Apparently inevitable

I’m 46 years old – which means I have been painting miniatures for over 30 years. Not continuously of course – There were significant gaps like college when I was too busy; and there were addictions to other pursuits like a few years with Magic the Gathering and video games like Doom and Unreal. But overall A lot of time painting.

All of that time I have enjoyed the process of painting - brush in one hand, miniature in the other and all my paints and palettes and tools around me. However about a year ago I went through an apparently inevitable change in eye sight. I have worn glasses since I was nine and never had trouble painting while wearing them. Then I noticed I could no longer properly focus at my normal holding position while wearing my specs – So I would push them up and could focus on the figure just fine. But I couldn’t properly find my paints and tools. So I was constantly moving my glasses up and down and squinting.  It was messing with my painting groove.

So last month I went to our local optician (whom I had not used before) and took with me a half finished miniature, my trusty series 7 brush, and a bottle of reaper master series paint and explained. He tested me thoroughly then got me to sit in my normal painting position and tested me some more. I am now the delighted owner of what my optician (I’ll never go anywhere else again) calls occupational glasses.  I have special bifocals just for painting with my normal prescription above and a gentle 2x magnification below. It’s taken a little while to get used to but I’m very very happy with the results.

Ok that was probably really boring, particularly if you are younger than 40.

It was too hot to paint in my studio last night so I spent time working on basing details – Here are some newly finished miniatures:  FA13-2, FF11-2 & FA5-1

Cheers

Caius