writing. I added another 2 Chapters to Hobbs yesterday. The painting has given me a way to direct myself, and let my mind focus on other things. Thoughts, ideas, music. I can listen to things in the background, focus on the model with my hands, and my mind can do whatever it needs. It’s given me more books to read and delve into, and opened yet another world of interest.

Just wanted to share. Enjoy your summer days, all! Stay cool, for crying out loud. It’s murderous out there.