If you apply SMART goals to your hobby, you can paint more Warhammer minis, achieve more … and therefore be happy 😛
My goal as a hobbyist usually goes like this: “I want to paint more Warhammer”.
The problem is that it’s generic and a big task which can feel overwhelming and unachievable – killing my motivation.
What does ‘paint more miniatures’ mean? …that I want to paint more.
Ok, but when will I have achieved this?…. I don’t know!
Exactly.
What are SMART goals?
You gotta start somewhere..
SMART goals are generally used in a professional environment to set up tasks and achieve targets. The word “SMART” is an acronym, let’s break it down with an example.
S: Specific
A goal needs to be specific. What exactly do you want to achieve? No vague answers! If you want to paint more miniatures, try to specify what you would like to paint. Is it Warhammer? Maybe an indie wargame you wanted to try for a while? An example for me would be:
Example: I want to paint my Gloomspite Gitz army.
M: Measurable
The goal needs to be measured. This way you’ll know when it is achieved. So how are you going to measure your progress? The number of miniatures you want to paint? How many games you want to play a month? Or even how much time you will spend painting a week.
Example: I am going to paint two units of Stabbas to add to my Gloomspite Gitz army.
A: Achievable
Set a realistic goal that can be achieved. Painting a whole army from scratch is counter productive as its such a large task. The goal should be challenging but attainable.
In our example 2 units of Stabbas might be too much, so let’s update it.
Example: I am going to paint one unit of Stabbas to add to my Gloomspite Gitz army.
R: Relevant
Start by asking yourself why you are doing it. Why are you setting the goal?
Maybe you need that unit painted for the next tournament. Or you have a game planned and you want to show off with a fully painted army. Maybe you want to practice a specific army list, or you simply want to have fun!
Example: I am going to paint one unit of Stabbas to add to my Gloomspite Gitz army, because I have a specific list that I want to try out and I don’t want to play with any gray plastic.
T: Time-bound
The goal needs to be achieved by a certain time. Setting a deadline helps with keeping an eye on progress to make sure you finish on time. Having no deadlines, especially for a hobby, means that its easy to let it drift.
When I signed up to a Warhammer tournament I had a hard deadline to get my army painted. I can tell you, that really put me into gear!
Example: I am going to paint one unit of Stabbas in two weeks to add to my Gloomspite Gitz army, because I have a specific list that I want to try out and I don’t want to play with any gray plastic.
Bit by bit the backlog is conquered
SMART goals and the hobby
With the definition of SMART goals out of the way, how can we apply them to Warhammer and miniature painting?
Quantity-based goals
I like to break down the goal by quantity. How many miniatures I will paint, how many games I’ll play. Basically anything that I can count! See above for an example quantity-based SMART goal.
Time-based goals
The first time I used SMART goal in the hobby, I actually used time. I didn’t have a tournament or game to prepare for, I simply wanted to spend more time painting.
“I want to paint my Gloomspite Gitz army for at least 30 minutes two times a week.”
This goal is specific, because the goal is to paint Gitz. It’s measurable, as it’s 30 minutes. It’s achievable, because half an hour is not a long time. It’s also relevant because it’s part of my army collection. And it’s time-bound because the goals has to be completed within the week.
Conclusion – SMART goals and Warhammer hobby
And some great results too!
SMART goals are a really powerful tool at your disposal and you should definitely give it a go. By applying them to your miniature painting hobby, you’ll have no problem smashing through your pile of plastic.
Here’s a quick definition reference for SMART goals:
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Achievable
R – Relevant
T – Time-bound
And there you have it. SMART goals in the hobby, go forth and paint all your Warhammer! Let me know how it goes!
Painting miniatures it’s a long process. So here I have compiled a list of simple miniature painting techniques. These are perfect for beginners and can speed your painting up. First, let’s break them down:
Fully assemble your miniatures before painting
Use black primer
Drybrushing
Washes
Slapchop
Constrast paints
These are simple but effective miniature painting techniques. They’ll help you get that Warhammer army fully painted in no time.
