Tabletop World: Stone Bridge

Disclaimer. There is no easy way to photograph this model in my current setup. It really is the centrepiece of a board, which ... doesn't fit so well into a lightbox.

I have so many more ideas for this piece. Long-term it'll be put onto a board and I'll build out a shallow riverbed. But for the moment it's finished and I'm very pleased with the results.

Tabletop World: Merchant's House

I love these sculpts. It's also enormously pleasing to see them finished up.

Tabletop World: Town House (again)

Oh July. What a tricky month you were.

I've had a hankering to complete some fantasy scenery that's sat primed but unloved on the shelf, and before painting it up, I updated the colour scheme of an old friend first. There's a lot more depth and colour itnerest to the roof now, which is a critical element of the piece due to the sheer volume of the model it represents.

The windows were also repainted to better reflect inner light shining out. It's also a lot closer to the original colour scheme in Warcraft. Addition of a little leaf debris around the base helps to lift everything too, and then we're done.

Roman Lappat Beginner Course

Two and a half days in a sweaty scout hut with 29 other painters doesn't sound like a brilliant way to spend a weekend, but it was. Under the watchful eye of Zen master Roman Lappat (https://massivevoodoo.blogspot.com) on his Beginner's Course, I came away with a better understanding of scene composition, application of my colour theory knowledge.

If you attend the course, you paint a demonette of Slaanesh. No ifs, no buts. However it's up to you where you take the figure, and I took mine on a rampage through a military facility. It's a limited palette with, for me, really high contrast and a sneaky dimmed light source giving a little yellow glow back onto the top.

I could wax lyrical about this course, and the people on the course with me, for hours. It may be the best painting experience I've had, and my soul feels all the better for it.

Space Wolves: Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought #2

Fifth and final dreadnought of my little adventure in painting large robots.

This is probably my favourite of the lot. The addition of a wolf standard gives him a little extra height and character. Quite a journey to get all five of these beauties finished up in the last month, alongside everything real life throws at you. Delighted to have them on the table though!

Space Wolves: Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought #1

I love the new Primaris Redemptor dreads and actually started this before all the others posted up. They're significantly larger than the oldschool dreads, with all these enormous flat surfaces. After painting it up in a pretty flat grey scale with dark up to light, I realised more colour was needed to make it visually interesting. So it's here I started playing with glazing reds and then glazing blues over the top of that.

Painting freehand remains a challenge to me, so I used transfers as my "outline" and then painted over the top. Keeping the transfers as they come off the sheet wasn't viable, as my yellows are a little darker than the default. Other areas are my attempted freehand, riffing on the spiky theme present elsewhere on the model.

Adding weathering to guns is enormous fun. It's over-emphasised because on this scale of miniature I felt it needed that. Then after that, it's just a case of keeping the painting neat and tidy on the rear, which has so much pleasing detail.

And there he is! He's big and angry, and all mine. I bloody love dreadnoughts.

Space Wolves: Dreadnought #3

Now the triumvirate is complete. Here's the last of my three oldschool dreads.

Big fan of the intricate scrolls and battle honours on the front panels. Lifts the model from a casket to something with a little character. Which is much needed.

I magnetised all the arms I could find, and here's the selection in full.

Pleased with the results of these three, and it was nice to get something else out the grey mountain and erm ... paint it grey? Alright, there was a little yellow in there too.

Space Wolves: Dreadnought #2

When you're on a roll, you're on a roll I guess, so here's a second one off the production line.

He's a fairly functional fellow, and not much in the way of fancy highlights. We're looking at tabletop and expediency here. But there's always time for a little heat weathering on the weaponry.

I plan to come back and add a banner to the back of this guy and have it hanging from the skulls. But that's lower down my to-do list right now.

Pleased with how the colour transitions worked, and find myself wishing I'd pushed the yellow even darker in the shadows now.

Space Wolves: Dreadnought #1

The last couple of weeks have been super busy, but I've taken a lot of pleasure in working through an unexpectedly large collection of dreadnoughts acquired over the last few years. You can mentally switch off, work through them, and still achieve a reasonable result.

So here's the first dreadnought finished! Many years ago there was a little accident with my original Assault on Black Reach model, and he lost a leg. Whoops. Small remodeling required to look damaged but still combat capable.

The weapon arm is magnetised so it can be swapped out depending on what I need.

Barrels added to give the impression he's staging a last stand in front of scenery. I'd like to return to this and make a diorama in the future.

Engine Shed POLA-600 HO/00

And now for something completely different.

 My dad set up his model railway board recently, for the first time since I was a child. I offered to paint something for him to add a little character to the board. He gave me an old train shed and asked if I could paint that.

This didn't take long. It isn't my finest work. But it was nice to be able to help out my dad.

I kept the roof reasonably boring, but had fun with the metals and verdigris. Is it even verdigris on iron? Probably not, but it needed the colour contrast, rather than browns of rust merging in with the body of the model.

I'm not sure why you would put your coal, spare wheels and a ladder all next to each other - but as there's literally no other place to put them ... there they go.

Adding funky colours for mold is fun. Blues and greens leaking through the brickwork helps to break up the larger surfaces.

The windows were a stinking mess, with the clear plastic being scratched something awful. To counter this, I added lots of weathering to make it look like they were dirty - achieved with lots of weathering powder and isopropyl alcohol. Then I took a cue tip with water on it to create dirty swirls to look like they were badly cleaned.

How old is this kit? Old enough that it was manufactured in West Germany and on my dad's gaming board in the mid-eighties. This post also has the worst tags possible.

Plot twist.

It turns out this was originally my kit, and I started assembling it before growing bored of the hobby. Which means at 35 years between build and paint, it's accidentally my longest ever hobby project.

Your move, fellow procrastinators.