Ultramarine Captain

With Fen Model Show (https://fenmodelshow.co.uk/) last weekend, I thought it would be fun to paint a light-hearted entry to go alongside my main entry.

A friend had a few spare original Epic models and was kind enough to give me one of the Space Marine captains as a painting project. They're very small and trying to work out what the shapes are was sufficient challenge alone.

I drew stripes over the banner to give a feel of fabric. It's hard to gauge success of painting techniques on something this size, as I can't decide whether I should be assessing the impact close-up, as per the photographs, or from tabletop, when you need a microscope to see the damned thing.

While it didn't win anything, and I had no expectation it would, it was a fun one to have on the display.

 

Happy new year

 Here we are in 2024. We made it, well done.

2023 was probably the worst year of my life from both a personal and professional perspective. I won't dwell on the negatives, other than to say we're through it and I hope never to repeat the experiences, but it was a year where I was reminded how fortunate I am to be surrounded by so many wonderful people.

With that done, let's move onto the goals for this year ...

40k: Saim Hann Eldar

Yes, it's finally time to get these moving! After spending time in 2020 and 2021 collecting all the old metal Eldar, I started them in early 2022 then put it on hold in a fit of pique when GW released new plastics and suddenly everyone was excited by Eldar, and I sulked. Apparently I'm a grown man.

Kings of War: The Midden, Dwarfs

I spent a lot of time building these but painting halted and I'm excited to get round to finishing them. They are repetitive sculpts, but with a few donations from good friends I've mixed up a few elements to break up the monotony of the seven sculpts in the box. The fact you can field a legal unit of 20 with only 16 models, and don't remove a model from the unit, gives great scope for vignettes.

Age of Sigmar: Hammerhal Aqsha, Cities of Sigmar

I was enamoured with the release, and ... well, you know the story. Man buys box, man builds box, man stops and moves to another project.

I have other plans as well, but with far less structure currently. So let's start here and see where it takes us.

Ork Nob

This was painted across two evenings after coming back from SMC. It's not a coincidence that my enthusiasm for painting waxed after three invigorating days with thousands of fellow hobby enthusiasts. 

The interesting part of this is probably the shoulder pad. After a friend showed me an old ork artwork, I added some hieroglpyhs. The surface isn't big, and my painting isn't that precise, but it was fun to add and has given me ideas for other models in the future.

Biel-Tan Farseer & Weapons Platform

This was a Secret Santa on our hobby Discord. Trying to match the recipient's scheme was incredibly difficult. I only had two blurry pictures of models in a transport case to work from. Are they Biel Tan? Mymeara? Damnit. 

Educated guess took me toward Bien Tan, but I noticed my recipient had used more teal colour on cloaks, so I leaned into that, added some gold and yellow details and there we go.

Ogryn Slave Gang

 

 

 

 

 Well, they won't win beauty competitions any time soon but I really like these models. Another project that's been sat on the desk for months in a state of half-completion, and it was nice to see them finished. It's a slimmed down version of how I approached the Ogryn from my Golden Demon entry last year, and a much more tabletop level as a result - but it was fun.

 

 

 

 

Gildenstone

I kitbashed this last year and in various stages its sat on my painting desk as a work in progress. This year I aim to be better at finishing projects, and not starting new ventures while leaving a trail of unfinished things behind me.

This was a fast paint that only took months because of my procrastination. They're a sniper, but not a fancy super-clean assassin like often seen in Warhammer. This is someone who gets dirty in warfare

It's an Imperial Guard commander body, Adeptus Mechanicus arms and gun, and a Necromunda Palanite Enforcer.

Inquisitor Erasmus

 

 

 

 

 

 

The star of the warband. I went all out on the face and it was a bit of a blow to my enthusiasm when fitting it inside the hood and realising you only see half of what was painted clearly. But it was proof that if I put the effort in, I can achieve good results. There's a few little nods to the Blanche-era with the red and gold Inquisitor symbol and check-pattern scarf.

Delighted with how this turned out. Again, so many things I could change and improve with time, but it captured what I wanted. The chromed effect could be much better, and so should the red leather robe etc. etc. but that's fine. Writing this a few months later, already the improvements and mistakes are evident to me and the challenge will be learning from those on the next piece.

Ogryn

 

 

 

The muscle of the retinue. Such a great kit and sculpt to build and paint. Wanted to do more with this guy, but happy with the result. I think some of painting on this is the best across the project, alongisde the Inquisitor's face, and you can tell it was my favourite of the three.

Liquids arent't really supposed to be in the gloves, but rule of cool was used to create something more interesting to look at. It also offered up much needed contrast and brightness to offset the heavily chipped armour. It did mean I'd painted myself into a corner for the chest piece, as keeping the same colour liquids in there would have been too much - so purple and pink was used to give a little contrast.

The metals came out well, but then I let myself down by rushing the cabling and OSL on the back as time was against me. I think this counted against me when being looked at in a cabinet by judges, frankly. Overall better planning and timing is needed to make this work - I simply don't have the ability (yet) to dash out a project like this in a couple of weeks and receive anything in competition.

Eryos Slagmyst

 

One of the Inquisitor's retinue. Was really happy with how shiny the metallics were, and the liquids. Less happy with reds, but hey - learning and time I can fix that next year ...

Painting the canister so brightly was fun, but in hindsight it dominates the other colours and shouldn't be a focal point - the liquid should be where the eye is drawn to on the rear, not the overall object.

