The Emperor's Herdstone

Anyone following the blog knows I’ve already finished the NMM on one of my SCE models (you can see him here) I picked up as an Underworlds gang. Here he is for reference:

Not bad but could be better…

The blends got better and the finish smoother from the chest plates (terrible, the first part I painted) to the knee pads and feet (much better, the last parts I painted). It’s not bad for a restart in NMM. I’m working with a limited paint pallet at the moment (partly because of the virus lockdown but mainly because I’m starting hobbying again from scratch. It’s a long story which is here if you’re interested). That’s the excuse I made for the derpy colours I used on this dude.

Enter the Komet…

But actually, after reviewing the Ben Komets Painting Buddha SCE (you can find more about him and that here) I realised that I have all of the colours I need for a much cooler (in all senses of the word) gold. I currently own the following paints:

Vallejo Model white
Vallejo Model Black
Averland Sunset (Citadel)
Balor Brown (Citadel)
Mournfang Brown (Citadel)
Rhinox Hide (Citadel)
Screaming Skull (Citadel)

To paint the bright yellow guy I used a base of Averland Sunset, a wet blend highlight of Screaming Skull and a glaze shading of Mournfang Brown. After trying a few recipes I came up with a much better base colour for the gold, a mixture of Balor Brown, Black and Mournfang Brown. I also started from a black undercoat. This is what it looked like:

Putting it all together

The next two steps were the same actually, a wet blend highlight of Screaming Skull (repeated three times to make sure it’s super smooth) then a glazed shade of Mournfang brown. However if you remember the first gold guy, the shadows were too red and there wasn’t enough contrast. So I added a further stage with this second model, a second glazed shade of Mournfang Brown mixed with Black. Once all of the steps are done on all of the gold, it looks like this:

I think it’s an improvement. Here’s a direct comparison:

I’m not saying one is better than the other here but the one on the left is definitely better! The progression, not just in the colour shoice but in the quality of the blends is really marked. I think that’s partly because I’m getting my mojo back but also partly because of colour choice making the transitions look better. Either way, I’ll take it and this is my new ‘go to,’ recipe for NMM gold.

So I’ve got one more mini left to do the NMM on and then I’m out of gold to paint and no new paints to start any other parts of the model. I’ve toyed with the ides of restarting the yellow gold dude but I won’t. I’ll keep these guys in whatever state they end up in as they represent a new beginning for me and that’s what is really important right now.

Comments and queries always welcome!

Lockdown has hit my new country. My new country is super small and weird anyway so everything being closed just feels like another day but it has hit. To top it all off, I’m actually feeling rough. It probably isn’t Covid-19 (there are only 15 active cases in this country, the likelihood of me being number 16 doesn’t feel weighty) but it’s enough to feel a bit run down and put myself on a status of, ‘critical meetings only,’ today and prolly for the rest of the week.

And what better way to spend self isolation than terrorising my partner and tip toeing back into miniature painting. If you’ve read my last post (it’s here) you’ll know that I’ve picked up an UnderWorlds SCE warband and some paints. The paints are just enough to do some NMM gold. Now that we’re in full lockdown it’s time to kick it all off.

Starting with the hard bit?

Why NMM? As I’ve said somewhere before; Hard training, easy racing. Easy training, hard racing. NMM is something that I find difficult (compared to basecoat, wash drybrush at least) and that’s because it is. It’s short blends, high contrast and complex light placement. I feel like if I can get back into painting via NMM then even if the result is crappy then I’ll have started the neurons firing enough that when I paint something that I really like, it’ll come good quicker than starting from square one.

Paint / brush selection

I’m not advising anyone to follow this as a painting guide or advice on colours (actually colour choice is my weakest area) but just for reference the colours I used were: Averland Sunset, Screaming Skull, Mournfang Brown all from Citadel and Black and Dead White from Vallejo Game Color. I used a wet pallet and made sure all the paints were nice and thin. There’s not much else to say about that. I used a big crappy hobby brush from Humbrol to do the base coats and then a 00 Windsor & Newton Series 7 Miniature to do the fancy nancy bits. For the next mini I’ll use a slightly bigger brush but I’m not crying about that one, I rate the brand very highly.

Let’s get started…

Anyway, all that aside, how did I go? I started terribly and got better as I went which is not what I expected. What I expected was for the whole mini to be shite to be honest but actually I ended up being pretty pleased with some of it so far.

