Happy Christmas/Saturnalia/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah/Solstice/Yule/Festivus

 Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

I hope you are all enjoying this most festive of days, in whatever way brings you the most seasonal joyfulness! In celebration of the season, I'd like to present the Red Gobbo, the special edition Christmas miniature from 2019. I decided to paint this jolly fellow at the last minute (last weekend, in fact) and rummaged in my boxes of miniatures to try and find it. I'd actually started assembling and priming it back when it first came out* and, after much rummaging, I managed to find all of it, except for the head. I put out an appeal for one on Facebook and (although I had a couple of leads) I knew there was no way I would get one in time to paint him for a Christmas blog post.

Then, a Christmas miracle!

Whilst rummaging through an entirely different box a couple of days later, looking for something else altogether, I found the head!** Huzzah! Unfortunately this meant I had very limited time remaining to get him painted, especially factoring in commission work, care home shifts and a streaming winter cold. Undaunted, I went for it...

And here he is, all finished! I will admit he's a bit rough and ready, but my primary concern was to get him finished, rather than to go for anything of a Golden Demon standard. And he doesn't look too bad, all things considered. I probably spent half as long on him as I would have normally done, so I'm happy with the result. (Also, quick question: what do you think of using the sepia background?*** Better than pure white?)

And, while we're showing off Red Gobbos, I can take the opportunity to show off this old relic, painted over 25 years ago. When Warhammer Community showed the 2021 Christmas miniature (another Red Gobbo model which is in my pile of shame...) they showed this fine fellow, the original Red gobbo, which I painted when it was originally released for Gorkamorka. It's one of my all-time favourite sculpts (a Brian Nelson classic) and also one of my favourite of my own paint jobs, so I was dead chuffed to see it feature so prominently in the WarCom article. 

So, that's it from me for 2022. My next post will be in the new year. I hope you all enjoy the rest of the festive season and that santa has brought you plenty of new toy soldiers to paint and play with. With any luck, by the time you are reading this, I'll have finished my Christmas Day shift in the care home and I'll be settling in to a well-deserved wee drinkie with The Better Half.

Thanks for reading, and HAPPY WHATEVERYOUCELEBRATE!!!

-Stu

p.s. if you like what I'm doing here, a click on the link below and the donation of the price of a pot of paint would be a wonderful gesture. I'm thinking of adding special stuff to the Ko-fi, like competitions and prize draws, so it'd be a good idea to at least have a look there now and then 😁 

*Meaning that this miniature has gone from assembly to paint in just three years! Something of a record in personal projects of mine...

**Mind you, it meant I completely forgot the other thing I was looking for. I still don't know what it was...

***I got it from here.

The 90's Called- They Want Their Miniatures Back...

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

As I've mentioned before, one of the best things about commission painting is that I get to paint miniatures that I otherwise wouldn't be able to, whether because of cost, availability, or rarity. These, I suspect, fit into all three categories. What we have here is a set of miniatures that was never meant to be released to the general public and are, therefore, as rare as the proverbial rocking horse doings. This is a set of metal miniatures designed specifically to look like plastic miniatures. Confused? All will be explained but first, a little background.

At the tail end of the 1980s, Games Workshop teamed up with MB Games to produce three boardgames, set in the Warhammer universes and containing plenty of Citadel miniatures: Heroquest, Space Crusade and Battle Masters. These games were hugely successful, getting GW into normal toy shops and introducing a whole new audience to the Warhammer backgrounds and games. Not for nothing did they become known as "gateway drugs" and many gamers of a certain generation cut their teeth on these accessible games. Many more used them to bolster their armies, as they made for a cheap* and plentiful supply of miniatures. 

Of the three, Space Crusade (or StarQuest as it was known in some countries) was the only one set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe and saw squads of Space Marines (with some very exotic weaponry) pitted against a variety of aliens and denizens of the warp, including the fearsome dreadnought.

Which brings us neatly onto the miniatures. This set of miniatures was featured on the box cover and inside White Dwarf (issue 132, according to the excellent Realm of Chaos 80s blog, where I found the image of the page) and was meant to show what you got inside the box. Except they weren't what you would get in the box. In a classic "contents may vary from illustrations" moment, the models that were so gloriously painted weren't the plastics from the set, but metal versions of them. Now, it has long been accepted that these were prototype models, made to test out poses for the sculptors to base the plastic sculpts upon but that's not actually the case. This set of miniatures were actually produced after the plastics, as the box covers needed to be put into production before the plastic models were ready for painting so metal versions were needed in order for there to be fully-painted pictures for the box art.** A similar thing happened when I was working on the Talisman 3rd edition sets- the plastics weren't ready in time to be featured on the card counters and box art, which is why the cards have those fantastic Wayne England character portraits on them and, if you look reeeeally closely at the pictures of the complete sets on the boxes and in White Dwarf you'll see some of the miniatures are metal ones sprayed grey...

