In which the protagonist seeks enlightenment and ancient wisdom
Old-age me, frail of body and mind, does have one distinct advantage over youthful me: the internet. By the time I exited the gaming world stage left (pursued by a beer) the internet was still in its relative infancy. AOL and Yahoo were the big beasts, Google had only just been founded and YouTube was half a decade away. My gaming resources were resolutely physical – magazines, books and talking to other enthusiasts in person. In the grim darkness of the recent past…
Today there is a wealth of information online – a torrential downpour of advice, guides, tutorials and reviews. Before setting out on my self-appointed quest I needed to access some of this knowledge.
The obvious place to start is the Citadel Colour website, which has a plethora of tutorials on painting techniques and styles. Then there’s the cunningly-titled how-to-paint-miniatures.comand the refreshingly simple creativetwilight.com.
So what’s changed since I last picked up a paint brush? Well, the range of paints available now is huge. Certainly here in the Midlands it felt like in the 90s you were limited to Citadel paints, or the paints from Humbrol and Revell that were really targeted at model aircraft enthusiasts. Right now you can get great acrylic paints from Vallejo, Army Painter, Reaper, P3 and others – all of comparable range and quality to Citadel and often significantly cheap. Things are looking up.
Otherwise the requirements are pretty much the same – clippers for removing parts from sprues, sharp knives to clear up mould lines, glue, and various paint brushes.