Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!
This year's miniature for the Golden Demon Master's Category has been announced and it is the Primaris Captain in Phobos Armour.
The choice was always going to be controversial (frankly, no matter what it was, that was always going to be the case, no matter the choice of miniature) but I approve of the choice. I like the Primaris miniatures on the whole, and this is one of the better ones. The Phobos armour is far more interesting than standard Primaris armour, without the huge blank pauldrons and grieves dominating the shape. There's cloth, an expressive face and and a nice mix of details and empty spaces. I like painting Space Marines (at least individually) and I'm looking forward to this one.
While I'm here, though, I thought it might be a good time to look back on my previous record in the Masters. Since the category was created, in 2017, I've entered them all, to ever diminishing levels of success! The miniature for 2017 was the Aeldari Farseer.
That year I was lucky enough to win a bronze demon trophy, to my eternal surprise. Unfortunately I couldn't really enjoy the moment. I had a really bad attack of gout that morning and I didn't have any meds on me. I thought I could tough it out but it got progressively worse during the day and, by the time I was invited up to the stage to collect my trophy, I was having trouble keeping vertical. It kind of took the shine off the day but, hell, I won bronze and I was over the moon!
In 2018, the miniature was a Stormcast Eternal Knight-Questor.
Unlike with the Farseer, I had no clear plan for a colour scheme for this miniature and I had a couple of goes to work out what I wanted. I think my work suffered for this lack of a clear vision and that is why the end result wasn't a complete success. I wasn't able to experiment with the look that I finally settled on, so had to carry develop the method of painting as I went along, which lead to a lot of going back over finished work as the process evolved during the painting. It also meant that the end result was a little rushed and nothing is really finished to the level I would have liked. In the end I was pleased enough to get a finalists pin for my efforts and I learnt a valuable lesson: don't try to experiment with new techniques for a competition piece like this- it's always best to use techniques or styles that you've practiced and become familiar with.
In 2019, the miniature chosen was the Idoneth Isharann Tidecaster.
This is a miniature that I really liked. An animated pose, with lots of details and interesting textured base. This time, also, I had a plan for a colour scheme. I'd looked at a lot of early 20th century sculpture in bronze and copper (what was obviously an influence on the design of the Idoneth miniatures) and wanted to recreate some of the colours from those sculptures. I wanted the cloak to look like ancient, faded silk and the armour to look like copper. I tackled the cloak early on and it took me way longer than I expected it to. There's many, many layers of nearly totally transparent layers of wash used to give the colours, and each of those has a highlight layer in between, to give the required sheen to the silk. And the placement of those highlights was a challenge as well, because I wanted to get the reflections as realistic as possible. All of this took time to get right meaning that, when it came time to do the copper armour I was running out of time. And, if getting the cloak right had been a challenge, he copper was much more so. Forgetting the lesson I'd learned last year, I tried to work it out as I went along, requiring numerous repaints. In the end I never did get it quite right and so the end result is not what I wanted. I was, however, very happy with other aspects of the miniature, the coral effect on some of her jewellery, the base, and her skintones. I was a little disappointed not to place at all in the competition (she didn't get so much as a single sticker on her card) but, never mind, them's the breaks.
So, here we are again. Now, I should point out that it's by no means certain that I'm going to make it to Warhammer Fest this year but I'm going to paint the miniature for the competition anyway, just in case I can make it. My target is to work my way back up the way I've come down and see if I can get myself a finalist pin (I'm hoping there's a new design of pin to go with the new trophy...) And this time I will pay heed to the lessons learned from before. Luckily, I know my way around painting Space Marines and I don't need to mess around with new techniques. It's simply a case of applying techniques I've used for many years and applying them in the best way I can. All I need to do is decide which chapter to do it...
Thanks for reading!
-Stu
*Anyone who has experienced gout will know I'm not exaggerating. That day has left me with a permanent limp and constant pain in my right foot that varies from feeling like I've just stubbed my toe to "Excuse me, sir, would you mind moving your aircraft carrier, you seem to have parked it on my foot."
This year's miniature for the Golden Demon Master's Category has been announced and it is the Primaris Captain in Phobos Armour.
While I'm here, though, I thought it might be a good time to look back on my previous record in the Masters. Since the category was created, in 2017, I've entered them all, to ever diminishing levels of success! The miniature for 2017 was the Aeldari Farseer.
That year I was lucky enough to win a bronze demon trophy, to my eternal surprise. Unfortunately I couldn't really enjoy the moment. I had a really bad attack of gout that morning and I didn't have any meds on me. I thought I could tough it out but it got progressively worse during the day and, by the time I was invited up to the stage to collect my trophy, I was having trouble keeping vertical. It kind of took the shine off the day but, hell, I won bronze and I was over the moon!
In 2018, the miniature was a Stormcast Eternal Knight-Questor.
Unlike with the Farseer, I had no clear plan for a colour scheme for this miniature and I had a couple of goes to work out what I wanted. I think my work suffered for this lack of a clear vision and that is why the end result wasn't a complete success. I wasn't able to experiment with the look that I finally settled on, so had to carry develop the method of painting as I went along, which lead to a lot of going back over finished work as the process evolved during the painting. It also meant that the end result was a little rushed and nothing is really finished to the level I would have liked. In the end I was pleased enough to get a finalists pin for my efforts and I learnt a valuable lesson: don't try to experiment with new techniques for a competition piece like this- it's always best to use techniques or styles that you've practiced and become familiar with.
In 2019, the miniature chosen was the Idoneth Isharann Tidecaster.
This is a miniature that I really liked. An animated pose, with lots of details and interesting textured base. This time, also, I had a plan for a colour scheme. I'd looked at a lot of early 20th century sculpture in bronze and copper (what was obviously an influence on the design of the Idoneth miniatures) and wanted to recreate some of the colours from those sculptures. I wanted the cloak to look like ancient, faded silk and the armour to look like copper. I tackled the cloak early on and it took me way longer than I expected it to. There's many, many layers of nearly totally transparent layers of wash used to give the colours, and each of those has a highlight layer in between, to give the required sheen to the silk. And the placement of those highlights was a challenge as well, because I wanted to get the reflections as realistic as possible. All of this took time to get right meaning that, when it came time to do the copper armour I was running out of time. And, if getting the cloak right had been a challenge, he copper was much more so. Forgetting the lesson I'd learned last year, I tried to work it out as I went along, requiring numerous repaints. In the end I never did get it quite right and so the end result is not what I wanted. I was, however, very happy with other aspects of the miniature, the coral effect on some of her jewellery, the base, and her skintones. I was a little disappointed not to place at all in the competition (she didn't get so much as a single sticker on her card) but, never mind, them's the breaks.
So, here we are again. Now, I should point out that it's by no means certain that I'm going to make it to Warhammer Fest this year but I'm going to paint the miniature for the competition anyway, just in case I can make it. My target is to work my way back up the way I've come down and see if I can get myself a finalist pin (I'm hoping there's a new design of pin to go with the new trophy...) And this time I will pay heed to the lessons learned from before. Luckily, I know my way around painting Space Marines and I don't need to mess around with new techniques. It's simply a case of applying techniques I've used for many years and applying them in the best way I can. All I need to do is decide which chapter to do it...
Thanks for reading!
-Stu
*Anyone who has experienced gout will know I'm not exaggerating. That day has left me with a permanent limp and constant pain in my right foot that varies from feeling like I've just stubbed my toe to "Excuse me, sir, would you mind moving your aircraft carrier, you seem to have parked it on my foot."