Assemble everything all at once
Fully built Star Wars Shatterpoint
You heard it here first. No sub-assembly, here’s why. When I started I thought to myself.
“Mmm better paint all the parts separately and then stick them back together. This way I’ll be able to reach all the nooks and crannies in the miniature. It’ll look amazing.”
But in reality there were lots of drawbacks from that approach. While it is true that you can reach all the spots in the miniature, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to (see next section!). So, unless you are going to Golden Demon, I wouldn’t worry about it.
The main drawback with sub-assembly is the extra time it takes. This is why I tend to almost never do it. More time to prime every single bit, more time painting unnecessary spots, more time making sure I glue things correctly.
Other disadvantages, in my opinion, are:
Managing all the bit separately on the hobby desk is a pain.
You need to make sure that your paint job matches between parts! I cannot understate the importance of this! Too many times I painted 2 parts in different colours without realising that they were part of the same armour/cloth/skin etc.
The highlights you paint have to match with the position of the part when fully assembled. If the highlights are off because the arm is glued in a different orientation you’ll be kicking yourself in the butt.
It’s harder to be consistent with the paint job when you have to jump between bits.
So yea, just build the whole mini in one go plz. You can thank me later.
Prime it Black
Black primer for the win
This is the advice I was given when I started, and I’m going to give it to you now.
If you assemble your miniatures fully before painting (see previous section), there will be parts that are harder to reach with your brush. This means that the light will also have a harder time reaching those spots. In that case, just leave it black!
On the other hand, if your miniature was primed in white, you’ll have a hard time making sure all the spots are covered correctly and no white is left behind.
So leave it black, it’ll add contrast to the paint job and look great anyway!
If you want the advantage of white primer to see all the details but the benefits of a black primer, go read the Zenithal Priming section down below.
Drybrushing
Drybrushing tools
Drybrushing is a great technique that, honestly, I need to get better at.
What you’ll need:
A large tip brush, or make-up brush
A wooden slat to remove the paint from your brush
Any paint
Drybrushing works by catching the raised edges of a miniature. You achieve this while moving your brush up and down and around the mini.
How to do dry brushing
Lightly dab your brush in one drop of water, just enough so that it is lightly damp. This makes sure your paint doesn’t dry up and turns chalky.
Dab the brush into the paint of your choice.
Remove almost all the paint on a dry palette. This can be a piece of wood or similar. Kitchen roll, although it works, could dry your brush up too much.
Now start brushing over your miniature in and up and down motion, so that the edges are hit with the bristles and paint is deposited. You’ll see that the raised edges now have colour.
You have a few options here in term of brush strokes. You can go up and down, or just down if want to imitate the sun hitting the miniature from above. I personally like to do a rotating motion to hit all edges from all angles. It’s not realistic, but I like the style.
Slapchop
The Hobbits painted with Slapchop and some more models ready for Contrast paints
So slapchop is a pretty nifty way of painting your miniature. It removes the complication of placing highlights manually by combining drybrushing and contrast paints.
What you need
Black primer (see section above)
All the things you need for drybrushing
Grey paint and white paint instead of any paint
Contrast Paints or Speed Paints
How to do Slapchop
Prime black, so that you have a nice base to start your drybrushing.
Drybrush grey
Drybrush white
Apply contrast paints to the various parts of the model. You are essentially colouring within the lines.
The gradient that you create with your grey and white drybrush mimics the light hitting the miniature. You create a gradient from the darkest recesses to the brightest spots.
When you add Constrast Paints (or Speed Paints, which I prefer because they are cheaper!), you tint your gradient so that it looks like you spent lots of time on the miniature. While in reality you haven’t.. and it looks great!
The Honest Wargamer is the man who started this, definitely worth a watch
As an extra tip: feel free to experiment with different colours instead of grey/white. I tried with with brown/red and it certainly looks cool! Mini painting should be all about experimentation, so don’t be afraid to go out and try things!
