Tips on Finding a Gaming Group

Howdy friends,

This post originally started as a script for a video I was going to do with my local shop Element Games. They've been trying to build up their online presence with a youtube channel you can check out here. Unfortunately the shoot wasn't able to happen before I left Manchester, but I thought people would still find it interesting.

I also thought it was appropriate as it's about offering some tips on how to find a gaming group in a new place, something that I will have to do very shortly once I've got myself set up here in Canada!

So firstly, I should preface this by saying these tips are not just pulled out of thin air. I moved to England four years ago to a city I had never been with no connections or friends there whatsoever. I ended up having my closest friends group stem from my miniature hobby, and it was one of the most fulfilling experiences I had in the UK. I developed my hobby skills hugely and built a really close relationship to Element, its employees, and its patrons. Element originally asked me to give these tips specifically because I'd ingratiated myself within the community so effectively. So without further ado:

Finding a play group in a new place.

There were three main routes that I took to start building connections. Note that this also works for boardgame/roleplaying/cardgame hobbies as well.

1. Check out all the gaming shops in your area and speak to the employees. Tell them outright that you're new to the area, what systems you play, and ask about the community there. I recommend checking out as many shops as you can so you can see if there's one you really connect with, whether through the space itself or the attitude of the employees.
2. Online forums for your system are a great resource, and most have "find a player" threads or sections. I originally found out about Element Games through the Infinity forums when a player invited me to meet there for a demo game. I would note that army-specific forums are probably too limited for doing this effectively, ideally you should be looking at forums that deal with whole game systems.
3. Local Facebook groups for the systems or shops you are interested in are definitely really useful, and probably the main method local players organise games. However, I would suggest introducing yourself properly when you first join. A one-line post from a stranger saying "when is 40k played?" is not particularly thrilling to an established play group who know nothing about you. Introduce yourself, toss up a picture of your army, how you like to play, tell a joke, briefly give that community a sense of who you are.

Connecting to a gaming community.

In my mind there are two main approaches to take if you're new to a community and want to ingratiate yourself.

Be Flexible - If you are unable to put lot of time and effort into the community I strongly encourage having a bit of flexibility in what you play and how you play it. Adapt yourself to your local scene. This is true both within the game and outside of it. Adapt to a group if it leans more towards a competitive or casual play styles. Maybe try a different system if your chosen one isn't popular at the moment. This is especially easy for skirmish level games where you can get a new army up quickly. Game systems tend to come in and out of popularity in cycles so your preferred one will probably pop back up soon!

Be a Leader - If you are able to put in time and effort you can make a positive impact on your playgroup by organising and introducing new things. If you want to play a different system, or play an established one in a different way, then you can absolutely make that happen on your own initiative. There is no better way to bring value to your local community than by taking the time to get people interested and excited about new things. During my time in the UK I ran a 40k narrative campaign, joined a bunch of RPG games, and built playgroups around the Game of Thrones card game and Infinity miniatures game by offering demos and organising weekly play nights. The great thing about this hobby is that people tend to be really open minded and up for trying different things. We all have systems or playstyles we want to try but haven't had a chance to yet.

Voicing issues within a gaming community.

If you do find there are some issues in your local scene that you can’t look past these can typically be solved by politely communicating to either players and/or the shop what your grievances are. In my experience about 90% of these problems can be solved through communication, and being upfront yet understanding about these problems is a great way to contribute to the quality of the community.

Some good examples I've dealt with myself is there not being enough terrain, people not showing up to gaming meetups, poor store support for a product, etc. Keep in mind it's good to phrase your complaints in a positive way. Instead of saying "it's annoying there isn't enough Infinity terrain" you can say "I really want to bring more Infinity players in but there isn't enough terrain, would you be able to help support the game a bit more?"

Obviously this gets a bit more complicated if we're talking about problem players. Not getting along with someone is heavily context dependant, and I'd encourage you to defer to how the established gaming group handles things.

Keeping up a hobby as a student.

I've been a University student for nine years and kept up a miniatures hobby for almost that entire time. I've got some good tips, especially for undergraduate students.