The gloves are my quiet success on this project. I worked hard to create a smooth effect with a lot of glazing, based on the style of Albert Moreto Font (https://www.instagram.com/albert.moreto.font/)  and would like to try more of this, as it wasn't as terrifying or long to do as I thought it would be.

Erasmus & Retinue

 

This was my Inquisitor warband for Golden Demon 2022. I'll post up a few individual shots in the coming days with a little more description around each in turn.

It's also my Plan B! was a late-in-day change of plan from my original idea - an Eldar Seer Council of classic metal sculpts, but I hit so many issues trying to paint them that it was abandoned after a few days trying to wrestle with the combination of metal and pock-marked sculpts. "Just fill it and sand it back" I hear you say, but a number of the glaring issues with the model were visible but not easy to correct to a competition standard. It was a little demoralising, but after a bit of time away from the desk, this was my refocus.

I love the Necromunda setting and opted to build out an oldschool style warband with the Inquisitor as the focus. The first draft plan was to have the Inquisitor, an apprentice then four or five henchmen but it was quickly apparently I was screwed on time and had a rethink on the characteristics that should be present.

It's an analogous paint scheme, with the ogryn in yellow, the henchman in orange and the Inquisitor in red. I've tried to incorporate lots of different textures in here, and pulled elements from each model into the next. So you have the liquids in the gloves of the ogryn mirrored in the canister on the back of the henchman. Leather on ogryn and Inquisitor, chromed metal on the Inquisitor and henchman ... you get the idea. It brings a little uniformity to a disparate group without making them overtly military and samey.

There's so much more I wanted to do with this, but for 60 hours over 25 days, I feel this is the best I've painted. The other figures are still sat on my WIP desk and will join the group over the coming months, albeit not to this standard.

This entry didn't receive anything. Not a commendation, not even a pin. I was genuinely disappointed by this, but the standard of the other entries in the same category was remarkably high and inspiring so it would be nice to go again in 2024 (I'm skipping the 2023 one) and push myself to do better. Already it's obvious to me how many elements need to be refined, improved or even just finished properly to lift the piece. That's a learning for the future on the next project, this one's done and will take pride of place on a display shelf to spur me on.

Howling Griffons Epic-scale tanks

In among painting up tanks as gifts, I painted these for myself. It's a little scruffy but it was just fun to scratch the itch for a more complex colour scheme. Never know exactly what to do with models at this scale once finished, as they won't see action on a tabletop, so they may end up as a little diorama in 2023.

 

Gemstones

I needed a scheme for painting gems on my Eldar. The easiest way to try it is on larger shapes that have a similar surface shape, and I had a couple of wraithguard heads sitting around. I was amused that the result ended up looking like anime eyes at this scale. Heh.

For the green version it was a basecoat of black, Pthalo Green base, bottom highlight was Pthalo Green/Slimer Green, Slimer Green, Slimer Green/Warm Yellow, white edge then Warm Yellow glaze, top highlight was Pale Blue,

For the blue it was Red/Pthalo Blue to make a purple, the Pthalo Blue and white for the brighter colours, and a little of the Pale Blue in the final highlights.

This approach gave me a useful idea quickly of how I wanted the colours to work against red and white.

Footnote for the Eldar purists. No, I know these aren't gemstones they're instrument clusters because they don't have a gemstone setting ring around them.

Legion of the Damned Epic-scale tanks

 

 

 A fun little side project painted for a friend's son just so he has a couple of Legion of the Damned tanks to smash into each other. Don't think I could face doing this colour scheme at normal 28mm scale as it would quickly highlight how poorly I've painted the flames!

Eldar Guardian squad

 That's the first squad completed. Glad I found the black backdrop as it really helps the colour show accurately, compared to my terrible efforts at white balance on a white backdrop.

There's a pleasing coherency to the group, and that's what I need to keep running through the next forty of them.

 

Eldar Trader

Another Rogue Trader classic, the trader. I wanted to paint it to tie with the normal Guardians, but give him a more cultured feel. What says "fancy" more than striped trousers? Added a little detail to the cuff and then we've opted for white and blue hair to match up with the helmets.

 

Taal Spellsinger

I do love a musician in a command group. This one was a lot of fun. Think at this point I've nailed the feel for the rank and file troops and they're starting to get a little faster.

 

Eoan Fireheart

 

 

Tinboy

The idea that Orks would construct an Eldar Guardian lookalike is just another reason to love that late 80s/early 90s fun element to the Warhammer universe. Such a daft idea, and a required part of any oldhammer army.

 They only made three models in this range - Eldar, Squat and Space Marine (https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tinboyz).

Avele Swifteye

Taken a while to nail down a scheme I was happy with, but finally starting to finish some of the core models for the new Eldar army. So now we should be moving forward a little quicker.

 

Eldar Guardian

 I have quite an ambitious project planned for 2022. This is the first test model to see how that goes. It isn't based, as it's going to a friend to join his army, but overall I'm happy with the colours as a first draft.

Things that will change. More oomph in the red required. Gems need more contrast so I'll be pushing the darker edges to really drive that home. Undecided on how to paint the weaponry, as I'd like to go metallics because there's so many weapons, and it will be quicker, but there's always the lure of NMM.

Very happy with the purples and blues in the shadow of the white. It gives me a nice colour and I want to do more of that. The boots had a recolour, as the original brown was much too red and conflicted with the armour, so swapping to something with blue is a better fit.

 More WIP shots this time.