Month: December 2019

Wrapping Up 2019

All right, one final post to finish the year. Let’s look at what I managed to paint during 2019!

Above you can see the tally (apologies for the photo quality, my setup still isn’t ideal for big group shots). When they’re all brought out like this it.. Doesn’t actually look like much. But I’m very happy with each and every one of them, and with space (and wife’s tolerance) being a limited commodity I think my output has been just right!

All in all, I finished 57 models, which was about the same as last year, and more than a model per week on average, which was my target at the beginning of the year. Here’s a list of all the models and links to their corresponding showcase posts:

So yeah, not too shabby. During the past year I’ve embarked on a number of new (slow-grow) projects, such as the Astra Rodentia and Orks. I’ve also continued adding to older ones, such as my Revelators Space Marines, Underworlds warbands and working on the AoS 1st edition starter set. I’ve upped my weathering game and dabbled on more complex freehand designs than last year. I got to say that painting various projects with different color schemes and mixing things up with new techniques definitely helps to keep things fresh and motivating.

Speaking of motivation, there were/are two bloggers that deserve much credit for influencing me to pick the projects that I did and actually getting them done in a timely fashion! One is of course Azazel with his monthly hobby challenges. I did have a little time management mishap and missed one month’s deadline, but for the other 11 I got at least one miniature done.

The other blogger is Rob Hawkins, whose hobby bingo card has been a fun additional game on top of finishing models. Below you can see my finished card for the year. After finishing my last miniature of 2019 I looked at the card and noticed that I had painted some models that hadn’t been used for the card even though they could’ve been. I used the two SCE squads to cross off two additional squares, but even with that I couldn’t get a bingo. No matter though, I’ll try again next year with a little more ambition, and try to get at least that one bingo!

Of course, there’s still one more blogger that I shouldn’t forget when it comes to motivation: me! I started the blog this January, and actually have hard time believing I’ve gotten it this far. Sharing my work here and getting amazing feedback from you guys has pushed me to paint and finish stuff much more consistently than I otherwise would. So thank you, reader, for taking a look and commenting!

Going forward, I don’t think I can keep up the “almost weekly” post schedule for too much longer. This year, pretty much half of my posts have been showcasing my older work from 2017-18, and even my teens. While I still have some of those left, I won’t have many “padding” posts to put in between new finished models. Most likely my posting will just get more sporadic, but we’ll see how it goes in time..

And that’s it for 2019! Here’s hoping for an even better 2020! I already have some great models in the queue and many plans in my head, hopefully I’ll have enough time to transform many of those into finished minis!

Nurgle Lord of Plagues; PSA

Today I get to show a model which I’ve wanted in my collection for a long time: the Lord of Plagues. As he’s a bit of a bucket list model, I’m also entering him in Azazel’s Destino December challenge.

I bought the model last month after a pretty insane work week, deciding I had earned something nice 🙂 The Lord was on stock in my FLGS, and as the price isn’t as extortionate as GW’s more recent character models I picked him up. I know this model is often used for all sorts of cool (INQ28) conversions, but as the basic model is so close to perfect I wanted this one to remain in stock form. I did however build him a bit more elaborate base to make him stand out a bit more.

As this model was bought purely for painting and not for an existing army, I thought it would be a good platform to try out some new things. Firstly, the model got a zenithal undercoating, which was a first for me. I can’t really tell if it has a lot of effect on the finished model, as I might have still painted with too thick paint, but it certainly helped me to position shadows and highlights more easily. It’s definitely something that I want to come back to in the future though.

Secondly, rather than trying to paint the armor smoothly, I wanted to use stippling both for easier color transitions and to give an impression of the armor being pitted and banged up, which I think work well as there is already quite a lot of sculpted damage to begin with. There’s still room for improvement in my stippling, but I’m pretty happy with the light-to-dark contrast that I achieved.

For the paint scheme I wanted to do something a bit different from the default green. I had seen Andrew King’s rather wonderful blue Nurgle army in White Dwarf, and decided to try something like that. Andrew used Thunderhawk Blue as the basecolor for his armor, but as my local shop doesn’t stock it I used Stegadon Scale Green. The color was a bit more green than I’d have liked, but glazing some Guilliman Blue on top worked out well to correct this.

To complement the colder blue tones of the armor I wanted the base to have warm red dirt on it. Happily, WHTV recently published a tutorial on the new Underworlds Goblin Riders. I used the basing recipe (with some alterations) in it and got a really nice result. Some weathering powders could probably take it to the next level, but I’ll leave experimenting with those for another time.

I’m using this model to claim a square in the hobby bingo: paint a model from an army you don’t already collect. Now, while I don’t expect him to grow into an army anytime soon, I might just get some Plague Bearers for him to broodingly watch over. Or maybe his little brother, the Lord of Blights!

And with that, my 2019 hobby year is pretty much over. I might try to sneak in a bit of building before the new year, but definitely wont be finishing anything. I still want to do a wrap-up post for the year, but in case I don’t get it up before Christmas Eve, happy holidays to everyone!

Lastly, a small service announcement. A couple of days ago Krautscientist pointed out to me that commenting had been switched off for a couple of my latest posts. This was not intentional, and I have no idea why it happened. It’s been fixed now, so if you want(ed) to comment on those recent projects please do!

From the Archives: Ork Dreadnought

So this is a bit of a special one: the last model that I got before dropping the hobby in my teens. And it was a Christmas present too, so it always bothered me a bit that I didn’t finish it. But here it is, in its finished glory, an Ork Dreadnought (yes, from time before Deff Dreads)!

The Dread was completed a year ago for Azazel’s mechanically themed November challenge. It was basically a full build too, as I had hardly started working on it all those years ago. The first thing to do was to make a base as the box didn’t come with one. As you might be able to tell, I used cork and tied to replicate the old Space Marine Dreadnought base design. I did add a couple of details like the tank trap bit and the Ork helmet to add some flair of my own.

After the base was done it was on to the Dreadnought itself. I could instantly remember why I didn’t finish this model: this is a metal model and basically none of the parts fit each other without a lot of filing. I think I spent 2-3 days just fitting and pinning the model together. While I was at it, I magnetized the big shoota so that I could swap it for a rokkit launcha in the future. The burna is glued on as usual due to it’s more difficult position.

Then I had to decide on a paint scheme. I kind of wanted an orange scheme, but painting the whole thing orange would’ve been too much, and I couldn’t come up with anything else that I would’ve been happy with. In the end I decided to try and replicate the box art scheme, which is a kind of first since my teens, and I’m happy that I did since the scheme is awesome, and was very fun to paint! There is absolutely no “standard” edge highlighting on this model, all the edges are defined by sponging or drybrushing. Freehanding the skull design on the front was a great exercise, and I found a pretty good way of painting dark (coated?) metal that’s common in real world guns.

So yeah, this project was a fun one! I think the design of this Dreadnought has held up really well, maybe I’ll get some plastic Killa Kans to accompany it. Some day..