Orc shields

There's tens of thousands of painting tutorials. Almost all of them will be better than this, but I was asked by a couple of people for a step-by-step on how I've painted my shields, and was happy to oblige. It's also a useful way to track what I'm doing as a repeatable process on my army.

We're going to cover brushes, paints, process and future changes I might make. 

Let's start with the brushes because they're important. You don't need small brushes for the majority of detail, and it will slow you down to use small ones! While I have a 00 Series 7 for the final details, the majority of the work is done by these two horror show brushes to the right of it. They have not been loved, but are fantastic for this sort of project.

 Paints

• Vallejo Leather Brown 
• GW Wyldwood Contrast 
• AK Dark Sea Blue
• Kimera Magenta
• AK Ochre 
• AK Greenish White 

Process

Basecoat shields in Leather Brown, metal elements in Dark Sea Blue, and suns in Magenta. All you want is a consistent coat of paint as a starting point.

Wash everything in thinned down Wyldwood Contrast paint, except the suns. I applied it a little heavier on some shields than others just for variety. Don't forget that the symbols will be glued to them later so they don't have to be perfect. The goal is hitting any recess area that the paintbrush won't reach in later stages.

Take a big flat brush, and a 1:1 mix of Greenish White & Dark Sea Blue with almost no water added, and drag and stab it across the dark blue areas. The idea being I have my light source top left so the darker areas will be bottom right. Ensure you run the brush along every edge in a rough fashion. This isn't drybrushing, or stippling per se, it's just ensuring paint goes on the surface to create rough texture and start to build a sense of battered metal.

Using my round brush, I now add a very messy glaze dragging the brush upward to the top left corner ensuring I'm only catching raised surfaces and not going in the recess. This just helps to ensure the finish isn't chalky. 

Same process again but 2:1 mix of Greenish White & Dark Sea Blue this time. I swapped to a round brush and focused more on the upper left quarter of the pieces for most of the paint, but then ensured I brightened up areas like tusks, any edge facing upwards. Still a very ugly stabbing and dragging motion and not a lot of water.

As before, then a glaze of this over the top again. 

Now the fun part! I swap to the small brush and just using Greenish White, edge highlight the upper edges. Add a few random drags, stabs and then we're done.

At this point I move to the suns and using the Ochre apply the same approach with a lot of heavy stabbing and dragging from the top left. One nice feature of any yellow is that there's a bit more transparency than other colours, and over a pink or magenta it creates a nice warm tone. 

Now onto a 1:1 mix of Ochre and Greenish White and the same again, but a smaller area. Really focus on that upper left corner. By this point you should have more reds in the bottom right, then moving into an orange tone where the magenta and ochre overlap, up to a fuller yellow ochre, and now some whiter highlights.

Finally add a few touches of just Greenish White on the edge of tusks, horns and such. You don't need a lot of paint, just a stroke or two to catch an edge and make an interesting angle.

Done! Total time taken was 70 minutes for these, including pausing for notes and photos, and drying time. I plan to sit and do all the others in a single batch after this, and think the process will only take a few hours in total for everything. These aren't painted to win competitions, it's just to add character to an army, in a way that's fast to replicate across dozens of shields. So many shields. What on earth was I thinking.

What Would I Change?

There are two possible changes for the future.

• Making the dark areas darker. My colours aren't very dark so there's scope to go back in places and push up the contrast by using more Wyldwood to darken areas.
• Weathering. I plan to do a lot of rusted and weathered armour and weaponry, and could bring some of the oranges from those elements into the symbols on the shield in the darker areas.

Orcs & Goblins begin

Another army for The Old World? I know, I know. However, to get table time with my Chaos Warriors, they need opposition, so I started picking up models last year. This is another of those old armies I've always fancied but couldn't face painting due to the numbers required but somehow here we are, with a Orcs & Goblins battalion box assembled over the break between Christmas and New Year. I'm an idiot.

 

And a work-in-progress on my first test model! 

 

New Recruit (https://www.newrecruit.eu/app), has fast become my favourite army list builder, and I used it to write up a basic list based on the Orcs & Goblins battalion box. It's not a legal force yet but it's helpful to gauge the mix of models I'll need to add through the year to round out the force. My interest is rule of cool rather than whatever the current tournament meta is, as I play infrequently enough to make that a non-requirement.

