Going Green

I've been pretty busy recently. The build up to May Bank Holiday in a tourist town is not good for my supply of free time. Doubly so this year, what with one thing and another. Nonetheless I've been trying to get in an hour to hobby time each night in a vain attempt to cling on to my sanity. As a result, I've actually been surprisingly productive.

What have I been doing? Well, I've started a new project:

That's right, I've returned to my Orks!

I've been ridiculously excited by the previews of their new book and model range, so I figured there's no better time to get stuck into them again. Plus I'm giving up smoking atm, so they're also a bit of a reward to myself for sticking with it. 

I know to more recent readers of this blog, it might seem a bit of an abrupt swerve in direction, but I've got quite a bit of history with Greenskins. Deathskulls were actually one of my first armies and the subject of my first ever post on this blog. Unfortunately though I sold off the army years ago, which means I'm starting again from scratch now. 

Not that I mind too much. In hindsight, my old Orks were painted absolutely terribly. I see this as a chance to do justice to them at last! 

Anyway, enough rambling. I've got that Battlewagon and these to be getting on with:

Most importantly of all, I needed to decide on a recipe for the skin. There's a ridiculous amount of different ideas out there, with each Ork player seemingly having their own. I went with something fairly simple though.

That's just Ork Flesh and Warp Lightning Contrast paints over Corax White, with a Skarsnik Green drybrush. Quick and simple, yet effective. It'll look a little darker once I've finished, but I think it should still pop nicely.

So yeah, that's what I've been up to. Hopefully I'll have some finished Orks to show you before too much longer. I've just got to keep doing what I can when I can.

Hopefully I'll be able to get some actual games in too now things are opening up again, but I'll have to see what happens. Until next time though, happy hobbying! 

Unexpected Fabius

I certainly didn't intend to go in this direction when I said I needed a bit of a pallet cleanser, but I seem to have painted Fabius Bile and his Vatborn minion in the space of about a day.

I'm not going to question it tbh. The ways of Chaos are best not understood. 

I like how he's turned out though and it's nice to have him done. I bought him way back when War of the Spider released last year and he's been gathering dust on a shelf ever since. I'd done a little bit of work on him, but not really anything beyond a few base colours. 

Then I finished work early last night, sat down at my hobby desk and just started messing around with him as the nearest model I had to hand. Next thing I knew, it was five hours later and he was sitting finished in front of me!

It's very odd how things like that happen sometimes. Let's hope I haven't used all my hobby mojo in one go though! 

Monster Progress!

I think I need to stop making hobby plans for when I'm holidays. After everything going spectacularly wrong when I was off in February, then not getting much of a chance to do much in March, I was looking forward to using my 12 days off last month to get some seriously hobby done.

Fate on the other hand, had a different ideas. My glasses broke the day before I was due to be off, leaving me with a two week wait for a new pair and being unable to work on anything. I'm starting to get the feeling that I'm cursed!

Anyway, after that delay, I'm starting to get back on track and actually got a substantial amount finished:

My first Keeper, Shys'ell the Magnificent, is finally complete. She's taken me far longer than I even want to think about tbh, but I'm ridiculously proud of how it's turned out. The insane amount of layers really paid off. 

There's also a magnetised shield for her that I need to paint up, but that can come later. I'm at the stage where I'm just happy not to be working on her any more!

Not that I didn't enjoy painting her, it's just possibly the longest I've ever spent working on a single model and I'm definitely ready to move onto other stuff. Luckily, I also managed to get my other big piece finished around the same time:

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I've been painting Morty for a friend alongside my Slaanesh stuff and to be honest I was a little surprised at how long it took me to get through him. I thought the Keepers would take me longer, but there's an insane amount of detail squeezed in there. 

I also really do love how he turned out though, to the point where I consider it one of the best pieces I've ever painted! My friend loves him too, which is even more important. I'm looking forward to having him stomp my poor Slaaneshi force into the ground with him in the near future!

I am feeling a little burned out on big monsters though, so I'm going to leave painting my second Keeper for a little while before coming back to it. Instead I'm going to focus on something completely different.  I have something in mind, but you'll have to watch this space to find out what it is. 

I'm also doing a non-wargaming painting commission for another friend, which I may or may not show on here. That will influence what I work on though. Whatever I choose will be reasonably small scale until that's finished. 