So here we are with my versions.*** As you can see, I've stuck closely to the boxart schemes on some, and not so much on others. What is interesting to note is just how bad the production quality is on these, even for miniatures that are thirty years old. The mould lines were huge on some, to the point where I had to give up an accept that they were going to be there as I would have to hack off chunks of detail to get rid of them. And the fit of the weapons variants was appalling. If you look closely at the photos you can see few of the guns match up on the marines. The detail is also severely lacking. Hands aren't sculpted properly, details don't match from the back to the front (in fact, there's precious litle detailing on the backs of some). I did wonder if perhaps these were bad recasts but, on doing some investigations and looking at the photos of the originals, it's clear that the issues were there at the time. There's no doubt about it, these miniatures were never meant to go on general release.

None of that takes away from the fact that I had a blast doing these. They've been on my bucket list for quite some time and it was a real joy to have a go at them. Thanks very much to Richard Hale of Stuff of Legends for choosing me to paint these for him. I'm sorely tempted to break out my collection of Space Crusade plastics and get them painted up too. I'm pretty sure I've got one of each of the original set kicking around in a box somewhere. I could do the Heroquest and Battle Masters ones too, while I'm at it...

Thanks for reading!

Stu

p.s. if you like what I'm doing here, a click on the link below and the donation of the price of a pot of paint would be a wonderful gesture. I'm thinking of adding special stuff to the Ko-fi, like competitions and prize draws, so it'd be a good idea to at least have a look there now and then 😁 

*They were all around the £25 mark, which translates to around £65 in today's money, so still excellent value...

**Thanks very much to the legendary Mike McVey for confirming this to me a while back. 

***It's actually the second time I've painted the dradnought. The first one was to finish off a part-painted Mike McVey piece. You can find it here.

Botwar- Mercenaries, Heroes And A Tyrant

 Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

We're back with more Botwar this week, and it's a mix of good guys and bad guys. I don't have an awful lot to say about these that I haven't mentioned in previous Botwar posts, the only real difference being that these were a mixture of metal, plastic and resin miniatures and it's interesting to note that you really can't tell the difference when they are painted, which kind of knocks into a cocked hat that old argument over which media is best (although I will admit that these are pretty simple shapes, with a lot of straight, flat edges so there's not a lot of challenge there for any casting material.) Just for the record, I always prefer working with plastic miniatures. 

As with previous Botwar paintjobs, thesee were all done by sketching out the colours in Contrast paints over a light zenithal underpaint (grey primer, white overspray, white (very light) drybrush). The first highlight, after the Contrast base, is actually more of a base colour, as it's blended into the Contrast layer to make a smooth, flat plate, with the other highlights focussed on the edges of the flat plates.

ELECTROTYRANT

The light blue/grey was done with Space Wolves Grey, and highlighted with Fenrisian Grey, Blue Horror then White Scar. The black areas were based with Black Templar and highlighted with Night Lords Blue, Thunderhawk Blue and Fenrisian Grey then given a glaze of Nuln Oil. The purple areas were based with Magos Purple and highlighted with Screamer Pink, Emperor's Children, Fulgrim Pink and White Scar, before being given a glaze of Volupus Pink, which was also used as a glaze over the lightning bolts and the glow given off by them.

RHINEROUS

The grey was based with Basilicanum Grey and highlighted with Mechanicum Standard Grey, Administratum Grey and Celestra Grey, with a glaze of Nuln Oil. The orange was based with Gryph-Hound Orange and highlighted with Jokaero orangeLuggunath Orange and Dorn Yellow, with a glaze of Gryph-Hound Orange and a pin-wash of Agrax Earthshade. The purple was a base of Shyish purple, highlighted with Naggaroth Night, Genestealer Purple, and dechala Lilac, with a glaze of Druchi Violet.

SPINEROUS

The green was based with Dark Angels Green, which was highlightes with Caliban Green, Warpstone Glow and Nurgling Green. The yellow was basecoated with Iyanden Yellow and highlighted with Averland Sunset, Bad Moon Yellow, and Dorn Yellow, before getting a glaze of Casandora Yellow. The pink was based with Volupus Pink and highlighted with Screamer Pink, Emperor's Children, and Fulgrim Pink, with a glaze of Berserker Bloodshade**.