I always start painting SCE on the breastplate. Consequently this is the weakest part of the mini:

Well first off, extreme close ups are a bit harsh at the moment! Don’t forget, this is my first painting since about August. The brush control isn’t there (the blends aren’t smooth and the highlights are too thick) and the contrast is missing (there’s plenty of highlight but the darks aren’t dark enough and the dark areas are too small.

But it got better…

I painted the shoulder pads and the back next

These are better than the breast plate. I also made a really conscious effort with the lion’s head shoulder pad to pick individual lines out to paint transitions in. Previously I tried to make a single transition across the pad as if it was flat (stupid I know). This one has come out pretty cool.

The finishing stretch

Then finally I did the legs

The close up is really harsh here too but the legs are the best part of the mini so far (from an arm’s length I’m really pretty pleased with them). Is it6 the best mini I’ve painted? Nope. Is it the best NMM I’ve painted? Nope. Is it the mini I’m most pleased with? Maybe, actually! It’s a new start, a new beginning. Once these guys are all finished, I’ll keep these as a reminder that no matter how hard it gets, just keep moving forwards.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this as much I’ve enjoyed painting him so far (you definitely haven’t by the way). I’m going to get the other two minis in the warband to this point before I venture back outside (zombie apocalypse notwithstanding) to buy a few more paints for the next part of the minis (not sure what that will be yet). Painting one of these dudes takes me about a week with the spare time I have and that suits me fine.

Anyway, stay safe with the coronavirus whatever your lockdown status and if you have any comments, I’d love to hear them!

Crikey, my office has been closed and we’re all to work from home ‘until further notice.’ People have been panic buying at the supermarkets. O and I have been panic buying in the toy shop and got a 5,000 piece jigsaw in case we have to go into total lock down.

I’ve also picked up some hobby stuff. I haven’t hobbied for a long time. You can find out why here but it’s not hobby related. Thanks, by the way, to the people who have read that separate post and especially anyone who got back to me. It means a lot.

Anyway, what that means is that despite having had this blog for nearly two years I’m kind of at a place where I’m starting again. I’ve got my 40k army (you can find all about that here), my 30K army (here), and my Necromunda gang (here). They’re all finished and ready to play. I also have quite a bit of grey plastic; half an AoS army (here) and half an AT army (here). I’ll bring those things to my new home soon but I don’t have anything to paint them with. My airbrush, my paints, my hobby tools, they’re all gone.

So what’s this post about? I guess this post is about testing how far my skills have degraded through not being used and also about making some small, tentative steps back into hobbying.

Where to start? With some models right? Ok cool. There’s a FLGS in my new town with actually quite a cool little GW section. I want something manageable. They stock Underworlds stuff. I’ve made a SCE gang for Underworlds before, it’s a good chance to practise NMM and get a whole new game system under my belt in one go. So I picked up these golden bois…

They look pretty cool, as I said I can practise my NMM on them as a way of seeing where my skills are at right now and it’s a small discrete force. In the box there’s quite a lot of value (in GW terms) for GBP20.

The cards are straight in the bin because I don’t speak Spanish (before anyone accuses me of being an ignorant cunt, they’d probably be straight in the bin if they were in English because I don’t play this game (or any other game at the moment)). The models are really nice. Step one, as always, is to give them a double dip bath in soapy water and a scrub with an old toothbrush. These were really shiny straight out of the box so I felt they really needed it.

I picked up some basic hobby bits so I could get these built and painted (I’ll do a separate post on the painting).

The clippers that GW makes now are legit. They cut really clean and they angled so they get really close too. I don’t think I’ve used any better ones. I used a little bit of the glue on these guys – it’s not great but it’s just glue. I make some Revell models with my kids and this is the sort of glue I use for that, it’s fine. I’ve got some liquid green stuff (out of shot), a box and cloths for a wet palette and some spray undercoat. The loser out of all this lot is the knife. It can fuck right off to be honest. It’s not a hobby knife, it’s the kind of knife you use to lay carpet. My FLGS does have the GW one in stock but it’s GBP20 and I had this one lying around. Next time I buy any models, I’ll buy the proper knife.

The kits are easy build which means they don’t need glue.(I only used glue on two parts) and actually go together nicely and look really cool. I think the easy build concept is slightly weird if I’m honest. The models still need clipping out, cleaning up and scraping – the glue is kind of the least difficult and dangerous part to be honest.

