Stormcast

This was painted a little before my other, recent models, but is a favourite of mine. I started it by watching Craftworld Studio's tutorial for Imperial Fist Space Marines (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLXzdAke86Y) but wanted to push the yellow to a gold NMM effect.

Following a bit of advice from the excellent Craftworld duo, I've ended up with an effect I was really happy with and a lot more colour than I've traditionally been comfortable with.

On the base, I tried to create an effect where the ground is coming back to life as the Stormcast walks across it. The edges are the same colours, but very desaturated and bleak to emphasise this.

The Cauldron Warband

Fenris Games make some lovely, crunchy, oldschool sculpts. Their last Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thecauldronwarband/fenris-games-the-cauldron-warband/description) was a fine example of this. Really digging that Realm of Chaos, late 80s vibe and was compelled to back it.

I wanted to inject a little more colour and less uniformity, as it's often my downfall when painting.

Definitely quick rather than precise, but it was fun trying to mix all the colours from just magenta, blue, yellow and white. Happy with the result, which is colourful, yet miserable.

Hinrich Rottgard

Mixed feelings on this fellow. I didn't enjoy painting the robes on the rear, and feel it shows that I rushed it.

Kopron the Razor

The metals were painted as a greyscale, then I introduced all the colours from elsewhere on the model to liven them up.

Putriss Aranica

Trying to paint a bright rust was good fun. Some texture added into the robes just to break up the surfaces. Face detail is almost irrelevant under the big old pointy hat.

Maldred Plaguebringer

The first one painted, and colour-wise definitel the most linear on transitions.

Annuvin The Watcher

My favourite sculpt and paint job. The bird as a bluish light source, contrasts with the yellow lights on the opposite side, and then some gentle glow on the face added because I could.

The Summoning

This was a fun experiment. A friend supports Titan Forge's Patreon and printed the djinn for me. I was going to paint it as a standalone model, when my daughter suggested it should have something else there - so I added a figure from the Hasslefree range to help the narrative.

To tie them together, I've used the same colour on the fabrics and jewellery, and the pink glow from the summoning stone runs through the floor, underside of the djinn and the summoner's eyes. Tricky to photograph and I think lacking a "golden angle" so that's something for me to work on in future projects.

Other areas to improve on - adding texture to fabric. Missed opportunity here. But having multiple light sources balanced against ambient light was an interesting test. Some good areas, some not so good. But heading in the right direction.

Salamander

Playing with huge light sources, and wanted to try a bright blue light as a test for another project I'm working on. Pulled out a test Primaris to see if it was feasible. Then I wanted to add environmental lighting, too, then it all got VERY COMPLEX and I realised I had to paint green to make it work.

So here's an accidental Salamander!

Everything painted from the three primaries and just mixed up a bit.

And if you're interested in how these projects come together, here's some WIP shots where I tried to determine position of shadows, volumes etc.

 

Howling Griffon

We should catch up on a few of my recent projects, because I have been painting as my mechanism of handling stress and frustration, as apparently screaming into the void isn't actually an option.

So here's a simple challenge. Pick a chapter. Paint a chapter. In one evening. So I set the target of putting the brush down at two hours.

I'd never painted a Howling Griffon, and always liked the quartered scheme but was never brave enough to try it. Until now!

To keep colour interest, I've tried shading red with blue, and yellow with purple. I didn't want a vibrant yellow, more a beaten, war-torn yellow.

Hello, brave new world

Hello, old friend.

Glad I paused when I did at the end of 2019, as this year has been a rough, tough one and not given me much breathing space.

A dumpster fire of a calendar year, frankly, sucking the oxygen of happiness out my lungs. But all being well, that's behind me now.

But now, yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back.

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.