Hrm ...

Hi folks,

I think 2019 was the year when my interest in updating my blog reached a low point.

It won't be closed, but it won't be updated in the foreseeable future. A combination of real life getting in the way, and not feeling the same pleasure in writing long-format updates as in previous years. Painting is very much my stress relief, and my mental pressure valve - and the blog's felt like a chore rather than a pleasure to update. So time to put it on hiatus.

As for me, I'm still painting, and still active. You can find my work on Twitter (https://twitter.com/nerodine) or Instgram (https://www.instagram.com/nerodine/), if you'd like to keep an eye on what I'm working on.

Take care of yourselves.

Dave

Frozenfang

Phew. So much to cover.

Firstly, I think the mojo is returning. This was an enormous amount of fun to paint and really fired my brain to get the brushes going on a regular basis again. Firstly, I think we can agree it's a futuristic warrior with a viking feel, but obviously not a Space Wolf - as that would be an IP infringement.

This is also my first proper competition piece. I'm not talking about putting something in my local GW window to try and improve the number of entries, but an honest to goodness painting competition - Scale Model Challenge, or simply SMC as it's better known. I left it late to stop dawdling and pick a modelto paint, but the power of fear and a looming deadline appears to have inspired me to get my act together.

I picked up a highly commended in the Fantasy standard category for this piece.Which is more than I expected, and a cherry on top of a brilliant weekend at SMC.

I tried to use a little blue in most of the colour choices to convey the sense of cold. The only item that isn't done that way is the wolf pelt, which is a little warmer grey than other parts of the model.

The sculpt from Joaquin Palacio is just gorgeous. Honestly. Painting this was joyful.  The only frustration I had was the fragility of his extra-long braids and top knot. "Where?" you ask, well they're on my workbench because the top knot snapped off and I couldn't get the braids to fit well - so worked around their absence. Hopefully that isn't noticable.

There are lots of areas where I can improve and, from talking with other painters, I already know what to do better/differently on the next piece. So back to the workbench!

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.

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.

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.

Merchant's House

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

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.