Making It Your Own: A Tale of Building A Maw Krusha Part 3: There's No Such Thing As Failure

 

In this third and final installment of my "Tale of Building a Cabbage Dragon with Fists", I originally planned to just write about how I decided on a color scheme for the thing.

But I realized I discussed the main points of this in the previous entries so I'll talk about something else. Which correlates with my creative process as well as general everyday philosophy.

Failure.

"Now Everey, what does this have to do with painting that 'roid enhanced Iguana?"

Well imaginary reader, I am so glad you asked.

In any artform, may it be oil painting, sculpting, sketching etc.... Mistakes are inevitable. Can't avoid it. We're all human. It's how we deal with it that matters.

When I first painted the Maw Krusha I painted it red. At the time I threw the idea of standing out and just wanted to get it done. However, after the base coats were done.... It looked terrible. Like so terrible I wanted to just rage quit.

But, as Sam Lenz, one of my favorite miniature painters once said.... There is no shame in failure.... Only in quitting.

So I took a step back, whipped out a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and stripped the paint. After an hour or two of scrubbing all that red from the miniature I did some research. My base resembled something like a desert wasteland so I checked out some photos of desert reptiles and saw this:

Now we're getting somewhere.

I loved how it meshes with the desert theme yet still provides a lot of points of interest and contrast.

So I brought all the paints I needed to my wet palette and got to work. There were still times when I was pushing pigments that I wasn't so sure it would work. But I remembered that miniature painting, much like life in general, is a game of patience. Trust the process. Power through the negative thoughts and just let the creativity flow.

I made some painting mistakes along the way still. But then again it's okay. It's just paint. It can be painted over or stripped.

There really is no such thing as failure, if you're still alive, you're still in the game.

So I kept refining every detail, from the turquoise eyes, to the scars on its jaw, to the leathery membranes of its wings.

When it was all said and done.....

Damn... This ain't half bad.

Trusting the process and taking a step back to reevaluate what I needed to change helped produce a damn good paint job if I do say so myself.

While it won't win any Golden Demon trophy, the lessons I learned tackling the thing was priceless. I was out of my comfort zone and tried a lot of things and techniques along the way.

The finished miniature now sits in its own nook in my display shelf.

That's one more step in my miniature painting journey done. Next entry, I'll be discussing stepping out of my comfort zone again and tackling painting my first female miniatures... The Adepta Sororitas from Warhammer 40k.

That's quite the story since it enabled me to communicate with one of my mini painting heroes, Sam Lenz. 

I hope my ramblings about my geeky pursuits and endeavors managed to break the usual bleakness that permeates the time lines. 

Just like in that movie Meet The Robinsons, I'll keep moving forward.