Steelheart's Champions

Tricky project, this. I started with ambition to make super shiny gold NMM but my enthusiasm for the idea petered out by the time I'd finished the first couple of feet. Urgh. Motivation, right? But sometimes it's best to press on and just get the project done.

The result's fine. But it's ... fine. I was a little disappointed in myself I couldn't push on and do more, but a lesson for future projects. Finishing meant all three of my Shadespire warbands are now complete. That feels pretty good.

Shadespire: Ironskull's Boyz - Summary

So, wrapping up this project, as they're finally finished. This has been a long six or seven weeks since starting this project, but I feel reasonably happy with the outcome.

I've really struggled to come to grips with NMM, had a genuine moment of self-doubt about painting in general, but I'm out the other side and think I understand a few techniques better. That isn't to say it's reflected in all these figures, as half my learnings have come at the end when reviewing what I've done, but future projects will benefit from that experience.

My NMM steel for the weapons isn't consistently convincing, but I'll improve on the next project. The temptation to go back and correct some of the obvious errors like highlight positioning was enormous, but I want to keep moving forward, not going backward.

Colours came together just as I hoped. Faces worked well and as a unit they're visually distinct and different from all the other Ironskull factions I've seen painted up so far.

There are lessons in these figures from the work of excellent painters like Andy Wardle (NMM), David Soper (leather), Darren Latham (skin+faces) and the mysterious Kujo (glazing). The bad parts are all my learnings, and the good parts should probably be credited to them :)

Shadespire: Ironskull's Boyz - Bonekutta

Probably the best of the NMM steel examples, and I tried a darker armour colour here with harder contrast. Funnily enough, this was the first model finished too.

Shadespire: Ironskull's Boyz - Hakka

For a model with so little face, he's so malevolent. I enjoyed playing with the lighting on the rear of his armour with this one, and just wish I'd done better with the shoulder pads.

Shadespire: Ironskull's Boyz - Basha

My placement of highlights improved but still lots that can be done better next time.

Shadespire: Ironskull's Boyz - Gurzag Ironskull

I'm very happy with how the face and cloak turned out here, less so with the steel of the axe.

Shadespire: Ironskull's Boyz WIP #2

First attempt at the steel axe and now we're heading in the right direction ...

With the test model coming together well, it's time to bring the other three up to the same standard.

I want to try a few different approaches with the armour, so they won't all be identical in brightness or painting style. It took a little time to reconcile this with my usual approach of having everything the same, but painting NMM is new to me and I'm keen to try things to find what works best for me.

At this point that's most of the copper armour done, all the skin and leather so it's onto the weaponry. Lots of interesting shapes to deal with here, so plenty of opportunity to try and understand where the light catches. Here we go ...

2018 Goals

Not big on resolutions, but setting targets for the year is just dandy.

General

Quality

I want to lift the standards of my individual figure painting to the next level, again. The goal is still better use of colour theory, smoother layering and glazing and even improving simple accuracy on the basics. At most I will attend two painting courses in 2018 - one's already booked with Banshee (https://www.instagram.com/alfonso_giraldes_banshee/) and we'll see what the second will be.

Speed

Still hitting the #90MMC challenge. Can I produce a full figure in 90 minutes of painting? Combined with the pursuit of quality, I want to push my tabletop standard up and up.

Focus

Starting projects and seeing them through to completion, rather than adding more to-do piles onto the workbench. I want need projects ticked off the WIP list.

Armies on Parade

I plan to build a comically complex board for AoP this year for my Space Wolves. All the major parts are already ordered and it will hopefully be a labour of love through the first nine months of this year. Maybe.

Miniatures

Ironskull's Boyz [4]

My Shadespire faction of choice, and they're on the workbench at the moment. These will be the first goal to complete for this year. Despite making things more complicated by painting them all in non-metallic.

Hasslefree Miniatures [8]

Paint everything I picked up at Salute in 2016, including the Red Box Games figures - Bolverk the Bold, Howling Gorvhogguth, TradKarl plus Weird West Boudi, Harby, Rogue Drax, Blanche and Mystic Warrior Jen. These need to be completed before my Hasslefree Kickstarter goodies arrive.

Heresy Miniatures [4]

Finish everything I picked up at Salute in 2016. Brother Bude and the Ghoul King are the only ones left, but then I did find a couple of older demon dogs that need painting up as well ...

Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolves [41]

Paint up the whole Ironclaw Strike Force and wrap the rest of the Dark Imperium box at the same time. What have I done?

Guild Ball Morticians [3]

Complete the Season 1 & 2 roster with Vileswarm and Veteran Graves. So close to completion, I can taste it.

