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.

Gundam: Tallgeese

The second and final robot from my 28mm Gundam experiment. Apparently it's called Tallgeese, which is upsetting to the grammar pedant in me, as I desperately want to capitalise Geese, but alas I cannot.

Quite a different approach on this one, as I tried to think of it like any other model I'd want to paint. I've tried to be loose at the edges, and make clear edging and recess shading toward the head and shoulders to draw in focus. There's a lot of magenta, blue, off-whites and a bit of ochre and yellow to create an interesting triangle of different shades between head, gun and shield.

 

 Fun to do, but happy to finish the second one and get back to other models now. Definitely a game to watch out for when they release the ruleset.

Gundam: Zaku

A friend turned up on Saturday bearing several boxes of intrigue. 

Bandai have decided to go after the 28mm market with a range of smaller sculpts of their larger models with the Gundam Assemble range. They're not modular and clip together in a straightforward fashion, which is welcome, and the mold lines are straightforward to remove.

Have I mentioned I'm not a big Gundam fan? But the Zaku is a fun looking robot, I just think they're absurdly large as a painting project, so having them in smaller forms is quite welcome.

This is a very quick and simple paintjob. That's Slimer Green as a base with Ice Yellow highlight, and think it's a Dark Sea Blue equivalent for the shading. Then a Payne's Grey pin wash for panel lining and bit of extra shading here and there.

The metallic areas were done as NMM with a base of Tenebrous Grey, then Greenish White for mixing and final highlights. That's it really. I think in total this was under two hours, and more really me playing with using the airbrush in my painting workflow rather than a serious attempt to make something super pretty.

 

 

If you made it all the way down here ... I'm painting a second one too, but won't be sticking with the traditional clean scheme for that robot. That'll be next week's fun reveal!

Zombicide: Black Plague heroes ride again

 Oh yes, we're back with more. Sorry. From left to right it's Redcap Rodney, Antha, Lady Grimm, Ariane and Persephone.

Antha, Rodney and Grimm are from the Marc Simonetti range, and Ariane is just a generic character from the Wolfsburg expansion. Persephone is from the Carl Critchlow range. 

Everything here is a one hour speedpaint, apart from the axe on Redcap Rodney which was me trying to create an effective NMM that can be used quickly. You can see the lessons learned from that on Persephone on the right hand side as I've tried to be high contrast without any technique.

 

Are they well painted? No, I'd say it's a reasonable tabletop quality which is fine when working through a large set of models that just need to look fine on the table. I have tried to focus on features that will make them interesting to look at. So weapons and armour on the front three, and upper clothing on the back two. Everything else is very, very quickly painted. Making these decisions at the beginning helps to speed up the process, and I'm being more effective.

A footnote. I forget on a regular basis which platforms I've posted pictures to. These models were finished a fortnight ago, and I posted them on Bluesky and didn't do it here or Instagram, or other platforms. I'm not a daft chap, but it's the pleasure of the painting that has me in the hobby, not the need to post online for clicks. I just enjoy sharing my work ... when I remember! 

Chaos Basing

Holiday season has been a pleasant slowdown from painting in the last few weeks. As a small filler post while I'm finishing up a few things, I thought documenting what I'd done on the basing for my Warriors of Chaos.

In the past I've had a tendency to overcomplicate life and come up with weird and wonderful schemes, so on the current armies I'm keeping it simple (stupid) to not get in my own way. In the previous post I mentioned that it's a few pieces of cork as rocks, some gravel and tiny stones, then sand atop everything. 

Here's what the basing materials and early stages look like. Cork and slate are superglued in place first and usually a tactical position to cover basing holes, or create resting points for feet and weaponry. Then liberal application of PVA across the rest of the base, a sprinkle of the heavy gravel, then the lighter gravel, tapping back out into the box each time so any loose material is saved for later, and finally the sand over everything.

The ballast fixer is great, but I can't stress enough how awful it smells. It's fine on one model, but when you're basing 80+ models at the same time, it's a powerful odour and I was happy to leave these out in the garden for a day to avoid the worst of the smell.

 Google have added a potentially interesting feature to Blogger, where it will auto-generate search links for useful terms. I tried it on my previous post, but the decision making, and therefore quality of links is poor. I don't think anyone wants to search for blue, for example, but the link to NMM is excellent. It could have utility in the future, just not yet for me.

Warriors of Chaos: Marlockt Beastface

So, it's time to share the test model - Marlockt Beastface.

He's done with NMM but I think that needs to change on the next model as it doesn't quite suit the feel of what the army should be; which is encapsulating that late 80s feel for how things were painted. Loath to repaint him at the moment, so next test model will be the starting point and then I can make a comparison between them. 

The freehand on the shield is a bit wonky, but captures the late 80s vibe I'd like and doesn't feel especially polished, which is fine for me.

  

The model is metal primer (yes it's oldhammer), black primer for grip, white ink over the top of that for general volume and light, magenta on top of that (bear with me), blue in the shadow areas to create a more purple tone, then layer up the colours quickly atop that. Sounds arduous but it works well enough en masse, so I'm hoping it'll speed the project up long term. Even if right now I'm thinking "Dave, you're an idiot".

Basing is simple. It's a few pieces of cork as rocks, some gravel and tiny stones, then sand atop everything. Left to dry overnight then a ballast fixer applied to make it rock hard. But maaaaan that stuff smells AWFUL. Leave it outside if you can because it's stinky. After that, just a couple of earthy tones on the base and job done.