BLACKWHEEL

Blackwheel was done a little differently. As he was going to be black and grey all over I started from a black undercoat and simply worked up from there. So the black was highlighted with Corvus Black, Eshin Grey, and Dawnstone, before being given a glaze of Nuln Oil. The grey was basecoated with Mechanicus Standard Grey, leaving the black in the recesses, then highlighted with Dawnstone then Celestra Grey, before being given a glaze of Nuln Oil/Soulblight Grey mix.

DISCO

Finally we have Disco***. The green was basecoated with Warp Lighting, which was highlighted with Warpstone glow, Moot Green, and Kreig Khaki, with a controlled glaze of Warp Lightning to finish it off. The purple was based with Magos Purple, and highlighted with Phoenecian Purple, Genestealer Purple, and Dechala Lilac, with a glaze of Druchi Violet. The grey was Gryph-Charger Grey, highlighted with Russ grey, Fenrisian Grey, and Blue Horror.

And that's it for this week. Next week I'll be having a look at some real classics from 1990, before even I was at GW...!

Thanks for reading!

Stu

p.s. if you like what I'm doing here, a click on the link below and the donation of the price of a pot of paint would be a wonderful gesture. I'm thinking of adding special stuff to the Ko-fi, like competitions and prize draws, so it'd be a good idea to at least have a look there now and then 😁 

*The new formula shades work really well as glazes, with a little dilution. So much so that I can almost forgive GW for getting rid of the glazes from the range. Almost. There still isn't a decent bright red in the range though, so I don't know what I'm going to do when I run out of Bloodletter. Come on GW, bring 'em back, please...?

**Disco? Looks more Jazz-y to me...😁

Review: Slaves To Darkness Chosen, Ogroid Theridons and Daemon Prince

 Good morning/afternoon/eveening everyone!

It's not often that I get to play with the latest releases as soon as they become available, but I was commissioned to paint the new Slaves To Darkness army box while they were still on pre-order. As these are brand new models, and will eventually all be released in individual boxes, I thought it would be a good idea to share my thoughts on the new models in the set.

CHOSEN

The core of the new set is a unit of 10 Chosen which, to the uninitiated, are Chaos Warriors plus. The unit of 10 consists of two identical sprues of 5. These sprues include alternate build to give a unit leader, musician and standard bearer (which can be a flag or an icon and includes options for the four chaos powers and chaos undivided.) As far as actually putting them together, it's actually quite a straightforward process, with little to caue any problems. There's a couple of minor issues with the assembly- the lack of locator pins in the shoulders makes attaching the big pauldrons a little finicky and the instuctions don't make it clear that all the pairs of arms are interchangeable. If you follow the instructions to the letter, it gives the impression that ony one pair would fit with each body, but it's not the case. That opens up more options than first meets the eye. The locater pins in the necks are annoying too, meaning that you can only have the heads looking in one of two directions, unless you trim the pegs off. The torsos are assembled in two parts with each leg separate but these leg/torso combinations can only be assembled one way, which limits the options. A couple more torso options would've been nice. One final issue is that the leader model has a tactical rock and, as the sprues are doubled up, it means that you're always going to have a second model standing on a tactical rock (albeit a small one). It's a shame there isn't an alternative leg option for the non-hero. Still, all these are minor criticisms and there are enough options to keep the unit looking fairly individual and any criticisms fall away once you've got the models assembled and ready to paint. When you have them assembled, the first thing you realise is how big they are. These models are easily a match for the biggest Stormcast Eternals and, with their two-handed heavy weapons, they make for seriously imposing models. 

OGROID THERIDONS

The Ogroid Theridons are basically age of Sigmar Mintaurs and what magnificent beasts they are. Truly monstrous creature, these are probably the best minotaur-type creature GW have ever produced. In the set you get three, which can be built as standard troopers or as a leader, musician and standard bearer. There's also weapons variants but, frankly, why would you ever build minotaurs with anything other than axes...? The models are filled with details: trophies, cloth and armour details, but not overloaded, leaving loads of space for the painter to play with. Criticisms? Well, there's  couple of clunky joins, especially where the arms join at the shoulders, that need a litttle playing with, but these are  mostly covered up with the shoulder armour so you could get away without having to do anything with them. Other than that (and the usual criticisms of GW's instructions being a little vague in places) I really can't find much to complain about. 

