It's a trap, its a trap I tell you...

(Left: sharp light edges to the damage gives a distinct 3D effect. Right: Toned down edges gives a more flat appearance but agrees more with the general paint scheme.)

It's a trap, its a trap I tell you...  all those painting guides. You have to be careful about all those painting guides out there.

There are a lot of painting guides out there on the internet. They really can improve you skills and teach you techniques that will make your models look marvellous... or they can make you a hodge pot painter with out a distinctive style. In my last post I tried some chipping techniques that I read about in a painting guide, and I have seen a lot of models painted using this technique and they have all looked astonishing. And so did my chipping, it really did have a 3D look to it, some real depth and so on... but the rest of the model did not look the same, it has a more subtle 3D feeling to it. It does not have sharp highlights as it is drybrusched and shaded in many layer of paint, it uses real metal paints, again in many layers to give it a multitude of shades and depth, no NMM, no even colour fields, it looks like (my opinion) more like reality than a painted model. And this is where it all goes wrong. This nice chipping technique does not work together with the rest of my painting style, it looks to good... and that makes it pop as unrealistic on a model that uses more colour variation as 3D technique rather then a pure artistic painting style 3D technique... So what I finally realised is that is not all about technique, it is also about the right choices, you have to choose the right combination of techniques to give the models the look that you want to portray. It is not all about a display of the most advanced techniques and cramming as many special effects into you model as possible that makes it a great master piece, it is the leveld combination of techniques and the blend that over all makes the model look realistic that will really make it pop. So even if I now realise that I can master (even if I am not there yet) the chipping technique using a light border to give the damage depth it does not go together with the rest of my painting style.

But this give me the idea to paint a model using "artistic" painting on one side and "realistic" painting on the other to using the same colours to illustrate the point... we will see if I get around to that.

But be careful out there, do not just buy into the techniques that you see on other models just because they look great, make a call about weather they fit into your style or risk adding components to the models that look out of place.