Guild Ball Fishermen [5]

Complete the Season 1 & 2 roster with alternate Shark, Corsair, Sakana, Jac and Tentacles.

Willy Miniatures [1]

Sportscasters. I finished the Ogre (let's call him Bob) last year and have the Vampire (who is definitely not Jim Johnson from Blood Bowl) and then that completes my homebrew Guild Ball NPC collection.

This sets my initial goals at 66 figures. I'm going to double down and aim to get these finished in the first six months of the year. Ouch. But if we don't set goals to stretch ourselves, how will we grow?

2017 Goals - End of Year Review

Well that year drifted by quickly, didn't it? The progress in the last six months from the original list written up at the beginning of 2017 hasn't been a pretty read for progress I'm afraid. But let's look at progress across the year.

The Bad

• Infamy [3] - No progress.
• Guild Ball Fishermen [5] - No progress.

Whoops. These just dropped down the list when new projects present themselves. I'd sorely love to wrap up the Guild Ball figures just to tick another one off the list.

The Inbetween

• Hasslefree Miniatures [12] - Completed 4.
• Heresy Miniatures [1] - Completed 2.
• Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolves [28] - Completed 9.
• Warhammer 40,000 Death Guard [16] - One test model done, but will pause this as I plan to swap to Word Bearers.
• Shadespire [4] - Started.
• Guild Ball Morticians [3] - Completed 1.
• Willy Miniatures [1] - Started the vampire, but not finished.

Hit and miss here. Some forward steps made but then a few steps back. Space Wolves were complicated by buying the Dark Imperium box set and Shadespire, so they've taken precedence. I did manage to complete the Inceptors, Ancient and five Wolves from the original box.

The Good

• Colony 87 - Completed all 9.
• Blood Rage - Completed 1 wolf.
• Conan - Completed 10 wolves.
• Zombicide: Black Plague - Completed 22 wolves.
• Terrain - 6 pieces from Crooked Dice, 3 containers from TTcombat, 3 armoured containers, 9 barrels, 12 crates from Games Workshop, and a few other odds and ends.
• Human Interface - Completed 3 characters.
• Arcworlde - Completed 1 Ork.
• The Walking Dead - Completed 1 zombie.

 A few really small projects were completed at the last minute (Human Interface, Arcworlde & The Walking Dead) which was nice to clear off the backlog. Small projects hanging around start to irk after a while, so these quick wins please me.

The Summary
The total number of distinct things completed, not including tiddlers like crates and barrels, is over 100. Which is honestly about 40-50 better than I thought it would be, despite my optimistic goals at the beginning of the year.

I'll think on what I want from 2018 before posting goals. Some quick ones come to mind, but let's make it a challenging one again too.

Shadespire: Ironskull's Boyz WIP #1

Picked up Shadespire a month after release when the positive reviews kept coming in. It really is a lightweight game and nice to have in the collection for when you want to play something for 40 minutes without too much thinking.

Fresh from learning how to do NMM at Andy Wardle's weekend workshop (https://nerodine.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/nmm-workshop-with-andy-wardle.html), I immediately decide I should be massively stupid and try to paint all four of the Orks with everything I've learned.

Colour palette is the same as my test piece from the workshop. Here's a shot of one basecoated and one with the mid-tone applied.

Same pairing again, but with the armour highlights starting to appear.

Getting closer to the desired effect ...

... but I realised a little more glazing was needed before coming back to undercoat the skin areas.

Skin basecoat goes on, and I was having a few wobbles about colour choices at this point - but we press on!

Here's the skin mostly completed, along with lightening the skin around the face. I started from Darren Latham's helpful tutorial (https://www.instagram.com/p/Bbw6lj9Fgk1/) but didn't want to push up as bright as he did. It's a good demonstration that not everything needs to start with one colour and end upwith a lighter version of the same colour. Also a reminder that Darren's a talented git.

Confidence was growing a little, so I used that mojo and came back to the other orks to get their faces and skin up to the same standard. Eyes and teeth still need work, but happy with how the big lad's milky eye in the middle of the scar is looking.

I think the confidence to post a picture of this size for something that small is, for me, a step forward in how I view my progression.

Haven't touched these in over a week now, as I've been rearranging my geek pit (more on that in another post) but with time away I can see that my shadows on the skin need to be deeper to push up the difference from the pinker tones. Green or purple will be introduced as the shade as red would bring it too close to the armour colours.

Still need to come back and add more shadow to the armour, but that's deliberate as I need the skin finished first to determine how much verdigris is appropriate. Had forgotten how useful posting up WIP work is, and gives me an opportunity to think through my progress before carrying on.

The Orks are pretty much head to toe in armour and/or weaponry so this is taking longer than I thought but happy with the progress so far.