• Work on a smaller scale. Smaller armies. Less hobby supplies. Less storage needs. Don't buy too much. You're going to be moving a bunch. You're probably using public transportation. Keep it streamlined. As much as this might be a little painful, it does help in many ways, it keeps your budget tight, it means you have less to paint, it keeps you very focused. Be a hobby ascetic, take pride in the fact that you still manage to have a great time without the luxury of lots space, money, or a car.
• Quality instead of quantity with your supplies and purchases. Unless your really tight for cash buy a box at a time rather than getting a huge unpainted second-hand army.  Again it’s about keeping focused and keeping the hobby lean. Spend more time on a smaller number of figures rather than trying to shift through a huge backlog. This will also help improve your painting!
• Don't feel bad about taking breaks from the hobby. Being a student means that workload tends towards extremes of leisure and intensity. There might be months where you barely have time to pickup a brush, nevermind get games in. There also might be periods where you just lose interest for a while, burnout happens to everyone but because your space is so limited as a student its often tempting to jettison parts of the hobby entirely. That's okay, don't feel bad about it, don't beat yourself up about it. You can always come back.
• On the opposite end of the spectrum, do not let your hobby take over your life. Between the hobby and the gaming aspect it’s very very easy to go down a rabbit hole with miniature gaming. Like any sort of hobby it can lead to an obsessive mindset that's ultimately going to hurt you, and students are particularly vulnerable because it can be a way to procrastinate and still feel like you've done something productive. Be aware of how you're thinking about it and know when to ease off.
• Do some stuff that isn't geek-centric. It's always good to have variety in life, especially stuff that involves not sitting at a table or desk. Whether its hiking, going out with friends, playing music, sport, whatever, do try to have other stuff to focus on. Even if it’s largely secondary to your hobby you'll be very glad to have it!

With those pieces of advice in mind, I will say that being a geek is a magnificent way to spend your student years. It's communal, it’s competitive, you build skills as both a hobbyist and a gamer, it is a superb way to relax and decompress. Get out there and have a blast!

How to choose a great Color Scheme for your Miniatures

Thinking about color-schemes is one of the hidden gems of the miniature hobby that doesn't require much energy but will make a huge difference in terms of your painting (and maybe even your personal life!). It has gotten to the point where my desire to try out new color schemes is one of the primary reasons i'll go out and buy a miniature. It becomes fun to think about various color combinations and I've often found myself taking pictures of objects, settings, or art I encounter in my day-to-day life that have a color palette I find really appealing.

To that end I thought I'd give you some basic points to think about when you're trying to come up with an original color scheme for your miniatures along with an example of my own practices when figuring out a scheme.

Complementary Colors: This is some really basic color theory, there are tons of articles out there which explain this better than I could, but suffice to say that a really good starting point when constructing a palette is to look at a color wheel and check complementary colors. These are constructed by drawing a straight (or nearly straight) line across the the wheel between two colors. Complementary colors are a great way to give yourself a really satisfying choice of primary colors (the most prominent/notable colors in your scheme) to build your palette off of.

These work especially well for miniature painting because you often want your figures to really pop on the table and you can go for really intense complimentary colors that you wouldn't typically see. Such as a deep purple against a light green:

A good example of complementary colors between the purple sword and green armor.

Shades of intensity (hues): Obviously you don't always want the brightest possible colors on your miniatures so keep in mind that you can vary up the level of white and black in your chosen primary colors to make them darker or lighter. For example: green and red are a complementary color but tend to make your figures look like Christmas decorations if you go for really pure and bright versions of both colors, but a really dark or muddy red can pair beautifully with a strong green to give you a much more realistic looking earthy tone.

I often find it helpful once I've settled on a set of 2-3 primary colors to look through the hobby paints offered by various companies to give me an idea of the different variations in shade and brightness I have access to. Keep in mind that you will typically want to build a strong contrast from dark to light for every color when you're layering and highlighting your miniatures, so pushing some of the base colors into a darker tone can make it much easier to highlight upwards. This is true even if you want a really bright overall effect.

Warm and Cool: If you don't like the idea of really strong complementary colors there is another way you can think about the color wheel. Namely a broad distinction in color theory between "warm" and "cool" colors that tend to connote certain feelings. This idea comes up in fashion a lot, with "cool" colors being prioritized in most professional attire as they connote a sort distance and logical exterior. That's why you'll see a lot of blues, greys, and light pinks, in the workplace with just a splash of warmer colors here or there. Whereas warm colors tend to be a bit more earthy and insinuate a more naturalistic environment.

Since we don't tend to dress ourselves with really strong or vibrant color combinations in our day-to-day life we often unknowingly use ideas about "warm" and "cool" color combinations that are analogous (similar tones that are next to each other on the color wheel) to help imply a certain attitude in our day to day life.

Neutral colors: These are colors that are not present on the color wheel and consequently can be used to accompany and accent the complementary or analogous schemes you come up with. These can make great tertiary colors to pick out smaller details on the models without clashing or upsetting the balance of your main colors.

Broadly speaking there are only four neutral colors: Black, Brown, Grey, and White. However any sort of color combination you can achieve with these four shades is considered neutral, and consequently you have a huge variety to choose from when finding something that will accompany your main colors.