Speaking of cool, I also have the awesome shaman sculpted by Brian Nelson.

 

(Not my paintjob, but the first reference photo I could find) 

 # ++ Main Force ++ [706 pts]
## Characters [65 pts]
Orc Weirdboy [65 pts]: Hand Weapon, General, Wizard Level 1, Battle Magic

## Core [461 pts]
Goblin Mobs [117 pts]:
• 20x Goblin [5 pts]: Hand Weapon, Thrusting Spear [1 pts], Shield, Light Armour [1 pts]
• 1x Boss [7 pts]
• 1x Standard Bearer [5 pts]
• 1x Musician [5 pts]
Goblin Mobs [117 pts]:
• 20x Goblin [5 pts]: Hand Weapon, Shortbow [1 pts], Light Armour [1 pts]
• 1x Boss [7 pts]
• 1x Standard Bearer [5 pts]
• 1x Musician [5 pts]
Orc Mobs [227 pts]: Boss [7 pts], Musician [5 pts]
• 30x Orc Boy [7 pts]: Hand Weapon, Light Armour, Big Un's [2 pts]
  Standard Bearer [5 pts] (Magic Standard)

## Special [180 pts]
Orc Boar Chariots [90 pts]:
• 1x Orc Boar Chariot [90 pts]: 2x Orc Crew (Hand Weapon, Cavalry Spear), 2x War Boar (Tusks)
Orc Boar Chariots [90 pts]:
• 1x Orc Boar Chariot [90 pts]: 2x Orc Crew (Hand Weapon, Cavalry Spear), 2x War Boar (Tusks)

Wardancers, Wood Elves

I don't elf as a rule. I can Eldar, but that's totally different because they're from space. However, this year on a Secret Santa, I drew a name of someone who is very much into elves, figuratively speaking. Trying to determine what people have and don't have on their armies, and what you can add as a guest painter, is a challenge.

Unsurprisingly, there's quite a bit of green present. I added a few different hues for variety, but the palette is essentially green, blue and a little yellow.

There's a little elephant in the room, or rather a normal elf among the dancing lads. Trying to track down the original wardancers was a real pain, but I wanted a selection of older, metal models and found this beauty from the very early elf range in 1987.

While I enjoyed the challenge of trying to paint it in a more modern fashion, the sculpt itself will not be remembered fondly in time. The hands and feet are oversized, the sword lacks definition, and the face and hair are awkward. But it's another of those projects where it's oaky to say "it's fine, we're done" and move on.

The sculptor? Jes Goodwin. I wonder if he ever did anything of note ...

King Diamond, Imperial Dwarf Commander

I've had a mighty need to paint a classic, oldhammer Imperial Dwarf for a few years. A mighty need. However, brushing through the cobwebs of nostalgia there's only actually couple that actually appeal as painting projects. This is one of two

The second challenge is how should it be painted, and why? I'm more mindful that painting projects don't always need to live in my display shelves, and if they can go somewhere to be loved, then maybe that's what should happen. A friend of mine is mad about old Warhammer dwarfs. His passion for oldhammer outstrips mine, so he felt like the natural recipient.

 

One error you might notice is there's a directional mismatch of the woodgrain front and back, so one to keep in mind for future projects, but my friend is a gracious fellow and I'm sure he won't grumble.

Matching to an existing army is always a challenge and moreso when my friend has opted for a quartered red and cream, AND already has this model! Here's the only shot I have of his troops by way of comparison.

 

 His is painted entirely in silvers with a brass rim to the shield, so I've opted to make this one a little brighter, and have a gold crown not silver then steel edging for the shield. Obviously the shield boss means I couldn't add a decal to match, but that shouldn't be a problem. Ignore the discrepancy in basing, as I've kept mine neutral and a boring square base as I suspect his army will move to The Old World very soon.

I'm pleased with this little fellow.

Slann Starmaster

A good friend of mine casually mentioned she had a Slann Starmaster just sitting around (lame pun intended), had no interest in painting it, and would anyone like it. "Yes please" said I, as after seeing the Marc Masclans one from Golden Demon (https://www.instagram.com/p/DQT6YVQDYvC/?img_index=1), realising it was pretty darned fantastic sculpt. I don't want to keep the beautiful frog, because it doesn't have a place in any of my collections, but painting it and giving it back to its rightful owner? Yes please to that.

