Warhound

  

Through June there's a lovely challenge on Bluesky to paint something in the style of John Blanche as a way of celebrating his impact as the godfather of Warhammer art style. I already know a lot of people will reach for the "grimdark look", by which I mean painting a model in muted colours, adding a check pattern somewhere, then slathering weathering washes until it's a brown misery, but there's so much more to his work. Picking an appropriate piece as inspiration was difficult but I settled on this gem from my childhood.

Blanche's artwork was instrumental in my love of Warhammer, as it probably was for so many of us *coughs* around their late-forties and upwards. It was his bright, saturated pieces that first caught my eye and the glorious cover of White Dwarf 108 where Titans were presented is a fine example of that, and I feel oft overlooked.

I don't own an old Titan, but I am fortunate to have a Warhound, and painted it as a homage to that magazine cover, complete with Ultramarines captain in front. Blanche's use of reds and oranges was always pleasing to me, so I opted to make this a quartered scheme in the style of Howling Griffons so it can also double as a mascot for my son's upcoming 40k army. There's red, ochre, yellow, magenta and even blue in the scheme, with my old friend Ice Yellow as the final highlight for consistency across the colours.

I'm not very good at freehand (see exhibit A), but hopefully you can overlook the wonky cityscape and understand what I was trying to achieve here. It's a thin piece of plasticard, held upright with a lollipop stick glued to the rear. I tried a few effects to create the gradient but in the end it was as simple as spraying red, then spraying yellow in a gentle gradient over the top to create a fade. The towers are just a series of straight lines in one direction, then crossed at the top to create the shape, then filled in with a mid-grey. At the bottom, ochre creates the gentle fade to make it feel like dust kicking up in the background.

And finally a shot of the Warhound without a backdrop. I've hidden so many crimes over the years with weathering effects, and this is no exception. The sculpt on the feet is horrid! Either a miscast, or from damage, so I've disappeared it into the dust. Happy days.

Orc

This orc is a characterful sculpt from Ouroboros Miniatures (https://www.ouroborosminiatures.com/miniatures/), and a model I've wanted to paint for a few years since seeing a version by Arnau (https://www.instagram.com/arnau.lazaro/). The face is the fun part, with the upper torso really being there to stop the head from rolling around unsupported.

I tried to convey a narrative of uncertainty, or speculation, with our heroic greenskin hearing something behind him, and some sinister lighting creeping up behind him. 

This handsome fellow was painted as a gift for a friend.

Japanese Battle Frame Infantry Officers

When I bought these models, it was really the handsome front lad I wanted to paint, the others were a bonus but less interesting to me, as they lacked the cool helmet of the leader. The official painted versions had them in a drab WW2 scheme, which makes sense in terms of them being from the Konflict 47 range, where everything's browns and greens, but I thought it would be cool to paint them as a rose  gold armour. The Japanese are always living in the future, and I imagined their troops would be too.

I've tried a few new ideas on this vignette. Only the front model is painted fully, with the two behind only being 60-70% completed, so just broad volumes and no real definition with me trying to push the eye toward the model at the front and have the others feel "blurred" and slightly out of focus.

I put them on a dungeon tile from Fenris Games to make it look like a coastal scene, and both base and models are the same colour palette, with the only difference being a blue filter on the base to feel closer to the water colour, and introduce a green hue (with the blue over yellow).

Goblin Green basing

(credit: xkcd) 

I entered Olden Demon (https://oldendemon.com/painting-competition/) this year. It's one of the rare online competitions I have the best of intentions to enter every year and somehow miss the deadline every time.

When it comes to retro/oldschool miniature painting, there's a surprising number of tutorials for replicating the "magic" of Goblin Green. From the few I found, none quite did what I wanted so ... let the tutorials proliferate! Really I'm recording it for my own benefit as a reference in the future, but if it helps you too, then fantastic.

Here's the paints used: Vallejo Intermediate Green, Citadel Shade Biel-Tan Green, Citadel Moot Green & Vallejo Flat Yellow.

The result will be this:

You don't need step-by-step pictures because that would be insane, but I'll explain the steps.

• A layer of PVA applied to the base, covered in fine sand, andy left it to dry before removing excess sand to ensure good coverage.
• Tap off the excess and apply either a "wash" of thinned down PVA, or ballast fixer, to secure and harden the sand so it's more receptive to paint. Don't brush it on, tap with a generous amount on the brush and let capilliary action do the work, or you risk it being pulled off the base.
• Intermediate Green as (ahem) an intermediate green to act as a base and give uniformity of cover. Painting over black is an unpleasant experience when you want good coverage and this is a nice midpoint before going brighter.
• Biel-Tan Green wash to darken and ensure the recesses are addressed and just darken the Intermediate Green so it offers greater contrast to the next colours going on top.
• Citadel Moot Green is a great colour and if I was painting a whole army with basing, this is what I'd use without any mixing, but for a single model we can get a little closer by adding Flat Yellow to Moot Green. That's applied to the rim as a few even coats, and then as a gentle drybrush across the sand.
• Add more Flat Yellow to the mix, and repeat the gentle drybrush onto the sand. Then repeat again until you feel good about it.