DAEMON PRINCE

The centerpiece of this set is the all-new Daemon Prince, and what an absolute monster he is! This model comes on one and a half sprues and gives options for weapons, wings, different heads and iconography for the four powers and Chaos undivided, and parts to make a 40k variant. So far, so good, and I only have a couple of minor criticisms to throw into the mix, and none of them are to do with the sculpt itself. There's the usual couple of points where it would have been useful to have locator pegs and a couple of places whre an alternate view in the instuctions would have halped make the build easier but, mostly, it went together without a hitch. My main criticism is of the sprues themselves. As I said, the model comes on one big sprue and one half sprue and, once built, you are left with a lot of leftover bits. I'm not complaining about having more options available, that's a really good thing but I think they've missed a trick by not having the 40k bits on a separate sprue. If you look at my pictures below, of the bits left on the sprues after assembly, you an see that, had they kept the wings and trophy rack to one sprue, and left off the 40k elements, they could have added more options for the AoS version of the kit on the wings sprue, and then had loads of extra options on the 40k sprue. Then when they eventually release the model individually, they could still have it as a one and a half sprue box, but have separate versions for 40k and AoS. Still, these criticisms don't affect the look of the final miniature once it's assembled. It's a stunning kit, loaded (but not overloaded) with detail and I suspect it's going to be a popular choice with Golden Demon entrants. One last little thing: I really like the way that you don't need to sub-assemble this monster for painting. There's no bits that you won't be able to get to woth a brush once it's assemble, meaning there's no need to have any headless, wingless Daemon Princes running around on tabletops if you want to play before you get the chance to paint.

So, there you have it, my thoughts on these three new kits. The Citadel designers have knocked these way out of the park and chaos generals are not going to be disappointed with them. There's loads of scope for the painter to play with them and I can see there being some incredible paint jobs on these in the future. Can't wait to get them painted myself, and I'll be sharing some stage-by-stage tutorials of them once I've got them done.

Thanks for reading!

Stu

The Road To Manchester: A Few Thoughts On Painting For Competitions

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

Last week the tickets for Golden Demon 2023 went on sale and, having purchased my ticket my thoughts have started to stray towards what I'm going to paint for the competition, which lead me to thinking more widely about painting competitions in general, and I thought I'd share those thoughts here.

Now, I don't claim to be any sort of expert when it comes to painting competitions but I've entered a few (with a couple of minor successes) and judged my fair share, too, and I've learned a couple of lessons along the way*. Some of this might seem blindingly obvious but you'd be surprised how easy it is to fall into these traps.

PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTHS

While it's good to push yourself in competitions (after all, you want to produce your very best work) make sure you are pushing in the right direction. A painting competition is not the time to try to learn a new technique. Do what you're good at, what is going to bring out your best work. This Ishirann Tidecaster is a good example of this. This model was my entry into the Masters' category at the 2019 Golden demons. In my wisdom, I decided to do the armour in NMM copper, something I had never tried before. Despite looking at all sort of reference I couldn't get it right, even after multiple attempts and I ended up with an overall paintjob that was compromised due to all the layers of paint I'd applied in the trying. It also took the wind out of my sails and killed my enthusiasm for the project. It's a real shame as I think the rest of the paint job holds up pretty well. the same goes for the Stormcast Eternal, which was an entry into a local competition. I spent far too long on the NMM gold and, while I was fairly pleased with the overall result (and I did actually get 1st place with it, so it can't have been entirely unsuccessful), it meant a project took twice as long as it should. In both cases, a really good true-metallic job would have looked better than a semi-successful non-metallic effort.

HAVE A PLAN AND STICK TO IT

Think about what you want to achieve. Think about the colour scheme and techniques you want to use and, if making a diorama or duel, think about the composition of your miniatures. Plan any conversions, what parts you may need, how you're going to work sub-assemblies. Planning ahead will save you time and heartache down the line. Once you've worked it out, try and stick to it. It's fair enough to adapt as you go, but deciding that you're going to change the pose or add an extra arm once you've started painting is a recipe for disaster. Again, I have a good example. This Slaanesh Champion was painted for an online Oldhammer competition. I couldn't decide on a colour scheme before starting and made it up as I went along. Again, this resulted in a couple of repaints which meant I had to rush the finish and it really didn't come out the way I wanted. 