All of these are very neutral colors

Keep in mind that brown tends to be a warm neutral color whereas grey tends to be a cool one. Most metal paints fall under the neutral umbrella as well, with gold/copper being warm and silver/steel being cool. Pure black and pure white never clash with any color scheme and can be used anywhere, although be aware that they are such strong tones they can easily dominate the overall colors of your model.

You can, of course, also choose to use a neutral color as one of your primary colors, which gives you a lot of leeway when choosing the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th colors on your figure.

Studio color scheme from Infinity.

The above image is a great example of using a neutral primary color (in this case white) while still getting some nice complementary tones out of the 2nd and 3rd colors. Note that the red and green color combination doesn't feel like a Christmas decoration at all, owing to the strong overall presence of the white.

Bases are a color too!: When designing your color scheme make sure you put some thought into how you will base your models, as the colors present in the base can be used to compliment or contrast the scheme of the model. For example you can paint your figure with one primary color and still get a really strong complementary effect by making your base it's opposite on the color wheel.

Teal and orange(ish)

Purple and green.

These guys are based using a darker/warmer tone of a similar color to set off their desaturated look.

You can also base for cohesion, in which the base becomes an extenuation of the colors present on the figure.

A good example of basing for cohesion with similar tones/shades present across the piece to tie it all in.

Finally you can also choose neutral bases that simply aim not to clash with your figure's colors. (A grey urban "rubble" base is a typical example) This is an especially good idea if your miniature has a lot of different strong colors on it. Your base color will make a huge difference in the overall appearance of your figure, so choose carefully! For more information you can check out my roomate's great blog articles on basing for contrast and basing for cohesion.

Some colors are easier to paint: For beginner-to-medium skilled painters there are certain colors that are just difficult to paint on miniatures. This is primarily because it's tough to get a nice level of contrast out of them. Contrast is the movement from dark to light as you go from the deepest details of the miniature to the highest ones in a way that mirrors the way light plays upon different colors in real life. In miniature painting we frequently push contrast to extremes in order to really make a miniature pop out on the table, not only in terms of our color combinations as mentioned above but also in terms of how each color moves from dark to light on the figure.

There are a few colors where it is objectively easier to get this contrast, and a few where it's objectively harder. Typically cool colors like blues and purples are really easy to get a nice contrast out of, whereas warm colors like red, orange, and yellow are more difficult. If you're employing a lot of warm colors but you still want a lot of contrast make sure you plan your shading/layering process carefully so you know how you'll get it.

A great example of this is trying to highlight red, as it tends to gradually turn into either pink or orange tones depending on what paints your using to lighten the color. Careful that you end up with a highlight you're happy with!

To give you some instances of how color schemes can be structured I've included a few palettes bellow...

Example #1: Complementary Color

Primarily a complementary contrast between an olive-green and a deep purple, which would go over armor or the main articles of clothing with a nice cream color as a tertiary option for extraneous clothing or leathers. The yellow would be a metallic gold for metals that compliments the warmth of the olive/cream notes.

A good example of how the scheme fits together.

Example #2: Neutral as a Primary Color

Black is a dominant neutral color here, but allows us to get some really strong complementary colors going on in the background between the teal and the orange. The deep red  can be used for further detailing as it complements the teal and is analogous to the yellow.

The image I based the above scheme on.

Example #3: Analogous Colors

This is the only palette here I didn't design myself, but as you can see it gives an example of a very cohesive palette based on autumnal colors, all of which are very warm, earthy, and close to each other on the color wheel.

A good example of how this sort of color scheme might be translated onto a set of figures. Note that the painter still uses splashes of bright blue to get some strong complementary effects here and there, and uses very light neutral skintones and greys to avoid clashing with the primary red/gold patterns.

Thanks for reading guys! I hope some of you found this article helpful and that my scatter-brained tips will help you see the fun you can have with designing color schemes. See you soon!

Hobby Thoughts: How to enjoy painting miniatures.

I don’t claim to be a great painter. In fact I am perpetually reminded I'm not given the award-winning abilities of my roommate Byron. His basic line troops wipe the floor with my fanciest character models.

A phoenix guard model from my roommate on the left. A warpriest character I slaved over on the right.

Talk about a slice of humble pie right? Yet I have, over the course of the past year, come to truly enjoying painting as my favorite aspect of the hobby. This is something that was absolutely not the case for many many years, and I thought writing article about the changes in equipment, technique, and attitude I've undergone to reach this point this would be a great idea for anyone else looking to enjoy their time with the brush a little more.