Quick Update

I've had a pretty productive week. The thought of Covid restrictions possibly lifting in the UK soon has really driven me on to try and get my Slaanesh stuff done. It'll be nice to finally be able to get a game with someone outside my support bubble! 

As a result, I've put in a fair amount of hours painting over the past few days and nearly completed my first Keeper:

I'm quite proud of how it's shaping up, even though it took absolutely ages to get the layers down on it. It's times like this when I can understand the attraction of buying an airbrush!

I just need to finish up the hair and paint up the cape and it'll be ready to go. I'm hoping to get it done this weekend. Then I've got the fun of doing the second one!

That's it for today though. I'll post more soon.

 Stay safe and happy hobbying! 

Monster Mash

Remember I mentioned in my last post about how I've had a really crap couple of months? Well things got even worse from there. Without going into too many details, I really needed to cheer myself up and had some birthday money burning a hole in my pocket, so I decided to break my self-imposed rules on hobby purchases and treat myself to some models.

Just a few 'little' bits. To be fair, it's stuff I've been wanting for ages and I needed the dopamine hit which comes with a plastic crack delivery! 

The Keeper of Secrets is a model I've been after ever since it came out. It's such a gorgeous sculpt, but I've just never gotten around to picking it up until now. I just hope that I can do it justice with my painting skills.

I got it assembled pretty quickly. I even started painting it:

I don't thinking I've done too badly for a couple of evening's worth of work. Still a long, long way to go though. 

I'm actually quite proud of how the layering on the back of the skirt is shaping up. It's looking a little rough atm, but it's heading in the right direction and it's not normally something I do well on a large scale. Even as I write this though, I'm coming to the horrible realisation that most of my hard work isn't going to be visible once I attach the outer cloak. Sad times. 

In between layers on that though, I've been working on something a little more... unusual:

I wanted my second Keeper to be a bit different to my first one, plus I wanted to create something which paid homage to the classic 80's Keeper, whilst still working in the modern game. Thus this abomination was born!

If someone had told me I'd be spending part of this lockdown sculpting thigh high boots on a sexy cow Deamon, I'd have laughed. Yet it seems I've reached that particular stage of craziness.

It was actually pretty simple to convert. Working from the AoS Ghorgon kit, most of it was created using my leftover bits from the 'proper' Keeper. I'd say that trimming the Keeper claws to fit over the existing wrist guards were the most complicated part of the process. That was more time intensive than hard to do though. 

The boots themselves were pretty easy to create. I just smoothed off the lower legs, attached a hoop of plasticard to form the top of the boot, then built up layers of Green Stuff and Liquid Green Stuff to form the rest of it. Fairly basic, but I think it looks effective. 

Looking at the photos, I might go back later and add some more bulk around the ankles, but I'll have a think about that. I've got a lot of work to do before I get around to painting it. 

Oh and finally, as if I didn't have enough big models to be working on right now, my mate's also asked me if I could paint Mortarion for him. Like a fool, I agreed!

I'm not entirely sure why I accepted the commission, especially as I've got three big models to work on already sitting on my painting desk. I guess I just wanted a different style of model to work on for when I want a break from painting Slaanesh stuff. The Keepers are going to require me to carefully build up many thin, smooth layers, whereas Morty lets me do something a bit more grimy and 'grimdark', as well as have fun painting a lovely sculpt which I'd never buy for myself. I may regret my madness, but so far it's been fun to do.

I've actually made some decent progress already:

It's not the best of photos. I'm still getting used to photographing big stuff in my light box, but it'll do for now. I'm going for a much grittier and down to earth colour scheme than I normally see him painted in. It's taking bloody ages and there's obviously a long way to go yet, but I'm happy with how he's shaping up so far. 

As you can imagine, pretty much all my hobby time right now is being poured into these three models. It may make for some very repetitive future updates, but at the rate I'm going, I should actually get through them reasonably quickly.

This ended up being a much longer post than expected, but that's not a bad thing. It just goes to show how much I can get done when I get bitten by the hobby bug!

 I'll post more soon. Until then, stay safe and happy hobbying! 

Knights and Daemons

It's a few days later than I planned, but I'm back with my promised progress post.

I had a pretty productive Birthday hobby session. I managed to get all the transfers down and finish off the squad which I wanted to get done. It took far longer than I expected, but I suppose that's what I get for doing custom heraldry for every unit in the army! 

