Jeremy Bates commented on my last post, suggesting that I change my habits in order to break out of the aforementioned creative funk. As I thought things through, I realized that a change was just the ticket I needed to get out of Funkytown (see what I did there?)
I realized that my malaise had spread to more than just my creative endeavors. I was also feeling unfocused at work. It didn't take me long to realize that the incredible amount of clutter that filled both my physical and digital life was creeping in to clutter my head. To remedy this, I turned to some videos on time management, Gmail power use, and Outlook organization from Lynda.com. Over the course of a couple days, I got both my work and personal email inboxes down from over 1000 emails each to just the one or two active conversations I had going on. I also did a major clean of my office workspace and set up a massive OneNote brain dump of all the to-dos I had rattling around in my head. All of this cleaning and organizing was aimed at one ultimate goal. Get my thoughts into an organized structure so my head could be clear for creative pursuits. So far, it seems to have helped.
Now to the point... minis! Over the past couple days, I used my newfound Zen to churn out a couple mini-painting projects!
I now give you, the three forms of Templeton the wererat
and Daethin Moonshadow, elven ranger
I'm pretty happy with how these turned out, especially since I have painted less than a dozen minis ever (including these) and that these were the first to include human flesh tones and un-obscured faces. Nevertheless, after feeling all good about my work, I made the mistake of looking back at the tutorial pages for the painting techniques I used and find myself feeling super inadequate once again. Ah well, my next step is to practice with some ultra thin paints in an effort to get smoother application and less caking. I fully intend to have this painting thing mastered by the time those 250+ Reaper Bones minis arrive next year.
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