 I remembered to take a couple of progress shots of the base build for a change.While the model's straight forward, the base was a head scratcher. I tried foam tiles at jaunty angles, but that didn't look right, so in the end I settled on larger foam blocks covered in texture, then carved lines in with a knife and blunt pencil.

 

Zombicide: Black Plague more heroes

And so, more heroes it is, and this time it's Beauregard, Cul'nar, Gurbak, Dravog, Brickborn, and Hildir. One hour each ... yes, the witch and goat count as one.

Less of a plan specifically, but more of a play with picking out an item of interest on each model and spending time on that to sell the effect at tabletop. I think a few of those elements are clear, with Dravog and Brickborn on the front row being the most obvious, whereas the other sculpts it wasn't as easy to find that one detail to jump out. However, another six down and more options for us on the table over Christmas when the games come out.

 

A small lapse in posting over the last few weeks, as I've been head down on projects for secret santas and found myself with no pretty things to post and share. Hopefully normal service should resume again!

A Story of Two Nevilles

 Or "How It Started vs How It's Going".

This is a fantastic sculpt from the Turnip28 range (https://www.patreon.com/posts/turnip28-core-81080090). It's 3D printed, but to a high standard and is a wonderfully crisp. I had two, and thought it would be fun to two a clean version, a "before the war" if you will, and then a second in much worse condition.

I think the clean one is self-explanatory, it's a riff on the classic British Napoleonic infantry uniform, which is when Turnip28 is set in an alternative universe, but I've painted the bobbly headddress as a grapevine. The disheveled version is the same palette, but I've used browns, greens and greys to make it a little sadder. 

     

For the most part it's only a handful of paints; violet, vermillion, greenish white, Sahara yellow, coal black, goblin green and only a little black and white. I did a good amount of mixing to keep the palette harmonious.

A friend suggested building a small scene for them, and I can see 

Rökthane Toothcutter Schiltron

No, it's not a Norwegian prog metal band, it's a space dwarf. Specifically the Highlander special edition version from Ontos Games (https://ontosgames.co.uk/). I picked this up at Salute 2025 which had a Scottish theme, from bagpipes on the door, to a Highlander with sword as the show model. When I saw this on the Ontos stand, I knew it would be a fun project.

But how to paint it? My memory of old Warhammer Squats was red and yellow, so that would suffice. These aren't Squats though, so I took a few liberaties with a scheme, went with yellow power armour, red fabrics and the tartan hat and kilt. Ah, tartan ...

 ... tartan is Not Fun to paint in this scale. Sure, I made my life difficult by choosing a tartan with intricacy instead of maybe a simpler check pattern, but what's the fun otherwise? The final version is the third attempt, and very much "it'll do" at this point. Trying to recreate the intricacy of the pattern is HARD, and freehand of any variety isn't my cup of tea, but it's worthwhile to try these things and improve my brush control.

I have a few quibbles with the model. The first is the print quality. It's okay, and I know it was a show special, but I would have been much happier with a model without the whorls and striations. Second issue is the pose itself, specifically the weapons being tilted forward, whereas tilted slightly backward would have been better. Third is accessibility; as while the detail is great, getting the brush in places was a pain - a common challenge on digital sculpts. But it's not the end of the world and turned out fine anyway. I'd definitely consider other models in the range, as they're fun sculpts and I'd imagine the standard range doesn't suffer the same challenges.

 

Revisiting Old(ish) Friends

This is a piece from earlier in the year, and I took it to Fen Model Show (FMS) where I received a Silver in Standard. The consistent feedback from the judges was "fix the face". They used nicer, gentler and more useful words, but that was the upshot of the comments.

I very rarely return to a model, but this model was coming to Scale Model Challenge (SMC) in October, and I wanted to push a little further instead of throwing my hands up and saying "oh well, nothing I can do about it now" which has been my usual response over the years. Glad I did, as here's the before and after shots ...

 

It's now finished, and completed to a point where I'm happy for it to go into my display unit and remain there forever more. With hindsight, there's a lot more that could be done; higher value contrast on the robes, tidy up the headddress, add more detail into the flowers, improve the freehand, correct the lazy NMM on the jewellery etc. but it's better to take these learnings and goals across to other pieces.

