Two one-hour speedpaints from the weekend when a friend visited and wanted to dust off the brushes after eight months of inactivity. We had fun with these and it's another two models completed to move my Ork army forward. Thinking about how to achieve table-ready models without overthinking is another tool in my kit that needs practice.
In the nostalgia era of Warhammer, there was the Ork Battlewagon. It was a ferocious vehicle, filled with spikes, muscle and awesome. It was the sort of vehicle that young Dave dreamed of owning, but the cost was prohibitive and I never did.
On a whim, I recently looked at the second-hand price for the old kit and was mortified that people wanted hundreds of pounds for one. Thankfully, the excellent 3D modeller Dr Spork (https://cults3d.com/en/design-collections/Doctor-Spork/sci-fi-vehicles) created a comparable version and I bought the STL and had a friend print it for me.
This is not the finest painting I'll do, but that was never the point. This is scratching a nostalgic itch with an over-the-top paint scheme and just having an afternoon of fun. I think Dr Spork has done a lovely job on modelling the parts, and it was straightforward to build. With hindsight I'd paint a lot of the parts prior to assembly just to make access easier, but even so it's done exactly what I wanted.
I have opinions on 3D models of current Warhammer kits (and other manufacturers). I think it's piracy. My view is considerably more lenient when it comes to long out of production models that are incredibly unlikely to ever be back in production, moreso when really I simply want to paint one as a whimsical project rather than people who I see passing it off as the original kit and trying to make money on eBay. This may suggest flexible morality hypocrisy on my part, but if you can walk into a shop and buy the kit right now, and opt to print your own version, then you're stealing.
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.
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.
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.
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 ...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