Anyway, may I present Intercessor Squad Autereus of the Crowned Blade Brotherhood, Golden Knights chapter. Done and dusted:

I'm really quite proud of how these turned out. I'm enjoying really taking the time to put the love and care into the army which I feel they deserve. It was also a lot of fun working working out squad markings and the meaning of all the symbols in the context of the wider background of my Chapter. 

It does mean that my marines are turning into a far longer term project than I anticipated, but I don't mind. It really lets me indulge my inner world builder. 

I've decided that I need a project that's a bit more of 'quick hit' alongside it though, so I don't get too burnt out from my slow progress. Because of that, I decided to dust off my  Slaanesh Deamons and get them up to scratch. 

I shelved them originally because they were pretty terrible under 8th Edition and I was putting a lot of effort into an army which was losing every single game. I've always been a very casual player and not cared too much about that kind of thing, but it was still pretty demoralising. 

Fast forward to now though and apparently Slaanesh is pretty good under 9th. About damn time, in my book. Typically it happens just as we're not allowed to go out and game though!

Naturally I'm planning to be a hipster about the whole thing and point out that I was playing Slaanesh before it was cool. I can't really do that when my army is only half painted though. That brings me nicely back to my side project. 

I've decided to spend some time to finally finish up my deamons. I've actually gotten off to a pretty good start:

That's fifteen brought up to a standard I'm happy with, painted over the course of roughly 6-7 hours, split across a weekend. 

That's not too bad I'd say. At that rate, I reckon I could get the 60ish Deamonettes I own done in a month or so. Of course this is me we're talking about though, so it's likely to take longer than that due to my tendency to get distracted. My point is that it's a pretty quick scheme considering the amount of layers involved on the white skin. 

After that I'll need to buy some of the new kits, as my two Keepers of Secrets have been demoted to Deamon Princes due to size changes, plus I'm wanting Syll'eske and a Contorted Epitome. That's really not too much of an issue, considering how the new plastics are so gorgeous. It does, however mean that I'll be breaking my self imposed rule on not buying more models, but I've had such a crap couple of months, I can probably bend the rules a little. I reckon I deserve a treat to cheer myself up a little bit. Plus I've been tearing some pretty sizable chucks out of my backlog recently, which was the point of the exercise in the first place. 

Enough rambling though. I can definitely feel my hobby mojo starting to return and it's been great to get a decent sized post up for the first time in a while. I feel like I'm going to be quite productive in the next week or two. I've been wrong before, but watch this space. I should be back soon. 

Stay safe and happy hobbying! 

A long delayed post.

Life's been really rough over the past few weeks. Between work and a couple of other major things kicking off, the crap has felt like it just kept on coming on. I've managed to snatch a few moments of hobby to keep me sane, but I've had to choose between that and blogging, so apologies for my lack of posting. I hope you can understand. 

On a brighter note, considering I've only been able catch snatches of hobby time, I've actually been quite productive! 

This is what I got done in January:

 

Then this is from February, mostly over the last couple of days:

 

Not bad at all. Although not really the pace I wanted to start the year on, it's still a pretty good chunk of progress. 78 points if I'm counting correctly. I'm not counting the Marines until they've had their transfers applied, which should be happening tomorrow. Its my birthday you see, so with a severe lack of anything else to do atm, I'm treating myself to an uninterrupted day of hobby. I live such a wild life. 

 It's been really nice and quite therapeutic to get some stuff finished. I've got my fingers crossed that things are going to settle down a little now, so I can hopefully get back to a regular hobby and posting schedule. Despite it being my main way to relax, I actually find it really hard to settle down and paint when my stress levels are high, so it can be a little frustrating at times.

I'm looking forward to seeing what I can get done over the next couple of days, before I have to return to work after my holiday. Knowing me though, I'll get distracted by something else and I'll get very little done. We'll have to see. 

Harry Potter Progress

It's been an absolutely crazy couple of days for me. One thing after another's been going wrong. Luckily I had a chance to finish up some models before everything went to hell.

They didn't photograph as well as if have liked in my lightbox. The colours a bit bolder in person. They still look pretty decent though, so I can't really complain too much. 

I might redo Ginny at some point, as the varnish I used killed a lot of the subtler shading and highlights on her, but on the whole I'm happy with them. I particularly love how Luna turned out. 