From "I hate this shit" in 2010 to "I'm having a blast!" in 2015.

This article assumes that painting is a priority for you to some capacity within the hobby. Whether it’s painting a high-quality force or just hitting a “three colours and based” minimum for a tournament you may find something of interest here.

Equipment

1. Know what type of paints your buying and whether they align with your painting goals. There is no such thing as brand loyalty when it comes to paints due to the variance across each range. Experiment with different brands and see what you like, check out what others recommend. Of relevance to this is a personal revelation I've had recently in the difference between what I will call "tabletop" paint designed to have good coverage and go on as a basecoat easily with a harder protective finish, versus what I'll call "advanced" paints that might have a high pigment count but are not designed to be very opaque or cover effectively. 
• Examples of "tabletop" paints include Vallejo Game Color, Army Painter, and most Games Workshop paints, all of these are designed to basecoat smoothly and stand up to the rigors of handling produced by typical gaming. Of particular note here are Games Workshop's "Base" range and Vallejo's "Extra Opaque", both of which are formulated for maximum coverage.
• Examples of "advanced" paints include Vallejo Model Color and Scale 75 paints. Both tend to cover poorly despite their vibrant colors, but because they are not very opaque they produce beautiful blends far more easily then having to really thin out a paint that wants to cover everything.
2. If you are painting anything bigger than a skirmish-game sized force then do yourself a favor and buy an airbrush. Even if it’s a cheap set up you will get back hours of your life through simple techniques like colored base coats and/or blocking out colors on basic line troops. I can't see myself painting anything without one.
3. Get a good traditional brush. I haven’t really implemented this myself yet as I've  not yet tried the much-idolized Windsor and Newton series 7. But I have gradually progressed from using Games Workshop, Army Painter, and currently Kolinsky sable hair brushes from Element Games. The improvement in control of the paint coming off the brush has been noticeable each time.
4. Use a florescent or daylight lamp to illuminate your painting. Any cheap articulated lamp will do, and it helps even more than you think.
5. Don’t buy things you don’t want to paint. If you want to have a good time painting, then paint something you find beautiful. With the glut of skirmish games in the market right now there are many companies with extremely poorly designed, or downright ugly miniatures. I'm not inclined to care how great a system rule-set is, how beautiful people may claim the miniatures are, or if a particular model is really strong on the tabletop. If you don’t like them, don’t spend hours of your life on them.
6. Don’t buy more miniatures then you can paint. Trust me, I know how hard this is. But having a legion of things that need painting is going to hurt your enjoyment more than anything, and turn an otherwise enjoyable painting session into a small part of a massive slog towards completion. Unless you’re doing big batches with simple techniques like airbrushing/washes where you can see progress being made extremely quickly, be conservative with your painting goals. One unit at a time, reward yourself with a character between them , put away any miniatures that need painting so they’re not out in the open guilting you. Don't assemble things you won't be able to paint right away. Don’t spend loads of money in one go, regardless of how good the price is. A personal rule of thumb for me is to buy, assemble, and paint only one box at a time, be it a character, vehicle, or unit. You get to enjoy your painting more and you save money, it's win-win!

Technique

Given that I'm not an expert painter this section is quite basic, but I hope still applicable to everyone getting a bit more joy out of their painting. However feel free to skip it if you're already a strong painter!