There’s just one problem I have with the easy build kits (I’ve only ever had easy build SCE so it may be unique to the golden bois) and that’s joins across the shoulder pads:

The shoulder pad is such a large, flat area that the join between the two pieces just stands out like dogs’ balls on a goldfish. Anyway, I’ve filled them with LGS and they’ve actually come out pretty good:

Noooice. Ok, three golden boys filled and scraped and ready to be undercoated. Once they’re undercoated, any mould lines show up much better so I do one layer of undercoat, scrape them back then a second layer of undercoat. I won’t bother photographing that, I’m bored just thinking about it let alone writing about it or you reading it. I’ll update when I’m ready to lay some paint down.

Any comments, let me know.

This is the last final of my aesthetic ruminations. I now know that my beasts will be white (see here for why) and my ogres themselves will be darker skinned with some crazy trousers (see here for why). There’s just one more element I need to think through; freehand banners.

I should mention right up front that I’m a bit nervous about these. I haven’t actually picked up a paintbrush for a few months so I’m worried my skills have deteriorated (I don’t even have all my stuff to paint with) so I’ll probably keep these quite simple.

I’ve got three banners to paint: one each on the mournfang units and one I’m making to go on the Frostlord’s ‘throne,’ thingy.

The first decision I have to make is whether to stick with the GW ip or go my own way. The GW ip is very tribal, focusing on the lore around ‘the maw,’ (and there’s nothing wrong with that) and very easy to do (which fits with my worries nicely):

I could do this pretty easily (I think). But, after consultation with my doubles partner, we think more detailed freehand would be better to grab an army nomination.

Now, I’m not entirely without experience in freehand and I’m getting better at it too:

This is the way I want to go. My basic freehand skill set is limited to:

Skulls (thanks Richard Gray)
Climbing vines and flowers
Feathers

Now, if I don’t ever try anything else, I’ll never get any new skills. I’m fully on board with that so I’m going to look at doing all of the above and adding something else in too.

Fortuitously, an item I’m using in my army list to make my general -1 to hit is a feather. So, it makes sense to use my feather skills to paint that freehand on his banner. But what about the rest?

Each Mournfang banner has two sides (duh) and I like the theme I had for the skulls on the competition piece in the pics above. I’m thinking one blue banner with a skull and flowers on one side and the other unit with a red banner with a skull and chains on one side.

But what about the back of each banner? Hmm, I don’t know. One of the things I’m doing on the rest of the models is TMM but i do like the look of NMM. Maybe something I could do with that. The chains around one of the skulls will be NMM but is that enough?

In the Warhammer lore there are few things that go better with skulls than weapons. Weapons made of metal give a great opportunity for NMM. Let me do a quick internet search and have a look…

This. This can’t be hard to reproduce (this wasn’t the first one I came up with by the way, I did have a pretty thorough scan. I’m happy with these on the back of one banner with flowers on them and on the back of the other with chains around them.

See – wasn’t so hard after all. Now all I’ve got to do is actually paint them!

I’ve written something like this section for just about every army I’ve built recently. Before I put paint on my Beastclaw Raiders army (you can read more about them here) I want to be very clear about the aesthetic and what I’m trying to achieve. As I type this I have no more than a very cursory idea of what that is, so here’s hoping putting words down helps!

I’m going to start with the beasts themselves and then when I’ve got that sorted I’ll move on to the ogres (ogors?) and finally the freehand elements. It all has to work together though so that will be considered at the end too.

Starting from the bottom up

I have an award winning painter doing my bases for me (a wise man, I don’t remember who or where once wrote that great miniature painting is about faces and bases) so these need to be factored in. They’re snow bases with grey rock on. So it makes sense that my Beastclaw Raiders come from somewhere cold. So what does that mean for the colours of my beasts?

How cold is cold?

Ok so let’s start from the top. Or the bottom. But let’s start somewhere polar. To be clear, this is a miniature gaming blog, not a copy of National Geographic so what I’m looking for here is reference material. A quick search of the internet for ‘Polar animals,’ brings up the usual suspects:

(credit clockwise from left: https://animalhow.com/arctic-animals-north-pole/ , https://www.steppestravel.com/en-us/arctic-big-5/ , https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/arctic_animal.php)

I do like this look and I think it would be good to paint and stand out. It’s not white (I don’t think there’s a single white strand of hair on any of these animals) so the colour differences would be great to paint. Being light coloured would also make any free hand pop even more.