 

I received a commended in Standard at SMC for it, which made me a little sad for four minutes until I saw the work that received medals and have resolved to improve my painting rather than assume an air of entitlement. There's so many fantastic painters out there, that if I want to have my work recognised then it simply needs to be better. Onward to 2026 and being a better painter!

Sir Gorgonz

Do you like mice? Do you like fantasy armour? Do you like non-metallic metal? Then you might be on the right blog post. This is the gloriously chubby Sir Gorgonz in the Dungeons & Mice range from Ennenne Studio (although their Instagram account is more useful) and was a model both a friend and I picked up as a little "paint off" for fun.

I wanted to work on improving my NMM. I've included three angles, as you can see how my interest waned on the project after puzzling out how I wanted the main two viewing angles to look. But the third view is a less interesting element anyway, and this isn't for competition, more to get back into the swing of things after not painting a lot in the past month.

 Very happy with the result, and it's probably my most convincing non-metallic effect to-date, albeit hasty in places. 

   

 Normally I forgot about work in progress shots, but for once I remembered! Happy days.

I started by trying to determine where I wanted the light to come from. Initially I was a little too high, and lost any interesting elements under the "beak" of the helmet. But it's a useful reference.

Blocking in with yellows and browns to see if it's about right. The helmet shape made it interesting to determine where brighter points would be. Puzzles are fun. Also, so is the word helmet.

Adding the light from the sword, and thinking about where it would glow on the yellow of the armour. Do I want the blade to be brighter at the top or bottom? I opted for the tip to make a point of interest to glow against the ground. Should blue glow make the yellow armour green, or would it just overpower the yellow?

Nearly there now, adding in a darker point between the glow and the armour. The separation between areas sells the effect much better.

Vashkor Drool

 Vashkor Drool. Yes, it's another ork but this sculpt had a name!

 Is it a good name? Certainly not, but it's fitting for that era of Ork where they just opted for daft names rather than overthinking the big angry name. Also, the sculptors were knocking these gems out every ten seconds, so you run out of the good names pretty quickly.

I'm trying to paint what matters on these sculpts, and so much is swallowed by shadow or recess that I've ignored those elements and tried to draw the eye to the elements that matter. Conversely, I made my life difficult by painting dark edges on the shoulder panels to add much needed depth ... why do I do this to myself?

The yellow's a little softer than the last Ork I painted, as I want some variety between them. It shouldn't feel uniform, more ragtag, and from my 2020 army project, they were definitely too consistent in colour. 

  

Overall I like this model, rough edges and all.

Ork Boss

I love orks. Imagine my surprise that I've not painted many in the last few years, or at least posted pictures of them! One in four years? I should hand in my Ork Appreciation Society membership card. Then again, after my Armies on Parade madness in 2020, it's probably not a surprise I subconsciously needed time away from them.

Anyway. It is now October, or Orktober to give it its rightful name, and that seems the right time to address that. This handsome fellow is firmly finished not perfect. The horns need something doing but I really like the aggressive contrast of pure black against the yellow so I will mull further before doing anything. We can agree the yellow is the star of the show and everything else is incidental.

  

Yes, I'm aware I've already started a number of posts on army projects this year and this was NOT in that list. It's okay! This is merely a temporary distraction while I procrastinate finishing pieces for Scale Model Challenge (https://www.scalemodelchallenge.com/) this coming weekend. Oh god, what have I done ...

Setting standards

Over the past year I've tied myself in knots overthinking painting of models, with my brain demanding that each one should be produced to the best of my ability but in reality that would see only a handful of models completed every year at most.

Ignoring the fact that perfection is unobtainable in painting, it seems unrealistic to set a standard for myself where I fail before even beginning! So I'm working harder to call a piece done, even if just for the time being, such as my Flower Queen (https://www.nerodine.com/2025/07/flower-queen-ii.html) which still needs further work.

Rather I'd prefer to have a lot tabletop projects done to a reasonable standard and finished not perfect. Reaching this realisation has not been an easy road, because my brain is wired to be stupid on matters like this. But I'll endeavour to be better at working around it, rather than being blocked by it.