There is also another technique called Double Slapchop, but I haven’t tried it yet, so can’t vouch for it. It essentially adds a second drybrush and contrast paints pass after the first. Let me know how it goes!
Slapchop Variant
My personal spin for Slapchop: I really like to combine zenithal priming and follow that up with drybrushing with a lighter colour. The shadows from the zenithal make the highlight from drybrushing looking more natural. Thank me later.
Washes
Citadel Washes
Now I love me some washes! These are specialised paints and their consistency is more liquid than regular paints. Games Workshop calls them Shade paints but they are essentially the same.
Given their consistency they better run into the recesses of a miniature, adding shadows.
What you need
A brush, preferably synthetic. Washes will destroy your brush as the paints run into the ferrule and split the hairs. Keep your fancy brushes safe!
Any GW Shade paints, or Army Painter Vallejo washes or any equivalent from other brands.
How to wash
Dab brush into the wash, do not overload it. There should be no drop forming on the tip of the brush
Apply the wash. Be conservative, and all-around wash is fine, but remove any excess wash that’s pooling. It’ll ruin the paint job underneath!
A couple of caveats though. Make sure the wash doesn’t pool. If you see beads of washes pooling on your miniatures, make sure to remove the excess. If you don’t, it’ll leave what we call “coffee stains” on it and it’ll ruin the paint job underneath!
Also remember that the wash will tint the colour underneath, so be careful, especially when applying it over light colours. Many times I messed up my yellows because I wasn’t careful enough! Just make sure you apply the washes more selectively instead of an all over approach.
Zenithal Priming
Light zenithal for the 2 miniatures on the left, heavy white zenithal for the ones on the right
This one is a great method because it gives you a starting point very quickly when it comes to placing highlights on your miniatures.
You can do zenithal highlight with an airbrush but I’ll assume that you are just starting.
What you need
White (or other off white colour) spray can
Black primer spray can
This method consists in initially priming your miniatures black.
Then spray them with white from above. You can hold the spray can at 45 degrees while doing so for a smoother finish. By dusting the miniature from above, it’ll simulate the sun being at the zenith (hence the name) and it will show you where to place your highlights.
You can achieve the same with an airbrush. However I would recommend that for a beginner. Airbrushing is a skill in and of itself. While I do encourage others to get an airbrush, I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who’s just started.
Contrast paint or Speed paint
Army paint Speed Paints are great
The general consensus in the Warhammer and miniature painting hobby community is that Contrast Paints and Speed Paints are suitable for beginners. I personally do not fully agree with the statement. However, I can see why they would be recommended because the simplicity of application cannot be understated.
So why do I say they are not suitable for beginners? Let’s unpack it. First let’s look at what you need and how they work.
What you’ll need
White or off white primer
Brushes, do not use your nice ones! Just like washes, speed paints destroy your brush!
Any Contrast or speed paint equivalent
How to use it
Prime your miniature
Apply paint wherever you want
The light colour primer will act as the perfect base with your paints. Given their runny consistency, they’ll create shadows in the recesses and highlights on the edges. The white primer is key here, if you primed black, then your miniature will look like a colourless blob.
So why is this “bad”? I wouldn’t say it’s bad per se. If you want to get 100 figures done quick, then it’s all good. But if you want to become a better painter, I think that contrast paints is the wrong way to go about it.
First of all, it’s not as easy as “slap a layer of paint on, done”. You need to learn how to slap that paint in the first place. If you are too heavy handed, contrast paint will pool heavily on the miniature and it’ll look sloppy.
The other reason I think it’s not as beginner friendly, is because it might keep you a beginner for longer! Speed/contrast paints could be considered “cheat codes”. As such, you might not learn as much by using them exclusively. What do I mean? There are a lot of things that you learn when painting with traditional methods, namely:
Brush control
How to thin your paint to the right consistency
Mix your paint
Placing highlights/shadows
Which you don’t have to learn when using these paints.
