Wednesday 20 May 2020

Age of Sigmar: Sisters of the Thorn Progress 2








Hi folks,

The blog has been a little quiet the past couple of weeks as my students have been returning to school. I have been doing a lot though, just to keep myself mentally bouncing along. In particular I have been scheming a lot and have so many cool projects lined up. These Sisters though are the priority, so I am trying to get them done by the end of the week. This first one is a test-bed for the scheme, which I have been rapidly laying down on the other five.









I am pretty happy with how it turned out, though as always with miniature photography, I can already see things I need to touch up (like the blending around the hooves). Over the next couple of weeks before June hits I have a few little projects to do, including an X-wing model and a Blood Angels Space Hulk Librarian. After that, I will be working on an Age of Sigmar army painting challenge with my best mates; gosh there are some fantastic models involved in that. Then I will be working on some more Space Hulk until August and the end of this Hobby Season. From August until January, I am joining with some friends on the 2nd Edition Facebook group to paint a 1000 pt 2nd Edition army. I can't believe some of the old models I found in my bits box. Again, I can't wait to share it with everyone.














That's it for now. I have a lot of work still to go with these if I am going to finish them on schedule, so I had better get back to the brushes!

See you across the table,
Marc



Saturday 9 May 2020

Age of Sigmar: Sisters of the Thorn Progress







Hi folks,

My main project at the moment is a large unit of Sisters of the Thorn for my daughter Penny. It is a bit embarrassing how long it has taken me to paint these; we bought them together such a long time ago now. She often joins me on little missions to my local Warhammer store to pick up paints and such and enjoys snooping around while I chat to the store owner. It was not much of surprise when she said that there was something that she would really like to get, though we did have a long discussion about the hobby and the difficulty of the kit she had chosen. After two weeks she was still adamant that she wanted to spend the last of her Birthday money on it, so I paid the difference and started work, with her often hovering at my shoulder. Our puppy (now 2 years old!) chewed one of them profoundly, so I ended up buying another box to replace the damaged parts (not a big deal, the miniatures are fantastic). I finished three as Wild Riders back in January, but since then it has been a real slog through bright whites and excruciatingly small detail. I am up to the stage of painting their standard, so thought I would show the process on the blog. This is another case of how bad things can look before they look good (in my opinion anyway!).


1) Priming






I primed the banner grey, by hand, as on the day I couldn't be bothered going down to the garage to find a rattle-can that may not give the best finish (it was a stinker humidity-wise that day). Coverage was fine and I know from experience that grey is quite useful for bright colours.




2) Measuring








The next step was to figure out where I wanted to put the motif and paint the central shape as a guide for all of the other parts. I used thinned Kabalite Green for this, so that is would flow well off the brush and not cause significant issues if I have to paint over it ( I will have to do this to refine the shape and add detail later).





3) Tendrils







I have had a lot of practise with this kind of shape with my Iron Snakes. Again, I used thinned down paint to give maximum flow, not worrying about coverage at this stage (though thick enough to provide continues lines; not a wash). A tip for newer painters perhaps; you can't paint rounded shapes well unless you move your paintbrush in circular motions. Let the movement flow and worry about tidying it up later.




4) Background







I blocked in the background with a first coat of 3:1 white/kabalite green. It is patchy at this stage but won't stay like that. I let this coat dry completely to prevent tearing it with further brushtrokes.




5) Coverage








I added several more coats to each colour to improve the coverage and tidy up the shapes. I also mixed some more Kabalite green into the background mix and wet-blended it towards the centre to provide some depth. The top also received an extra glaze of white to achieve the same depth from the other end.




6) Cut-away Details







I used shorter strokes from the inside of the "face/seed" outwards with slightly thicker paint to cut away some detail. I did the same to cut away some parts around the edge of a tendril to give perspective (one is now clearly in front of the other two). I also edge highlighted each tendril to make the motif "pop" a little more (I despise this term in miniature painting lol).




7) Thorns








I used a fine detail brush to add some small thorns to the tendrils wherever it seemed appropriate. 





8) All the rest


With the hard bit done, blocking in the other colours and highlighting them was fairly simple. Adding a black wash in places to increase some depth in the folds of the banner and around the metallic leaves was the most problematic, as at some stage I must have mixed up my matt black with gloss black wash. So, here is how it looks now, ready for the rest of the detail on the banner and the rider!








See you across the table,

Marc



Friday 1 May 2020

Armour in April








Hi folks,

With a couple of days left in April after the Monsters painting competition, I switched my sights to 40K and Armour in April. I have had a half painted Landraider Excelsior just languishing on my shelf for over two years now, that was well deserving of a quick finish. Over two nights I finished all of the detail and added some decals. My aim was to just have a nice clean paint-job that would be suitable for the tabletop, I have too many other projects on the boil at the moment for much else.









Overall I am happy with how it turned out, especially the white angel wings. The decals probably need to be dulled down a bit with some mat varnish, but that can wait for another day.










I started working on this model when the Landraider Excelsior was released and I was finding it hard to get one here in Australia. I will most likely only use it for 2nd Edition games, which means I will have to go hunting for the old vehicle design rules again! Now that sounds like fun!!

See you across the table,

Marc