It's actually quite refreshing to have a break from painting GW sculpts. The Knight Model Harry Potter range is a joy to work with too. I'm probably going to do a couple more of them before returning to working on GW stuff. My friend is making noises about having stuff for me to do with the Death Guard codex approaching, so I'm guessing my near future will be somewhat Nurgle-y! I'll have to see how I feel now I'm going back to work.

Stay safe guys and I'll be back soon.

Hitting the ground running in 2021

Happy New Year! 

I was going to write a really long end of year review post for 2020, but quite frankly last year is one which noone wants to look back on, much less relive in any detail. Instead I'm going to hit the ground running on the new year and hope things look up in 2021. Oh wait, we're back in Lockdown here in the UK. Never mind...

On a more positive note I've got a week off work and suddenly finding myself with nothing better to do, so I've spent it being pretty productive with attacking my backlog. It's gone pretty well so far:

I've managed to knock out four characters over the course of the first three days of the year. Really not a bad start at all. They've turned out pretty well, even if I say so myself. Mounted Legolas in particular was a joy to paint up. I've wanted that sculpt ever since I got into the game, so I was super happy when it cropped up on Made to Order at the end of last year. 

Lots of progress also means I had a chance to test out the lightbox which a friend very kindly bought me for Christmas, so you may see an uptick in the quality of photography on here once I've had a bit of a play around on with it.

Naturally the first photo I took was of something that didn't fit in the box:

That's everything I painted last year. I originally took the photo for the scrapped review post, but I still wanted to show it off.  That's 498 painting points across twelve months. Quite impressive I'm sure you'll agree. What's even more impressive though is the fact that I'm still in negative figures! Covid really hasn't been good for my self restraint on starting new projects. 

That's why the first part of this year is going to be spent trying to clear through my mighty backlog. If you saw my last post, you'll know that I've got plenty to keep me busy for a while.

Luckily I'm feeling really productive right now, so I'm going to channel that productivity into producing tangible results before that feeling fades again.

Currently on my work bench are this:

And these:

That's the Mirkwood Terrain I've been working on for my home board for a while now, then a couple of Harry Potter characters which I bought in my frenzy of impulse buying back in the summer. They should keep me busy for a while, whilst scratching my hobby itch in two very different ways.

I'll keep you updated on how I get on. 

He's making a list, he's checking it twice...

.. And thats the extent of the festive content on here. Bah humbug!

Seriously though, after talking about getting to grips with my backlog in my last post, I decided to do a mini audit of all the half completed projects I have strewn about:

That was my first mistake. As you can see it's huge!

To be fair, everything listed as Death Guard is for a friend who really doesn't care how long I take to paint his stuff, but it's still a pretty hefty list. 

It very much confirms how much of a hobby butterfly I am. It also shows how terrible I've been at finishing projects I start until recently. None of those are fresh in their box, they're all things i've started and then gotten distracted from!

Now the purpose of making this list isn't just to depress myself with my lack of productivity, although that is an unfortunate side effect. It forms a handy reference guide when I'm looking for something to paint. In theory, it means that no project becomes wholly forgotten. I can find something that needs doing and catches my interest at a particular moment, then go dig it out and work on it.

It's a simple enough theory at least. I've even made a start on it, with Saruman and some Ringwraiths on foot making it onto my painting handles this week:

I'd just like to take this opportunity to say that photographing mostly black models is a pain in the arse with my current setup! 

They didn't turn out too badly for a few evenings worth of work though. I didn't try anything too fancy with the Wraiths, as beyond scenario play, they're mostly going be used as dismounts. I did them mostly with Contrast apart from final highlighting and the metallics. 

 I did put a bit more effort in on the layering on Saruman's robes though. It didn't turn out as smoothly as I'd hoped, but looks decent enough. I picked him up on a whim a while back, partly because I absolutely love that particular sculpt, but he's also going to eventually be part of my Fantasy Fellowship/White Council. That's a while off yet with my current plans, but Its nice to have him done.

I'm not sure what I'll do next, but general productivity seems to have settled on me now, so that's always a good thing. Hopefully my manic work schedule between now and New Year doesn't chase that away!

Talking of which, this will probably be my last post before Christmas, so I'll take this opportunity now to say stay safe and have a Merry Christmas to you all. It's been a crazy year, but hopefully things will be looking up as we go into 2021.

Merry Christmas!