Bad Squiddo: War Peegs

This must be the smallest set of figures I've painted outside of Epic scale marines. To give a better idea of scale, here's a WIP shot of the peegs alongside a Lego lady.

 

 Despite the size, these were surprisingly fun to paint.

I backed these a couple of years ago when Bad Squiddo were starting Kickstarters, and wasn't disappointed with the quality of sculpt or casts. Who doesn't want a guinea pig with dynamite ...

Or tubes of poison ...

 Or a subtly rear mounted cannon ...

Or even an armoured captain with an eyepatch.

Very silly. Ridiculous idea. Lots of fun.

Meridian: Black Crab priests

My painting's taken a hit of late, in terms of my mojo running out at the same time I finished up my job. This is my "reboot" to reinvigorate my interest. Moreso with SMC next month and my current plan is to paint something to compete there. Argh!

Three creepy grimdark priests sculpted by Meridian Miniatures based on drawings by Black Crab Art. It was originally a Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2004599158/black-crab-miniatures) but I missed that - happily Andrew@Meridian still had stock afterwards and dispatched them promptly.

The resin casts are lovely, with minimal cleanup required. Highly recommended.

Total time is only around four or five hours for the lot, but getting my head back into painting made it a worthwhile endeavour - even if I haven't truly done the sculpts justice.

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.