What does GW think?

One thing I am wondering is if deviating from the ip in terms of colours etc would damage our chances of an army nomination. Well, actually, light coloured big beasts are a thing:

I don’t like the blue / grey ice shades they use as a base but I’m liking this light colour scheme even more now.

But Thundertusks and Stonehorns aren’t polar bears – they’re Mammoths?

Yeah, agreed and this is something else I’ve had buzzing around my head. Ogors are, effectively, cavemen. Their art and aesthetic is very caveman so it stands to reason that the things they’re riding are tame mammoths (reason?) So what colour were they?

Credit from left to right: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/resurrecting-woolly-mammoth-cells-dna , http://www.fossilmall.com/EDCOPE_Enterprises/vertebrates/vfossil25/vertfossils25.htm

Sorry for the pretty gross pic. Basically they were ginger. For some reason this was the original colour I had in my head for how to paint the big beasts (I think this was just because that’s how my mate who played Ogres in 8th had them). The problem with this colour is that it’s going to make it very hard for freehand and other colours to pop against it. A lighter colour (like the creamy off white with grey patches on the wolf above) is visually interesting but also works as a canvas.

Ok, I’m glad I wrote this – polar Beastclaws it is! As always, any comments or queries let me know!

So it’s been a couple of weeks since the last update and I’m less stressed entirely because I should be more stressed about Beastclaw Raiders army building but cannot do anything to change where my hobby is at. Still following? Cool…

As you may have read (here) I’m playing at an AoS doubles event in October and I’m taking Beastclaw Raiders (1,000 points of them in 6 models). My doubles partner is doing the bases so they all look consistent (he doesn’t know it yet but he’ll be doing another 1,000 points of bases for me after the event so I can scale up). Well, good news – the models are built.

Putting them together

Actually, before we get to that, just a quick note on buying the army. One of the things that I really liked about this army was that it was a Start Collecting! box and a separate large model kit. Full retail was ~93 pounds but from an independent that I know of offering 15% off this was to become 79 pounds. Great value for 1,000 points and potentially 158 quid for a 2,000 point army.

Only no one has the models. The indie had the SC! box but no separate monster, GW in Nottingham (at WHW) had the monster and no SC! box and I needed them all quickly. I was only in the UK for a few days. Part of the complication of this project is that I’m also moving internationally (again) and starting a new job (again) and won’t have any of my building or painting stuff.

Ultimately what I did was panic and bought two SC! boxes from a local GW store at full retail so paid 110 pounds for something that could have cost me 79 or should have cost, at most, 93. At least I have all the battle line for the second 1,000 points sorted.

Actually putting them together

Right, weird money rant over, how did the models go together? Really well actually. I scraped and filed everything and glued it together (no bases yet) and I’ve fabricated a banner for the FrostLord on Thundertusk from aluminium can (I’ll do a little walkthrough on that when I come to paint them). The big job was gap filling. My doubles partner has got some history of success with painting at WHW. He’s won a Best Army at a 30K ToS (30K has the highest hobby standard in my opinion (obviously this is my blog so this is all my opinion) and was nominated for Best Army at the last 30K doubles event up there.

He’s keen that we get our army looking as good as we can and we push for a nomination here too. So gap filling and prep are really important to that – nothing says ‘tabletop standard,’ quite like gaps in joints and mould lines. The gaps in the orges, especially on the backs of their necks and around their shoulder blades where the arms join the body are huge. They took four layers of liquid green stuff and sanding to correct.

The next step is to spray prime these with a grey to really show up any mould lines and other imperfections I’ve missed (once the plastic has been stressed through being cut or sanded or bent then it goes different colours and makes seeing these things hard).

So when?

Great question. The Beastclaw Raiders army building should resume sometime around the start of September. My plan is to buy all the painting stuff I need around then and have it shipped to a UK address. Then I fly back to make sure it’s all in order and while I’m there I finish the Beastclaw Raiders army building and get them absolutely ready to start painting. Painting won’t actually begin that weekend (no time) but I’m planning to fly back to the UK for the full week before the event to paint everything in a week. I think that will make a great series of blog posts and I hope you enjoy them!

What’s next?

Before I fly back to make sure the painting stuff is all together and progress the build itself I want to take some time to decide on the aesthetic for my army. That will be next Sunday, until then – any comments, let me know!