Warriors of Chaos

Starting one army and focusing on that would be perfectly sensible, so ... that's not happening. I'm also going to dive into the The Old World too.

I saw there's a fantastic challenge running on this blog (https://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com) and realised this is the structure I've been missing from a lot of my projects. In my rush to demonstrate how clever I am by painting whole armies, I manage to actually achieve nothing but a series of half-painted or abandoned armies.

Their challenge feels a bit cluttered with so many participants, but I love looking at the results. For the second half of 2025 I'm going to follow along! I'll aim to paint a unit per month, starting with infantry. I've made headway in preparation and finally based my oldhammer metal collection.  

 

They're set up in units of 20, but I won't be painting them quite that fast! This is just to gauge the effect and how it looks en masse, and I adore them already. This will probably be plenty for the next 6-12 months I think, but there's more in the drawer - in desperate need of a paint strip and some pieces need fixing. No-one needs to see that though, it's quite boring.

In addition, I've created a unit filler for the four Chaos Gods to use in different sized units for variety and adding a more thematic approach. Khorne and Nurgle were easy enough to finish up but I need to decide how to enhance the Slaanesh and Tzeentch ones now. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The big challenge is sitting down to prime everything. It's going to take quite some time to go through everything and get it ready for painting. My silly brain also wants to ensure post-prime that everything is grouped up by Chaos God so I put the right colours on things. Well done brain, making my life significantly more complicated yet again.

It's Heresy, Brother ...

So now we're onto in-progress and upcoming projects. It's far less exciting at this stage now we've caught up on everything I've painted over the past year or so but it's going to get quicker in the coming months. Promise. Maybe ...

 With the previews on new Horus Heresy box and terminator armour, I was immediately smitten. Smit in full. Smited to 100%. The smooting was complete. Saturnine Terminator armour is a joyful throwback and I can't wait to paint up a few, it's a sculpt that definitely encourages opinion but that's fine - you enjoy your hobby, I'll enjoy mine.

 

It's nice to get excited about new models being released, as it doesn't happen too often. However! There is a small matter of a) waiting for the box to arrive and b) deciding what legion to paint and c) building bloody everything.

It has to be one of the original legions though, not a successor chapter. I already have a lot of Space Wolves, so they're out. I paint a lot of yellow for my Orks, so no Imperial Fists. Dark Angels irk me, so they're out. Alpha Legion & Thousand Sons are pearlescent so that can fuck off. Iron Warriors & Iron Hands are metallic and of no interest, Blood Angels & Word Bearers are red and I have too much red. Sons of Horus are right nobheads, so they can do one. No to predominantly white armour, cheerio White Scars and World Eaters. I want a bit of grit and weathering, so that rules out Emperor's Children. I want to do a 40k Death Guard force, so they're out. Raven Guard would drive me mad from edge highlighting to show off the black. Night Lords kick cats, so they're out. I've got a LOT of green on the horizon for an Orc & Goblin army, so Salamanders are out too.

Hello, Ultramarines.

I'm as surprised as you.

I've always had them down as the full-fat wankers of Space Marines, but working my way through all the Horus Heresy books and currently on Know No Fear, and they're great. It doesn't hurt that Dan Abnett's no slouch at writing, and this novel appears to have avoided the curse of him picking a phrase to use and beating it to death through the book ("how's your choler, brother?"). It also helps that at the halfway point of the book, they're having the snot beaten out of them and I do love an underdog.

While the GW studio paintjobs, and a lot of the online community ones are a touch too clean cut for my liking, that can be solved with a more interesting paint job. I've been looking for schemes that have visual interest, a little character for each model, and shift in hues to make it more fun to paint. I came across this piece by Paul Dainton, I think, and in the shadow areas there's a touch of purple or magenta and boooooy I'm a sucker for magenta. The high-shine on the metallics works well too. The armour itself is still quite tidy though.

But then I came across this old post on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/p/C0jtaTNs10M/) and it captures the look I wanted from a Horus Heresy force, and for an army I was hoping to find reason to paint. The colours aren't quite there for me, but I think we can address that with the colours above, and it's a great starting point. I like the individuality of the markings, and a few of the embellishments, in particular the crests and flag. It says "we're a small, elite force, and we look fucking AWESOME" to me.

I'm not wild about the blue here, but it's the overall aesthetic he's achieved with this scheme that appeals. I'll have a think about adding richness (see: magenta) into this scheme for depth to complement the warm golds. With only a couple of days until the box arrives, the next step will be to dig out a test model and try the scheme to see what works and what needs adjustment.

Freeguild Marshall

 When I saw the Cities of Sigmar box released in 2023, I required it. I'd failed to connect with Age of Sigmar as a game because it lacked character for me. The main army of Stormcasts just lacked oomph and never appealed. Then I bought a Kruleboyz army and completely forgot about it (whoops) then picked these handsome fellows up.

 More to follow in time, but I started with the best model in the box. Swapped the standard head for one of the fancy helmets for the cavalry. Beyond that it's a case of trying to find the focal points then spending a little more time on those - face, sword, and gold plates on the leg.

I want this army to feel fancy and not downtrodden, but they're also on the edge of a horrible surprise ot find themselves in swampy environons. Possibly more suited to swampy orks ... 

  

Alchemite Warforger

 It started as a one-hour speed paint, but it was far too cool a model to leave at that. Glad I spent the extra time on it to improve everything. I wish more modern sculpts were like this - it has a ton of detail and yet remains reasonably uncluttered.