1. Spend time on assembly, clean all mould lines, pin things that need pinning. With modular options think about natural-looking yet dynamic poses. Add some details to your bases like rocks, etc. There is no point beautifully painting a miniature that was slapped together in a few minutes. Conversely, a clean and well posed/assembled miniature will make even a basic paint job looks miles better. This is the reason I stopped buying second-hand figures. 90% of people are not thoughtful in their assembly, and the effort and time to salvage their careless work is not worth the reduction in cost.
2. Choose a primer colour that will help you paint your chosen colour scheme. Using a black primer for a brightly coloured force that has a lot of yellow (for example) is just adding hours to your painting, whereas its a great decision if your painting lot of metallics since they cover nicely over black. Conversely using a light primer with darker colours will make more work for you, as any mistakes will stand out much more and you'll need to basecoat and shade more extensively. Grey is a nice middle ground if you have a mix of dark/light colours. For other colours outside of these three I recommend using an airbrush basecoat over one of them rather than a colour primer.
3. Using a little plinth of some kind for painting is often quite useful. It isn't always strictly necessary but having a magnet on the bottom of your figures and sticking them on a wine cork with a penny glued on top can help with accessing hard to reach points. Alternatively if you are pinning your model to their base, consider painting the base and figure separately and just sticking the figure into a wine cork while painting it. This is a must for metal or resin figures since paint layers can easily rub off on your hands.
4. Thin your paints. People always say this but you have no idea how true it is until you do it. Just water is fine for most applications and it won’t affect coverage if you’re using a good basecoat paint. How much you need to thin depends on application, but for basecoating you should need to do two coats for good coverage of anything that isn't extra-opaque like the Vallejo line or GW base paints.  Glaze medium is an exceptional thinner for when you want to reduce how opaque paint is in order to have it pool in the recesses like a wash, enhance how easy it is to blend a paint, or just washing over a series of layers to tie them together.
5. Basecoat carefully. Unless you are doing advanced shading and highlighting the need to put down a clean basecoat of a single colour over your primer before doing anything else is really important. If your basecoat is neatly done then everything else is gravy and the model will still look good almost regardless of what follows. It should all feel downhill after a good basecoat.
6. Washes are your friend. Most people already know it, but for the sake of any truly new painters, washes go a long way to adding depth to your models. Bonus points if you use a bit of glaze medium to make their colour go on smoother. A careful and clean basecoat with a wash or two is probably the best place to start for a beginner painter on your average line-trooper. Keep it neat and keep it simple. Once your comfortable with that you can step it up to the magical formula of basecoat, wash, basecoat on raised areas, higlight/basecoat mix for highlights, which is more than adequate for the majority of hobbyists out there.
7. Less is more when it comes to paint. Keep things simple with a handful of colors and only 1-3 pots of paint for each. Repeat simple techniques and shade down or higlight up by mixing rather than introducing tons of different paints. Remember that black is not a color and doesn't clash with any scheme, so if a figure has a lot extraneous details like equipment hanging all over it consider just painting the extra stuff black to keep the visuals clean.
8. Paint your bases last. If you mess up the colour and get it on the miniature's feet it’s a lot less noticeable than the reverse scenario.
9. Varnish your paint-job. With plastic miniatures this is only necessary at the end, but with metal or resin I would suggest at least three coats of varnish: one after your primer, one after your basecoat, and one when its finished. There's nothing worse than having your hard work get rubbed off when you are painting or playing.

Mindset

1. Plan your painting in advance and use test models if you want to try a new color scheme. Think carefully about how your colours will look and check out how they relate on a colour wheel. Consider in advance how you will base your figure and what its visual interaction with your colour-scheme will be. Also be sure to write down your paint scheme as it develops so that if you come back to a particular scheme down the road you can retain consistency.
2. With each miniature, know what quality of painting you’re aiming for from the outset. Don't try to paint line troops like your character models and vice versa. Make sure your expectations align with your skillset. Knowing when to put down the brush is just as important as being able to paint like a golden demon winner. When it comes to line troops remember that quantity is its own form of quality, so most of us can keep it simple.
3. Keep pushing yourself to make painting interesting. If you are not enjoying your painting try employing a new technique. Try painting a different model in some new colours, or a one-off figure from a totally different system or army. Always try to incorporate something into what you are doing that challenges you. Try a bit of weathering on your vehicles or armor, or try some blending on a character model.
4. Take the advice of people who are good painters. This doesn't mean you have to do everything they say. But really try to absorb it and think about how you can apply it to your next project. I despise coming back to a model I feel is “finished” so I never implement any criticism I get immediately, but I will always internalize any feedback I receive and keep it in mind for the next figure.
5. Know when to step away from the painting desk. If you are ever frustrated or finding you are not enjoying yourself just stop and do something else for at least 15 minutes. Stretch, go for a walk, talk to some friends. Its just not worth harming your mental state to finish a miniature, and if you push yourself like this its only going to reinforce whatever you dislike about the process. Additionally, if you are frustrated with a paint job just step away and don't look at it for a day. Coming back with a fresh pair of eyes is far better than going back and forth and agonizing over things.
6. Don’t play if it’s not painted. Another tough rule to follow that goes hand in hand with “don’t buy too much”, as the less models you have awaiting painting the less likely you are to try and field them. The payoff, however, is absolutely worth it in my mind. Being able to put a fully-painted army on the tabletop gives a cathartic pleasure in and of itself, and contributes immeasurably to the enjoyment and visual immersion one gets out of the game. If both armies are painted then you get a beautiful, immersive and far more characterful game out of your chosen system. Alternatively if you’re playing against an opponent with an unpainted force then you have already won, dice rolls be damned.

I hope this wasn't too pedantic from someone whose clearly only an average (if that) painter. Then again I think its precisely because i'm average that my words might be a bit more relevant to most of the hobbyists out there.

Happy painting all, and thank you for reading!