A quick Google search for almost any painting technique, or ‘how to paint XX’ always tends to yield multiple results. There is a lot to be said for how much effort people put in to creating easy to follow tutorials advising painters how to achieve a certain results. And its not just painting guides. Reviews of products, unboxing videos, colour theory guides, conversion guides, people forming their own painting crews… A lot of people say that the halcyon days of community have long since passed and we’re a far cry from where we were in ’92. While I appreciate how unfair it is for me to say this when there was no CMON, Painting Buddha or Miniature Mentor back then, I am of the opinion that the internet has done nothing but good things for the aspiring painter.

But there are more than just websites. Savvy tech people who probably have little interest in our antiquated and outdated modes of entertainment just keep coming up with amazing ways for painters to share their work, to communicate with like minded hobbyists , and to store inspiration. I’m only gonna look at a couple here. I might look at more in the future, but I’m not gonna say this is a series of posts, because I hate committing to stuff like that.

Pinterest.

It’s easy to write off because it’s primary user base is people who love Kirsty Alsop. But I think Kirsty is cool, and Pinterest is an extremely potent tool for the gathering of images that will be of use to your future projects. I keep quite a few different boards for different styles. One for vehicles, one for sculpts, one for paint jobs, one for artwork. But you could easily, and practically sub divide this even further “cold paint schemes”, “high contrast schemes”, “green schemes”… the possibilities are endless, and if used properly is an incredibly powerful reference tool for any proposed project you might be considering. What makes it even better (if you are a Google Chrome user), is that you can get an addon that allows your to keep your account logged in, and adds an option to ‘pin’ any image you happen to hover over while browsing the internet. Meaning that if you see something awesome in a Facebook thread, or on CMON, boom! You press a single button and its added to your board. 

As you can see, there are loads of reasons you may want to gather a bunch of stuff together. And this leaves your hard drive free to download Vince Vaughn films until you’re blue in the face. I don’t know much about the etiquette of this site, and how cool it is to ‘re-pin’ other peoples stuff and how crediting them works. It’s far easier to not be bothered and just pick it up as you go along… probably. But the point I’m making is that there are plenty of other peoples boards you can pin stuff from as well to aid in building up a fairly decent repository for any type of reference. You also get to look at how your girlfriend wants her hair when she gets married… And what couch you’re gonna end up getting.

Instagram.
Instagram has pretty much changed how tattooists get work. The way a tattoo, done by a renowned artist can fly around this simple image-sharing network can ensure that they are booked up months in advance. It also happens to be my favourite social network because there are no words. I think quite often about how Instagram could be a really powerful utility for commission painters, for competition entrants, and for painting communities the world over really.

If your Hive City doesn’t have access to this kind of technology yet, Instagram is nothing more than a photo sharing social network. Think Twitter but for pictures rather than comments about that fella on the Great British Bake Off. You upload a cool photo, visible to your followers, they like it, sometimes share it, and anything they like can be viewed in a timeline by their followers etc. The simplest concept. But, like Pinterest, limitless possibilities. I never really understand why blogs like Massive Voodoo, Painting Buddha or dudes like JBT don’t utilise this as a really simple means by which to attract more followers to their blog. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting for a moment that the aim of the guys mentioned is just to get more followers, my own theory on blogging is that you should write because you love writing. If you write to be read, you’re just setting yourself up for a fall. But I do think that this is a really easy way to get your message out there. I use it a lot for posting pics of miniatures I’m working on, or things I’ve finished, and I quite enjoy interacting with other painters in the comments. I also use it to follow a few other painters whos style I like. But for it to become a more recognised medium for painters it’s going to take some big hitters like Sebastian Archer, or Bohun or someone like that to really take to the medium.

It’s far from perfect. The images are small, and square. So they will never capture your miniature in all its glory. But the intent will be there, and it is a good way to get traffic to wherever your main images are stored. It’s a cool, and fast way to get your workbench shots uploaded and keep peoples interest in your project… If you care about that kind of thing.

I just want to scroll through my feed and see awesome miniatures on a regular basis. So hopefully the 3 people who read this article will be high-end painters whose work I have always loved and I’ll have some more cool things to look at on my lunch break in work next week.

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