TIME WILL FLY BY

At the time of writing, there's 6 months until Golden Demon, which sounds like plenty of time but it's amazing how quickly that time can disappear. When you're looking at projects that are going to take dozens, perhaps hundreds, of hours' work those weeks can slip by fast, especially with all the usual complications that real life can throw into the mix. There's been many a competition entry (and winner) that has been finished the day of the event itself. Again, planning your time can help avoid the stress of looming deadlines and the potential to have a project that doesn't look as good as it could. Once again, I can illustrate it with an example of my own**. On this Ogor pirate, I wanted to do more with the old leather on his jacket, adding cracks and the effect of salt water on  it, but I simply didn't have enough time to do so. While I'm pleased with the overall result, it still wasn't what I wanted it to be. 

DON'T TAKE ON TOO MUCH

This ties in with the previous point. Be realistic about what you want to do  and think carefully about what you can get done in the time you have available. While it's great to have entries in multiple categories it's better to have one amazing entry rather than two or three that have been compromised by trying to do too many projects. This also applies with online competitions. There can often be a few small competitions running concurrently and it  can be tempting to try to enter as many as possible but it's better to pick your fights more carefully. The amount of times I've had to abandon a project because I'm not going to be able to finish them all... Another aspect of this is that, while there are some out there who can focus on multiple projects at the same time and still get great results, for most of u the best outcome will be from focussing on one project from start to finish. Get one done and then see if you have time to move on to the next. Also, if you are going to do multiple projects, get the most simple one done first. There's no point spending five months working on a diorama only to realise, with three weeks to go, that you're not going to finish it in time and now you've not got time to do that single figure entry you wanted to do either...My local GW store recently held a Mini-Of-The-Month competition. I planned on entering the Skeleton, Rotmire Creed and Votann below. In the end I only managed to get the Skeleton done. The other two have ended up in the Drawer of Temporary Abandonment****

PAINT WHAT YOU WANT TO PAINT

There's always the temptation to paint what's in vogue, or the latest release, but (contrary to what many people seem to think) the judges don't base their decisions on such things- they're looking for good painting and the best way to get a good paintjob is to paint something that inspires you. So,  if you've got something in your sprue pile that you've always wanted to paint, or something that you've always had a really good idea for then go for it. You'll get a much better result that way than doing something you feel you should be doing and, just as importantly, you'll enjoy the process that much more. If the painting is a chore, you're painting the wrong thing, and you'll never be happy with it. the Ork Kommando Boss was not an obvious choice of miniature to enter, but it's long been one of my favourite miniatures and I'd always wanted to paint it, and it was probably the most fun I've ever had painting for a competition, as I just went with what felt right for the model.

IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT WINNING

This is probably the most important thing, and it ties in with all the other points I've made. Of course it's a competition, and of course the ultimate goal is to come away with a prize but that's not the be-all and end-all of why you should be entering. There's so  much more to be gained from entering than simply the wins or  losses.  Online competitions give you the opportunity to pit your work against that from painters all over the world, and to show it off to an audience of potentially thousands. In-person competitions give you the chance to meet other painters face-to-face and see the work of others up-close and personal, and there's nothing more inspirational than that. Both types of competitions offer unique opportunities for feedback and advice. Competitions also offer the chance to really push yourself and your skills and really prove to yourself what you are capable of. And, if you don't win**** they are a great learning experience, teaching you what you can do better next time.

SO WHAT ABOUT GOLDEN DEMON 2023?

Right, having rambled on enough, what am I planning on entering for the next Golden Demon? Well, as usual, I'm flouting my own rules and planning a number of pieces. I've decided to resurrect a few projects from my Drawer of Temporary Abandonment. The Night Goblin Shaman and Phobos Captain (who was going to be my entry into the Masters category at the cancelled 2020 Golden Demons*****) are going to be my Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000 Single Miniature entries, respectively, and I have a Duel planned, that I started years ago, based on the Lords of Hellstone AoS story. 

Now, whether or not these actually get done, or end up being my actual entries, is another matter. A lot can happen in six months, so we'll have to wait and see. I will be posting updates as I go along, on my Instagram. so please keep an eye out for those posts. Anyway, that's it for me on this subject, at least for now. What do you think? Do you have any thoughts on the subject, any more advice that I've missed? Please feel free to discuss in the comments. I'd love to hear your ideas. See you in Manchester on 29th April!

Thanks for reading!

Stu

*Learned them? Yes. Actually put them into practice?...Errrr...maybe not so much...

**Can you see a pattern developing?

***more on this another day

****Or even if you do...

*****It's a real shame there's no Masters category this year. I really enjoyed the unique challenge of painting a single, unconverted miniature, and it suited my way of painting really well.