 

Genestealer Magus with Las Pistol

The UK has been curiously warm for a week, so I put the painting aside and opted to complain about the heat instead. As the temperature dropped back to a reasonable level, I wanted to finish an entry for the splendid Olden Demon competition (https://oldendemon.com/), as it's run annually and every time I've had the best of intentions and the worst of time management.

This Magus is a model I fondly remember from, what I consider, the golden period of Warhammer. However, the question as to why he has a microphone is not something I ever want an answer to.

The paints used are Kimera Violet, Kimera Magenta, Kimera Ochre, Vallejo Ice Yellow, Vallejo Pale Blue, AK Tenebrous Grey and Vallejo Leather Brown.  

I have no expectations of winning anything, because I've rushed several elements and frankly even if I hadn't, a good number of the other entries are all significantly better than mine, but it's nice to finally enter the event and celebrate the older models I love so much.

The Barndoor Stickers

It's accidentally a Kev Adams sculpt month. There was no intention for my painting to work out in this order, but here's a bunch of goblins to follow last week's pig orcs.

These fun sculpts are courtesy of Old School Miniatures (https://www.oldschoolminiatures.co.uk/greenskin-regiments) and I bought and started them a couple of years ago, then stopped. Why? I've had them sat there for a while, but talked myself into a corner about doing the best I possibly could with them, but a  challenge of handsculpted models is some of the details simply aren't that crisp, with feet and hands often being a victim of this, but I was determined to do the best I could.

This was an exercise in getting over myself. In reality just painting them green and adding some colours to the less interesting elements such as shoes, feet, bags, pouches et al. On sculpts like this it's the head and hands that matter, with the odd detail here and there to pick out and celebrate.

It would be difficult to share palette, receipes etc. for this group, as I would simply pick a colour that looked appropriate and throw it at a few models until I felt it was good enough. No formulas or real planning and thinking to this section.

The classic red sun design on the banner is freehanded. It's a skill I need to practice more, and this was an ideal surface for that. The chromed shield on the warlord was a test piece showing a friend how to achieve a sky/earth chrome effect, and I just kept it there, despite it not fitting into the scheme of everything else.

 

 

Pig Orcs, The Swine Herd

These beauties are from Dragon Bait (https://www.dragon-bait-minis.com/) to accompany the Pig Orc Shaman I painted a few weeks ago. It's the same Zorn scheme for the models, albeit a different scheme for the bases as you can't achieve that green-blue hue with a limited palette. 

Here's a "warts and all" set of photographs of these beauties from the front and back. I've done it in order of my own personal preference as some were more successful than others, and honestly on some of them I did only the loosest painting for the unimportant areas. Small pouches? The mildest of highlights, if at all. Finger and toenails? A touch of grey and nothing more. Legs? Well, a bit of a skintone should suffice.

The focal points are head, chest and weapons and tightening the painting on those areas was really the goal for this project. I also aimed for a parody of Roman legionary shields as I felt it suited them, and created a touch of uniformity in an otherwise disparate group. Such characterful sculpts and an enormous amount of fun to paint them.

 

Nazgob, Orc Shaman

It's a classic sculpt, isn't it? Such a good one, and great to paint. It carriest the same weakness as all old sculpts which is the feet are horrid, so I've buried mine in lovely flowers.

Not a complicated paint for this. Same skintone as my Orc army with a little extra because he's a character model, and they deserve a little more effort.

• Skin. Dark Sea Blue. Moot Green. Greenish White, Ice Yellow and a little Sunny Skintone.
• Robes. Magenta. Ochre. Greenish White.
• Metal. Dark Sea Blue. Black. Greenish White. Moot Green. Magenta. 

 Most of my attention on this one went into the sword if I'm honest. While the magical bone staff is iconic, I wanted to play with adding more colour into my NMM but still retaining a shiny feel. This one has colour from the environment reflecting in the blade. The angles were quite gentle and I wanted to add more depth to them. While you can see the final version in the shots above, below is where I started and refined my way to.

 

Detective Apone, Robo Cop

He wasn't originally going to be a chrome dome you know, but I looked at the paints on the palette and thought "why not?" and here we are. With hindsight I'd probably swap the shirt and trouser colours round, rather than placing the similar colours of the chrome, shirt and badge next to each other, but when the mood takes you to paint a piece you have to go with it.

Again, I wanted to play with one idea - and here it's the NMM. Pusing myself to be more comfortable going quickly, not overthinking it, and achieving the desired effect without a whole evening of going back and forth. 

The base is an old one I painted a decade ago, and part of a larger set for a very long-term project I'm slowly building. Curiously, out of 80+ models I've set aside for this, this is the first one holding a weapon.