Kedaedon

 Another addition to my Chaos Warband. I like the half-skeletal pirate with axes aesthetic he brings.

Painting Checks

20 minute how-to for painting check patterns. I've picked an old goblin from the Avatar of War range to demonstrate it works reasonably well on a very small area. Plus I really need to start painting this guy ...

Prime the figure white.

I want to do a black and white effect on the sword and hat, so I'm going to start with a nearly black basecoat - mine's black with a little brown and purple added. It may seem wrong, but it's easier to tidy up my messy painting at the end using black instead of lots of white over black.

Stripes next. Using an off-white, I've painted these a little thicker for visibility than I would if pushing for a higher quality model. But hopefully you can see I've taken time to draw reasonably neat lines.

This is also the point where you can check your paint consistency. You want less water in the mix than you may think. It needs to be controllable, without running away from you - but not so thick you see marks in the paint. Practice your control.

I don't paint a full checkerboard pattern, because then you're left filling in tiny, unequal spaces. Bear with me again here!

Think of the stripes as creating rows. Let's create our first square. Top left corner of row one. To do this you should paint downward strokes from the top of the first row to the bottom of the first row. Don't try painting sideways, just turn your miniature round!

Now repeat the process across the whole row. Move to the second row and paint in the spaces you left behind. This gives you a clean edge on each square as you move down the rows.

Final touch of pure white along what will be the upper edge, just to add an edge highlight. It won't be very noticable, but it'll help.

It's a little scruffy and I need to tidy up. So now this is where the almost-black mix from the beginning comes back in. Same process again, but on black squares this time. As the final touch, add a line of pure black along the upper edge of each black square.

 

And that's it. You're done. Now I just need to complete the rest of the model ...

Detective Sayu

Cute character from Golem Miniatures that I picked up at Salute a few years ago. Wanted to play with lighting and the idea he's moving from an unlit area to somewhere better illuminated.

 

 

Ogre

A great sculpt from Banshee that I've had for a couple of years and wanted to paint, but wasn't sure how to approach until now.

House of Blades - Escher gang

 I started this gang a few months ago, and ended up pausing it in favour of other projects, and also there was no need for a Necromunda gang while we were in lockdown. But as part of my effort to clear the WIP projects before the new year, I wanted them finished.

It's a pleasing visual contrast to my more dour Enforcers, and I'm super happy with how they turned out.

Multipass

 These two character figures from Heresy Miniatures are wonderful and on purchasing them I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do.

The car was a find from an eBay seller who does resin vehicles and it's close enough to what I had in mind to work. The floor pattern is a roller from Greenstuff World and sci-fi enough to satisfy my needs.

 

Primaris Lieutenant Calsius

 I don't paint Ultramarines often. As a chapter they don't appeal. But this sculpt, as part of the Conquest subscription, was too nice to pass up. I like the "right, enough of this nonsense" pose as he steps forward.

Basing deliberately black as I plan to eBay this to help offset the hobby spend this year, and want it to be available to anyone to add to their army.

 

Armies on Parade 2020 finished

And so, here we are. The full army, finished. 

Total time spent was 120-130 hours. Many corners were cut, and if you have a good look up close, well some of it would benefit from a little more time. But you know what? I'm delighted with the outcome from a month of painting. It's a whole army on the table!