Don’t get me wrong, they are great! I recently incorporated them in my painting arsenal and they’ve sped me up considerably. I just would be cautious in considering them the “be all end all” of miniature painting. They are just another tool, and they should be treated as such.
So there you have it, here are my beginner techniques that will speed up your painting while still getting great results!
We’ve been gone through the following:
Paint fully built models
Paint them black
Use drybrushing
Use slapchop
Wash paints are your friend
Contrast paints are great
Just remember that these are not mutually exclusive! I would strongly encourage you to mix and match as you go. You might find some cool combinations! Don’t forget to let me know how it goes in the comments!
It’s been a busy year for Games Workshop. They have released a lot of products for Warhammer. Some might say that Games Workshop is releasing too much stuff.
Is it me or does it feel like Warhammer miniatures are released at a neck breaking pace all the time? Beware, this one is a ranty one.
Warhammer weekly releases
First off we need to talk about the weekly Warhammer releases. There is a lot that comes out every single week and you get pre-orders every single Saturday. My question would be “Who has the time and money to buy and paint all this stuff?”
I’m not going to lie, I’ve pre-ordered some stuff myself in the past. But the reality is that the miniatures that I buy are few and far in between. The main reason is that I don’t really have the time to build and paint Warhammer during the week. With a full-time job and a baby, my hobby time is essentially non-existent at the moment. It’s hard to reconcile weekly releases with my life schedule and commitments.
On the plus side, the Warhammer releases are generally varied and span different games. One week releases for Warhammer 40,000, then another week for Age of Sigmar, then Blood Bowl, Necromunda etc etc. So the reality is that you’re probably not going to buy much plastic every single week.
The Warhammer 3-year cycle
Games Workshop essentially releases a new edition of their main games every 3 years. This means that every 3 years the game’s rules get rewritten. Your faction rules will change, the balance within your faction will change and the game style may be affected too. This will force you most likely to at least buy more books and data cards. And then buy more miniatures since the meta will change of course.
Obviously this is by design. Warhammer is a lucrative IP and Games Workshop knows it. It needs to sell in order to bring profits to the shareholders. It’s their business practise and if they want to run it that way that’s fine. This said, the way they update their games is not very consumer friendly because every time new rules are released you have to buy more rulebooks.
The reality is: how many games of Warhammer do you actually play a year? There’s going to be a very small minority that plays every week, but the vast majority of people are not going to be playing that much. I am lucky if I get to play once a month. It’s simply really hard for casual gamers like myself to keep up.
Too! much! Warhammer!
And it’s not just the 3-year cycle. In 2024 alone, we’ve had three major editions launching. Warhammer Age of Sigmar entered its fourth edition this summer (which is great by the way) followed by a brand new edition of Kill Team shortly after, and now Warhammer Underworlds is getting a revamp.
My Stormcasts from the previous edition of Warhammer Underworlds
That’s three new editions for three different games. All released within a few months from each other. Isn’t it a bit much?
Obviously, with so many games, the overlap is bound to happen, but this is at the detriment of the games they want to hype up. A new edition doesn’t feel special anymore. It’s just a tick box exercise that has to happen because money.
There is no breathing room between releases, everything is so fast that you do not have time to even open the box to start gluing pieces that the next big box is already out.
They teased AoS 4th Edition for months on end, and then they moved on from it so quickly it was unreal. A few weeks later they were hyping up Kill Team! So Age of Sigmar wasn’t so special after all?
Games Workshop wants you to get in on the hype cycle, and I’m not going to get into it now, but the new edition means new shiny toys, new hype, new sales. Simples. Consumers like me need to be mindful of the hype and try not to get caught into it. But this will be a topic I want to focus on in the future and I’ll stop here for now.
But what do you think of Games Workshop release cycle? Do you think it’s too much or is 3 years a good time frame between? I’ll be interested to know your thoughts. Let me know in the comments!